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Why the West is Flocking towards Japanese Anime

  • Writer: Roger Tirazona
    Roger Tirazona
  • Jun 30
  • 6 min read

Updated: Jul 1

Over the past twenty years, anime has quietly and then loudly taken root in the hearts and imaginations of Western audiences; rising above what used to be a niche geeky market, to become mainstream content. Its rise cannot be dismissed as a passing trend or simply a matter of changing tastes. Rather, anime’s global ascent has coincided with something far more revealing: a growing disenchantment with Western storytelling.


At a time when Hollywood and Western gaming have become increasingly committed to mirroring the real world—including its politics, its ironies, and its moral ambiguities—anime has held fast to a different philosophy. It continues to tell stories that are emotionally earnest, morally clear (even when complex), and unapologetically mythic, especially by faithfully revisiting the heroism of the 70's, 80's and 90's stories into successful remakes.


Anime isn't afraid to dive into dark or complex themes. Quite the opposite, actually. But it also holds onto the idea of transcendence. On the other hand, many Western stories these days seem obsessed with realism, often gritty and political. Because of this, as more narratives try to reflect the world's flaws, they end up losing the power to show us what the world could be. In chasing social reflection, the idea of something greater has been let go.


Joseph Conrad once wrote that fiction should create “an illusion which, while it lasts, should be convincing and delightful… by the power of the written word to make you hear, to make you feel — it is, before all, to make you see.” He believed that truly great storytelling constructs unreal worlds that, paradoxically, feel more real than the real. That was once the goal of much of Western fiction. The hero’s journey. The myth. The moral ideal. These were not meant to represent everyday reality, but to elevate our perception of what humanity could become.


But somewhere in the post-9/11, post-financial crash, post-truth cultural mood, Western storytelling became dominated by subversion. Sincerity was no longer sophisticated. The emotional journey and idealism of the hero became considered cringeworthy. Every heroic moment needed to be undercut with a wink, or tongue in cheek. Even idealism began to feel like a mask. Irony and parody is the new authenticity, and I think the people flocking towards anime are the ones beginning to reject it.


We are living in a post-Game of Thrones world; one where moral ambiguity, narrative subversion, and bleak realism have become the norm. The series redefined epic storytelling, showing that honour leads to ruin and idealism is naive. While it captivated audiences, it also marked the West’s departure from emotionally sincere, transcendental narratives, leaving many searching for meaning elsewhere.


Consider the once-hopeful Star Wars saga. In the original trilogy, the lines between good and evil were clear not because the world is simple, but because the story wanted to guide us through the fog with conviction. Luke Skywalker believes there is good in his father, and that belief redeems the fallen Anakin. Yoda warns him, “Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny.” The emotional clarity of those words gave the series its mythic power. Even though we always knew the world is morally grey, we always hope for a world in which people clearly know what is the good.


Fast forward to The Last Jedi (2017), and we find a Luke who has lost all faith—“It’s time for the Jedi to end,” he declares. He is no longer a mythic figure but a burned-out casualty of disillusionment. The story that once elevated us now mirrors us. Elsewhere in the same film, the character DJ smirks, “Good guys, bad guys, made-up words,” collapsing the entire moral framework of the galaxy into a cynical shrug. The message: there is no higher cause to aim for and The Last Jedi became the Star Wars movie that tore up the Star Wars Fandom for ever, with the last nail in the coffin being The Acolyte series. The once clearly good Jedi were demoted to the morally grey enforcers, to be associated with the police during Black Lives Matter. And Star Wars was not the only space story to suffer the same fate. Star Trek also stopped being about boldly going where nobody went before. In recent series and the movie remakes, it shifted away from that ideal, trading curiosity and discovery for internal conflict, nostalgia, and dystopian introspection.


This isn’t just storytelling—it’s a worldview. And it reflects a broader shift in Western creative industries: the urge to mirror the real world, its injustices, its hypocrisies, its contradictions, down to the last hashtag. The transcendental function of storytelling, what Tolkien called “the escape of the prisoner” as opposed to the flight of the deserter, has been slowly stripped away. In its place, we are offered self-aware scripts, self-loathing heroes, and thematic dead ends.


Contrast this with the philosophy at the heart of Shōnen anime, even as professed by TOEI Animation: friendship, effort, and victory. These themes may sound simplistic, but in execution, they are anything but. In My Hero Academia, Izuku Midoriya, a boy born powerless in a world of superheroes, still trains and sacrifices until he can carry others. “I have to work harder than anyone else to make it!” he declares, not with irony, but with trembling conviction. No one undercuts him. No one calls him naïve. The story believes him, and so do we.


Similarly, in Dragon Ball, Goku embodies the spirit of persevering strength without apology. As he famously says, “Power comes in response to a need, not a desire". It’s not just wishful thinking—it’s a guiding principle: push beyond your limits only when the moment demands it, and let necessity, not arrogance, fuel your growth. It's an earnest, almost philosophical view on self-improvement that hinges on sincerity, not spectacle.

Meanwhile, Fist of the North Star, which is going to see a new retelling of the story to be published in the coming months, distils these values further, adding loyalty and honour to the mix. Kenshiro declares, “My friends made me who I am today. Their hearts, and their love. Their fists are my fists. However, I will keep on fighting… As long as my friends are with me…". This isn’t solitary heroism, but collective strength. Kenshiro fights not for personal glory, but to protect those who are too weak to help themselves in a post-apocalyptic world gone wrong, with the strength given to him by the people he encounters in his journey. I bet most Hollywood writers would find that quote from Kenshiro as "cringe", and yet I feel the world is realising that they want more cringe in their stories.


Together, these examples reinforce what makes Shōnen anime so compelling: heroes don’t win because they’re destined or entitled; they win because they earn it; through love, sacrifice, teamwork, and grit. And they do so without irony, without cynicism; only sincerity. This is incompatible with a culture where people expect freebies and handouts with the least amount of effort possible.


Anime is not afraid of the transcendent. It creates fantastical, unreal worlds. We get Ninja villages, pirate kingdoms, psychic academies—and yet these places feel more emotionally true than many of our realistic dramas. Within those worlds, the masks we wear in real life are dropped. Characters cry openly, confess love awkwardly, and shout their ideals at the top of their lungs. They are absurd, yet authentic. They are everything that many Western characters are now afraid to be.


It is, in fact, concerning when Japanese Anime creators try to "export" their stories to the West, thinking they have to pander to the Western audience. No... we come to you precisely to avoid what is happening to the stories here. The worst thing Japanese creators can do is to succumb to the pandering.

Even darker anime like Berserk or Attack on Titan do not resort to absolute moral relativism. In Berserk, Griffith's betrayal is all the more devastating because it defiles the shared dream of his comrades. “A friend would not just follow another’s dream,” he says, “a friend would find his own reason to live.” It’s haunting, but sincere. And in Princess Mononoke, Ashitaka seeks to “see with eyes unclouded by hate”, even as nature and industry tear each other apart. These stories acknowledge darkness, but never relinquish the possibility of clarity, the ethical good, or renewal.


And the audience has noticed. As Western media cycles through a phase of irony, cynicism, and performative relevance, many fans, particularly younger ones and including our children, have turned to anime not for escapism, but for truth. Not a political truth. Not a journalistic truth. But an emotional truth. That kind of emotional truth that myths are supposed to deliver, as thought by Joseph Campbell.


When Samwise Gamgee says to Frodo in The Two Towers, “There’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for,” that moment resonates because it bypasses the intellect and lands in the soul. It’s not clever. It’s not topical. It’s timeless. And it’s increasingly rare.


Anime, for all its fantasy, is not afraid to be real in the way that matters. It reminds us that trying matters. That believing in others isn’t corny. The journey to become better is a story worth telling again and again. While Western storytelling has begun to mirror the world more and more, anime still dares to transcend it.


Because if stories only reflect the world we already know, then they cannot change us. But when stories imagine worlds that are more real than the real, they become mirrors of the soul, not society. For what is more real than our hope for becoming more and better than what we are?


Image generated by OpenAI ChatGPT 4o
Image generated by OpenAI ChatGPT 4o

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