I still contend that in the balance that visibly adult characters were more common before the turn of the century. Also, while on the surface teenagers may be the stated audience, the fanservice-drenched merch-associated slop is consistently made for the same targeted group of big-spender otaku and on average they aren't getting any younger.
That's generally caused because nobody really ages out of watching the teen targeted stuff. Even today you can slap a 30+year old in front of Pokemon and they'll enjoy it like they were young and watching the first series again.
Since the older group doesn't age out but you still want to target the younger group, not much reason to exclude an audience by targeting only the older group.
All these decisions are economic. Especially in anime these days which is ruthlessly run by the publishing committees.
I still argue there's timeless kid-friendly stuff like Pokemon then there's fanservice-loaded kiddie-creeping stuff that can say "for teens" when the real revenue source (and they know it) is aging otaku.
That's true but it's caused by the same effect. It doesn't hurt the teen audience but it does attract the adult audience, also provides internet marketing through sharing shit.
This is in fact also a problem in western media imo. More and more content is hyper-sexualised even targeted at younger audiences because the older audience watches the franchise still and never stopped.
I still contend that in the balance that visibly adult characters were more common before the turn of the century. Also, while on the surface teenagers may be the stated audience, the fanservice-drenched merch-associated slop is consistently made for the same targeted group of big-spender otaku and on average they aren't getting any younger.
That's generally caused because nobody really ages out of watching the teen targeted stuff. Even today you can slap a 30+year old in front of Pokemon and they'll enjoy it like they were young and watching the first series again.
Since the older group doesn't age out but you still want to target the younger group, not much reason to exclude an audience by targeting only the older group.
All these decisions are economic. Especially in anime these days which is ruthlessly run by the publishing committees.
I still argue there's timeless kid-friendly stuff like Pokemon then there's fanservice-loaded kiddie-creeping stuff that can say "for teens" when the real revenue source (and they know it) is aging otaku.
That's true but it's caused by the same effect. It doesn't hurt the teen audience but it does attract the adult audience, also provides internet marketing through sharing shit.
This is in fact also a problem in western media imo. More and more content is hyper-sexualised even targeted at younger audiences because the older audience watches the franchise still and never stopped.
No arguments there. Western media is :awooga: obsessed too, but with an extra large additional helping of violence on top of that.