The Problem with being in an Anime/Manga fandom
The problem — which isn’t really a problem unless one considers the opinion of society, but since human beings are social animals so their opinion matters to some extent — is the first reaction that people will have once gaining the knowledge about you (in your adult years) that you read manga/watch anime: “Aren’t you too old for that?” or “Just watch porn like the rest of us, you don’t need to include reading in that as well.” Or various others, but these are the two that feature prominently in my mind.
This kind of condescendence chiefly has its roots in the ignorance of the western world towards the concepts of anime and manga, and the fact that most times they don’t want to change their views about it. This kind of thought process needs to stop and since we, Millennials, have already been accused as murderers of various industries and habits and customs, maybe we can corner this thought process in a dark alley and take care of it.
Coming back to the condescendence and the two questions mentioned above, the roots are held in the beliefs (like most problems).
Comics, in the western world, are thought to be for children, even though, historically speaking, that is completely false, but keeping in accordance with the raging trend in our species: history is oftentimes neglected and in the other times blatantly ignored. Thus, an adult who still reads comics is someone who hasn’t matured yet and hence isn’t good at adulting.
The second belief probably arises from Rule 34 of the internet and honestly, I can’t fault them if hentai was their introduction to the world of manga. Then again, as Sam Winchester advises, we should never confuse porn/hentai with real life.
Now to clear things up: Manga is a comic primarily written in the Japanese language but is translated to numerous languages, including English. But unlike western comics, with the exception of certain series (Marvel, DC and the likes), there are various subdivisions based on demographic. There are five major categories.
Shonen manga is targeted towards young males under 30, mostly with action, adventure, fantasy, sports but now comedy and ones with female protagonists are becoming popular. Series like One Piece, Naruto, Kuroko no Basuke are prime examples.
Shojo manga is for the young females till 18. They mostly have a romance with a focus on characterization rather than action or fighting, but there are also many adventure series. Sailor Moon, Ouran High School Host Club etc fall here.
Seinen is for older males and has more violence or the plotline has a deep psychological aspect in addition to the themes presented in Shonen manga. Ghost in the Shell is a famous example.
Josei is aimed at adult females and unlike Shojo manga, even though they may have romantic plots, darker issues like rape and domestic violence are more prominently featured with primarily female protagonists, as seen in Honey and Clover and 07-Ghost.
The fifth type known as Kodomomuke is much like western fairy tales with a moral attached to the simple stories and are meant for children, like Doraemon.
Of course, these categories are not arbitrary and as the years progress, they have seen many changes involved in the content that is included in them and have also given rise to a slew of sub-categories and even separate divisions. This categorization is completely separate from the different genres that a manga/anime can belong to.
Now, Hentai comes into the picture. In Japanese, the term, ‘hentai’, means any sort of perverse behaviour; while in outside of Japan, it means anime/manga pornography. Coming back to Internet’s Rule 34, ‘If it exists, there is porn of it”, provides for the high probability that as young adults searching for porn — let’s all own up to the fact that we all searched for it behind closed doors, away from our parents — hentai sites came up on the search list. And since curiosity brings with it downfall, we opened that link and, lo and behold, the first introduction to the wide world of Manga.
In this technical age, where all information is figuratively on our fingertips, and only depends on the internet speed, we need to erase this bad publicity that anime and manga have. There is no longer any valid reason for this continued ignorance. One might not like this form of media, I’m not saying they have to like it. There are many people who don’t like reading and books in general, but at least they are aware of what books are.
I know Change has already stepped inside the proverbial room, but there is still a long way till it is offered a seat and allowed to explain its point. Give It a chance. Open something as simple as a Wikipedia page and take ten minutes to understand. That’s all it takes. Liking it is a different ball game.
Photo by Karma Talukdar on Unsplash
