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the general conception is that anime is for kids. And teens and grown-ups who don't watch anime will not all of a sudden start watching it.
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I disagree with this, somewhat. I think people are wise enough (with the exception of people who are just too stubborn in thier views), to recognize a good program when they see it. Movies like Spirited Away don't win awards if people aren't watching them. I'm not so nieve as to think that anime is all of a sudden popular, but I do think that the stigma that people have against using animation to tell a mature story is wavering. In America, Disney and Warner Bros have hammered home the animation is for kids and family message for decades. But when the 80's came around, cartoons progressed beyond just having anvils dropped on toon heads. Thundercats, He-man, Transformers, Robotech, and more all had progressing storylines, and ideas behind them besides just good guy/bad guy/fight. Now I'm not suggesting that any of them were epic stories that transcend generations, I do think they started a chain of events that helped people understand that animation could be used for telling stories just like any other medium. As we've progressed from the 80's, so has the complexity of many of the animations since. So has the popularity. It can't be coincidence, can it?
People watch anything when it is deemed acceptable by enough of the population. In Japan, I know that otaku scares many people because of the murder case that spurred the stigma. In many other countries, including America, that stigma doesn't exist. Signs are that the otaku stigma is starting to waver, just like the geek/nerd stigma in America. The growing popularity of anime and anime styled/themed programs shows that there is a pretty large audience who is willing to watch a show where animation is the medium of storytelling. Anime shows me that there are a large variety of stories to tell, across many genres. This is what helps make it so appealing, besides the stylized art, of course. It may take many more decades to see a mature animated show on prime time television, but I do think that it is heading that way, slowly.