The superhero/villain craze is all about the films though. I think my cousin is the only person I've ever actually seen read a physical comic book, so print manga selling relatively more doesn't mean that much. Endgame is the highest grossing film in human history and Joker made over a billion dollars; this isn't about "fandom hierarchy" or whatever you're talking about, these are the biggest, most mainstream films in existence. This is why Scorsese and Coppola have (quite justifiably) criticised the MCU for dominating cinema with formulaic storytelling. I don't see a Japanese cartoon film ever getting anywhere close to that, even if superhero films eventually fall out of fashion at some point. A more valid comparison to superhero films is Westerns, which were huge in the 1950s and 1960s but then fell from grace in the 1970s and were mocked by Blazing Saddles. Westerns still exist today, but far less than before. The same thing may happen to superheroes at some point, but they won't be replaced by billion-dollar-grossing anime films. The medium just isn't anywhere near popular enough for that, and never was.
Furries aren't at all relevant to this, they're a tiny subculture and are hated because of their associations with sexual depravity.
The difference is that I can't really imagine the MCU releasing something as comically awful as Batman and Robin. Given their films are largely written to a formula, I would expect the end of the trend to just be if people get bored of it. After this superhero films would be seen as an outdated trend, but not something innately laughable; bear in mind that most MCU films have very positive reviews, and those won't go away if the genre falls from grace like Westerns or musical films (which were also huge in the 1950s-1960s and now very unusual) did.
To dig up this old subject again, as resident western hemisphere anime history sperg, I have some doubts that anime will have the same impact as it did back in the late 1990s and 2000s if it comes back again out here.
Anime literally exploded not just due to WB Kids importing the Pokemon anime, but a combination of the 1996 Comics Crash, the rise of importing video games out from Japan, the cultural setting and anticipation of how the year 2000 and essentially the next millennium would signal mankind going into a state of technological and psychological progress seen from sci fi, the rise of the internet and private computer ownership for public consumption, the fall of summer blockbusters into the late 1990s, and the residual wake from the 1980s Japan Economic Bubble Boom, including college students who went overseas and wanted to engage in Japanese study courses. All of this combined laid out a proper opening for unknowing fans to be exposed to anime.
Plus, while there were plenty of fans who were unwashed chunnibyous, I can definitely see why anime was loved by them and us. Anime was everything comics and animation from the States should have been, yet from a place long known as "the land of freedom", expression and artistic creativity is not a strong suit of America; harsh words, but that's the truth. There wasn't just stuff for kids, but those who grew up, and what was for kids out in Japan shocked and wowed us knowing that what was consider Adults And Up for us. Anime showed us realms of creativity and worlds of inspiration beyond capes, musicals, and slapstick farce in a time when comics and animation were only few and far between many extremes. Plus back in the day, we didn't need to catch up with shows either, we could play fuckin' video games, and that was just as cool too. It wasn't just animation or mediums, it was a style that rallied its fist up like Kenshiro or Alita over a broken ass wasteland of broken dreams and meaningless thoughtcrime censorship warfare, and gathered many of us to go to paradise. Hell, back in the day, reporters on the comics industry were outright baffled at how manga got even females to read comics, something that they never had cross their minds. People were outright blown that "such a childish medium has boobies and fucking and gore!" And they were rightfully "YOU WA SHOCK'D" right in their fucking faces.
But as said by someone wiser, "with every high comes a hangover", and that writes itself, and with insight from me, what goes around is what must come around, but alas, we haven't seen the come around. I know I sperg on and on about this, but creative works that are powerful enough to cross national boundaries and even the fucking ocean and yet never reverberate its feedback back around the world again, that's unnatural. We wouldn't have animation without the French doing it first and presenting it everywhere. We wouldn't have new styles of Jazz if the musicians just stayed out in the States instead of going to Paris in the 1930s. We wouldn't have more aggressive forms of rock n' roll if it wasn't for The Beatles, Elvis Presley going around the world to learn Karate, and Punk going out to NYC from the UK. We wouldn't have manga and anime either if it wasn't for America FUCK YEAH punching the shit out of an imperial dynasty that misinterpreted and ate the leftover European imperialism shit the Germans, French, and British shit out a century before. I'm just saying that maybe instead of sitting around and thinking anime and manga can be captured through watching it days on end like what normal weeaboos do, some actual study and engaging in its cultural spirit would be much better, "muh cultural appropriation" faggots and "WWII didn't need Nagasaki and Hiroshima to be bombed" be damned.
Maybe my perspective is too optimistic and rooted from a less dirtied and sullen angle. Maybe I am not broken or asshurt enough like the self hating whites who can't separate themselves from the actual tyrants and shitheads and rot their brains drinking soylent and their own self pity. Maybe the inspiration was just too much and gave the bottom feeders such a high from a dearth of imagination that they couldn't process it right. Maybe the anime fans out in the States believe they should only be an audience. But as said from a much better Star Wars story: "Every generation has its own challenges to face, its own battles to win. Why should yours be any different? Running away from your responsibilities won't solve anything!"
Anime I feel will not have the same impact as it did back in the day because back when it came out Stateside, it was more than just animation and comics from Japan. As I said before countless times elsewhere on the Farms, "Another side of an industry that thrives solely on spectatorship is not an industry; it is merely just an audience and a source of consumers". Japan is still able to pump out what it wants and not give a fuck because well artists and creators over there will do what they want, first, foremost, and ultimately, regardless of exceptions, and it will have an industry regardless of current day faults and problems because if there is work, there is pay and payoff. I think that that now, the US anime community has been given more than enough time to be mouthy spectators, and especially in a time where the Great Recession's effects still loom over and effects everyone. Ass News Network gloats on and on about how the overseas anime fan communities are literally throwing money at Japan and how "our artsy fartsy tastes are what is keeping these poor animators afloat", but they fail to realize that the sources of their beloved creative works don't just pop up from fucking nothing and that what they whine about when Japan doesn't pander or minstrel to their call enough times, the entertainer will revolt right back or outright quit for another better venue. If Japan was doing well without the Great Recession fucking them over, I wouldn't doubt that the first failed anime commission by Netflix or Crunchyroll would have them immediately shut their doors and say "thanks fuck off bye" because there would be more money to chase elsewhere, and these faggots would cry off into the distance. Even then, it's going to take more than just Japan doing all of the anime idea shit Netflix and everyone throws at Japan and begs them to make in the future, risks and dangers otherwise. To recapture a time like when Anime utterly made itself known to the US and kicked ass and took names, you can't just gain that with money.
And as for the MCU? I wouldn't hold your breath on its decline. Marvel's still swimming in money, and unless they are really that prideful and full of hubris to do something so stupid that would reverse their fortunes, they'll keep going. Granted, I don't dislike superhero movies as much anymore because well they're harmless and most people with an ounce of sanity like both anime and comics, but one motherfucker I'm keeping my eyes on is Perlmutter. That motherfucker would fuck over Marvel Studios if it meant increasing his pay by a fucking penny. As he was the guy who fucked over and was another source of the Comics Book Crash of 1996, he's as charismatic and evil as a JRPG villain. Don't trust his ass.
