Define "mainstream"

This is a discussion I'm sure we've all had, at least with ourselves. Before coming to this board, I thought that every anime I watched/manga I read was mainstream, simply because I had read a chapter of it in Shonen Jump. Boy was I wrong. Many people don't even seem to have heard of Busou Renkin or Zatch/Gash Bell.

So what is mainstream? We all know deep within our hearts that Bleach, Naruto and One Piece are, for the most part, main stream animes. What makes it so? Is it because people outside the anime community have heard of them?

Thoughts please.

My personal opinion on the term mainstream is that it is governed by how much marketing is poured into the particular series. In order for a large number of people to watch a series or movie people have to hear about it first. It comes from two places; Media advertisements, such as television, magazines, billboards and also word of mouth, for example, this forum.

In a given period of time there are going to be anime in the upper percentiles of viewership and those in the lower percentiles. The higher percentiles are the mainstream anime. Here is a list of mainstream anime.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/ratings-anime.php?top50=most_viewed

I see. none of them surprise me, frankly.

And I'm pleased to see that I am a fan of a fair number of non-mainstream animes, despite my previous worries.

I know this isn't a technical description but I have two ways of classifying it...

1) If it's on, and what timeslot, cartoon network/adult swim.
Let's face it, if Death Note never made it to an early time slot on Adult Swim the chances of it having the same kind of appeal are slim. Not to mention most of us started watching anime BECAUSE of what's on these channels...

2) How "Normal" it is.
Anime has a stigma, unfortunate but true. I consider an anime "mainstream" when "regular" people who don't like anime are watching it, buying things for their friends with it, wearing t-shirts, ect... Not to over-use the example, but let's face it, there are a lot of people who have never and will never really watch more than 5 anime's in their life but they wear a "Team L" shirt.

But I also want to note, even though it's obvious, what's mainstream for one country often doesn't translate equally to another. I.E. Japan is a whole different ballpark for "Mainstream"

Yeah...I kind of figured that. No offense to the Japanese, but they were an isolationist island empire for waaaaay too long.

And being on cartoon network does kind of make it mainstream.

And yeah, marketing is one of the things I used to define mainstream.

Chiaki wrote:I know this isn't a technical description but I have two ways of classifying it...

1) If it's on, and what timeslot, cartoon network/adult swim.
Let's face it, if Death Note never made it to an early time slot on Adult Swim the chances of it having the same kind of appeal are slim. Not to mention most of us started watching anime BECAUSE of what's on these channels...

2) How "Normal" it is.
Anime has a stigma, unfortunate but true. I consider an anime "mainstream" when "regular" people who don't like anime are watching it, buying things for their friends with it, wearing t-shirts, ect... Not to over-use the example, but let's face it, there are a lot of people who have never and will never really watch more than 5 anime's in their life but they wear a "Team L" shirt.

But I also want to note, even though it's obvious, what's mainstream for one country often doesn't translate equally to another. I.E. Japan is a whole different ballpark for "Mainstream"

Well put Chiaki... I can't really relate to you there because the environment that I grew up has people watching anime though not frequently but occasionally. I'm sure there are a huge percent of people who can't stand animation just because they deemed it to be too "baby" or "kiddish". I believe that those ignorant people are still there. But I really believe (with the power of the internet) that anime will probably go mainstream not soon but eventually. Anime sites and forums such as this are being formed and I really see other generations being able to watch anime via licensing.

For me, the mainstream status of an anime is defined by how many people know about the series. I've seen time and time again how supposed "hidden gems" of the anime industry, an unestablished niche title of which only a few people knew in the beginning and liked it turned into so called mainstream any as the knowledge and the popularity of the series increased.

CODE GEASS - Lelouch of the Rebellion was one such example. It was pretty unknown at first, at least for most of us fansub-watching crowd, but then it quickly started sky-rocketing up the charts and more people began watching it until it became a well-known series. That's when it turned mainstream, because a lot of people were aware of it's existence. Fanboy VS hater flame wars and discussioned ensued, people complaing about the "trainwreck status" of the second half while others tried to defend it, overhyped or not, back and forth.

There's also series like Naruto, BLEACH and One Piece. These are well very well known, but what probably makes them much more "mainstream" than Geass, Gundam or DEATH NOTE is the fact that these are all series which have been running for years, both in monthly manga magazines like Shounen Jump and on television. When you tune in to anime on television these days, there's a good chance you'll find any such series. Pokémon, Detective Conan, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Inu Yasha...you name it.

The more well known and the more popular an anime is, the more can it be defined as mainstream.

However, there's also the kind of anime series which you've seen a dozen times in decades. Your typical random school comedy harem shows which may or may not be adapted from dating sims or hentai games. These are also mainstream because it's an established, sheer endlessly repeated genre full of stereotypes, memes and tropes most people who've seen anime already know.