Many people stuck at home have decided to make the most of the quarantine and get caught up on some anime. Crunchyroll released its list of most watched anime for the second quarter of this year and while much of it is to be expected, one or two surprises did sneak into the top charts.Â
Earlier this month Crunchyroll, a premium streaming service that focuses exclusively on anime and other live television shows from Japan, topped the 3 million subscriber mark. Backed by one of the largest streaming libraries of anime titles (new and old) their list is a pretty good indicator of what’s popular.Â
Many of the most-watched shows are shounen (roughly translates to boy or youth) anime which are specifically targeted towards teenage boys. One Piece, Naruto Shippuden and its continuation series Boruto: Next Generation and Hunter x Hunter are legacy shows with a decade's worth of episodes and fan bases that have literally grown up alongside the large stable of characters. The other shounen anime on the list like JoJo’s Bizarre adventure, Black Clover, My Hero Academia, Haikyu and FoodWars are either nearing the peak of their popularity or satisfy a certain niche (Haikyu is sports themed and Food Wars is about cooking.) The outlier in this group and perhaps pointer at a future trend in the genre is Tower of God.
Among the top 10 shows on this list, Tower of God is the only one with just one season under its belt (it debuted this spring) and the first series in a joint production effort between Crunchyroll and Korean comic publisher Webtoons. Webtoons is a South Korean publishing company specializing in online comics and is a purveyor of some of the most popular manwha (Korean comics done in manga style) on the net.
This deal not only bodes well for this partnership, but also raises the prospect of seeing other Korean manwha adaptations making it to western audiences. The second series produced under this joint partnership, The God of High School, is in the middle of its first season right now (Summer 2020) and is also currently streaming on Crunchyroll. Whether it succeeds on the level of its sister show Tower of God remains to be seen.
The Korean manwha scene right now is rife with titles that fit the profile of any one of the shows on the current top 10 list of anime streaming right now. It will be interesting to see if the success of these Webtoon adaptations will lead to an influx of manwha adaptations being made in the future.
Source: Crunchyroll