Is it a high or low cultural genre, according to Napier (2005)? What are some of its subgenres?

(* Just lost original blog due to computer malfunction at net cafe, unfortunate for me as it was ready to be published. So now redoing a replacement one (below). It won't be as good due to time constraints).

Japanese animation or "anime" as it is known, is a high cultural genre and a celebrated part of popular culture in Japan. It has also attained an elevated status world wide, though in the US it was looked upon as a subculture. Japanese anime maintains a higher status than in the west. Princess Mononoke (1997) is the highest grossing film in Japan, to this day. It is important to note that anime cannot be defined as merely cartoons. There's a greater depth to anime than it's western counterpart. It is a much more complex form of animation, often veering towards adult themes and the darker side of life which is the polar opposite to western animated features like Disney's wholesome offerings with child friendly themes and family friendly viewing. Although it has it's share of children's animated series such as Pokemon, Sailor Moon, Street Racer and so on, it also offers works that deal with romance, comedy, tragedy through to post-doomsday fantasies such as Akira and schizo-psycho thrillers (Perfect Blue) and so on. Anime has had phenomenal global success commercially as well as culturally and is seen as an intellectual art form as observed by scholars who have attested to this through their own musings and scholastic articles. However, Anime is scorned by the more conservative of Japanese society. It has been linked to several atrocious crimes committed by obsessed fans of anime porn and apocalyptic science fiction anime. Anime is viewed as an overall reflection of Japanese society, sociologically and aesthetically. Anime has been influenced by many things from past cultural traditions to modern twentieth century photography and film making. Anime deals with issues affecting societies world wide. The unique thing about anime texts is that they're able to get their messages across to multiple audiences due to their inter-generational popularity and appeal with their complex story-lines and thought provoking content. Anime has been quoted by one scholar to be Japan's "chief cultural export." When Akira was first seen in 1990 by western audiences, it was viewed merely in terms of being a minor art and children's animation. Westerners were not accustomed to seeing adult themes within an animated medium. In 1993, Japanese critic Ueno Toshiya visited the war ravaged district of Sarajevo, with it's crumbling walls and derelict buildings. He was astounded to see a panel depicting a scene from Akira. At that point in time, it had been used as an icon of political resistance. Anime is popular in countries such as Korea, Taiwan, South-east Asia, Thailand and even to parts of Europe like France and also the UK where Akira was the number one selling video. Part of its appeal is because it's different to mainstream animation. One major important aspect of anime was highlighting societal issues at the time of the millennium. Whether anime can ever be fully adopted in western mainstream popular culture remains to be seen.

References:

Napier, S. (2005). Why anime? In Anime: from Akira to Howl’s Moving Castle (pp.3-14). Hampshire: Palgrave/ Macmillan