I don't really understand how anime and manga are
that different than animations and comic books in the western world. Why are people perceiving it to be this
thing that I can't even find a word to describe that's so out of this world that those things alone are enough of a reason to keep it out of General Entertainment, especially with the lack of activity and such an umbrella forum? Anime is animations made in Japan. That's it. And while manga is a little different than comic books, they both hold the same light reading nature and have very similar fan followings.
Japanese Entertainment has ten threads that have been posted in this month, and sixteen threads (including the ten for this month) from the last two months, and the issue was going on even back before I was an smod. In fact, I think I remember us discussing it. There are, like, four threads out of those ten that directly relate to an anime. In addition to that, most of the activity that could be going into Japanese Entertainment because of the anime following actually goes into their respective fanclubs. Its always been an ongoing issue that entertainment threads (with the exception of Video Games) often have a more active fan club rather than a respective general discussion thread, even when I was a moderator of Other Entertainment.
The rest of the threads there are general enough to apply to other things. "Sub or dub" for instance. There are other languages than English that a lot of the Other Entertainment regulars watch as subs and dubs, mainly French and Spanish. "Anime/Manga which you think changed you a bit or taught you something?" - that could easily be expanded to pretty much any form of entertainment, because nearly every single book, TV show, movie, anime, manga, etc. has a theme and a lesson learned.
I would agree to the idea of sucking everything else that's included in Japanese Entertainment and leaving anime and manga there, but a) that's pretty much what its like now, and b) the activity isn't enough to really warrant a forum for it, especially considering Other Clubs.
Also, if "oh but so many people here watch it!!" is an argument in favor of it, why don't they actually go to it? There has to be a reason. I'm aware that the overwhelming majority of our memberbase (or active memberbase, anyway) watches anime. But they don't post in that forum. So... what exactly is the point of that argument? Especially since I'm not suggesting getting rid of anime and manga discussion, simply moving it to another spot. There's a ton of members here who love shipping, especially the anime. But they don't discuss it enough to warrant a forum for it, even though it gets requested every few months by someone.
If we're going by the "It falls under GE's umbrella" argument, video games could easily fit under the term General Entertainment, but it doesn't. I feel that JE is in the same boat in that case.
Except Video Games is the most active entertainment forum, and the "umbrella argument" isn't the only argument I'm using in favor of merging them. My main argument is the lack of activity, which, as I mentioned, has been going on for a while now. In fact, the activity in Japanese Entertainment has been declining since 2008, probably even beforehand.