What is the future of Anime and Manga in the US?

This week there is not much "big news" about the gaming industry except for the large black friday sales and the IPOs of both Nexon and Zynga, so I will talk about the Anime and Manga industry this week.

Over the last few weeks, I have been expanding my reading of Manga to beyond the most popular Shonen and Shojo manga.  The amount of Manga being written is actually Manga being written is actually very incredible.  What is even more interesting is that a lot of anime is actually based on light novels, and if these light novel based Anime become popular, they are  turned into Manga.  Light novels are basically like the name implies, light novels.  They normally have only a few pictures.

Currently, anime has gained a foothold in the US market and has expanded to be accepted by most youths.  There are cable channels that now show Anime and the Cartoon Network has a dedicated time slot to Anime.  Disney also shows some popular Anime such as Naruto.  Because of this, manga has also grown with the growth of Anime.  A lot of good light novels are also being published in the US, but as to how successful they are I am not sure.  

Hopefully as these children grow older, Anime and Manga become more mainstream.  The video game market took a long time before it became as mainstream as it is today.  The same can be said about a lot of new forms of entertainment.  Some forms of new entertainment like Reality TV are adopted quickly because of its broad appeal.

The issue that Anime and Manga have is the stigma that is associated with it.  Even in Japan, Anime and Manga fans are looked down on and are called Otaku's.  Female Otaku's are called Fujoshi which means rotten women.  Also, in Japan, Hikikomori or "shut-ins" are normally associated with being gamers or anime fans.  These are all stigmas that the video game industry had to overcome.

There are studies in the West about how video games negatively affect people and there are the same studies about Anime and Manga. 

Hopefully, today's youth who are accepting of Anime and Manga will help make it a mainstream form of entertainment accepted by all.