Friday, August 19, 2011

The key to anime mainstream success is...

Last night I showed you an intro video to Senran Kagura, an anime-style video game that is coming out on Nintendo's 3DS.  The game certainly looks like it could be turned into an anime series at any time, and if the title is popular enough I'm sure that could happen.  The intro video was all in anime style, and it came with the usual collection of fan-service for those that love girls with big...assets.  Nothing too deep or philosophical in there, but the title itself is reaching out to the every gamer.

One of the devs on that project has said that his goal is to reach a mainstream audience with Senran Kagura.  He plans on doing this by including all sorts of content that would appeal to everyone, including boobs, schoolgirls, ninjas and so on.  Obviously that kind of content isn't going to appeal to every single person out there, but it should help bring in a large amount of young men.  That's not really mainstream though, is it?

As one of my followers on Twitter pointed out, Senran Kagura is aiming for a very specific portion of the market, even though the developer is looking to reach out to a mainstream audience.  I guess that audience doesn't really focus on women, because I'm not too sure they'll be interested in a game about busty schoolgirls that are always having their clothes torn off.  Not exactly the best content to make women rush out to the store for a purchase.

This is a problem with anime in general, and I'm turning to you guys to see what suggestions you have.  If you could pick one thing to do to the anime industry to give it a more worldwide appeal, what would it be?  It's a tough question, because you want to make sure anime stays true to itself while broadening its appeal.  Adding in something to bring in new people might take away from what anime is in general.  Do you have any ideas that will bring in newcomers but not alienate the fans out there right now?

1 comment:

  1. Create more realistic women (personality wise).

    Yeah I think I touched on that on some other post. And I don't really mind it, but I know some people might be turned off because they are so unrealistic.

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