I’m really mad that people are still reblogging that stupid post I made about the old anime boom and I want to say a thing.
Industry experts say we’re currently experiencing ANOTHER anime bubble. It’s just that it has moved on to the digital age. And you don’t even have to be an “industry expert” to notice.
We can watch anime as soon as they air in Japan, legally.
Funimation is doing Simuldubs. This never happened during the first boom.
Toonami is back. Sure, it’s only on Saturdays and not every day, but you can watch whatever anime you want on legal streaming sites and Netflix 24/7. edit: In 2018 the block took over almost all of Saturday night, with Dragon Ball Super usually being the second highest rated show on all of television.
There are Crunchyroll ads on TV and movie trailers.Â
Convention attendance numbers are growing rapidly every year.
At the time of this post’s writing, One Punch Man is the highest rated show on Netflix. It has a better rating than Breaking Bad.
Hatsune Miku appeared on Letterman and has had multiple US tours.
Extremely niche Japanese games that had a snowball’s chance in hell of making it here during the boom and crash are now being localized. We’re even getting localized otome games with physical copies! J-Stars Victory Vs would not have been able to come over during the first bubble!
Brick and mortar stores are once again expanding their anime/manga section. Even mainstream retailers that don’t deal in “geeky” stuff have Attack on Titan, Sailor Moon, Vocaloid and DBZ stuff now. Even Walmart.Â
That one DBZ Ford commercial... Among many other things.
JRPGs that aren’t Final Fantasy are getting TV commercials. Fire Emblem Fates sold 400k units within a week.
Nickelodeon is showing anime for the first time since the 80′s.Â
Pokemon Go briefly revived Pokemon’s popularity back to 90′s fad level, possibly even more popular than it was back then.
The people who grew up during the anime boom are now making their own cartoons. Shows like Steven Universe, Star vs. The Forces of Evil etc have their own unique style, but still pay homage to classic anime, not because it’s popular, but because the creators genuinely love the medium.
Yes, there was an anime crash. We lost ADV, Geneon, Central Park Media,  and many others. This was due to the rise of piracy, and licensing and dubbing too many niche titles hoping they would become a hit (...remember the Fuccons?). But, the industry learned from what happened during the crash. They won’t make these mistakes again. There won’t be another Heat Guy J incident. If they keep things up the way they are, there probably won’t even be another crash.
The future of anime looks bright. Anime is possibly more popular now than it ever was before. And if you started with Free! or My Hero Academia instead of Fruits Basket and Dragonball, don’t let anyone tell you you are any less of a fan. That is all.