For myself... the first thing that pops into my head when I think Anime is "Akira". But maybe that's just because I'm an older anime fan so I won't speak for anyone but myself.
For myself... the first thing that pops into my head when I think Anime is "Akira". But maybe that's just because I'm an older anime fan so I won't speak for anyone but myself.
“The biggest communication problem is we do not listen to understand. We listen to reply,” Stephen Covey.
Not Goku.
Mickey Mouse is recognizable to anyone who hasn't even seen the Disney movies or shorts featuring him. Only a relative few would recognize Goku who haven't seen Dragonball Z would even have a clue who he is.
Pikachu is recognizable to a great many people who have never seen Pokemon. That would be the closest to Mickey Mouse.
Boomers know Mario more. According to: https://www.gamingbible.co.uk/news/g...itler-20210518 Everyone knows Mario more. And it isn't about who is more popular its who is the Mickey Mouse of Anime. How much Mickey Mouse shit is bought outside Disney World/Land compared to more popular Disney characters like Elsa? And how often does Mickey get his own series, games, and shit? Probably not that often. Pikachu on the other hand is thrown into everything they can. Pikachu isn't the Mickey Mouse of Anime cause he's still currently the most popular pokemon and Pikachu is really only the mascot for Pokemon unlike Mickey whose company has a ton of different universes which is why Hello Kitty is the Anime Mickey. Sanrio's most famous character is Hello Kitty but they have several different series/ips with the most popular atm probably being Aggretsuko.
This.
/endthread
It SHOULD be Astro Boy, but hardly anyone knows him, only older or hardcore anime fans. Meanwhile, Pikachu's ears are becoming like the Superman symbol, the holy cross, and the McDonalds arcs. Ok, maybe not but close, it's like universally known to general audiences and pop culture. He's even already been in a highly successful live-action Hollywood movie.
Goku's a close second, but not as popular to Pikachu, unfortunately.
It's Pikachu, hands down.
DBZ and Pokemon basically introduced anime to the majority of western viewers but while the DBZ hype died down, Pokemon not only remained strong but fucking grew into an enormous phenomenon.
Hello Kitty not quite as "The premier Character" but as a symbol
If you were to ask what the biggest thing Sanrio makes right now its Aggresuko by a long shot hell what's the last thing you saw Mickey in? Fuck name like 3 of Mickey's personality traits or anything about Mickey's character and compare that to Donald or Goofy or even fucking Pluto who's literally just a fucking dog. Mickey Mouse is a symbol like Hello Kitty. The only time Mickey wasn't just a symbol was that early era of Disney between Steamboat Willy and Snow White. The same with Hello Kitty, she herself isn't a popular as a character I couldn't tell you a single fucking thing about her personality or character except she's adorable and literally on everything but GOD DAMN are people more than aware of her existence and what she looks like
Dragonball didn't have as wide of an appeal as Pokemon did, in that dragonball really skewed far more heavily towards a young male demographic. And where I grew up, Dragonball only really played in after school hours on Cartoon Network, and DBZ aired later at night on Toonami, primarily on weekdays. Meanwhile, Pokemon was one of the preemo saturday morning cartoon mainstays on WB; you didn't have to have cable to watch it, unlike Dragonball. If you were watching Saturday morning cartoons, you were probably watching Pokemon.
Furthermore, Goku isn't nearly as... ubiquitous... as Pikachu. Like, people might vaguely recognize Goku as some anime guy with big hair, to fall into the general cultural knowledge of other various anime guys with big hair, but that's probably about it. But Pikachu? Pikachu says its name, is hyper-cute, generally non-offensive to adults (outside of some fundamental Christians who had a problem with pokemon "evolution," but even then they would still know what Pokemon was so they could protest it) and was present in multiple forms of media people were, in one way or another, familiar with (films, TV, games, trading cards) that were much more mainstream than anything Goku was in.
Selection bias is strong. People who were really into Dragonball as kids probably had their friends who were really into dragonball and bought a bunch of the action figures and sought out every VHS copy of the movies so of course Dragonball was big in their minds. But that's not how most of the world saw it. DBZ wasn't, for lack of a better term, shoved down people's throats like Pokemon, and by extension Pikachu, was.
And remember to most people "Anime" is just "those cartoons from Japan." People have very little operational knowledge of what it is and even that it isn't just synonymous with kid's cartoons.
An anecdotal example, but... if I rang up my mom and dad right now cross-country and asked them who Goku was... they'd have no idea. And I watched Dragonball and DBZ in my dad's classroom afterschool while he graded paperwork. But if I asked if they knew who Pikachu was? They certainly would, likely accompanied by my mom trying to imitate Pikachu's little cry over the phone.
“Do not lose time on daily trivialities. Do not dwell on petty detail. For all of these things melt away and drift apart within the obscure traffic of time. Live well and live broadly. You are alive and living now. Now is the envy of all of the dead.” ~ Emily3, World of Tomorrow
Words to live by.
Not sure why mickey is the logo, most liked donald duck..
Is it really that surprising not knowing who Goku is?
As I previously said, I'm pretty sure it's a regional thing, whether Goku was ever part of your childhood, and not everyone is all that interested in clicking the various "Superman vs Goku" threads, or care enough to check who he even is when his name comes up in random-ass conversations. Might be severely allergic to Anime, like I am, although Dragon Ball is something my body really likes.
Yea...I used to buy comicbooks religiously in the 80s and most of the 90s. But since I had zero interest in anime it just never grabbed my attention to the point of remembering any particular title except "Akira," and that only because I used to know someone by that name.
Probably Goku, Naruto, Luffy or Pikachu.
I mean, I was into sports, and industrial warehouse raves, and lots of drugs when I was a teenager.....and then I went to college and I spent the 00s protesting the Bush Administration, going to the Peace Corps, and then going to law school.
My nerd side is only one small facet of who I am.
My seven-year old and my wife can recognize Pikachu, and probably zero other anime characters. I'm not that far ahead of them in that regard, though, really.
"We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."
-Louis Brandeis