Summary
The digital age is now in its third decade or so, and so much has happened since the advent of the internet. Now that the internet has become the global phenomenon that it is, and technology has improved greatly since the early days of the web, there have been a number of anime and manga titles (not to mention movies) that have attempted tograpple with the effects of our newfound interconnectednessand its overall impact on society, with some new anime even getting into upcoming and well-established forms of internet culture and various subcultures.
With Summer 2024’sMayonaka PunchandVTuber Legend: How I Went Viral After Forgetting to Turn Off My Streamhave both explored two interrelated, but distinct forms of internet culture that are now part and parcel of a modern digital experience: streaming, both in the form of YouTubers and their variant, the VTuber. So, what are the best anime about the internet and internet subcultures?
What Are “Internet Subcultures”?
In This Era, The Internet Is Ubiquitous
The internet’s ability to connect people all over the world and expose the average individual to far more information than ever before has led to its usage for the sake of establishing and maintaining relationships in the digital realm, which can in turn have various effects on relationships offline. We are now at a point where “logging off” is becoming a less frequent event, and with this increasing amount of integration of the offline with the online, it only makes sense that those who are frequently making use of the internet have developed a way of interacting with each other, other people and the world marked by this level of online activity. This is how “netizens” developed a culture that is inherently digital and established in spaces online.
Where offline subcultures can include aspects like hip-hop, goth or hipster, the internet has given rise to various digital iterations of the same things that are markedly different in their expression offline, especially in the advent of the “internet persona”, celebrity or influencer. Summer 2024’sMayonaka PunchandVTuber Legend, as well as Spring 2024’sThe Many Sides of Voice Actor Radioare all recent anime inspired in some way by internet popular culture, but there are other anime that are inspired by the advent of the internet and its impact overall, likethe cult classicSerial Experiments Lain (1998). YouTubers (and streamers in general), influencers and VTubers are among the group of people gaining celebrity through their online exploits, andMayonaka PunchandVTuber Legendare some of the few anime titles grappling with the new ins and outs of the digital age, albeit not in the psychological manner ofSerial Experiments Lain,or a certain 2007 anime title.
Let’s Start With Something Older…
The Series That Imagines a Fully Augmented Reality
This is definitely an article about subcultures that emerged online, but we can’t have this conversation without talking about the psychological, speculative masterpiece that wasSerial Experiments Lainandits prevailing influence nearly 30 years since it aired. With its perspective firmly rooted in the 1990s,Serial Experiments Lainis a series that spawned a lot of interesting titles in the 2000s, like Madhouse’s 2007 sci-fi title,Dennō Coil, which is a series that is as l33t as can be with the world it presents. It is set in the year 2026, eleven years after the breakthrough of the “Dennō Megane” (Cyber Glasses),a device that enables the wearer to perceive and interact with an augmented reality. The series juxtaposes traditional Japanese scenery, folktales and nature with a futuristic, digital setting superimposed upon it, following children as they play in a half-real, half-digital city and slowly uncover its many mysteries.
The series is yet another cult classic, somewhat speculative fiction about the change that increasing digital advancements and the melding of cyperspace and reality could bring; things that had already begun to happen even when the show aired. With loads of internet, programming, and tech jargon thrown at you from the jump, and the way it overlaps the digital world and the real world in an incredibly creative way,DennōCoilcan be considered one of the most important anime of its kind, and is the one anime title for the niche of people who experienced the early internet, have knowledge of programming jargon, and l33t speak, and the overall interest in tech to be able to enjoy its highly imaginative depiction of a world that is no longer lived outside, but also in cyberspace. This premise is different to that of Reki Kawahara’s precursor totheSword Art Onlinefranchise,Accel World, in how far it pushes the influence of the digital over the material world.
An Anime About Vampire YouTubers
Call of the NightMeets Streaming
The series is directed by Shū Honma, with scripts by Hideaki Shirasaka, original character designs by Tsukasa Kotobuki and character designs by Ryōta Arima. The cast includes Fairouz Ai (Jolyne Kūjō,JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean)as Live, Ikumi Hasegawa (Übel,Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End) as Masaki, Hina Yomiya (Anna Yamada,The Dangers in My Heart) as Fū, Hitomi Ueda (Aki Hiyami,World Trigger) as Tokage and Yuina Itō as Ichiko.
VTuber Legend: How I Went Viral After Forgetting to Turn Off My Stream
Uniquely Hilarious and Extremely In Touch With Its Target Audience
VTuber Legend: How I Went Viral After Forgetting to Turn Off My Streamis about exactly what the title makes it sound like, but every episode is a hilarious and charming exploration of the main character, Awayuki Kokorone (voiced by Sakura Ayane and Hayden Daviau, Twitch: SyllaAria), a third-generation VTuber of Live-On struggling to catch up to her successful contemporaries. One night, she forgets to turn off her live-stream at the end of her show and ends up exposing her drunken, unrefined nature and ends up going viral overnight.
The brilliance of VTuber Legend is how it has a clear love for VTubers and this particular kind of content which is growing increasingly popular in this age of streaming.Any fan of VTubersshould watch this and enjoy a fun, light but knowledgeable depiction of one of their most treasured internet subcultures. In fact, VTuber Legend might be the series that is the most in touch with the interest it depicts, and the fans with whom it is trying to resonate.
