Mainichi Anime Yume
When we say we’re into a certain anime, in a lot of cases it doesn’t mean that we’re only into the anime; pretty much all anime series are in some form or other part of a media franchise. They’re an anime but also a manga, light novel, video game, trading card game, collection of toys, or any number of mediums. I wonder how many anime fans get into all the franchise branches of a particular series, or whether they’re content to just watch the anime and nothing more…
We’ve probably all come across someone, whether in real life or online, who was once very enthusiastic about anime only to claim later on that they’ve “burned out” on it. I’ve never experienced anime burnout myself, but I have heard many different reasons for it over the years…
A recent post by Marth brings up the idea of how our perception of an anime adaptation can be greatly influenced by our prior knowledge of the anime’s original source material. This can apply to all forms of media really, such as book-to-movie adaptations or movie retellings of TV series. In anime fandom, there’s strong opinions among those who intensely care about faithfulness to the source material and those who don’t know or care…
This topic was a recent entry on AnimeNation’s Ask John column. It begs the question of why American anime fans are often vehemently opposed to moe, fan service, or any other type of anime that sexualizes its characters, while anime that feature extreme violence are rarely opposed and are instead praised. The opposite seems to be true in Japan, with the Japanese fandom adoring fanciful, cute series while the dark, violent series are fewer and less adored. So what determines this difference between how American and Japanese fans react to sexuality in anime versus violence in anime?…
It’s not unusual for people who become anime fans to also become interested in the country that anime comes from – Japan. I’ve seen this interest in some form or other in most of the anime fans I’ve encountered, ranging from mild to extreme. There are people who take up a slight interest in an aspect or two of Japanese culture, and perhaps learn a few Japanese words, but otherwise don’t pursue Japan/Japanese things…all the way down to what the Internet calls “weeaboos” and “Japanophiles,” or people who convince themselves that Japan is superior to other countries and they insist on incorporating Japanese words and cultural habits into their everyday lives, becoming a Japan connoisseur in terms of things like music and food, yearning to go to Japan, and even wishing they were Japanese. But does every person who gets into anime necessarily take up an interest in Japan, whether mild or extreme?…
There’s no denying that Internet social network sites have rapidly changed the meaning of communication. We can now instantaneously share all manner of news, from breaking political events to what we’re having for lunch. One such site – Twitter – has brought about a massive change in terms of how we relate to each other with this ability to share links, videos, pictures, and our thoughts in real-time. As someone who’s been running an anime site for nearly a decade now, I wanted to discuss how I’ve experienced Twitter change the anime online community, especially in terms of blogging…
In a recent post on Anime September, Alterego9 brings up a great point about a paradox that exists between our individual view of an anime and how popular it is among the general populace. When an anime that we really love is also very well received among overall anime fandom (which can be seen through merchandise sales and social networking discussion), we rejoice in this and use it to further bolster our belief that it truly is a good anime. However, when an anime we really love isn’t popular among overall anime fandom, we say the reason for that is because the overall fandom has bad taste and so popularity is irrelevant when determining quality. It’s a very interesting paradox and one that I felt like examining further…
When someone calls an anime they watch a “guilty pleasure,” they usually mean it’s a series that they know is bad but they enjoy it anyway for whatever reason. There are some people who enjoy nothing but anime that others would call guilty pleasures, whether they agree with that label or not, as well as people who don’t enjoy anything they can find significant flaws in. With such a wide range of feelings on what exactly defines a guilty pleasure amongst anime fans, I want to explore the subject further…
A fairly standard topic today but one I don’t believe I’ve fully touched on in previous posts. There are many ways to watch anime, the two most common being watching an episode a week of a currently airing show, and watching many episodes in one sitting of a completed show. And, like most things in the fandom, each method has its good and bad points…
While sitting in the waiting room waiting to get my taxes done the other day, I read an interesting article in Time magazine about a study comparing the qualities of an introverted personality versus an extroverted personality. As expected, it got me thinking about these two temperaments in terms of anime fans…