Honestly, I see way more people talk about anime/manga being stigmatized than people that do stigmatize anime/manga.
I'm just going to say it, at least in the US, manga has basically reached near mainstream acceptance, it's popular amongst teens and young adults, you can find loads of it in bookstores and libraries, and it even outsells American comic books.
I'm not sure how it was back then, but I defintely think that things must have changed for the better.

From what I've heard, manga is way more popular in France since comic books are a huge part of their culture.

I voted "Yes" but I would probably change to "No" after reading some comments.

When I first read manga as a teen, no one did (especially girls), but it's become a lot more popular now. I used to be so embarrassed to go to the manga section in the bookstore, but now it's full up of kids reading it in the aisles.

However, some people (like my husband cough cough) still think manga is weird. Even though I've been reading it for 15 years now, and have explained to him multiple times how awesome and in-depth it can be, he has no use for it, calling it useless comics, so that misunderstanding is still there (and why I voted "Yes" without really thinking).

Misunderstand implies that they know anything about it in the first place. You'd have to explain that manga means japanese comics.

I've seen them be the most misjudged and misunderstood by fans of western comics, who are upset that Demon Slayer outsold the entire American comic book industry. They think that the artwork is all terrible and the same, that manga are slow paced and wordy, and that they never end. Also, thinking that Naruto somehow is a good representation of the entire medium. That the only reason people read manga is because of anime. A bunch of stupid shit.

Last edited by Helipilot at 11:05 pm, Jun 14 2022

Funny that you would answer 'no' while you do the exact thing you claim doesn't happen.
80% of manga is made for pedophiles? Fucking lol.

Not only in the West. Vignette-based literature tends to be undervalued about everywhere due to easy associations with some particular subgenres, as it often happens with any kind of art.

In this case, what people picture in their minds when told about it are newspaper comic strips and comic books for kids, and there's a tacit misunderstanding that "comedy", "fantasy" and "for children" are pure garbage, therefore, in their minds, every single work of the larger genre is a "fantastical comedy for children" and thus the purest garbage in existence. Which is why English-speaking countries had to come up with the term "graphic novel" to try to save it (and I've seen a good number of works tagged as such that don't fulfill the "novel half"😉.