THE CULTURAL IMPACT OF NARUTO AND OTHER ANIME Someone asked at another site "is Naruto the biggest cultural phenomenon regarding anime culture in the West?". I am a hardcore Naruto fan and i have to say no it's not. This crown belongs to Dragon Ball and this is undebatable. But Dragon Ball had two advantages that no anime has today. First of all, it came out in the prehistory of internet when the only media to watch anime were television and VHS. Today, until Viz Media have localized an episode of Naruto Shippuuden to the Disney XD viewers, everyone else and their mother have already watched the same episode online in its original cut. Also, the discrepancy between the localized cut and the original cut alienates most of the potential viewers, what leads us to the second advantage DB had: It came out in the pre-Pokémon era, when animes got away with gore and nudity. If DB came out today it'd have been mercilessly butchered and everyone'd have noticed it with all the torrents and streaming websites available. Talking about Pokémon, the anime achieved the feat of being much more than a glorified video game commercial, what is more than you can say of its copycats. Yu-Gi-Oh epic failed in being more than a glorified card game commercial. Beyblade epic failed in being more than a glorified toy commercial. Monster Rancher epic failed in being more than a glorified video game commercial. The only Pokémon copycat that succeeded and became a worldwide classic was Digimon with its darker tone. Now let's talk about Naruto. The anti-Naruto (and you can say something is a freaking phenomenon when it hás its anti- crowd) say Naruto is "niche". Either they don't know the meaning of niche or they have bad faith. A niche anime hasn't episodes released in pirate DVDs. Naruto had its 720 episodes released weekly in pirate DVDs for ten years, and the success continues with Boruto episodes being released weekly in pirate DVDs. When it comes to piracy, Naruto is the Game of Thrones of animes. Naruto was an absolute success in Latin America, maybe because third worlders easily relate to an underdog-who-becomes-leader-of-the-pack story (i am a third worlder there's no prejudice in my statement). The demand for Naruto was so insane that the manga was reprinted twice in less than ten years. Also the Naruto franchise is the second biggest anime-based videogame franchise behind only the Dragon Ball franchise. Naruto even influenced gastronomy. Naruto's Ichiraku Ramen became a real food dish. And in 2017 the world witnessed the phenomenon of Naruto Runs. Something that began as a Facebook meme became real with Naruto Run events being organized across the world and thousands of people showing interest. And most of those weren't even Naruto fans, what shows that Naruto is well known amongst people who don't give a shit to animes, what is NOT the definition of a niche anime. A niche anime never breaks out of the anime nerds community. Naruto totally broke out worldwide. You can tell Naruto is a classic because eventually you see someone saying "[INSERT ANIME OF THE MOMENT HERE] is the next Naruto" and also those who claim "[INSERT OBSCURE ANIME HERE] is more famous than Naruto". Eventually some Piecer comes with the "One Piece is more famous than Naruto" nonsense. Their only argument is the popularity of One Piece in Japan. They dismiss the fact that the Naruto franchise kicks the ass of the OP franchise out of Japan. I mean, as an example, in Brazil (the largest and most populated country of South America) Naruto reran for six years non-stop in the third biggest TV station of the country (SBT). In the very same TV station, One Piece got pulled without a single rerun. That says a lot about the abyss between both animes. The two Naruto mobile games for Android sum 15 million downloads. The two One Piece games for Android sum 5,5 million downloads. Also, Naruto is on Netflix and One Piece isn't. As i said up there, Naruto broke out of the anime nerds community and became a worldwide phenomenon. One Piece never broke out. When confronted with the fact that OP epic failed out of Japan, Piecers blame 4kids, the dub, the censorship, they blame everything but the anime itself for being unappealing.
Sailor Moon has been popular in the US since the 90s, going on the actually influence western animation (arguably influencing Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and a place in the public consciousness. It remains popular to this day with a fairly large fan base.
Grandizer in the 80s surely had an effect on US entertainment in bringing in the giant robots. Even earlier, Japanese animation and tokusatsu shows were a big part of TV in the 60s and 70s with shows like Speed Racer and Ultraman and Astro Boy. I've no doubt the shows visual styles and story telling techniques were a strong influence on US cartoon and SF&Fantasy entertainment.