Not against the medium I consume it.
But it occurred to me that there seems to be a lot more exposure to anime and manga largely thanks to services like crunchyroll and manga reader services, this includes physical sales as well.
It’s just that you’d think say, Superman would be more stupidly popular since everyone knows who he is than someone such as Lelouch from Code Geass.
Is it because comics just doesn’t have the same spark with the younger generation? Or is it because there are a billion different issues of comics so it makes manga more streamlined?
I would like to know your thoughts as I am quite curious about this phenomenon, since even in the early 2000s I was into anime, and you could get your fix from non legit services via the Internet, but I’m sure as shit it didn’t hit this mainstream until the mid 2010s and now the roaring 2020s.
Like others here, I was drawn to anime and manga for the varied storylines that had arcs that mattered, and an ending, and then stopped. And wrote something totally new.
Whereas comics would reboot the same story, and reboot it, and reboot it… Or they’d have a big arc that dramatically changed things… and two issues later suddenly its status quo all over again.
All of this made it hard to really get invested in their characters or stories. Why even do a story if you’re going to erase it all in the next storyline? Why care if so-and-so died if they’ll just be back in next week’s issue?
The other reason was strong female protagonists that weren’t all sexualized to the wazoo. In western comics it was all tight spandex and butt-boob shots and shots framed by women’s thighs… and most of the non-super women were just plot points to be stuffed in a fridge.
Meanwhile there were piles of strong, well-rounded, independent women of all different ages in manga and anime. Even the sexy women were developed characters first and sexy second. With western comics it definitely felt the other way around.
I grew up on Magic Knight Rayearth and Slayers and Iria and Cowboy Bebop. Watching those was like a breath of fresh air compared to Batman Reboot #242 or whatever.
And I really liked the varied art styles. Western comics were pretty much all of a muchness, the same style or close to it. Manga, meanwhile, had everything from Clamp’s super-detailed art to Dragonball’s more simplistic style. It gave them a much more unique feel.