Meet The Next Generation of Anime Fans

• Author: Lauren Orsini

• Editor: Cy Catwell

I discovered anime when I was eleven years old, in 1998. That was during the first Toonami wave on Cartoon Network, when Sailor Moon shouted “Moon Prism Power!” for the first time on American TV. However, my first anime was The Slayers, which I acquired via my best friend’s older sister’s traded VHS tapes. Most of my classmates had never heard the word “anime” and honestly, my parents were confused and not a little bit concerned about my strange new interest. Yet anime’s unconventionality and obscurity were what made it appealing to me, but these factors also made it challenging to be a fan.  

The older I’ve gotten, the more painless it has become to watch anime. General streaming services like Netflix and Hulu offer anime exclusives; even Disney has gotten in on the game. Anime merch is available everywhere; Dragon Ball Z’s Goku can be found everywhere from t-shirts to cereal boxes. It has never been easier to become an anime fan than now. But in a culture where anime is just another part of the scenery, what does it mean to be an anime fan today? 

To find out, I queried sixty anime fans from Generation Z. 

Generation Z consists of people born in 1997 at the earliest. I don’t have a “latest” year, but they must be old enough for social media, which is where I posted my survey, namely on Bluesky and Discord. Beyond that would be members of Generation Alpha, like my illiterate kids. My unscientific survey process was this: I asked people to fill out a Google Form with their age, the title of their first anime, how they accessed that anime, and a few additional questions about their experiences. 

Most of the people who filled out my survey were born in 1999 (13 people), but there were respondents born as recently as 2006. Most of them (44%) watched their first anime (Pokémon and Yu Gi Oh! were the most popular responses for this question) on cable TV, just like I did. But the second largest group (22%) watched their first anime by streaming it online. 

I also asked Generation Z anime fans about the anime they perceive as the most popular among their peers, and how they experienced (or continue to experience) identifying as an anime fan at school. But the most interesting answers came in response to this question: “What's something about your experience as a young anime fan that older anime fans don't understand?” Here are some of the responses I found most illuminating:

The downside of accessibility

• “I felt weirdly pressured to watch at least 100 anime before claiming I was a fan because people would put me down online for not knowing certain shows.” - Loaf, born 2004

• “The whole ‘you need to watch the classics to actually like anime.’ People gatekeeping what anime you must watch before you are actually a fan is annoying and sure as hell drives people away.” - Anonymous, born 2003

I assumed that Generation Z’s ability to access such a wide variety of anime compared to what I could at the same age was a net positive, but these responses demonstrate the pros and cons of this accessibility. Some new fans felt pressured (by older fans, no doubt) to watch more shows before self-identifying as anime fans. 

When I asked Loaf to tell me more about their story, they told me that they initially watched anime casually and enjoyed drawing and sharing fanart. As their audience grew, the Mexico-based artist began to receive more harassment than praise: “somehow [all my] socials were flooded with people who thought I wasn’t a ‘good enough’ fan,” they told me. “[I believed] if I had reached 100 anime, people would leave me alone.” Before very recently, it was not possible for English-speaking fans to watch 100 anime. 

The ubiquity of anime

• “It's normalized, at least in online communities. I don't know a single person under 30 who hasn't watched at least a handful of series.” - Ember, born 2001

• “Maybe just how ubiquitous anime is nowadays. I remember watching the Kaguya-sama: Love is War movie last February and [it] was nearly sold out, with every seat being packed. It's become fully mainstream now.” - Van, born 2003

• “Most people will have seen one or two anime, with social media and streaming making anime far more well-known and accessible. Far more non-anime fans are watching one or two anime.” - BinaryFlux, born 1999

In a world where everyone watches anime, what does it mean to be an anime fan? Respondent BinaryFlux, a college student active in his university’s anime society, said the difference lies in whether the viewer identifies anime as a distinct medium: “A person who casually watches an anime they see on Netflix might not have the language to be able to describe themselves as an anime fan… you have to be aware that anime is a thing, distinct from other forms of animation.” 

Van, also a college student, said he noticed a big shift in anime’s pervasiveness after he returned to in-person schooling. “I think since COVID exploded the interest in anime (including for me), it has reached the status of a mainstream interest or hobby,” he said.

(Not) the puritan generation

• “I think older anime fans understand very well everything that younger anime fans are experiencing and that it is younger anime fans who need to adapt (e.g. younger fans tend to be anti-shippers and bullies, which is behavior that older anime fans have grown out of)” - Anonymous, born 1999

• “Not all people in Gen Z are puritans out to take everybody's problematic porn. Some of us are just as freaky! Don't take the loudest, most annoying people as the standard for our generation. It's likely we've written some of your favorite fanfic and drawn some of your favorite pieces.” - Anonymous, born 1999

It’s interesting to look at these two opposing viewpoints next to each other and remember that no generation is a hivemind: people who are the same age can hold very different opinions! 

Millennials just don’t understand

• “Old anime looks bad to a modern eye. Unless a younger viewer got some of the classics out of the way early, we're used to modern anime. It's hard to go and rewatch classics from the ‘80s and ‘90s because they look bad compared to what we're used to. That and the American Anime scene is a lot more diverse than it used to be, and anime spaces need to reflect that.” - _sillyrob0t, born 2005

• “Sometimes some jokes or tropes just need to be retired. They might have been funny then but they were still wrong/weird and we shouldn't try to include them for the sake of tradition.” - Princeop, born 2000

I can believe that older fans recall their earliest series through rose-colored glasses. I remember Ouran High School Host Club as a charming, even subversive comedy, but I forgot about its transphobia, including one character saying the T-slur in the dub. Combined with the considerably slower pacing and lower production value of earlier shows, it’s no wonder that Generation Z would prefer us to be a bit more discerning with our recommendations.

Culture adds context

• “Online anime culture has become so ingrained into my generation that it actively influences how we enjoy the medium compared to how people who entered into the space before it became such an online place.” - itzsparky, born 1998

• “It's normalized, at least in online communities. I don't know a single person under 30 who hasn't watched at least a handful of series. Meme abridged versions on YouTube [can be] a gateway.” - Ember, born 2001

Anime-derived memes like “Is this a pigeon?” are enjoyed by netizens regardless of whether they realize it’s from the ‘90s series The Brave Fighter of Sun Fighbird. For Generation Z, which has never known a life without the Internet, anime culture and online culture are often the same thing. Ember, quoted above, told me her primary mode of participation in anime fandom was finding and sharing video skits. When I asked for an example, she linked me to one about the exaggerated skills of anime swordsmen, which wouldn’t be out of place in a battle show. Like “abridged” series before them, fans use these skits on YouTube, TikTok, and other short-format video sites to relate to shows they are watching and find new, similar anime to watch next. 

Unlike “The Toonami Generation,” there is no collective name for today’s young anime fans. Perhaps that’s because there are now so many ways to access anime fandom, it’s hard to find the major points of entry—though the COVID-19 pandemic was certainly a big one. As I connect with more of these next generation anime fans, however, one thing is clear: they’re just as passionate about their shows as any generation that came before them. The kids, as they say, are all right.