I would somewhat like to retract the “Chinese Anime, Confederation K-Pop” post I mace earlier. I realised that TTL’s Japan being so influenced by the United States also parallel as to what happened in Japan IOTL. Sure, Japan of the 1930’s won’t have American culture shoved down their throats, but it is also a time where American soft power is at its peak. The only thing missing is the liberalizing impetus of the American occupation. However, that would only happen if we have the aesthetics of the United States comic book industry to be somewhat close to its OTL form in the same era, but with a better developed economy, industry, and technology, I doubt it had. Aesthetics would be certainly different, and it would certainly be fully-colored. It could even be as diverse as OTL Western cartoons and not simply take up a defining style.
Furthermore, with a rather pliant empire, this would also be true across Japan’s mainland holdings, which would only start to diverge after independence. America’s soft power may also do the same on its other members. If anything, this just means that there could just be a global culture for comic books, from New York to Calcutta, which would eventually make their own aesthetics. This means that there could be multiple “serialised simple-lines comic with a single, recurring aesthetic.” The Anime of our time have also arisen as an admixture of 40’s American comics and the Japanese’ own styles actually meshing with each other well. I would also expect that to happen as well ITTL, although the unfortunate rise of authoritarianism in the Japanese isles would leave the Japanese legacy on Korea and the Wider confederation to build on that. At least we won’t have octopus porn, would we?
(No, those underground artists who would dare to draw those would be essentially permitted by the government to distract the populace from the slow recovery efforts, MUAHAHAHAHAHA!!!)
Meanwhile, with the Chinese rejection of the Japanese franchise and its adoption of Situationist art would make Manhua seem antiquated, at least for the decade. However, the liberalizing impetus of the period and the ideology would also jump-start the flourishing of performance arts, not simply the flash-mob type, but that of franchised folks. It would just take some handsome, musically-skilled males to form a band, collect some rabid fangirls and demand that sweet government subsidy, you would eventually have something analogous OTL K-Pop being furiously promoted by the Chinese government, maybe even across the globe.
TLDR: it should be the other way, Confederation have Anime, China have K-Pop; there could also be a way wider and diverse niche for American-derived comics across the globe.
Furthermore, with a rather pliant empire, this would also be true across Japan’s mainland holdings, which would only start to diverge after independence. America’s soft power may also do the same on its other members. If anything, this just means that there could just be a global culture for comic books, from New York to Calcutta, which would eventually make their own aesthetics. This means that there could be multiple “serialised simple-lines comic with a single, recurring aesthetic.” The Anime of our time have also arisen as an admixture of 40’s American comics and the Japanese’ own styles actually meshing with each other well. I would also expect that to happen as well ITTL, although the unfortunate rise of authoritarianism in the Japanese isles would leave the Japanese legacy on Korea and the Wider confederation to build on that. At least we won’t have octopus porn, would we?
(No, those underground artists who would dare to draw those would be essentially permitted by the government to distract the populace from the slow recovery efforts, MUAHAHAHAHAHA!!!)
Meanwhile, with the Chinese rejection of the Japanese franchise and its adoption of Situationist art would make Manhua seem antiquated, at least for the decade. However, the liberalizing impetus of the period and the ideology would also jump-start the flourishing of performance arts, not simply the flash-mob type, but that of franchised folks. It would just take some handsome, musically-skilled males to form a band, collect some rabid fangirls and demand that sweet government subsidy, you would eventually have something analogous OTL K-Pop being furiously promoted by the Chinese government, maybe even across the globe.
TLDR: it should be the other way, Confederation have Anime, China have K-Pop; there could also be a way wider and diverse niche for American-derived comics across the globe.
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