Why anime is everywhere all at once

Make Me Smart February 27, 2024 Transcript

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Kai Ryssdal 

Hi everybody, I’m Kai Ryssdal. Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where none of us is as smart as all of us.

Kimberly Adams 

And I’m Kimberly Adams. Thank you for joining us everyone. It is Tuesday February the 27th. And it’s deep dive day. And today, we are diving into the world of anime. One of my favorite topics, clearly as anybody who listens to the show knows something I do in my downtime watch a lot of anime, but I’m not the only one. Obviously. We’re seeing anime all over the place from games to music videos. Netflix is investing big in anime not to mention all the live action shows. So, it’s really starting to feel like it’s no longer a niche or a nerd or an otaku thing anymore.

Kai Ryssdal 

See, otaku. Now, I’m going to have to ask what that means. And the person I’m going to ask what that means is Chris Plante. He’s the editor-in-chief and co-founder of Polygon. That’s Vox’s gaming and entertainment news site. Chris, welcome to the pod. Good to have you on.

Chris Plante 

Thank you so much for having me.

Kai Ryssdal 

All right, that word Kimberly just used, which I cannot even remember 14 seconds later. Kimberly, what did you say?

Chris Plante 

The simplest version of?

Kai Ryssdal

Otaku.

Chris Plante

Yeah, the simple version is a fan. That’s the easy way of thinking of it.

Kai Ryssdal 

All right. Okay, so let’s start just because I am the simpleton in this conversation. And there are many people out there, not probably as simple as I am, but who might not be familiar. So, if you had to describe animate to like my mom, who’s a woman of a certain age, how would you do it?

Chris Plante 

There are any number of versions of it that could be correct. And anime, where it’s from and how you describe it is disputed, but I would say probably animated TV and films coming from Japan.

Kimberly Adams

Okay.

Kai Ryssdal 

Sorry, Kimberly. I’m going to climb in here. I’m going to climb in here for some clarification. There is a certain style though that anime has, right? Or am I just sheltered and have only seen a little bit of it?

Chris Plante 

Yeah, I think it feels like a certain style, again, because of where it comes from. In the same way that if you look at, you know, certain type of animation from California that came around with Walt Disney is very of a certain trend and location, right?

Kimberly Adams 

So, why has anime really kind of exploded onto the national consciousness here in the United States recently?

Chris Plante 

Yeah, that’s a great question. I think the answer is availability. When I was growing up in the 80s and 90s, access to anime and manga, which would be like the written comic book form of it, right? Was just difficult. I grew up in the Midwest. My access to anime was maybe I went to Sam Goody, which is a store people probably don’t even remember anymore. And you would, you would walk into Sam Goody, and they would have a section of anime unfortunately usually near like the not safe for work stuff. And you would get like a VHS tape that had three random episodes, and it costs you like, every dollar you had saved that month. And that was like it. Or if you knew the right people, you knew how to get access to bootleg copies that you would like share on VHS tapes. Needless to say, whatever you did, it was hard. It was messy. It was low quality. Now, for especially Gen Z, they are being raised with access to basically infinite amounts of anime and expanding the history of it. So, whether that is you know, just because their family has a Netflix account, and it’s waiting for them right there. Or they have access to a streaming platform like Crunchyroll, or HIDIVE that specializes in anime, they can get so much for really just a tiny bit of money each month that gives them you know, the keys to the car.

Kai Ryssdal 

Do you think it is actually streaming that has made or helped anime go more mainstream?

Chris Plante 

Yeah, I do. Because I think the incentives of streaming as a business really benefited from the anime catalog. And by that, I mean, you had this period where every streamer wanted to scale and go global at the same time, right? They wanted just as much content as they could possibly get. And they wanted to be appearing in different countries, and they wanted to bring the content from those places over. So, you have these situations where Netflix is looking to move in Japan. They are partnering with a lot of established studios. They are licensing a lot of content. And then what they’re finding is, hey, we already have it, we put it on the American servers, it does really well and it just balloons from there.

Kimberly Adams 

I think when you’re talking about that back catalogue, it’s also worth explaining the variety of types of programming that falls under the anime umbrella, if you don’t mind.

Chris Plante 

Yeah, yeah, and I think this also explains why the audience itself is so much more diverse than the audience that you’ll find for most entertainment, especially in America. And by diverse, I mean, both in terms of race and ethnicity, and also sexual identity. The LGBTQ community is widely represented across anime fandom, especially within Gen Z. And the reason that is, is because of the diversity of content, in my opinion. And by that, I mean, if you want to watch stories about just cooking, congratulations, you have it. If you want to watch stories about sports, and you happen to really like ping pong, have I got an anime just for you. If you like fantasy stories that are targeting a queer audience, that’s there for you. There is so much variety and diversity of content that really no matter who you are, you’re going to find something for you that feels almost microtargeted.

Kai Ryssdal 

That’s so interesting. Sorry, Kimberly, go ahead.

Kimberly Adams 

Well, I was going to say I remember being shocked at myself once for being deeply enthralled in an anime about people who wrote dictionaries for a living. I kid you not.

Kai Ryssdal 

Alright, I have so many questions. First of all, it’s interesting to me that you guys call them “an anime.” “I got caught up in an anime about dictionaries.” Can somebody explain that construction to me? Does that make any sense? You talk about it like it’s a singular thing. And yet we have this broad content stream called anime as well, right?

Kimberly Adams 

I suppose I’m replacing cartoon.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah, I guess.

Chris Plante 

Yeah, or a film, right? That you could be a fan of a film, or you could watch a film. I think it’s like kind of performing that same thing. It is a medium unto itself. And because within it, you could have TV shows. You could have films. You could have any of these genres. Yeah.

Kai Ryssdal 

Okay. Sorry Kimberly, I’m going to climb all over this because I have all the questions, and you have all the answers. So, it originated in Japan. Does the content still mostly come from Japan? Is there a domestic American anime content creation industry? Help me understand that part of it.

Chris Plante 

Yeah, this is where it gets tricky. And fans will have differing opinions here. There is a significant contingent of fans who will tell you that anime is only anime if it is coming and produced in Japan.

Kai Ryssdal 

Well, that’s like the champagne thing. Come on, man.

Chris Plante 

And just like the champagne thing, you’re kicking a hornet’s nest when you say that it doesn’t matter. But yes, there are studios in other countries that are making entertainment that looks and sounds and feels like anime. And whether or not it is by definition, I would say is not especially useful outside of, you know, the most hardcore fans. I think most people when they’re watching, the average viewer, when they’re watching something, it all kind of blends together.

Kai Ryssdal 

Got it. Sorry, Kimberly, go ahead.

Kimberly Adams

No, it’s all right. You got all the questions.

Kai Ryssdal

And we talked about this, I guess it was yesterday. Maybe on the pod? Are there ancillary industries that go along? There must be, right? You know how in video games we were talking yesterday about how there’s music and scoring, and you know, voice actors and all that jazz. There must be that same support structure. There must be that same infrastructure supporting anime, right?

Chris Plante 

Oh my gosh, yes. I mean, well, especially if you go to Japan, or you go to an anime convention in America, you will see everything. What we actually found in our survey that was so interesting to me, is that for Gen Z when they’re making purchases, right? They’re making purchases that are inspired by anime, but not necessarily anime content. So, when they go and buy apparel, right? It is not anime clothes, but it’s inspired by the colors or the styles that they’re seeing in shows. And we saw that for Gen Z. 72% of Gen Z anime fans within the last year had made a payroll decision inspired by what they like in an anime. I just find that kind of like staggering.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah, say more about that survey actually and what you guys found. Key takeaways.

Chris Plante 

The key takeaway. So, the point of the survey for us was, can we prove just how big anime is? Because while you can look out your window and see hey, this is all over all the streaming platforms. It’s you know, doing well in theaters. There’s not a lot of research on anime, especially in America. So that’s what we set out to actually do. A lot of what I will say here to an anime fan will sound quite obvious. But again, there just wasn’t the hard evidence. And what we found is yes, it is colossal that amongst Gen Z, anime is watched more often than the NFL. That in terms of raw revenue, anime and the NFL are tied. They’re both at about 20 billion in revenue. And anime is growing fast. So, when you think of anime, I think it can be seen as niche. And the reality is that couldn’t be further from the truth. And the reality is, to stick with the NFL, even brands and businesses understand this. The Los Angeles Chargers for the past two years have announced their season schedules with custom made anime YouTube videos. Yeah, so they are pulling from the anime audience because they are saying, “Hey, we need to start pulling people into our community.”

Kai Ryssdal 

We need Marketplace anime, man. That’s all I’m saying.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah. Well, it reminds me of that Nike ad during the Women’s World Cup. Remember? That was anime.

Chris Plante 

Yeah, I mean, we’ve seen it all over. Even tourism councils are now using it for, I think it was a state of Oregon did one. But yeah, they’re everywhere.

Kimberly Adams 

Well, if anime is economically at least as big as the NFL, why then do you think it persists to be seen as a niche thing? Or a nerd thing? At least in some circles.

Chris Plante 

Oh my gosh, I love this question. So, I’ll give you a little bit of backstory first. I come from the world of video games originally. I’ve been covering video games as a journalist for around 20 years. And about 12 years ago, I founded Polygon when we largely focused on video games. I promised this is related to anime. When we did that, the problem that we realized then was this thing is colossal. But the world hasn’t taken it seriously. And we wanted to create a space where you know, you could look at it on your work computer and not like, have it like banned.

Kimberly Adams 

You need to say more about that. Actually, you need to say more about this, because this is actually an important sort of side awkward thing about anime that needs to be acknowledged. Go ahead.

Kai Ryssdal 

Oh, this is the not safe for work thing, right?

Kimberly Adams

Yeah.

Kai Ryssdal

So, let’s go down the rabbit hole a little bit.

Chris Plante 

Yeah well, to wrap. To put a ball in the games thing, we did that with games. And what we found was eventually people age into it being your popular culture, that it becomes normal just because the people who make decisions the people who run companies, like myself, become the people who were raised on it. And therefore, even though had been mainstream really for a decade. Now, it is mainstream, like amongst the people who get to the side officially, what that it’s mainstream. They get to decide where Toyota and McDonald’s spend their ad budgets, which you know, they’re spending on anime right now. So, I think that is why it seems invisible to people because we have a proximity bias, right? And the people who are deciding what news stories get aired, you decide the culture. A lot of them aren’t quite of that age just yet. But you’re right, there is a thing we should talk about with anime and that is maybe some perceptions or how people have come across it when they’ve been on the internet.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah, you go, man. I’m not going anywhere near that.

Chris Plante 

Yeah, okay. Well yeah, I think I think there is a bit of a problem similar to video games where there is a preconceived image of what anime is, in the same way that you did 10 years ago, you spoke with someone about video games. And the thing you would hear is, well, those are just things where you shoot people in the face. And it’s like, well, no, there are farming games that are massively popular, right? There are all sorts of games. There are puzzle games. Games can be a little bit of anything. And I think that there are people who hear anime, and they picture one of two things. They picture dudes with muscles like going Super Saiyan and their hair turning element and punching each other in the face. So, which is an upgrade. We’re not shooting each other in the face in my opinion. And then the other one is yeah, like some not safe for work stuff that maybe when they were like, I’m not accusing anybody here but maybe they were looking to download an mp3 or a video or something through an illegal means. And they saw an ad and it was a cartoon that was quite revealing. And they’re thinking well, that must be what anime is and yes, that that stuff exists, but that is by no means the majority of what this content is.

Kimberly Adams 

But I will say as someone who consumes a lot of anime, the representations of women as well as people of color are often very problematic. And you have to be careful even when consuming perfectly legal, like general population accessible to everybody anime of like, really weird representation of children in very over sexualized ways. And like, you’re sometimes don’t know what you’re going to get.

Chris Plante 

Yeah. Yeah, I agree. It’s basically what I would say. I think. I think that is a problem that we see streaming services getting at. And I think we will, I suspect, as western partners become more involved financially, that we will see more caretaking there. Just because a company like Netflix is going to be cautious to a degree that may be the original animation studios aren’t, right? That they have a sense of their viewer sensitivities that they’re going to bring up when they are, I guess editing or producing stuff that is coming up down the line. But I think you’re right, the term for it is fan service is often a thing that gets talked about, which is taking characters that are beloved and displaying them in like very sexually explicit ways. It is almost exclusively focused on female characters.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah. All right, slight change of gears from that. So, Netflix is getting into this. There are, as you mentioned, some other platforms. Crunchyroll is one of them. I can’t remember some of the others that you have mentioned today. And Kimberly has mentioned in the past, here’s my question. Do you worry about the 800-pound gorilla coming in and squashing these other platforms, and then that somehow changing either the content or the availability of it?

Chris Plante 

Do you mean by that like that Netflix will come in and they will just kind of just scope it up?

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, they’ve got so much power, you know what I mean?

Chris Plante 

They do. Um, honestly, I don’t. And the reason I don’t is I personally believe that boutique streaming services are going to be a large part of the future of entertainment. And I say that as somebody who watches most of their entertainment on the Criterion Channel for older movies, Shudder for horror films, and Crunchyroll for anime.

Kimberly Adams 

Chunchyroll’s like your only option now.

Chris Plante 

Yeah. I mean, HIDIVE is there too. Let’s not forget these folks. Um, but yeah, I think. I think Netflix is becoming kind of the entry point to a lot of people’s tastes. But it is not the place where you stay unless you know, really like, I don’t know, reality TV game shows. It is a tasting platter. And I think that applies to Netflix too. While they do have a lot of money and a lot of resources, they do have to disperse that across a whole bunch of different audiences, a whole bunch of different countries, and they can’t just eat up an entire sector like this.

Kimberly Adams 

What about this shift to live action or not shift, but you’re seeing a lot of these classic anime shows getting live action treatments. One Piece. Cowboy Bebop. Death Note not so great and others, and now Avatar: The Last Airbender, although that’s American animation. I think Naruto just got announced. What is that doing to the industry?

Chris Plante 

Yeah, that’s a good question. I think it can feel really new in America to see all these animated shows and anime specifically getting adapted into live action. But the truth is, in Japan, live action adaptations had been happening for over 20 years. And honestly, stage play adaptations are even a thing. Yeah, not so uncommon. So, I think that what we’re seeing is that make its way here. I think what’s always been uncomfortable as we’ve seen adaptations, like Ghost in the Shell is the casting of that, right?

Kimberly Adams 

Specifically that you have these Japanese cartoons and Japanese characters consistently being cast as white people in the United States is what you’re talking about.

Chris Plante

Yes, thank you. Yes.

Kai Ryssdal 

You think people would learn that that’s not cool now. I mean, you can’t do that.

Chris Plante 

Well, and they are improving. There was a understandable and reasonable controversy around the Avatar: The Last Airbender, which is an animated show inspired by anime, though it’s not, I guess technically. But this show when it was made into a film.

Kimberly Adams 

The M. Night Shyamalan version.

Chris Plante 

Yeah. So now the Netflix version is you know, tried to account for that, whether or not the show is good is a whole separate thing. But at least that, you know, they were making a conscious effort this time around. I think that slowly but surely, the studios are learning from those sorts of mistakes.

Kimberly Adams 

We’re going to have to end it there even though you know I can talk about anime forever. Chris Plante is editor-in-chief and co-founder of Polygon at Vox Media. Thank you so much, Chris.

Kai Ryssdal 

Totally fascinating, Chris. Thanks a bunch for your time. Appreciate it.

Chris Plante

Thanks.

Kimberly Adams 

So now you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Kai Ryssdal 

Now I have a hand, right? Because in that last question there, you rattled off a bunch of stuff. And they were just words, and I didn’t understand any of what it was. And I’m like, okay. But look, you’re an aficionado. You’re an expert. You dig it. And you know, that’s good. It’s good.

Kimberly Adams 

Well, and I also find it interesting what Chris was saying about the reason it’s mainstream is because the people who like it are old enough to forced to make it mainstream.

Kai Ryssdal 

To make the decisions, right. Exactly. That’s exactly. That’s totally right.

Kimberly Adams 

Because I am sitting here, and I’m 40, and I get to help decide what we cover on the show. That means we’re taking anime seriously, versus when I was in my 20s pitching it at NPR everyone’s looking at me like I’m mad.

Kai Ryssdal 

And I’m 40 as well, and I’m going along for the ride with you. No? No. All right, let’s go. Let’s get out of here.

Kimberly Adams 

Of course, Kai. All right. So, are you a fan of anime? If you are, tell us about your favorite anime series, and why you love it. Maybe even how you got into anime, or if this is new for you, what you’re thinking about it now. We’re at 508-827-6278. That’s also 508 U-B- SMART, and we will be right back.

Kai Ryssdal 

News is where we are in the podcast right now. Kimberly Adams, what do you got?

Kimberly Adams 

Mean’s pretty quick, but slightly anime related in that it also sort of kind of comes from Japan. This is my very well roundabout way to say that the Washington Post is out with its prediction for peak bloom of the cherry blossoms this year here in DC, which is my thing. Of course. And the Washington Post is predicting peak bloom between March 19th and March 23, which is about 10 days earlier than normal. The National Park Service, I think, releases its peak bloom forecast on Thursday. And, you know, climate change. So, since 1921, the earliest peak bloom on record occurred on March 15, 1990. And they’re predicting again March 19 through the 23rd. And they’re blaming it on climate change. And that it’s not just the peak bloom apparently, the flowers that you were talking about are that are beautiful in your part of the country every year.

Kai Ryssdal

Jacarandas. Yeah.

Kimberly Adams

Yes. That they’re blooming earlier as well. I saw somewhere that there was a bloom in in like, January for those in some places. And so, you know, I’m excited, but it’s not a good signal.

Kai Ryssdal 

Sorry, I’m just Googling Jacaranda blooming Los Angeles 2024. Late April usually, but if it gets warm enough, maybe in March. Yeah. So, which isn’t great. Not great. God.

Kimberly Adams

Beautiful, but not great.

Kai Ryssdal

Yeah, that’s exactly right. Beautiful, but not great. So, this one is also not great, but it has nothing to do with beauty. There’s an article in Bloomberg today and I hate to be a total wonk about this, but about commercial real estate. And we’ve been waiting since the pandemic emptied out office buildings all over the country for almost literally the debt to come due because most of these big office buildings are bought with mortgages and debt and loans and all kinds of things. And nobody’s really known how much less those buildings are going to be worth until fairly recently. And Bloomberg has a great piece today pointing out that those deals are starting to be done, and more to the point, what the actual discounts are going to be. And here’s just a couple of little tidbits. An office building in Los Angeles, sold for sorry, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. Blah, blah, blah. Prime office tower in Los Angeles sold in December for 45% less than its purchase price a decade ago. That’s not the way it’s supposed to work. In Manhattan, brokers are marketing debt backed by a Blackstone owned office building at a 55 0% discount. Yeah, here’s the deal, that debt doesn’t go away, right? So, these real estate companies, and more importantly, the regional banks that hold a lot of that debt, are going to have to write down that debt. And if you’ve been following the news about New York Community Bank, right? Of the last number of weeks, that could be a real real challenge because regional banks went heavy into real estate loans. So, as these deals start to get done, as debt comes due as buildings transfer, we’re going to discover how big the commercial real estate hole is, I encourage you to read this piece. There’s a trillion dollars in real estate loans coming due before the end of next year. So, look out.

Kimberly Adams 

I was reading this before the show and what I’m really fascinated by is that you’ve got Powell and Yellen you know, singing the same song about this is all going to be fine. And it reminds me that meme of the dog sitting in the room on fire and it’s like, this is fine.

Kai Ryssdal 

It’s fine. That’s right. I don’t know.

Kimberly Adams 

That’s it for the news. Let’s move on to the mailbag.

Mailbag

Hi Kai and Kimberly. This is Godfrey from San Francisco, Jessie from Charleston, South Carolina. And I have a follow up question. It has me thinking and feeling a lot of things.

Kimberly Adams 

All right, we are still hearing about landlines in that uniquely-timed conversation.

Kai Ryssdal 

I hear the glee in your voice. I’m just going to say that this email that we’re about to get is a plant. I don’t know anything about it. But come on, man.

Kimberly Adams 

I got his text message from my brother the other day and he was like you were right on time with your comment about landlines and I was like yeah, I guess so. Anyway, so we are still hearing mainly from people who still have landlines like me. Let’s go to the tape.

Gene

Hello, this is Gene from Beavercreek. Ohio. As a fellow landline hold out, I sympathize When Kimberly caught a little flak in February 16’s show for having a landline because who would you call? That question was answered for me during today’s AT&T outage. Some of my friends and associates who have teased me for clinging to obsolete technology received a smug voicemail standing who’s laughing about having a landline now? Yes, this call is being made on the landline.

Kai Ryssdal 

Gene. Gene. Gene. All right. So, we also got an email from Kim saying she uses her landline for telemarketers, so she doesn’t get as many spam calls on her cell, which is kind of smart. Also, Beth she’s in upstate New York says if you have a landline quote, “you always have a way to find your cell phone if you can’t remember where you put it,” which is a fair point.

Kimberly Adams 

Can I tell you that is how I use my landline the most, is to help me find my cell phone.

Kai Ryssdal 

All right, on the way out. We’re going to leave you with this week’s answer to the Make Me Smart question as we always do. What is something you thought you knew, but later found out you were wrong about. This week’s answer comes to us from Julio Salgado, a digital illustrator based out here in Long Beach, California Roll the tape.

Julio Salgado 

What’s something I thought I knew, but later found out I was wrong about? Well, I used to think that in order to become a respected artist I had to stick to one lane in the creative field. But in the past two decades, I’ve been a writer, a digital illustrator, a muralist, and even an extra on a TV show. In this economy, a check is a check. As long as I get to be creative, forcing myself into one lane in my field doesn’t make sense to me. It’s boring. Last summer, I started flexing both my writing and drawing muscles with a monthly comic strip I created for the LA Times. Am I a respected artist now? Well, it depends who you ask. But allowing myself to play with various art mediums has made me the artist I am today.

Kai Ryssdal 

You know, that’s actually a great voice memo because it’s about hustle. It’s about self-confidence. It’s about trying new things. There’s a lot in there. That’s really cool. That’s really cool.

Kimberly Adams 

And I think that’s important for all of us especially like given how we’re all kind of freaking out about AI stealing our jobs, you know, being flexible and being willing to expand what your skill set can do is great. And for what it’s worth, you are a respected artist. We get to decide. We’re saying yes. And I’m looking at the cartoon strip, it’s really cool, and I think it looks good so yeah.

Kai Ryssdal 

We will of course have a link to it on our show page all y’all can see it for yourselves. In the meanwhile, send us your answer to the Make Me Smart question. What is something you thought you knew, but later found out you were wrong about our phone numbers 508-827-6278. 508-U-B-SMART.

Kimberly Adams 

Make Me Smart is produced by Courtney Bergsieker. Ellen Rolfes writes our newsletter. Today’s program was engineered by Juan Carlos Terrado with mixing by Gary O’Keefe. And our intern is Thalia Menchaca.

Kai Ryssdal 

Ben Tolliday and Daniel Ramirez composed our theme music. Our senior producer is Marissa Cabrera. Bridget Bodnar is the director of podcasts. Francesca Levy is the executive director of Digital and On-Demand. And Marketplace’s Vice President and General Manager, but only on Tuesdays when his name is in the credits is Neal Scarbrough. I don’t know what he does the other four days of the week. Also, that’s a test to see if he actually listens, so we’ll see.

Kimberly Adams

We will see.

Kai Ryssdal 

Gotta listen to the end, boss.