Ask John: Is There Any Underground Anime?

Question:
Is there such a thing as an “underground” anime? Like many movies are called cult classics or whatever. Are there any anime series or movies that are less recognized by mainstream anime fans but still have a strong fan-base?

Answer:
It’s difficult to accurately categorize or identify “underground” anime because doing so requires a distinction of exactly what constitutes “mainstream.” Furthermore, your question doesn’t address whether you’re inquiring about American or Japanese release anime. So in the interest of providing as complete and extensive an answer as I can, I’ll split hairs and be very precise.

The classifications of “underground” and “cult classic” are frequently used synonymously, although technically I don’t think they are the same thing. For example, Blade Runner is one of the world’s most famous cult films, although it’s certainly too well known and commonly available to be considered “underground.” An underground film would be one produced independently and having limited distributed. A cult classic is simply a film well loved by a small group of fans, but overlooked, ignored or unappreciated by the broader market.

In a broad sense, relative to the American market, virtually any anime series available on domestic DVD but not broadcast on network television may be considered “cult.” Series like Sailor Moon, Gravitation, Cat Ninden Teyande (Samurai Pizza Cats), Weiss Kreuz, and Evangelion have notable cult followings in America without having a significant presence in the consciousness of mainstream American society. To some extent, virtually the only anime series in America that aren’t “cult hits” would be franchises such as Dragonball, Hello Kitty, Pokemon, and Yu-Gi-Oh which are common American household names that have infiltrated American culture like Star Wars and Spiderman. Underground anime, though, would be titles that only the most fanatic of the hardcore would be familiar with. The only examples of “underground” anime I can think of in the American fan community are hentai titles, and arguably fansubs. Theoretically fansubs are “underground” because they are illegal bootlegs circulated among fans. However, with the revolution of digital fansubs, import only titles like Naruto and Fullmetal Alchemist now seem to be more common and well known in the domestic fan community than even many officially licensed domestic DVD releases. Rare adult anime DVDs including Equation of the Immoral (In no Houteishiki), Akibakei Kanojyo, Sex Warrior Pudding (Famires Senshi Purin), Be My Honey (Cream Lemon OAV 1), Story of Ami (Cream Lemon: Ami Sorekara), and Cage (Kanaria wa Kago no Naka) are all available on licensed American DVD, but few American anime fans know that these DVDs exist.

Identifying cult and underground anime in the Japanese market is a bit more difficult because anime has such a larger mainstream awareness and exposure in Japan than it does in America. Using Blade Runner as an example once again, there are countless cult hit anime series in Japan because countless vintage anime series still retain a fan following. Excellent examples include classic shows like Tiger Mask and Kyoujin no Hoshi which have been out of mainstream consciousness for decades, but remain well loved and respected classics. Based on my aforementioned definition of “underground,” examples of Japanese underground anime would be fan produced animation (once again, most commonly adult anime) like G-Cup Teacher Rei, Struggle Bunnies, the infamous Evangelion hentai movie, The Shower and Sato-san’s other famous hentai parodies of Sailor Moon, Ranma and Kiki’s Delivery Service, and the Gravity Works produced hentai anime titles available in America as “Anime Fiction” and “Mania: Secret of the Green Tentacles.” There are far more Japanese fan produced anime, possibly the most well known of them being titles like Voices of a Distant Star, the full digital “anime” Urda, and Lingerie Senshi Papillon Rose, all of which are mainstream enough to be not “underground.”