Over the past decade or so, anime has surged in popularity worldwide, receiving widespread recognition pushed by a growing fandom of energetic enthusiasts and creatives. Now more than ever, anime and its related cultural exports are furthering their reach, finding untapped markets and audiences eager to experience all aspects of their favorite titles.
Toastymarshmellow is a content creator, voice actor and musical performer. She shares her geeky passions — particularly for video games and anime — with a global following that includes 1.3 million followers on TikTok and 395,000 subscribers on YouTube.
By navigating the anime fan community and building her career in the entertainment industry, Toastymarshmellow — Toasty for short — hopes to use her voice to push for fans of all backgrounds to be able to freely take up space and see themselves represented in media.
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Toasty’s Fandom-Fueled Career
Toasty, currently based in Los Angeles, is a self-proclaimed “Blerd,” or Black nerd. She’s built her community by creating content centered around her nerdiness. Among her many projects, she’s performed in the “Naruto: The Symphonic Experience” tour and voiced Boogie in the children’s television series Dance Squad with Ailey. She also appeared on the Official 2025 Pokémon Worlds Soundtrack, providing vocals, along with Cam Steady, for the song “Good Game.”
Toasty’s rise to anime-centric renown started in 2020, when she began posting on TikTok to find community. Her very first music cover was of the InuYasha song “Every Heart (Minna no Kimochi),” by BoA. Since then, she’s covered other beloved anime songs, such as Evangelion’s “A Cruel Angel’s Thesis,” Sailor Moon’s “Moonlight Densetsu” and Naruto’s “Blue Bird” — which became Toasty’s first viral success with over 1 million views. The video also pushed her following to grow nearly sevenfold over the course of a month.
Despite not being fluent in Japanese, Toasty still sings these anime songs wholeheartedly and completely in their original language. In one of her YouTube videos, she shows old footage from a radio show feature from when she was 11 years old, singing in Japanese and sharing some self-taught Japanese phrases with the host. Her dedication to singing in Japanese is her way of showing deep appreciation for the culture innately tied to her favorite stories. It also contributes to her other commitment: celebrating connection and advocating for diversity in both fandom spaces and the animation industry.
@toastymarshmellow_ #duet with @toastmarshmellow IF NARUTO DIES I DIE #Naruto #Boruto #Toastycovers ♬ Blue Bird cover by Toastmarshmellow – Toastymarshmellow
Toasty’s love for anime and singing dates to early childhood. She remembers watching Hamtaro on the Cartoon Network all the way back in kindergarten and later discovering Naruto, her main gateway into the medium. Always a creator, she tells us that in the fifth grade, she wrote a 200-chapter piece of Naruto fan fiction.
Her talent for singing runs in the family; when she was growing up, her mom was busy building a career as an opera singer while her uncles worked in gospel choirs and playhouses. This family aptitude for music inspired Toasty to pursue her passion for musical theater, which blended with her nerdier pursuits, leading to the exciting vocal career she enjoys today.
Toasty in a gyaru-style fashion photoshoot | photography by PP Gal Club, courtesy of Chrissy Walker PR
How Anime Went Mainstream
It hasn’t always been an easy road, though, as anime didn’t initially receive a warm welcome outside of Japan. In its early export days, ignorance and xenophobia automatically labeled the “weird” Japanese cartoons and their fans as cringe outcasts — Toasty included. She tells us how she was ostracized for her interests outside of the social norm and how, for a time, she would hide the otaku part of herself in an attempt to fit in. But opinions have shifted, and the anime nerds of yesterday have grown up to become the big artists of today.
“I’ve been cringing people out since the early 2000s,” Toasty tells Tokyo Weekender. “I think now it’s more accepted to just be who you are, and it’s cooler to do what you want than hold yourself back based on what other people think.”
It also doesn’t hurt that celebrities like Michael B. Jordan, Keanu Reeves, Megan Fox and Billie Eilish are vocal about their excitement for anime, helping to bring what was once a niche subculture into the spotlight.
Toasty also mentions the legion of Black creatives who are leading the way in anime’s globalization, like rapper Megan Thee Stallion, who has significantly contributed to anime’s international rise to mainstream acceptance and popularity. The Grammy-winning artist is an unapologetic otaku, as demonstrated by her cosplaying and the anime references found across her discography. Her passion for and normalization of anime fandom has redefined the “nerd” stereotype, transforming a label that was once seen as negative into one that encompasses trendiness — an in-the-know connoisseur who appreciates foreign media and pop culture artistry.
@toastymarshmellow_ #duet with @toastmarshmellow This is 2000s but i’m throwing it in with the 90’s. Sailor Moon after this! #secretanimesociety #hiddenweebvillage #fypシ ♬ Every Heart cover Toastmarshmellow – Toastymarshmellow
In a similar vein, Toasty wanted to freely express her lifelong love for anime and Japanese pop culture. The catalyst came courtesy of the coronavirus, which threw her post-graduation plans into chaos.
Just as the recent musical theater grad was getting ready for her moment on stage, the pandemic shut down Broadway and live theater. Out of work and confined to the creative limitations of her house, she thought, “What did I used to do when I was a kid and was sad? Watch anime.” She began to reconnect with the anime community and belt out her favorite classic anime songs. With her authentic enthusiasm and musical background, Toasty quickly built a devoted fanbase.
Comments flooded in: “[Your] voice makes me feel so nostalgic … [it’s] so suited for old anime theme songs,” wrote one TikTok commenter. “[Your] voice gave me chills,” wrote another. Requests came, too: “[Can] you please do Nana? [Your] voice is just amazing, so beautiful.”
Yoiko Fujimi’s manga “Hanbun Kyoudai” is scheduled to be released summer 2026 | Yoiko Fujimi / Torch Comics
Pushing For More Representation
As anime’s audience diversifies — epitomized by Toasty, her followers and fellow online anime aficionados — and the industry expands its overseas marketing, fans have started asking why anime remains so monolithic when it comes to on-screen representation. Why, they wonder, does a global phenomenon lack a globally representative cast of characters?
Some argue that it’s just a reflection of Japanese society — often cited as one of the most homogenous on the planet. Foreign-born residents make up just 3% of the population, and while the Japanese census does not collect data on race and ethnicity, it’s estimated that just 0.02% of foreign residents are Black.
As a visual medium, anime has the opportunity to connect with its growing international audience. However, there are only a handful of prominent examples of Black representation in anime, and often, those examples offer only caricatures and racist tropes. This feels like a pretty hefty miss, considering anime’s huge Black fanbase and the decades of intersection between Asian culture and communities of African descent — from Chinese martial arts films speaking to African American youth in the 1970s to hip-hop groups finding inspiration in Asian aesthetics.
“I think a lot of Black people specifically relate to anime because of those stories [of] overcoming obstacles and discrimination,” says Toasty. “Anime has always been big in Black culture. But now, it’s being pushed to the forefront.”
In the past, Black anime fans would often just adopt a character as their own, or reimagine them with new features — giving characters different hair textures and hairstyles, for example. With a scarcity of diversity, fans have created their own representation while they wait for the industry to change.
“There’s this thing in anime where Black people will gravitate towards a character and adopt that character as Black. For example, Piccolo [from Dragon Ball] is green, but for ages, Black people have been like, ‘No, he’s Black, he’s ours,’” explains Toasty. “Yoruichi [from Bleach] — she’s probably just a very tan Japanese woman. But Black people have adopted her.”
But why is this so important? Representation and visibility inspires inclusivity. Toasty says that a dream from early childhood was to be part of the anime production process, but since she never saw anyone — character or artist — who looked like her, she didn’t think it was possible.
But Toasty sees change coming.
“Now, I think that mangaka [comic book creators] are realizing that the fan base is large. Gachiakuta has an actual Black character. Viz Media just announced a new manga [Hanbun Kyoudai by Yoiko Fujimi] about a girl who’s half Black, half Japanese,” she explains. “We’re slowly getting more representation … It’s really cool to see.”
Progress hasn’t been without hurdles, however: Hanbun Kyoudai‘s Fujimi has stated that her pitch was initially met with resistance from her publisher, but she was motivated to create the series after witnessing a close friend face discrimination due to her mixed-race parentage.
Arthell Isom, co-founder of D’Art Shtajio
Toasty also cites Sakura Phoenix Studio and D’Art Shtajio, Japan’s first Black-owned manga and game production studio and first Black-owned anime studio, respectively. These studios, and creatives like Toastymarshmellow, are part of a growing brigade of fans leading the way toward an increasingly inclusive world of anime and manga, with more stories focusing on underrepresented groups in Japan.
Anime has come a long way since the turn of the century, with unprecedented growth over the past decade. No longer is it a niche interest buried in the shadows of a stigmatized community or reserved for a singular demographic. As a globally beloved visual art, anime has the power to join people in mutual fandom. With so much going on in the world, maybe a little anime can help make the world feel closer together.
You can follow Toastymarshmellow on TikTok at @toastymarshmellow_.
