Popularity of anime in your area?
 

How would you describe the overall prevalence of anime among people in your location?

I live close to a major metropolitan area in the US (west coast) and, well, anime is still quite a mysterious thing among the populace.

On one hand, it's safe to say that if you show random people on the street a picture of Pikachu, they'll instantly recognize where that character came from - and if they're older, you might even be lucky if they knew the character's name. On the other, it would also be common for people to ask, "What's anime?".

But it's not all that bad. You do find anime fans within college campuses and, perhaps not surprisingly, in bookstores and video stores. A few months ago, a cashier at a Best Buy store rang up my DVD purchase and commented on how he's heard "good things about Summer Wars". So, the likelihood of stumbling upon another fan in the area is a little higher where I live. (But it's still rare, though.)

Not much except for some kiddy shows like Doraemon, Shin-chan and Naruto(not really but you wont find 12+ Naruto fans here).

Some people in my country now start seeing anime as "perverted cartoons" which I worry most.

How the hell is THAT possible?

I may understand East Coast. But in the West Coast? The part of the country, aside from Hawaii, that's closest to Asia? There should be a plenty of Asians running around. Likely, some of them have at least heard of anime. Futhermore, at least, every metro. area in the country has some anime convention of some sort.

The simple answer is either its impossible or the original poster isn't doing their research well. They may have confused the awareness of "their neighborhood" with the entire city or the West Coast (a common bit of provincialism).

Every single *large* metropolitan city on the West Coast has an annual (or more) anime/manga convention, at least one store devoted to anime/manga (often a chain like Kinokuniya, B&N, etc), most college campuses have at least one pop culture club as do many high schools. Every major city usually has several japanese culture festivals and there's always at least one or two anime/manga booths in the vendor area.

That would be San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle and surrounding cities. Eugene, Sacramento, Fresno, and dozens of smaller cities also come to mind.

Now it may be the *average person* has no idea... but that's why the SCA calls them "mundanes" and the Hogwartz people call them "muggles" and the Star Trek (at least used to) call them "civilians". "Average people" are the same people who mostly say "whut?" when you ask them about ANYTHING outside of last night's Survivor or Whatever Idol. The people who have trouble knowing what ocean they are near, how many states there, what political parties exist.... Blazing Saddles had an apt description:

'You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know..., morons.'

If the original poster would like a list of anime/manga activities near their "major city", they should ask (or do some googling).

I live near the hub of Michigan's artictic/cultural town (or so I've heard) of Ann Arbor so people there seem to naturally know about art forms and cultural details from all over the world. It doubles as being a college town, with Eastern Michigan University and the University of Michigan being near there. So, while I don't make a habit of polling people on the streets, I'm fairly certain that a large percentage of the populace know what anime/manga is (or has at least been exposed to it).

Where I live exactly, though, is definitely not like Ann Arbor. Aside from EMU, which takes up most of the city, Ypsilanti is fairly small and people tend to keep to themselves. So I'm fairly certain that people around here don't know what anime/manga is, aside from those that frequent the local comic shops (for such a small town, we have quite a few).

Now, as for Detroit. . . well, they do have Youmacon (anime convention) at the Ren Cen every year but I can probably guarentee that most people won't have heard of anime/manga.

Anime is fairly common in the Philippines. It is definitely a part of a lot of people'd childhood in here.

I'm in the closet myself

It's actually quite popular here in PA, USA. :D YOU CAN EVEN BUY HARUHI IN THE GROCERY STORE.

...........I almost cried with happiness when I saw that. XD Because back in the 90s, the most common response was "Anime....what's that?" :confused:

here in south florida its kinda in the middle.

Here in Ireland... We've got Yu-gi-oh... Does that sound good?

Sorry but there's almost 0 fandom here, and like other nerdy activities it's also male dominated, unlike the USA where it's more gender balanced. However you can get manga in the bookstore, and we do have a (small) convention. I wonder how different it is in Britain.

If you went to anyone in my school and asked them if they knew what anime is, they'd know. The actual popularity of anime is moderate around here, but there certainly isn't a real aversion to it by my schools population. Mostly indifference.

My close friends don't like it at all, but there are plenty of other friends who utterly love it. The school has an anime club, small as it may be, and regularly watches stuff every Thursday. Most every guy knows and loves Dragonball Z or Pokemon, so I guess you could say nearly the entire school is at least somewhat familiar with anime.

exactly like me

In my neck of the woods?? I only have a handful of friends that know what anime is and enjoy it. So nope its not really popular here.

It's decently popular, quite a few of my classmates and friends watch anime and read manga and I've seen some of them cosplay.

Well in wisconsin there a lot of people who are in the closet about there anime. I see them checking anime out in the one store that sell anime around here.

I live in Central Texas, and while there is a large anime convention in Dallas (about a 2 hour drive from here) in my general area I wouldn't say anime is very well-known.

I'm pretty sure I am single handedly supporting my local borders light novel collection, which is small and no big feat, but still says something.

I'm living it up in Las Vegas... and I must say, if the comments here are anything to go by, Vegas has a rather sizeable population of Otakus then... I personally know of three Japanese imports/anime shops here in town, two of which are in malls...

I myself am Parliamentarian of my High School's Otaku club, which holds around 20-something members, many of whom know of several different conventions and stores held here in Vegas.

Of course, it goes without saying that we're still a bit of a minority, and many non-Otakus still judge us in our culture. Then again, where isn't there a place where people look upon Otakus as a bit odd?

Not to give Detroit a bad impression or something, but is the audience for Youmacon as big as other city cons?

Because of all the stories i've heard about Detroit, i'd be scared to visit there, let alone going to an anime convention over there. It is a city known to be made fun of for looking like a set from episode 10 of Madoka Magica after all.

Living in Kuala Lumpur, anime is popular in terms of shows like Dragonball, Doraemon, naruto and Bleach. These 4 are the most popular animes in Malaysia no doubt.

Some of our TV stations do air animes like Gundam SEED and Haruhi most of the time, and 2001 was the year anime reached it's peak in Malaysia & Singapore, especially with the airings of Ruroni Kenshin & Cardcaptor Sakura (everyone was watching it). And animes like Slayers are aired on 7.30pm, whereas Gundam SEED was aired at 10.30 am.

Four of the biggest selling mangas in Malaysia were Case Closed, Dragonball, Doraemon and Shin Chan. i got into manga thanks to Doraemon and Case Closed. I love these two mangas.

And currently, the most popular manga amongst the Kinokuniya circle is Bakuman, whereas the most popular anime amongst Malaysia's otaku netizens is Madoka Magica.

Anime cons are usually held once every three moths. And they are quite popular. Cosplay is a hit, and many models in malaysia started off doing cosplays of anime characters before becoming famous catwalk icons.

Non-otakus don't judge otakus badly unlike other countries. They're actually pretty cool with it, and thye usually agree with otakus when it comes to stuff like Dragonball Evolution.

Detroit's been so misrepresented by the media these days. Yes, there are some bad areas, but it's not like you're going to be shot as soon as you walk out the door by some Baccano!-esque gang. Especially in the area where the Ren Cen is located, which is by far the safest area in Detroit. And yes, Youmacon gets a ton of people: nothing in comparison to Otakon, of course, but we did recieve over 9000 people last year.

Plus, it's Michigan's premier anime con. There's always JAFAX but it's much smaller in scale.