Anime helped make Teen Titans one of the 2000s’ most important shows

polygon.com:

Nowadays, Teen Titans’ rise can feel a bit inevitable. After all, it came on the heels of anime access in the U.S. moving from VHS tapes at your local comic or video stores to the mainstream. The Sci-Fi Channel’s Saturday Anime block introduced an entire generation to masterpieces like Akira, Ghost in the Shell, and Record of Lodoss War. Toonami and Adult Swim were airing various Gundamseries, Sailor Moon, and Dragon Ball Z, as well as bringing new life to cult classics like Cowboy Bebopand Trigun. The biggest animated program in the country at the turn of the century was Pokémon, a full-on phenomenon seen as the biggest export in the history of Japan. Not only was anime more prevalent on American television than it had ever been before, its influence and style had begun steadily seeping into the cartoons being made in the good ol’ U.S. of A.

In 1993, Universal Cartoon Studios (now Universal Animation Studios) released the sci-fi action program Exosquad, which attempted to match the themes and elaborate storytelling seen in Gundam and Macross. By the late 1990s and into the early 2000s, elements of anime’s style began surfacing on series like Powerpuff Girls, Jackie Chan Adventures,andSamurai Jack. But it wasn’t until the arrival of Teen Titans on July 19, 2003, that an animated program created and developed in America truly attempted to mimic both the look and feel of anime, creating a true hybrid between the two animation styles.

Highly influenced by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez’s run on the New Teen Titans comics, the series followed the adventures of Robin, Beast Boy, Raven, Starfire, and Cyborg as they protect Jump City from various supervillains and interdimensional beings, all while enduring and overcoming the