So many young people these days watch anime and read manga in the United States today, far more than 10 to 15 years ago. From that alone, I would say that anime and manga is imperative to understand as an artist. As marketers (I assume) say, "understand what your audience wants and why and you will be very rich." So, why do so many enjoy this art form?
Growing up in a middle-upper middle class neighborhood with a sizable Asian population, I got thrust into anime and manga fairly quickly around 6th grade. I believe the first series that I really became enthralled with was Fruit Basket, followed fairly quickly by (of course) Naruto and Bleach.
Looking back, these three have a basic premise in common that must have spoken to me on a deeper level, which was "seemingly normal/lackluster character is thrust into a magical, fantastic world, after which they find out that they're not normal at all, but rather have secret fantastical powers." To be honest, I believe that I had been reading quite a few fantasy novels at the time that seemed to resonate with that theme. And hey, now that I think of it, aren't almost all fantasy novels based on that premise?
Another big theme that resonated with me as a middle school and high school student at the time was passion. The characters in my favorite series (now looking at Prince of Tennis especially) were trying so hard to attain their dreams, and that really inspired me to do the same. Honestly, I feel like the motivation I find to work such long hours on my projects today is still influenced by them, despite my not having watched anime in 4 years.
It is common knowledge that young adults make up the majority of the revenue for novels, but it seems to me that (American) television doesn't seem to reflect that as much. Anything geared at teenagers (other than reality tv, which is a whole other animal) is either about typical teenage drama and sleeping around with everyone (Awkward) or about vampires (Vampire Diaries), werewolves (Teen Wolf), or something demonic and scary in general (Supernatural). Tell me if I'm crazy, but it seems like everything is just reiterating on the same two themes.
Anime is fairly well known for being economical in both design and animation. Sure, some scenes can be cheaply made (dialogue-driven ones especially) but because everything is drawn, the world is your (or rather, the storyteller's,) oyster. You don't have to play it safe with vampire stories. The fact that this has been the case for so long has let the anime world become so varied.
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