How to know what's trending and what's not?

[nostalgicroxas]

The only real way to get ahead of the curb is to stay up to date with Shounen Jump in Japan and other big name tankobans on what they're releasing. Series that end up becoming a cover art, or have a color spread inside the book, are ones you want to keep your eye on - aka One Piece, Soul Eater, and so forth. It's hard to predict what will become "big" enough to warrant an anime, which will automatically shoot something's popularity. But look at Saiyuki - hasn't had an anime update in years and yet the manga is still going strong due to a dedicated fanbase from both Japan and the world. Which is where you get into finding the mangaka, artist, writer, on Twitter and follow them there. Like the mangaka for Hidoku Shinaide posts updates for some things on their twitter, including images and prep for the art book they did last year.
But of course, it's all in Japanese, and auto-translate might be fussy, and even finding who to follow can be a pain. If I recall right though, Shounen Jump, and a few other tankobans, have websites where they post SMALL snippets about what they're going to be releasing or what they just released. I think Famitsu is another. Some are dedicated to just one series though, like the "Tales of" tankoban is a magazine dedicated solely to Tales of products and advertising.

An english alternative would be to stalk tumblr. Attack on Titan was huge on tumblr when it was being released in Japan, before there was even an annoucement for the anime to be picked up in english. Lots of the "current" at the time tags for it were "snk", an abbreviation of the Japanese title. And lots of fans who were there from the start, don't want to use the "aot" tag. Just food for thought.

[Wumbl]

Not really a good idea to just make fanart of whatever is popular though. People will engage with you online just to see more of that fanart and then you won't draw it anymore because you're drawing the next trending topic.

If you want to gain exposure from fanart, draw fanart of the thing YOU like. There is a fandom for it and more genuinely passionate artwork will make them much happier.

For example, I've gained a tonne of exposure through the fandoms for Generator Rex and Hellblazer. Neither are 'trending', but the people that come to my art pages because of it are going to find more stuff they like because even my OC art is going to be similar in themes or intrigue. They're loyal and genuinely interested in my work.

Clout chasing is gonna make you stagnate over and over again.

[nostalgicroxas]

Reminds me of the tumblr joke: "everyone in the Tsuritama fandom: get everyone else in the Tsuritama fandom". Even if it's a small group of people, their world conquering plot includes "get everyone else on the planet to watch/read it."

Clout chasing is gonna make you stagnate over and over again.

It's also super hard to predict what will be an Evergreen like Pokemon, and what will die off within 3 years like Fortnite and Overwatch. League of Legends on the other hand is likely going to be an Evergreen.

[Wumbl]

Exactly! I was in the Yakuza fandom when it started out, and it was me and 10 other people making loads of fanart and fic, and now it's a big fandom which means I've nurtured this viewer-base with the same interests as me. Same goes with No More Heroes.

[nostalgicroxas]

It's also important to fill that niche that not everyone is doing. When a convention hall's artist alley is dubbed "The Voltron Alley" you know that something bad has happened. One, everyone likes it so good for sales. Two, everyone knows everyone likes it, so it's bad for sales. You missed the boat.
On the other hand if you do fanart of say League, like I mentioned before, then you're hitting a demographic that is being starved since no many artists currently offer art for the game because they think the hype's died down. When in reality, it's just stabilized. The "fandom train" people have left it to the next thing - Fortnite - and that will burn out (fortnite's already seen a drop in streams, and playtimes since Q1 2019). So, for right now, Fortnite is a bad fandom to do art for. You'll sell a few, but not a lot. Instead you'll do better jumping onto the Pokemon bandwagon considering Sword & Shield announcements are happening. Or Breath of the Wild 2.

[CAOMouse]

So after creating a fan art, where should I summit it? (on page like Deviantart, Instagram with hashtag) (or on specific website made for that fandom)

[LCT_m_a_d]

The best way to be the early adopter of a trend is to be a creator or contributor to its growth.

[CAOMouse]

I don't understand Voltron Alley and fandom train concept (my bad reading skill)
How can you know new Pokemon is coming out? (You watch it on Youtube?)

[Wumbl]

no matter where you post it, use the right hashtags.

DA has hashtags as well as fandom groups. I recommend if you're posting on DeviantArt to join fandom groups for the things you like and share your posted fanart there to get more people interested who have the same passions. I've had plenty of engagement on DA this way.

On Instagram, use tagging of course. Also, follow other artists (especially ones that draw similar stuff)

Every form of social media has its own system that works. On Facebook you might want to also join a fan group like on DA. That's a great way to get seen. Make a FB page and share your art into the appropriate fan group, or in a more general art group with an appropriate theme. For example, horror art can go in specific groups.

Post wherever you're comfortable posting, using whatever sharing opportunities those sites offer.

Most fandoms do not have their own websites.

[CAOMouse]

Thank you, i will try to join some groups on Deviantart

[nostalgicroxas]

"Voltron alley" refers to every artist or 95% of them having Voltron Legendary Defender fanart on their booths. So the alley is overrun with this fandom, which makes competition between the artists steeper.
New Pokemon game announcements and what not I'm not sure... I just see memes that my friends post on Discord. I imagine "The Pokemon Company" has a twitter or somewhere they post their announcements. But some companies update during a live stream you need to find the host for - Like Final Fantasy 14 does them, and then will post notes from that stream later on their site "lodestone". They call their stream "Duty Commenced" and will post when they'll be doing it too, https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/topics/detail/135d93135d2b530e00338de85fea1b20a5313327

[CAOMouse]

Ok, "Discord and Twitter are good source of info" I will remember it
Thank you Nos

[GesuGesu]

If you're active in the general anime/manga community, you know what is popular just by being in it.

This past anime season was a revival of Weekly Shounen JUMP series getting animated. Dr. Stone, Fire Force, and Kimetsu no Yaiba were all Shounen Jump magazine series that got an anime this summer.

Shows that already have a strong manga following will be more popular because people who've read it will hype it up.

My advice is to really get your head out of the "comic creator" sand and really just try to enjoy what's around you as a consumer to get what becomes popular or not.

[JRHoch]

I'm newer to anime/manga. How does one get active in the community?

[aqua03]

Here's my word of advice in regards to trying to ride off of trends and "The Next Big Thing": DON'T

Just draw what you want to draw. Chasing trends will just make you seem shallow and lock you into a cycle of never quite being "on it" and will probably just end up making you miserable in the long run.

I remember when I was working on DRAGOONS/DRGN, I tried to emulate a lot of stuff in webcomics that were popular at the time (especially one comic in particular my friend was doing.) and it just made me really unhappy because it didn't quite feel like it was 1005 "Me" if that makes sense. So i ended up scrapping it early on to work on something I wanted to work on, trends and popularity be darned. (That's a lesson I've finally learned as I work on the third reboot of my comic this year.)

As for fan art: Just draw what you want to draw and people will come to you if you like your art. I draw fan art as a break and I just draw whatever characters looked cool and resonated with me at the time. (I recently drew some fan art of Gaomon from Digimon: Data Squad. Nobody ever really talks about Data Squad. Heck, I've never even really watched that show outside of a few bits and pieces here and there. Gaomon just looked really cool to me.)

So what it al comes down to is this: Forget following what's "Trendy" at the moment and just do what you like to do. It might not get you the big numbers you want, but it will make you happy and more fulfilling in the long run. Plus, it'll make you seem more timeless if you just do your thing instead of always trying to cash in on the "flavor of the week."

So basically, stop being in it only for the big numbers like it seems like you've been doing recently, and just do what makes you the happiest in regards to your art and creative pursuits. Aim for that goal first, and you'll be a success every time.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. Good night everybody.

[GesuGesu]

I usually just look at the seasonal anime list, pick what I think I'll like, and start watching weekly.

After I watch each episode, I usually check out the episode discussion on Reddit's r/anime and see what other people think about it. Stuff like predictions, fan theories, favourite characters, catchy memes that started...

There's also a weekly anime ranking to go with it all, based on user votes to determine a show's popularity.

[Zugaikotsu]

You can check weekly shounen jump or other magazines ranks, what's hot in crunchyroll... I like to do it, and when I saw kimetsu no Yaiba was getting more and more positions, I thought "damn, this thing will get big..." xD

[DiegoPalacios]

The best way to know is to create said trends

[darthmongoose]

Adding to the chorus of people saying "don't chase trends", I'd say that if you're gonna do fan art, instead of picking something for its popularity, pick something you actually like, because it's more likely fans of that thing will like the stuff you make if they're like you in terms of the sort of things they like. Otherwise you get this weird frustrating disconnect between people who are fans of your fan art, and people who like your original works. Getting attention for fan art is nice, but when only your fan art gets attention, it gets kind of miserable. Ideally you want the fan art to be an accessible introduction to your work that catches attention and makes people want to look into your original illos and comics.

Also, sometimes you can make an absolute killing by being one of the only artist catering to a fanbase which craves content but not many people are making stuff for. I have a friend who was like... the only person doing high quality fan art of some obscure nickelodeon show I'd never heard of who built a super-dedicated fanbase of a few thousand really die-hard content-hungry fans.

[JRHoch]

Hey, where's the best place to go to streamed English versions of anime? Netflix has Soul Eater, but isn't as extensive as I'd like. Also, would love recommendations for good anime. I'm not big on romance or anything too silly.