In a recent opinion piece on Anime! Anime!, animation critic Ryota Fujitsu wrote about the medium’s rapid transformation from niche media to commodity, discussing whether this evolutionary path could be what marks “the end of anime. ”
Over the course of the past 20 years, what was once considered a nerdy art form has now pretty much become a global phenomenon . But with an increase in popularity comes the inevitable commoditization of the media, where works now appear more similar to each other due to market pressure and overabundance. While Fujitsu argues that any anime can be treated both as “art” and a “product,” he also points out that the trend towards it being a product has only strengthened in the past years and shows no signs of reversing. In an oversaturated market, viewers have become quicker to abandon shows if they don’t meet their expectations, knowing there are endless alternatives. With endless choices, audiences have begun selectively watching anime based not on what they like, but rather by what they don’t want to see. The sentiment has stuck around for decades and has only become more prevalent, leading anime to “naturally” lean into being perceived as an interchangeable “product” or a “commodity.”
Changes in streaming and advertising culture have also made their impact on anime, Fujitsu explains. He argues that video ads, short-form dramas and streaming services have used data on attention span and viewer drop-off points to standardize safer, more formulaic structures, and that anime might be pressured into taking on similar methods to compete. Furthermore, generative AI becoming more prevalent could lower production costs and shorten lead times, intensifying commoditization, with quantity and distribution channels mattering more than the inherent creativity of each show.
Fujitsu explains that commoditization has also shifted the viewer’s mindset. The average consumer has been drawn towards the mentality that entertainment can be “anything as long as it’s fun, pointing to the average viewer’s lack of agency to seek value beyond surface-level amusement.” Making works that stand-out from the norm is difficult nowadays, because, as he puts it, “no matter how unique the work may be, if the viewer deems it to be interchangeable, then the work has ceased to be art and turned into a commodity.”
He warns that the sentiment comes from a place of acceptance on the consumers part, that anime is nothing more than a commodity to pass time. If anime is not critically engaged with as “works”, they run the risk of fading into the background of an ever-growing sea of consumable products, drowned out by other more attention seeking short-form media. “When I think about ‘the end of anime,’ I often wonder if it might be a state where, at the end of commodification, people no longer seek meaning in the fact that a work is being expressed through the anime medium . Anime itself wouldn’t disappear, but no one would pay attention to its existence.”
Fujitsu concludes that it is important to have the capacity to engage with a piece of media on its level, in order to balance out the rapidly-progressing commoditization. For the ability to view anime as more than just a “children’s cartoon” is what allowed the medium to flourish, and that there is great value in critical perspectives to preserve the medium’s artistic side.
