I guess this is part 5 of my “no Anime isn’t mainstream” series. But each prior part I genuinely felt like now I’ve made the most important point and these should be read backwards. But in this case I'm not sure this point is actually more important than the last two, but it is more of a coherent point then the first two.
Stephen Spielberg's Jurassic Park is a bad adaptation of Michael Crichton's book, it only even tried to adapt the last half of it and changes everything, who lives and who dies isn't even the same, the very moral of the story is arguably changed somewhat.
Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is a bad adaptation of Stephen King’s book that King has vocally expressed his intense undying hatred for.
James Whale’s Frankenstein movie is pretty much in name only (when it isn’t changing even the names).
Each of these movies is near universally considered a Cinematic Masterpiece, why? Because Cinema is respected as an artform, if the movie is undeniably a good movie then how it's not like the source is fun academic trivia at best. Only if the movie is seen as a bad movie all on its own will its infidelity to the source material be then added on as another offense it committed.
But when it comes to Anime that are adapted from a source material, especially Visual Novels, you will see a refusal to accept this, I've even literally seen people argue an Anime that seems good on it’s own is worse then one that is simply Bad because it gives people the wrong idea of what the source material is.
This proves Anime isn’t mainstream, or to be consistent with this post’s predecessor is not currently any more mainstream than it was 20 years ago. What has increased in being at least more well known in those 20 years is the very existence of Visual Novels to western fans. So now fans who do care about the Visual Novel at least in concept (even if they aren't actually going to read it) are a large enough percentage of those watching the Anime, especially the ones invested enough to make YouTube videos about them, that their perspective gets to dominate the discourse.
Visual Novels are themselves a not very mainstream artform, especially here in the west where they are inarguably more niche then Anime is. And so their grudge against Anime they feel misrepresents certain VNs comes from that place of resentment.
If any of the artforms related to Otaku Media is mainstream at least in Japan it’s Manga. Not all Manga, not Doujinshi by definition, but the ones serialized in popular weekly Magazines by the biggest publishers. So no surprise the rare Anime that are somewhat normal to be praised as equal to or even better than their source are Manga Adaptations, not all or even most of them, but enough to be notable. It kinda bugs me how often this happens to be Shoujo Manga made by Women adapted to Anime primarily by Men. But I will highlight an example of the opposite, the Manga for K-On was made by a dude, but the Anime was written and directed mainly by two women and a studio largely founded by women and that Anime has been proclaimed by one highly respected Anime Scholar, The Ultimate Adaptation.
I led with Jurassic Park because it’s the least contentious. Stephen King has his fanboys willing to defend his perspective on the film. And Frankenstein’s Novel has fans who keep wanting each new Frankenstein film to be the perfect adaptation and then complain when it isn’t.
In the case of Jurassic Park however I find it telling that the film version’s popularity overshadows knowledge of the book’s very existence to such a degree that half of what people say when hating on the Jurassic Park sequels are unknowingly them becoming more like the books. Chief example being every time someone gets so offended at the very concept of allowing a human to be able to kill a dinosaur, that happened multiple times in the original novel.
Back when most western didn’t even know what Visual Novels were, Higurashi When They Cry’s Studio Deen Anime was very popular and universally praised as the best Horror Anime. It is in terms of the basic sequence of events less different from the source material than any of the three movies I mentioned up top. But now popular opinion is turning on it because of the influence of VN fans.
A lot of times people critiquing an adaptation will accuse it of lacking an important theme or subtext that I absolutely got from the adaptation simply for not being conveyed in the exact same way. With Visual Novel adaptation that is especially potent. As someone who defends Voice Over and Inner Monologues in Anime in general, I’m baffled at how convinced VN fans are to think the pages of inner monologue cut from the Anime are the only way to convey a certain character has a certain psychological issue when simply watching how they act makes it incredibly obvious. My post anti Show don’t Tell rants were about defending the artistic value of telling not denigrating the value of showing, but VN fans really do seem to think telling is the only way to convey information.
Maybe it seems like I’ve rambled off topic. The point is if most Anime were in fact being watched just as widely as Disney movies. There would neo shortage of people just enjoying the Anime as Anime and hopefully respecting the VN when they hear of it but not letting any complaints change how they feel about it.
No one thinks Visual Novels are mainstream now, certainly not the ones actually made in Japan. What this observation proves is that Anime, especially Anime based on Visual Novels are more mainstream then Visual Novels but only barely.
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