The Status of Anime in Your Area

Ah, where I live, mostly every kid either thinks anime is awsome, or they don't know what it is yet. No one hates anime or manga, and they even have a club for it at my school. Mostly everyone will be freaking out over anime if you start a conversation with them about it. The only problem is, even though it dosen't seem like much of a "problem", is that it dosen't seem very special anymore. I mean, since EVERYONE knows about it, it just dosen't seem like a one-person thing anymore. But, it is cool that my school has all this anime/manga stuff going on. And I have heard of that con len, I do hope I get to go!

In my area there only those little kids that think Naruto is the most awesome anime show ever. There are few hardcore anime fans here in Northerm Virginia.

I'm speaking for the Southeastern part of the U.S. generally in Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee. Anime and manga has definitely grown in my area product wise. I remember when I was young and I went to a bookstore there wouldn't be a sign of manga anywhere. Goodluck on anime, your best chance was at a Fye and some DBZ videos in Walmart.

Then all of a sudden I could buy anime magazines and pretty good DVDs from Walmart and Kmart. I could buy manga and anime DVDs from B&N and Waldenbooks. I can now even get a soundtrack if I dig long enough though you still can only really get those at Fye or a Suncoast (B&N if I'm lucky).

As for a fanbase, it is really hard to find some fellow fans in my immediate area. I have one friend that is as big a fan as me. It's the main reason why I started to join forums. I can find them a little easier, now, but mostly everyone in my area has never even heard of it. Not to mention that most of the "fans" I do find usually just end up being Naruto-addicts rather than actual fans of the anime genre.

There's another place I forgot to mention for Anime down here, Game Traders Perth sell Anime. They actually have DVD's of some of the original Gundam series, including the actual original, some of the spin offs & follow ups, along with a bit of othr stuff.

As for the people, we actually had an Anime convention not too long ago. I didn't get to go (things to do, didn't find out until the day), but they seemed to have some sort of treasure hunt/challenge thing going, with Gametraders hosting one stop where they battle a staff member in some Wii game.

Anime is far from a kiddy thing where I tend to go. It's not unusual to overhear conversations about Anime shows amongst the mid 20s+ people I socialize with. Heck, one more recent conversation went from which Voltron was better - vehicle force or lion force, to how Voltron was better than the cheap rip offs known as Power Rangers, to how the Voltron pilots would deal with the Power Rangers monsters (stuff this, let's just stomp on it with Voltron while it's still small & helpless...).

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Originally Posted by LenMiyata

Grumble Grumble Grumble

You do know that there is a major Anime Convention held in San Jose that's coming up a few months time...

FanimeCon 2008

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I do know~A few friends have been telling me about it (I'm not from CA, so I don't know what conventions they have)

The problem is funds and time. Between working and full time college - I can't take the time to get there! Otherwise I would go. (T_T)

I'm a regular to Sakura-Con in Seattle. (That's where I'm from!)
*I've only been in CA for 2 years*
I do enjoy the Cherry Blossom Festival in Japan Town ~ I will hopefully be in the cosplay contest ~_^

There was supposed to be a Cosplay Picnic in San Francisco - On Treasure Island today~(that's where I live whoot!) But I didn't see anything set up! ?_?

The popularity of anime in the US does not seem to have grown very much. My school is made up of about 800 or more students and I could probably tell you the anime lovers all by name because there are so few. Everyone else thinks it is either weird or childish. I don't know how many times I have brought some manga to school with me to read like after a test and everyone ends up passing it around the entire period because they think it is so neat. I have even had teachers do it to me. For most of them, it is either football or shopping(my school is overrun with snobs). When they get through looking and passing it around, they tell me that I'm too grown up to be reading that kind of thing and as one girl told me, "you should care more about boys that some stupid book".

The status of anime in my area is near death. It is hard to find anyone who knows anything about anime at all, that is why I joined AO. Of course the only time anime is on here (Canada) is on friday night for a couple of hours, the rest of the time you have to watch it on the internet or buy mangas. That's probably the reason lol

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Originally Posted by Hantei16

I've been thinking about this for quite some time now i'm just either lazy enough to start threads or pre-occupied enough to remember to create this thread. How well does anime do in your area, i mean some parts of the world might not know what anime is..or might not be getting anime at all.

I'm gonna talk about America first, i haven't been there since '04...We have a house down at Alton, Il., it's a nice old-skool town just by the border of Illinois and Missouri. Back in the day when i was there, anime isn't really a big thing as far as i know it. Except for the ones on TV(CN, etc.), you could hardly find Anime stuff back there. But hey, that was '04...I might get back in a few months or so and see if there are any improvements.

On the other hand, i could line up Philippines as one of the next best countries to find anime, next to Japan and SoKor of course. Anime was a hit here ever since the 70s, shows like Voltes V and Yu Yu Hakusho became symbols of generations. We have two all-anime channels, and lots of channels gives anime a good amount of airtime. We pretty much get all the newer animes as well but we're a bit late, a few months of episodes or so...Finding videos is pretty easy wether you embrace the dark side(bootlegs) or keep it clean and legal. With lots of hobby shops capitalizing on the success of anime, all related merchandise isn't hard to find either. This country isn't fond of having cliques so stereotyping anime as kiddie and dorky is almost nonexistent.

As for the negatives, even though we get all these new stuff on tv and even the classics, re-airs are pretty common for the local networks which makes it pretty pathetic to see a classic getting milked over and over again. And with lots of anime being aired here, multiple airing is not uncommon, you could see a Eureka Seven on this channel and see it on another.

So what about your area?......

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i have already said my area in many places in AO but here i go again ...
Iraq: to make it short ... no anime is there at all nor the knowlege of its existance ...
BUT i traveled to Malysia (and i'm in Malysia now) since one week now and i got my first original animes here and it's better known here ...