Good morning anime fans i really didn't intend on making a post this early in the morning but tho i want to finally put in my two sense about one single phrase and it's one that if your an anime fan such as myself you hear at least once a week and that phrase is "Anime Is For Kids" or at least some form of those words.
Now i would like to point out that not all anime is for adults because there are shows that are made just for kids some examples include Pokemon and Digimon i know that there is more but to mainstream people those are the two that matter most. That's because both of those shows especially Pokemon have become worldwide hits and so to mainstream people who perhaps don't know about Death Note or the Hellsing series all anime is just like Pokemon or Digimon I.E. just for kids.
I will however say that both shows in the past few years have tried to mature a little in Pokemon XYZ ASh got his first kiss it's a small thing yes but it also shows that the series was at that point trying to mature and in the newest Digimon film series we catch up with the original Gang years later thus moving on from the kids show formula now i don't know if the writing for Digimon has mautred or not but i can say for Pokemon it has a little bit.
What the mainstream people have to realise is not all anime if for kids just go into your local DVD shop and look at the anime isle you'll see plenty of stuff for adults as well you don't have to watch any of it just look at the cover and the age rating that alone should tell you not all anime if for kids i've put up a picture of the recent Hellsing anime because that's honestly the most mature anime i've seen recently and was the anime that got me back into anime.
If the mainstream audience were to see an anime like Hellsing it won't stop them from saying that all anime if for kids in fact most of them will not want to talk about it but i think it will help a little another anime that i think might help with this is the anime Death Note but that's one were i can see people looking at the cover and think it's for kids so with that one they may need to watch an episode or two but what both these shows and the next show i want to talk about have in common is the fact there not afraid to take risks and to tell a more mature story.
The other series i wanted to talk about was Attack On Titan if you think this show is for kids then wait until the end of the first episode in which spoiler alert the main heroes mother gets eaten alive and i'm sure you see some blood come out of her as well. If that episode alone doesn't convince you that anime is kids only then your in denial because this show has done something that the other two couldn't do and that's become popular with some mainstream people even the great Death note didn't do that so i think that Attack On Titan helped convince people that anime is not just for kids and it also got more people into anime which is a good thing overall.
As i mentioned early on not all anime is for adults but tho you cannot right of an entire medium just based on what's popular that like comparing The Fast and The Furious movies to Lawrence Of Arabia you just can't do that you have to treat them all separately in order to judge them all fairly and it's the same thing with music you can't compare Justin Bieber to Mozart they are two different people working in two different genre's so comparing them would be useless and pointless. The same thing can also be said for anime it's pointless to compare a kids anime to something like Ghost In The Shell because they have two different target audiences so what's the point in it.
I know people will kill me for not bringing up Elfen Lied but the fact is i cannot talk that much about the show as i've only seen a few clips here and there but based on what i have seen it's a very adult anime at least in terms of what it shows so that's really all i can say about that show and the same goes for deadman wonderland.
Not all shows however have to be filled with blood and guts to called an adult anime look at shows like HighSchool Of The Dead or High School DXD they are full to the brim with fanservice and yet to the mainstream audience they are on the same level as Pokemon or Digimon to me that's not a fair comparison to make and again if the mainstream audience would look at the age rating on the DVD or Blu-Ray they would know that.
The bottom line tho is that as long as shows like Pokemon stick in the mind of mainstream audiences other more mature shows will just be classed in their minds as only for kids and we anime lovers will always be stuck with that phrase but there is something we can do however we can try and get them to watch shows like Death Note and like Elfen Lied or Hellsing in the vain hope it will change their minds.