Eh - I’m not sure the type of intellectual who I’d guess is the target audience for ‘Gravity’s
Rainbow’ or ‘The Three Body Problem’ are not the types to be highly enthusiastic about Harry Potter.
Just like someone who is into some of the best/most intellectually challenging Anime probably wouldn’t be all that impressed by The Simpsons.
Someone who appreciates the subtle, carefully crafted humor of the early Simpsons wouldn't be interested in Anime. I can engage in silly media elitism too.
My point is, you don't make something as successful as Harry Potter or the Simpsons without making some smart decisions and appealing to at least a few very intelligent people.
No, you can pretty much make successful things without that. The Da Vinci Code sold 80 million copies, for example. The Diary of a Wimpy Kid series sold 160 million copies over 11 books: James Patterson's Maximum Ride books sold 30 million over 8. Neither of the latter have had anywhere near the media blitz Rowling has had. The goosebumps series in told sold a staggering 400 million copies over its length.
Its frustrating because in general these big doorstopper books are usually really bad at kid lit. Harry Potter honestly can't hold a candle to books like Dragonsinger by Anne McCaffrey, or Barbary by Vonda MacIntyre. John Christopher in particular wrote these tiny books that are just master classes in economy; The White Mountains and The Lotos Caves stuck with me for decades. William Sleator managed to do actual intelligent SF for kids, with even some horror to it...something like Interstellar Pig is really surprising even as an adult. Joan Aiken really is a wonderful author too.
Its just stuff like potter gets relentlessly pushed and snowballs a lot. There's a lot more of the hive mind instinct that we think, at times.
"Just like someone who is into some of the best/most intellectually challenging Anime probably wouldn’t be all that impressed by The Simpsons."
Current Simpsons perhaps not. Seasons 1-8 Simpsons, though, quite possibly. Much more intelligent than the current stuff. Though it does suffer from being completely episodic; there are several episodes that deftly handle some character's development, but almost none of it gets to stick around until next week. On that front it definitely isn't a good anime.
Hey! Myself as well - however, we are an incredible minority. (Actually a Simpsons junkie, go to trivia nights etc, also attend Anime North, etc - we are very edge-case folks.)
Just like someone who is into some of the best/most intellectually challenging Anime probably wouldn’t be all that impressed by The Simpsons.