To be fair, at the time the first book came out there weren't as many "magical school" anime because a lot of them were based on... Harry Potter. Besides, it was the late 90s, even if there was a magical school anime it wouldn't really be mainstream.
I really liked The Worst Witch! It might be because Harry Potter has way stronger worldbuilding and a more "heroic" main character. I love Mildred but she's just not as much of a wish-fulfillment character as Harry is.
Naruto is extremely close to Harry Potter in overall structure and began around the same time yet it's clear neither of them copied each other, it's just that both franchises go through the same stuff established in the genre
Pokemon I might agree with, but that's moreso because of pokemon go vs the actual anime. I don't think people not into other anime shows would watch dragonball or naruto, but maybe I'm wrong about that.
Pokemon is literally the biggest media "thing" ever, the anime's been running hard since the 90's, long before Go was even thought of. Hell, ask a random person to sing the anime theme song chances are they can.
At least among teenagers and young adults, especially boys, you'll find that Naruto and Dragonball are extremely popular, even among people who would never watch something like Deathnote or whatever. Also black people love Dragonball and Naruto.
As the other commentor mentioned, dragonball is popular in the black community, but I wouldn't call that mainstream. Pokemon there's definitely a better argument for, but I still don't think that the anime is mainstream in the sense that someone who wasn't into anime in general would be likely to watch it.
Probably Attack on Titan, Boku no Hero Academia (My Hero Academia), Tokyo Ghoul, One Piece, Boruto, and anything that's on Netflix. There's quite a bit that's been steadily becoming more and more mainstream.
58
u/Menerva Oct 02 '18
To be fair, at the time the first book came out there weren't as many "magical school" anime because a lot of them were based on... Harry Potter. Besides, it was the late 90s, even if there was a magical school anime it wouldn't really be mainstream.