Popularity on the internet vs Popularity at cons

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I’m always caught a little off guard by the disparity between popular anime on the internet and at conventions. Shows I thought would garner more cosplay, Gurren-Lagann, Rozen Maiden, among others, are always on the backburner compared to the stalwarts such as Naruto and Bleach. I mean, it’s obvious why, with Naruto and Bleach being enormously popular, but back at Otakon 2007 one series that surprised me with its popularity was Ouran High School Host Club.  Is it because the manga was released here? Did the fansubs just manage to reach an audience which normally wouldn’t have bothered too much with it?

I’m a fan of Ouran myself (Fujioka is the superior Haruhi), but I wonder if there’s a way for me to truly sense the pulse of the anime fandom.

I’d probably have a lucrative job if I could.

9 thoughts on “Popularity on the internet vs Popularity at cons”

  1. Con popularity is quite different from internet popularity, and I would attribute that to licensing and promotional status in the region in question. I’ll use Suzumiya Haruhi and Anime Expo 2006 vs Anime Expo 2007 as the example.

    Back in ’06, we were a small occult group of freaks who all watched the same show, and we were lucky enough to get a small area for ourselves to attempt a fan-made version of the dance (remember the full version wasn’t out yet).

    Compare that to Summer of ’07, after Haruhi was licensed. Haruhiists were frickin’ EVERYWHERE. And the con was half centered around the series, what with the panel, concert, and autograph session for the seiyuus.

    I’m happy I was able to be a part of both types of experiences, and to see support for the show I love grow.

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  2. Well, Ouran was pretty popular on the internet too, I think. Plus the costumes are very easy to make, unlike say Rozen Maiden. As for TTGL, that may change in the future, but a lot of people wrote it off after the first 4 episodes.

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  5. The only major con I’ve ever been to is Ohayocon (if that counts as major ^_^) and there was a total imbalance there as well. At the ’08 con (in January) there were tons of Naruto and Bleach cosplayers, of course, but there were more TTGL cosplayers than Haruhiists.

    And there were a ton of random goth loli types… not actual cosplayers. There were probably as many goth lolis as there were Bleachtards. Maybe not as many as Narutards, but they were still a force to be reckoned with. ;)

    And what about Kingdom Hearts cosplayers?! Sora and Riku were making out right near our AA table and the fangirls went nuts.

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  6. Oh right, Kingdom Hearts.

    What’s up with that popularity among cosplayers, anyway?

    Oh, and I realize that cosplayers are only a part of the con-going population and they may be governed by a unique set of personal rules and judgments regarding what they do or do not like, such as, well, costumes.

    It’s just that it’s a very easy visual indicator.

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  7. I think we need to consider the audiences if we want to make this comparison between con-goers and anime bloggers.

    At conventions (and I’m assuming American conventions), the popular anime is the ones that are close to the American otaku mainstream (Naruto, Bleach, Death Note, Etc.) If you focus on cosplayers which tend to make up mostly teenagers and young adults, then I think they are more closer to that mainstream.

    On the other hand, internet is completely different. Since the anime blogger community represents a international group of writers and the ages tend to be varied, it is going to be different than the American con-going cosplayer. Plus, anime bloggers tend to be more the anime aficionados (for lack of a better word) and they tend to keep up with latest that comes out of Japan.

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  9. I ran a survey ~2 years ago at Otakon that was geared toward identifying the major sort of axes of fandom that the convention atendee crowd was aligned on (i.e. were they aware of new releases in Japan vs. new releases in the U.S.).

    Unfortunately I never had time to analyze the results. Maybe I should mail the box full of questionairres to somebody with more free time.

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