How Japan took over Mexico’s imagination and media market
Despite the powerful cultural influence of American media in Mexico, another nation has held sway over Mexicans’ imaginations for generations—Japan.
Japanese TV shows, mostly animated series known as anime, entered the Mexican market in the 1980s due primarily to the low costs of their broadcasting rights. The media landscape in the 1980s and early 1990s was very different from today. There was only a single national network (Televisa) until 1993, when TV Azteca entered the fray.
The first anime shows to make it to primetime in Mexico included Astroboy and Mazinger Z, which were action-packed and aimed primarily at male audiences. At the same time, overly melodramatic telenovelas like Candy Candy became a staple of the childhood of many young girls, who to this day can recite from memory the litany of disgraces that befell the titular character of the show of the same name.
It did not take long for TV executives in Mexico to notice the success Japanese animation was having in their market. They doubled down, introducing a second generation of content, including Saint Seiya, an at times painfully slow-moving action fighting show very loosely based on Greek mythology and one of the most successful anime franchises of all time—Dragon Ball.
But despite successfully catching and maintaining the interest of kids, anime was seen as very foreign by many parents and educators who saw references to foreign gods and brief flashes of animated nudity as an affront to decency. Some of the most heavily scrutinized shows of this era featured Sailor Moon with more than subtle sexual themes and Ranma ½ — in which the main character could change his gender to that of a beautiful woman (and back again) with a splash of water.
Nevertheless, Mexico continued to get newer anime series well before the USA or Europe, turning Mexico into a test market of sorts. Because most anime series were dubbed into Spanish from the original Japanese, this also meant that voice actors, including Mario Castañeda and Paty Acevedo (of Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon) became household names and celebrities in their own right.
By the time the 20th century was coming to a close, the market for Japanese content had matured and without easy access to the internet, many kids… and now-grown adults started to buy manga (Japanese comic books) to get a leg up on where their favorite stories were going, as many anime series like Dragon Ball Z followed the same plot points as the manga. This was also when the Pokemon craze exploded worldwide, forever altering Mexico’s first approach to exporting Japanese shows.
In the following decades, the growth in popularity of Anime has continued in the form of not just anime or manga but also video games, apparel, toys, and just about every other piece of merchandising imaginable.
As in other regions, many in Mexico have also developed a love for everything Korean, including K-pop groups and fast food. This adoration for everything Japanese and Korean has led to the creation of regularly occurring special events where companies and digital-age entrepreneurs show off their wares.
Cosplaying, or dressing up like characters, is very common at these kinds of events, and although one would think this sort of activity would be aimed at just kids or teenagers, this could not be further from the case. One of the most surprising things about these sorts of expos is just how diverse the crowds are when it comes to age and gender, but also sexual orientation… as otaku goers tend to be more LGBTQ+ friendly than your average Mexican.
To give a sense of how big a phenomenon an anime like Dragon Ball is in Mexico, during the final episodes of the most recently concluded saga, town governments across the country opened up their plazas to project episodes as they aired live in Japan. The atmosphere at these showings was nothing short of electric, with fans yelling as if they were at a World Cup final with Mexico poised to take home the trophy.
Though Dragon Ball’s parent company eventually sent out cease and desist orders, they almost immediately relented, realizing that smashing fan enthusiasm for their products was likely not a good move. After all, other than Japan itself, the largest viewership market for Dragon Ball is Mexico.
With everything Asian becoming more accessible and en-vogue every day, it’s unlikely that K-pop stars’ fan worship or viewership of anime in Mexico is likely to slow down anytime soon. And to that, we say domo arigato.
Senior Editor Carlos Rosado van der Gracht is a Mexican expedition/Canadian photographer, adventure leader, and PhD candidate. Born in Mérida, Carlos holds multimedia, philosophy, and translation degrees from universities in Mexico, Canada and Norway.
