How ANIME Went from Niche Nerd to Mainstream

McDonald's and Toyota are both launching their very own anime series showing that anime has pretty much gone mainstream cuz they're trying to sell more products I have been waiting for this time for anime to become mainstream in America uh we got to talk about it Andrew first off let's just run the clips welcome to the future gaze upon synth corp's ultimate design the standard synth our machine driven synth vehicles are simply Superior to human drivers in every way the future is syned the future is mine and nobody can stop me go boom and but wh which one did you prefer bro which one look better uh based off the teaser I got to actually say the McDonald's one man no I hey we both work with Toyota and McDonald's before but I'm just saying this anime series I think McDonald's edges it out um the McDonald's series is all about the search for the secret McNugget sauce but they call it McDonald's because that's what they've been calling uh McDonald's in anime for a long time to avoid the copyright right so McDonald's kind of just rolled with him was like H even though we could give him the right to call it McDonald's let's just roll with the anime McDonald's right so anyway make sure you like subscribe turnning your notifications also Andrew you know what's also burning hot like and anime anime almost as popular but not quite as popular smalla sace sold out right now but check back in very soon um is it interesting that finally American divisions by the way obviously Toyota is from Japan theyve launched multiple anime uh Series in Japan for Toyota but this is the first time they're giving a big budget for America McDonald's has done anime things in Japan and around Asia before this is the first time investing millions in It in America if you go to McDonald's right now the bag is a manga yeah yeah and then actually on the uh soda cup which uh I just ate McDonald's at the airport the other day I there was there was uh Japanese writing on makalo Donald yeah Donald I don't know um maybe yeah anyway in in Asia they've had like Snickers like Attack on Titan ads run that clip right now 5 4 3 2 1 they've been doing it for a very long time but now America's doing it what's changing why is it the last five years American companies are investing heavy amounts of money in these campaigns well let me tell you this David you know just as we've covered the proliferation of boba you know Dunkin Donuts a lot of these American chains want to make their own bubble tea because bubble tea is A3 billion market and Rising well guess what David A lot of people are thinking about marketing K-pop cuz cuz K-pop is set to rise up to a 20 billion Market size by 2031 but guess what's dominating ene is projected to be a $$ 30 billion Market by 2023 oh I'm sorry 60 billion right so th currently it's almost a $30 billion market so anime anime and I think that includes manga as well probably right they because one is just the the written version and one's the animated version It's a gigantic market and not only that it's like at the end of the day if you're McDonald's and Toyota and you're thinking of ways to kind of reinvent yourself or refresh yourself or like you know these are two companies that are trying to figure out ways to get new Young customers cuz they just they've been around so you know what I mean so yeah I think it goes to show you that there's been a gigantic shift in Western culture away from like Ronald McDonald away from a Hamburglar away from these like Western icons because for the longest time McDonald's was using like Western cartoons right now it feels like for this generation that's under 30 Eastern cartoons have supplanted Western cartoons for sure now do you know what I'm saying like it's officially swapped I think that their market share was like always growing it remind REM me of when rap took over rock music in the early 2000s I knew it was crazy when my uh even my white teachers at school were like bling bling bling bling buddy I like your bling bling you know what I mean with the No Limit soldiers no there's been a cultural shift and I think that so many people around the age of 26 and Below have consumed not just the Geeks but just almost everybody has consumed some Asian cartoon at least Pokemon or Dragon Ball Z you know what I mean not not everybody but a lot of people have right at least even those no even those sorority wat chicks over in Tennessee you don't think they've heard of Po they know what Pokemon and they probably heard of what Dragon Ball Z is even though they're not fans um you know what I got to go back to the hip-hop analogy because it reminds me you know in 2005 the NBA All-Star game was in Denver Colorado and they had this guy named Cowboy Troy perform who was like a black rapping cowboy and that was at a time Andrew where true real rap from the inner city was still considered taboo and too edgy and I'm saying over the years you saw a transition to now the Super Bowl halftime show is always a rap show right because rap has become the predominant music genre in America and I'm saying that anime sort of has this similar Arc and we were at the reaching that transition point I mean I do think anime is basically a staple of culture now of a certain it is specifically younger when you yeah of the younger group it is definitely part of culture for sure maybe not it's not top five but it's like it's up there um me and you are not the biggest anime fans especially for being Asian-American I know there's a ton of people who are like way more into it than we are but we do know a thing or two Andrew this is what I think I think that anime is popular because there's a way bigger range American animation is very limited in theme stylistically and uh they don't really have big story arcs like even when we were watching the Batman cartoon growing up it was almost like every episode was self-contained it had nothing to do with another episode it was almost like sit Commish right where like there's no real connection whereas like animes are like Andrew some of them are like 500 episodes deep and it all the connects logically all the way back to episode one you think it has to do with either the amount of effort that the writers are putting in and also the assumed attention span of the audience cuz think about it Asians got good attention spans they're watching these dramas that go 10 episodes deep just to see one thing happen but in America maybe there's a sense like each episode they want it to be a banger and have a whole story arc within just one episode right you're saying it has to be a self-contained almost like movie like movies create a world for you and break down world they're like well you know if uh my kid misses an episode I still want him to enjoy the next one but obviously for a lot of like dramas from Asia and animes if you miss one you're like yo what they had a conversation the whole last episode I missed well that's right they have to have those recap things in the beginning right right right right um also there's like shjo versus Shonen shjo is for like girls Shonen is for boys but even within that there's different tiers and age ranges with different themes different levels of adultness you know what I mean uh violence sexual themes right um also in Japanese cartoons but really all across Asia but specifically I want to talk about Japanese animes there's a lot of morally gray questions oh there's big boobs there's a lot of crazy violence there's cool super villains that you're designed to think are cool um there's a lot of things that American Media in the America is based off like kind of Christian abrahamic rules they would just not allow for those things to happen yeah the overly gigantic uh bues on these anime girls obviously is somewhat of a draw man I mean it's kind of makes it nice to look at um they said Japanese or Asian studios are getting things done for like a quarter of the price like they work longer hours they probably get paid less the the workflow operations are more efficient which allows more frames and allows the animation to look smoother yeah I mean again I mean I think that you could maybe argue that the anime creators take more pride in what they're doing because it's also like Japanese culture so it's like man if we're making an anime like we have to do it perfectly and we have to go by the craft right and uh not only that I mean compare the animation style of like a L of anim to like Rick and Morty Rick and Morty looks like it was like sketched on a napkin even though that's sort of some of the appeal of it right um a lot of people were saying the closest things to an America are Superhero Cartoons but the superhero cartoons it's just like it's still just not there but that that's the closest comparison right like uh people into Spider-Man Batman Superman yeah you know what a lot of animes I mean I'm not an anime expert but I feel like a lot of the drama comes from like that's my dad it's almost like a whole Jedi Star Wars level drama but good guys switch bad guys bad guys yeah that person turns out to be your sister oh this person's this that's actually related to that oh my mother died he called my father it's like pretty dramatic right more like uh KD drama yeah also I really think like the visuals um animes are more drawn to look like real people I know that they don't look realistic but they look like gorgeous Hoppers actually yeah I mean gorgeous half Asians with bbls and implants essentially and then the guys look like uh with the vline and everything like that but Michael Phelps what I mean is that their facially they're supposed to be recognizable as like humans while I think in a lot of like American cartoons they don't draw them like like Homer Simpson or something like that Homer Simpson is like yeah that's like what type of humans are they they're not hum some people do look like Homer though but they're not considered the best looking people um somebody said it's a community online and it's really welcoming the fandom is welcoming the people who are socially nervous or nerdy possibly neurod Divergent basically much more accepting for example and of an online community than like the online like sports Community right right right um and some people have some theories they were saying the anime characters themselves they're either written as more neurotic or detach themselves it could either be due to culturally Japan is so different from the west or also they just tend to lean into more extreme characters and people may find some of themselves in the anime characters and then that contributes all to the fandom in a triangulation yeah yeah I think that's really interesting fantasy relatability all rolled into one dude it's hitting on like every cylinder bro I always tell people man a lot of things in life there it's like a checklist of 10 things and when something checks off all 10 Ain't No Stopping it yeah um a lot of people were saying you know like you know especially some of the nerdier pro athletes Andrew Jamal Williams Zion Williamson they have come out and said that they're big anime fans but obviously people like Marshon Lynch John Morant I would find it hard to believe that they're big anime fans yeah I'm not saying for sure I'm just saying someone's got to ask him um ultimately Andrew what do you think it's coming into America now it's becoming the predominant illustration and animation in a market for a long time that was like no man that stuff's weird weird maybe only for the hentai I would enjoy it but not on my McDonald's um I guess it's cool to see man I'm really happy because even though I'm not personally the biggest anime like fan or geek I have been to Anime Con and I've been to ComicCon but Anime Con was obviously based in anime and uh that was just to see how many people love it and even talking to you know people that we work with who are younger that really love anime it's like man I just hope that the animes keep getting better and people are able to draw more from it you know right um but it I think it's cool man cuz like I don't know that McDonald's anime looks kind of cool is this the future of branded content like would there ever be a K-Pop group like a McDonald's K-Pop group like McDonald's names them and pop McDonald's Pop y'all can have that idea or B pop Burger pop that's crazy oh no you have all right you assemble just for one album The McNuggets and that's a pop group like you know California Raisins yeah they could do that like somebody could fund that I don't know if it's worth it but they could do it um I saw the Demon Slayer movie recently I thought that was really tight I saw the attack on Titan movie you know I've obviously seen a lot of clips and a few episodes here there but you know what growing up always impacted me deeply there was an anime anime slam dunk slam dunk still to this day is the coolest looking Asian hoopers in history there's actually lowkey a lot of Japanese basketball animes and I want to say there's more basketball cartoon animes than there are American basketball cartoons yeah for sure that's a good point it's crazy I think that the whole view of the East about animation and illustration is completely different than the West W too right and I think coupled on top of that the economics of scale like we said the ability the cost the sheer economics of creating illustration and animation I think the equation is completely different over there Andrew the CGI rates in Taiwan it might be like like a eighth or like a tenth of what it costs in America basically guys what do you think about this Asian style of entertainment particularly anime is taking over the cartoon game it's taking over the animation game I'm not saying everything's going to look like an anime but the anime Market is gigantic it's huge and once Marvel as a brand kind of loses some hotness anime is just but it might not be Japanese made animes maybe maybe maybe other people make animes that are just as good you let me know in the comments down below I know that there's Chinese animes Korean animes there's probably animes from other countries too uh from America as well so let me know yo what if Time Square starts looking like San Fran soio from uh big Hero 6 that was people's image I'm saying somebody I got it on a vision board somewhere make my eyes really big hey you look like an anime all right you guys let us know what you think in the comments section below toota McDonald's who else needs it I I I think I I thought of the next one Pizza Hut needs to bring some Japanese Pizzas Hut and do a Pizza Hut anime oh oh oh oh oh an anime series are based around Italian pizza makers but in Japan or like you know they depicted as Italian but in Japanese that'd be hilarious yes Shoku all right you guys let us know what you think in the comments section below is Anime here to stay is it just a passing Trend or is it going to supplant Western animation an illustration all right everybody until next time we out peace