pierrot wrote:I think it's a multifaceted issue, though I think it has a lot to do with a different sense of aesthetic. I remember talking with one of my older students about comics once, and he mentioned that he didn't care for western comics because they weren't "beautiful." I felt slightly offended, because I think that western comics are generally drawn very well, and I enjoy that they're in full color, but i essentially understood him to mean that there wasn't quite as much focus on nuanced details of drawing in western comics as in some of the more elaborate Japanese comics; say The Five Star Stories for instance.
Western comics aren't just about Garfield and Peanuts. Nor superhero comics for that matter. If you look into American underground and European comics, you can see some mindblowingly awesome art. For example Mœbius' work has influenced Hayao Miyazaki. Usually "funny comics" look just as bad in Japan as they do in the West. It's because the focus is on the humor. Old school South Park looks crap but it's funny. I don't find Family Guy funny, but many people do. It's another example of a show that looks ugly because it doesn't need to look good, as it attracts viewers by funny writing.
Dismissing a comic or a cartoon that's otherwise brilliant just because it doesn't use a very appealing art style is like refusing to play flawless and brilliant classic video games because of their graphics.
Gamerforlife wrote:
Yeah, but seriously though. Has PC gaming ever been HUGE in Japan? Not nearly as big as it is in the West, and it's not even that big in the West compared to console gaming. So it must be a very small market in Japan by comparison
The popularity isn't that important if most of the gamers are hardcore gamers who are willing to put thousands into state of the art gaming equipment. They are devoted fans who can appreciate the radical and unconventional visions of game developers and want to support them. In return they'll get awesome games that are developed by small and very devoted studios, games that are catered towards hardcore gamers. Neo Geo is a good example of that on the console side of things. On the other side of the spectrum there is a huge number of casual gamers who play games like solitaire, minesweeper and Facebook games but even if there are plenty of gamers like that, developers know that it's not profitable to cater to that crowd.
