Last year, I helped oversee the first major national survey of anime consumption in the United States. Before the survey, I knew anime had achieved pop culture status, with characters from Dragon Ball appearing in Fortnite and musicians like Megan Thee Stallion wearing over a dozen anime cosplays. Even still, the numbers surprised me.
Nearly half of Gen Z watches anime once a week. And a quarter of millennials. 44% of anime viewers have had a crush on an anime character. And 65% of anime viewers find the form more emotionally compelling than other forms of media. Anime fans claimed to watch for escape and comfort. But also for strength, a tool to prepare them for a big test or a challenging day at work.
We ran this survey at Polygon, a site broadly focused on video games, because while games and anime are two different mediums, they have for decades influenced and elevated one another. And the line between the two is blurrier and blurrier, with shows inspiring games that inspire more shows.
How did we get here?
To find out, I reached out to Geoff Thew, the founder and host of the hit anime YouTube channel, Mother’s Basement.
This week on Post Games: How video games and anime took over pop culture together.
Act 1: Anime in your video games
Act 2: Video games in your anime
Patreon bonus: The anime every gamer should watch
Act 3: News of the Week
Act 1: Anime in Your Video Games
Highlights from Polygon's 'The Anime Opportunity' Study (Crunchyroll)
Mother’s Basement (YouTube)
Quest for the Best: An Anime Podcast (YouTube)
Touhou Project (Wiki)
Umamusume: Pretty Derby (Umamusume.com)
Granblue Fantasy: Relink (Steam)
Act 2: Video Games in Your Anime
He Set The Bar (In Hell) (Mother’s Basement)
Square Enix Manga (Square Enix)
Gunpla (Wiki)
Re:ZERO: Starting Life in Another World (Hulu)
Shangri-La Frontier (Crunchyroll)
Patreon bonus prologue: The Anime Every Gamer Should Watch
Umamusume: Beginning of a New Era (Umamusume)
Gallop Racer (Wiki)
Brave Bang Bravern! (Crunchyroll)
Apocalypse Hotel (Crunchryoll)
KonoSuba (Crunchyroll)
Digimon Series Watch Order (Including Movies) (Crunchyroll)
Delicious in Dungeon (Netflix)
Act 3: News of the Week
The Game Awards 2025: The winners, news, and big reveals (Polygon)
The Game Awards statue was for Larian's new game, Divinity, a new RPG that's "even larger than Baldur's Gate 3 (Eurogamer)
Control Resonant sends Jesse's brother, Dylan, to a perception-bending Manhattan at some point in 2026 (Eurogamer)
After 21 years, Knights of the Old Republic's original director is returning to the series for Fate of the Old Republic (PCGamer)
Jonathan Blow's new game has the most 'Jonathan Blow's new game' pitch imaginable: A 'game design supercollider' that takes 4 puzzle games and jams them together into a 500-hour saga (PCGamer)
Gang of Dragon is Toshihiro Nagoshi's New Game, and It Sure Looks Like Yakuza (IGN)
Some Nominated Devs Can’t Even Afford To Be A Part Of The Game Awards (Kotaku)
This week in video game links
DESPELOTE: FIFTH TRAILER (now on nintendo switch) (Panic)
My Pursuit to Finish the Games I Claim to Love (Pen To Pixels)
SKATE STORY REVIEW (PCGamer)
Skate Story review - why haven't you played it yet?! (Eurogamer)
The surreal Skate Story shreds skating game conventions (AV Club)
Skateboarding is better in hell (The Verge)
20 Years Ago, Sega Created One of the Greatest Video Game Protagonists of All Time (Inverse)
Free game of the week: Splatterworld
Synopsis: "Splatterworld is several things. First, it is a cutesy RPG spinoff of Namco's Splatterhouse property. It's a sequel to the Splatterhouse Wanpaku Graffiti cutesy platformer on the Famicom, which was never released outside of Japan. It's a parody of horror films and loves to poke fun at them. It's also a prototype. The game was never commercially released, and was only made available online on Halloween night this year (2025.) Naturally, I jumped right on it. Patch is done! Enjoy!"
"A weird, never-released NES horror JRPG no one knew about 2 years ago is now translated and fully playable" (PC Gamer)
What else I’m enjoying
John Carpenter Q&A (Priscilla Page)
Free Range: How the news changes when journalism becomes content (CJR)
Have We Reached Peak Legacy Sequel? (Patrick H Willems)
The birth of the internet, according to Jon Bois (Secret Base)