If you’ve been on the internet for a good amount of time (as I know most of you reading this have - check your screen times!) you will have come across edits of your favourite picturesque movies, from those created by Studio Ghibli  (‘Howl’s Moving Castle’, ‘The Wind Rises’, ‘Spirited Away’) to the ‘Spider-Verse’. Or, perhaps you have scrolled through comments on edits, witnessing people discourse about whether certain characters should have done X, Y or Z, as is very much with the show ‘Invincible’, at the moment. Either way, animation is at the forefront of people’s media consumption to a large, and perhaps growing, extent.  

This is indeed a good thing. Even a mere five to six years ago, mainstream media created a stigma surrounding anyone who enjoyed animated shows. It wasn’t unusual to be labelled ‘childish’ or to be seen as on the fringes of ‘normal’ society just because you preferred to watch ‘Naruto’ over dramas such as ‘House’. This stigma is most visibly tied to the phenomena of anime, an arguably separate genre of media from both television and cinema. Anime’s range to produce nuanced and phenomenal pieces such as ‘Neon Genesis Evangelion’, ‘One Piece’ and ‘Full Metal Alchemist’, yet also encourage the practices of fan service, unhealthy fetishism, and a generally immature attitudes amongst its fans, is a feat only achieved in the social world of anime and lends credence to the negative stigma. On the other hand, whilst Studio Ghibli’s films indeed have the aesthetics of ‘anime’, in the sense it is Japanese animation, I argue that its global success, since its first movie came out in 1986, has allowed these Ghibli films to detach themself from anime’s negative culture, due to its more ‘wholesome’ vibes that are loved by mainstream media consumers. 

For much of the twenty-first century, being an anime fan meant generally subscribing yourself to these negative aspects. But as Covid-19 hit the world, there was a visible shift in perspective towards anime, and animation too. Animes such as  ‘Jujutsu Kaisen’ soared in popularity on platforms like Tik Tok and Instagram, and the release of the critically acclaimed animated show ‘Arcane’ in 2021 brought animation back to mainstream attention. Consuming and enjoying animation became a norm, and posting one’s love for certain characters and stories in animation became no different to those who discussed regular Hollywood dramas.  

So yes, I for one am quite happy that animation is receiving the love it deserves. Yet, I still have this feeling that the animation industry isn’t being taken as seriously as one may think. 

It is easy to notice today how much we are bombarded with every new live-action re-make of our favourite classic Disney films: the release of the live-action ‘Snow White’ this very year, for example. But this phenomenon of live-action remakes has been happening for the past decade, with remakes of Disney’s  ‘Cinderella’ in 2015 and ‘The Jungle Book’ in 2016. Whilst some may argue that these films bring a “new life” to beloved stories, I ask what was so wrong with the original animations themselves? Mainstream media’s shift in focus away from original, well-funded animated shows to live-action remakes only displays a disrespect to the artists and creatives who essentially helped build companies like Disney and Pixar. The fact that ‘Moana’ is receiving its own live-action movie, set to premiere in 2026, despite the original animated movie still being in many of our recent memories (2016), should be evidence enough of the lengths the entertainment industry is willing to go to ignore talented artists over a possible cash-grab. 

I argue for the importance of animation not only because I hold such a love for the art form, both growing up with it and connecting to current peers over it, but because I think it should be treated just as equally as every other part of the entertainment industry, perhaps even held above the others. Animation artists, across time, and especially in the twenty-first century, are rarely given the flowers they so rightfully deserve, despite working tirelessly to produce pieces of art that we consume in a mere couple of hours. They are more often than not overworked, under-paid, incredibly under-appreciated, and go unheard of in the media. I think of all the artists that worked incredibly hard to put together the wildly successful sequel ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’, and the hundreds who worked on the movie but had to leave because of the terrible work conditions, just to have none of their original work show up in the final production. It only makes my heart sink further when I talked to my friends about the final movie in the trilogy which would be released in 2027, and they just turned up their noses.  

Where has our patience and grace for animation gone? We can all probably name at least one animated show that we loved growing up, and how excited we were for a new season to be released. Where did that love go? If we want animation to thrive, like we know it can, we need to re-work our attitudes towards the animation industry and all those involved in it. Because for better or worse, it shaped many of our childhoods and current enjoyments. For the sake of the future of creative media and art, animation deserves to be taken seriously. Because if it isn’t – with AI threatening to replace artists’ jobs – it may just begin to fade into the background again, and maybe this time, for good.