Would you watch a kiddy animated Dragon Ball series similar to Star Wars Resistance?

[Eire]

They made Les Miserables anime. For Kids. It's long and boring but everybody lives.

Actual adult anime are rarer than people serem to think--animation is expensive and there's mot much mechandrise in this sector so lots of the stories simply stary in manga form. And yes, they aren't rated by violence but rather themes. Unless we talk about animated porn you would rather find stories about dealing with mudane topic like life, career, relationships etc. - the last adult manga I bought tells stories about single women over 30 who think about their choices and deal with pressure from society and families.

[Tian]

I would watch it. I can even imagine the name... Dragon Ball Z: Fighting is Magic.

[Kunzait_83]

Actual adult anime are rarer than people seem to think--animation is expensive and there's mot much mechandrise in this sector so lots of the stories simply stay in manga form. And yes, they aren't rated by violence but rather themes.

First off, yes, most anime/manga demographics are gauged MUCH more by comparatively themes than by graphic content. Or at least that's how it used to be in prior decades, as there's been a fair bit more scrutiny leveled at Shonen/Shojo titles over violent/sexual content in the last 20-ish years. Children's titles in Japan are still overall MUCH more lax in their graphic content standards than in many other parts of the world, but compared to the 70s, 80s, and 90s (where virtually almost close to ANYTHING would fly in some cases) there's certainly a much heavier hand lent to policing the content of Shonen/Shojo titles compared to back in the day (the reasons for why this changeover occurred is a whole entire can of worms unto itself).

But even with that crucial caveat in mind, yes overall its still greatly more so the case that its the themes of the stories and characters that dictate which titles fit into which age demographics: an approach which I think is FAR more sane overall than how we tend to look at these things in the West.

Secondly: obviously Shonen/Shojo titles are FAR more geared towards merchandise than are Seinen/Josei. Not that there aren't SOME bits of merchandise made for older/adult-skewed titles (there certainly are, more on this in a second); but in the overall grander scheme of things, obviously things like Pokemon and Yu Gi Oh and even to a somewhat relatively lesser degree things like YYH and DBZ and the like are HEAVILY more merch-driven than something like Real or The Legend of Mother Sarah and whatnot. That much is fairly undeniable.

Now for the part I take the most contention with by far: "Actual adult anime are rarer than people seem to think." The only SLIGHT bit of truth to this is that overall, there's definitely MORE anime (not manga by any means, but certainly anime) made for the Shonen/Shojo demographic than there is Seinen. The idea though that Seinen anime is "rare" in and of itself however: yeah, sorry, but that is complete and utter nonsense. The reality is that there is a LOT more of it out there than most people on sites and communities like this one are often aware of.

Now granted, there used to be WAY more adult-aimed anime titles overall in previous decades (the 80s and 90s especially) compared to recently: this had a lot to do of course, like many things, with Japan's bubble economy. But even post-bubble bursting, in the post-2000 era there've still been a fairly robust amount of anime for the adult market: certainly VASTLY more than you'll see in just about ANY other non-Japanese animation market.

Unless we talk about animated porn you would rather find stories about dealing with mundane topic like life, career, relationships etc. - the last adult manga I bought tells stories about single women over 30 who think about their choices and deal with pressure from society and families.

This description is in NO way indicative of what all or most adult-aimed anime and manga are generally like overall. The demo that this description most fits is that of Josei: anime and manga for adult women. Without a doubt, this is easily the smallest of the four main anime/manga demographics ( the other three of course being Shonen - little boys, Shojo - little girls, Seinen - adult men) and thus the one with the rarest amount of anime content. While Josei anime are indeed out there, they're certainly fairly rare overall, and I would say (certainly at least in my overall experience throughout the decades) that the descriptors of "anime and manga focused on mundane normal daily life, career, relationships etc." and "stories about single women over 30" is certainly that of Josei MUCH more than Seinen (I'm not even gonna touch on the questionable gender dynamics at play there: that's a whole other thread's worth of discussion unto itself).

And while Josei anime is indeed fairly rare... Seinen anime is IN NO WAY WHATSOEVER "rare" by ANY metric. Its produced in less overall quantities compared to Shonen, certainly: but describing it as if its this barely existing, ultra-niche entity that's hardly a blip on the radar... that is in NO way accurate at all, whatsoever. That's only the perception of Western fans of the 2000s and 2010s: because (here it comes again) Western anime fans of the 2000s and 2010s are overall EXCEEDINGLY more over-focused on children's media (both in regards to anime and even more broadly overall, even in their own domestic media) than they are adult media.

What often ends up happening here is this: because the overall U.S. anime fandom of the last 15/20 years is SO overly-fixated on Shonen, you've got on the one hand a large group who are SEVERELY misguided and think that everything from Naruto to One Piece to Hunter X Hunter to Full Metal Alchemist to even goddamned Yu Gi Oh MUST be aimed at adults (or at least teenagers) over in Japan because they show a spurt of blood every now and again, have the balls to kill characters off fairly frequently, throw in a few religious themes now and again, acknowledge that the human sex drive is something that indeed exists, and so forth (and the fact that these things are considered so taboo and risque in our own kids' media in the West is much more of a sad indictment of how we perceive what children are capable of handling and how little we think of their intellectual capacity/emotional maturity than it is of anything particularly weird on Japan's end).

And then on the other hand, you have the better-read fans of today who at least understand that no, these titles AREN'T for adults (or even teenagers), that they're for the same demographic over there as the Nickelodeon lineup was over here, and that the "harsher, more extreme" content is simply a matter of clashingly different cultural norms.

What BOTH of these groups often fail to realize though (yes, including many in the latter camp) is that BOTH of them are SO over-focused on children's anime in general (whether they perceive them as children's anime or not) that they oftentimes will WILDLY overlook and gloss past an ABSURD amount of anime that actually IS made/intended for adults even in its native land.

SOME are known, like Cowboy Bebop, due to getting airtime on Cartoon Network back in the day (or currently, like with Parasyte) or other such factors: but the perception among Western anime fans that "truly adult anime are actually rare" comes from the fact that better-educated Shonen fans here are often SO preoccupied with correcting people on the Weekly Shonen Jump oeuvre not being for adults or teens and that Seinen titles since the 2000s have been SO ridiculously under-focused on overall in the modern day fandom of the last 15+ years, that their perception is WILDLY skewed into thinking that everything mainly revolves around Shonen and the genuinely mature stuff is very rare and occasional because it only ever gets rarely and occasionally Cowboy Bebop-levels of big and notable over here.

When looking back at the 80s and 90s, Seinen anime was incredibly (almost comically) commonplace thanks to the bubble economy allowing for ridiculously high budgets getting thrown at virtually any creator's passion project that came along: but even in the 2000s and 2010s (where the discrepancy in the amount of Shonen versus Seinen that's produced is much more comparatively steeper than before, thanks in part to the bursting of the Japanese economic bubble among other factors), and even when taking into account that there's overall WAY more Seinen manga than there is anime (and that Shonen manga is more often adapted into anime than Seinen) there's still VERY much a fairly visible market for Seinen anime in the last 15/20 years: its just that a LOT of it often doesn't get much or any attention from current day fans (to the point where the very EXISTENCE of much of the broader Seinen anime landscape isn't even known to most of them), because the overall "geek culture" of today is stupidly hyper-obsessed and narrowly fixated on children's media overall.

Again: it all comes back once again (as these things so often do) to the "Cartoon Network"-tinged culture of anime fandom that's been cultivated here over the years: where the lion's share of the focus in fandom is debates and conflicts between fans of various Shonen series ("Naruto is SO ADULT because Sasuke is so tragic and they showed someone bleeding here once!" versus "No actually, Weekly Shonen Jump titles are all targeted at gradeschool-aged children, same as our cartoons here, and its perfectly okay to be an adult who likes a kids' show."), with actual Seinen/adult-skewed titles like Monster, Bebop, Berserk, Ghost in the Shell and the like acting as the rare outliers that pop up into the broader fandom's notice from time to time.

And furthermore, the idea that Seinen solely encompasses "mundane slice of life" stories is ridiculously off-base. The idea that adults (in ANY culture, including Japan's) don't gravitate to and enjoy action, science fiction, horror, mystery, adventure, martial arts, Westerns, fantasy, speculative fiction, etc. and that "genre" material is primarily if not solely the domain of children... that isn't just wrong, its downright fucking asinine.

Again, I attribute this type of thinking to the fact that modern Western anime fans (and broader "geek culture" of today in general along with it) aren't just often focused on kids' anime, but kids' domestic media as well: the fact that genre material that is strictly for adults (sci fi, action, adventure, etc) is something that's ALWAYS existed since forever ago, and in VAST quantities, is something that VERY often manages to elude much of today's fanbase.

Put it this way: if today's fanbase is more apt overall to pay closer attention and lend more credence & priority to the latest Pixar film or MCU entry than they are the latest Tarantino or Coen Bros. film, is it likewise any surprise that their MUCH bigger span of focus in the realm of anime is going to be Pokemon and One Piece rather than Rintaro, Yoshiaki Kawajiri, or Mamorou Oshii's body of work?

Effectively, the culprit here is this kids' cartoon-driven mindset that "stuff with robots, explosions, and action is mainly/strictly for kids, teens, and young people in general, while old people only like boring, stuffy domestic dramas with lots of talking" without ANY regard for pulpy genre-work targeted squarely at adults that's ALWAYS been around: both in general globally, as well as more specifically in anime.

Here, lets do a quick checklist of notable Seinen anime both old and new:

Akira
Ghost in the Shell
Golgo 13
Ninja Scroll
Lupin III (believe it or not it technically qualifies)
Monster
Cowboy Bebop
Berserk
Vampire Hunter D
Genius Party
Mind Game
The Tatami Galaxy
Kemonozume
Parasyte
Gantz
Mononoke
Ayakashi
Planetes
Human Crossing
Rainbow: Nisha Rokubo no Shichinnin
Maison Ikkoku
One Pound Gospel
Perfect Blue
Millennium Actress
Tokyo Godfathers
Crying Freeman
Serial Experiments Lain
Robot Carnival
Manie Manie Labyrinth Tales
Memories
Jin-Roh
Tekkonkinkreet
Angel's Egg
Belladonna of Sadness
The Cockpit
Gunsmith Cats
Black Lagoon
Kaiji
Ergo Proxy
Bubblegum Crisis
Kite
Genocyber
Goku: Midnight Eye
Wicked City
Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise
Teito Monogatari
Dominion Tank Police

That's all just off the cuff. There's VAST OCEANS more than that.

[8000 Saiyan]

Not really, considering that Star Wars Resistance looks like crap. And I'm too old to enjoy kiddy crap.

Put it this way: if today's fanbase is more apt overall to pay closer attention and lend more credence & priority to the latest Pixar film or MCU entry than they are the latest Tarantino or Coen Bros. film, is it likewise any surprise that their MUCH bigger span of focus in the realm of anime is going to be Pokemon and One Piece rather than Rintaro, Yoshiaki Kawajiri, or Mamorou Oshii's body of work?

It isn't sadly.

It saddens me when people ignore stuff from Tarantino, Lynch, Hitchcock, Cronenberg, Capra, Kurosawa, Wyler, Scorsese, PTA, the Coens...etc. I have this friend who's top ten movies of all time are basically Disney movies, Home Alone and Fast and Furious 6.

It really makes me wonder if he has seen any movies aside from Marvel, DC, Disney and Fast and Furious. Sadly, some people seem to believe that cinema only consists of those movies. SOME people who are aware of some of the movies of those guys refuse to watch them because they're in black-and-white. I never had that problem. Besides, black-and-white cinematography can be gorgeous.

[Eire]

Kunzait_83
I don't know what is less inviting to discussion- your overall tone, putting words in my mouth or implication that I don't know who Tezuka and Monkey Punch are. I write what I write and when I write that something is rarer than people thing it means that it's rare, not it's "niche".
You are writing about " insane quantities" of Seinen titles and then come with examples of series (that everyone and his dog as already seen) released in span of 30+ years? And "Millenium Actress" as a Seinen? Why? Because it was made by man?

I've been following the market for over 20 years and I've seen animes that English fansubbers didn't bother to care about. And I stand by my point that seines and josei titles are rarely adapted to anime. For almost 20 series every season you are lucky to find 1-3 seinens. Still better than anywhere, but that's not an "a lot". I hoped that ONA market would change thing, but it doesn't seem to be the case. It doesn't mean they are not adaptated, they just gravitate towards live action (especially horror, medical and historical dramas).

[WittyUsername]

Isnt the Dragon Ball franchise as a whole basically just silly kid’s stuff?

[BlueBasilisk]

So, an animated version of Dragon Ball SD?

[Kunzait_83]

Kunzait_83
I don't know what is less inviting to discussion- your overall tone, putting words in my mouth or implication that I don't know who Tezuka and Monkey Punch are.

I have literally zero idea where in any of what I wrote you got the impression that I was trying to "imply" that you don't know who Tezuka and Monkey Punch are: two creators whom I never once even so much as referenced, other than quickly namechecking Lupin in that list at the end with regards to the latter, which certainly wouldn't under ANY light be seen as any sort of implication as to your awareness of who Monkey Punch is. Either way, that's such such a random almost non-sequitur notion to take away from anything I'd written.

Suffice to say, no, I wasn't implying anything even vaguely of the kind, and I'm beyond puzzled in what I could've conceivably said in ANY of that to make you think that.

I write what I write and when I write that something is rarer than people thing it means that it's rare, not it's "niche".

That's fair enough. But regardless, I'd still disagree that adult-aimed anime is "rare". Made in less quantities than kids' anime, sure (and I certainly acknowledged that repeatedly up front), but that's hardly the same thing as something being "rare".

And "Millenium Actress" as a Seinen? Why? Because it was made by man?

Oh come on. Really? You're gonna immediately jump the gun and escalate things from zero to sexism? Based on what exactly? Now who's putting words into people's mouths?

I genuinely wasn't sure whether Millennium Actress was considered Seinen or Josei: I simply took a random 50/50 guess at that one. I certainly didn't make any kind of assumption based on Kon's gender of all things. That thought, hell that INCLINATION of a fragment of a thought, genuinely didn't even REMOTELY occur to me in the absolute slightest.

If Millennium Actress is indeed more Josei-targeted, then that's more than fine by me: either way, its still an adult-aimed title (and an beyond excellent anime film overall), regardless of targeted demo's gender; never mind the fact that I think that on a certain level subdividing what kinds of genres and storytelling styles to aim at certain demographics based on gender is silly and idiotic in and of itself, certainly in the way that Japan has long often done it. But that's neither here nor there.

I probably should've just made the list both Seinen AND Josei: but you already think that I was casting way too broad of a net by going back 30+ years (though I think I kept the ratio of old vs new fairly close to even-ish), and I figured that Josei titles are (legitimately) rare enough that they weren't as relevant to the bigger point (whether or not adult-aimed anime are rare). Josei is indeed fairly rare: Seinen, not NEARLY as much.

I've been following the market for over 20 years and I've seen animes that English fansubbers didn't bother to care about. And I stand by my point that seines and josei titles are rarely adapted to anime. For almost 20 series every season you are lucky to find 1-3 seinens. Still better than anywhere, but that's not an "a lot".

1) 20 years (as of now in 2018) is about roughly the length of time - give or take a few years - that the industry has dialed back a fairly good deal on its Seinen output compared to prior decades (which I touched upon and acknowledged earlier). So that's certainly worth taking into consideration.

2) Even accounting for that dialing back in Seinen output, lets take a quick look at the number of anime TV shows and movies produced each year from 1998 to 2011: so 13 of the last 20 years (source: Anime News Network):

Year TV Movies
1998 75 22
1999 83 33
2000 57 35
2001 91 40
2002 92 40
2003 105 35
2004 122 41
2005 117 51
2006 161 55
2007 150 60
2008 138 36
2009 131 48
2010 113 44
2011 145 50

So going by what you said: that out of every 20 titles released each year (and there are certainly a LOT more than just 20 titles put out every year: we're looking at an average of anywhere from 130 to 200 titles in total per year since 2001), 1 to 3 of them will be Seinen... accounting for the fact that I suck at math, that's still what, around roughly 15% or so of the anime produced every year? Maybe 20 to 30 out of 130 to 200 titles a year? Its not a good number at all, and it certainly pales in comparison to the amount of Shonen that's been produced within that time span (all of which I'd acknowledged up front in my previous post).

But that's still A) VASTLY, ASTRONOMICALLY more adult animated content than pretty much ANY part of the world is producing anywhere at any given time. And B) still a fairly hefty chunk of adult animated content unto itself to keep track of every year, all the more so if you're ostensibly a hardcore anime fan who's trying to not let anything slip past their notice.

I think this is ultimately a silly and pointless semantic argument (one that I certainly will take the rap for starting and engaging in): "rare" to me implies something MUCH more scarce than "two or three dozen out of a couple hundred every year". Rare to me is more like what we have with non-comedic adult-aimed animation in North America: very close to almost nothing but some relative art house obscurities and MTV & HBO shows, the vast majority of which go back more than 30 to 40+ years ago (and like I said, I did my best to keep my impromptu Seinen list there fairly half and half on the new vs old scale).

If your definition of "rare" differs from mine in that regard... well then that's pretty much the crux of it right there. Either way, I'm very sorry for upsetting you (to whatever degree at least): wasn't at all my intention.

[JohnnyCashKami]

Isnt the Dragon Ball franchise as a whole basically just silly kid’s stuff?

The target audience of the Dragon Ball franchise has always been kids but this would go deeper with kiddi-fying the franchise to a whole new level, that even the most loyal who watch everything couldn't stand this.

So, an animated version of Dragon Ball SD?

Even that looks better, imo.

[WittyUsername]

Isnt the Dragon Ball franchise as a whole basically just silly kid’s stuff?

The target audience of the Dragon Ball franchise has always been kids but this would go deeper with kiddi-fying the franchise to a whole new level, that even the most loyal who watch everything couldn't stand this.

So, an animated version of Dragon Ball SD?

Even that looks better, imo.

I have no interest in seeing Resistance, but surely it can’t be that bad, can it?

[Neo-Makaiōshin]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bH_Ws7sA468

Can't say I would, that looks horrible in my opinion but it is targeted at children. I remember back before the 2000's studios used to put effort than make crap like this.

The original Inspector Gadget series compared to this could be considered a marvelous work of art for Western animation.

Dragon Ball Super looked good but its story just wasn't engaging to me, neither the characters.

The target audience of the Dragon Ball franchise has always been kids but this would go deeper with kiddi-fying the franchise to a whole new level, that even the most loyal who watch everything couldn't stand this.

What exactly is kiddi (and crap) about the animation in that video?

As far as animation goes, yes, I would watch a Dragon Ball anime in that style, I like this stylistic art direction.