Ask John: Why Are Americans So Allured By Anime?

Question:
It seems funny to me, but why do people become infatuated by anime characters, despite the fact that they are not real? Does anime have so much realism that fans even fantasize about anime characters? I honestly don’t understand this. The dark side is the pornography that is made out of it, but why anime?

Answer:
Like everything, the American fascination with anime is a matter of degree and perspective. It’s natural for humans to indulge in fantasy. For as long as humans have existed there have been cave paintings and oral history and drama and creative art and fiction and cinema. By our nature, humans seek experience and luxury and entertainment and fantasy. Anime is appealing to a certain portion of Americans for several reasons. Simply because it is Japanese animation it is, by definition, foreign and therefore unusual and novel. That it is animation also creates a separation from reality and thereby another level of appealing fantasy. In scope, though, “Americans” generally aren’t highly allured by anime. If this was the case anime would be much more commonplace in America. Star Wars and Star Trek, comic book superheroes, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, for example, are also fantasies no different than anime. In fact, these examples are much more “fantastic” than mundane slice-of-life anime like Whisper of the Heart, Boys Be, Strawberry Egg, Maison Ikkoku and many other anime series. However, while America has a recognized subculture of “Trekkies” and Star Wars is as much common knowledge as multiplication tables, anime is still a relatively obscure genre in America. So it’s not “Americans” that are allured by anime. It’s only a relatively small percentage of Americans who find the same sort of enjoyment in anime that many more Americans find in Star Trek, X-Men, Star Wars, professional wrestling and beanie babies.

Pornographic parodies of Star Wars and Star Trek exist but have never achieved a status of genre on their own partially because their creators have made efforts to prevent this from happening. On the other hand, in Japan the anime industry has specifically encouraged the evolution of adult anime alongside mainstream productions. While many American creators may carefully protect their creations from “contamination” by pornography, it’s not at all uncommon for Japanese artists to work on both mainstream and adult’s only projects. It could be said that there are two reasons for this. While pornography is considered vile and contemptible in America, pornography in Japan is generally thought of as simply another natural and necessary fictional genre, little different than comedy, action or science-fiction. Naturally Japanese culture has some taboos regarding sexuality and its depiction, but sex isn’t nearly as shameful or “wrong” in Japan as it is in America. Unlike Americans, the anime industry and anime creators aren’t usually ashamed to consider their creations sexual beings in sexual situations while, on the other hand, American creators tend to consider their fictional creations either asexual beings or prefer not to corrupt their “wholesome” and ethically pure characters with immoral sexuality.

Anime sex may also be more common than pornographic versions of well known American fantasy franchises because most American franchises, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Xena and The X-Files are all live action. Pornographic versions of these popular series would either require real people in real sexual situations, or artistic depictions that are in a different medium from what they’re based on. Because anime is already farther removed from “reality” than live action, it’s easier to place anime characters in, and imagine anime characters in, any given situation. It’s natural for humans to be interested in fantasy. It’s also natural for humans to think about sex. It’s simply easier to combine the two in anime than it is in live action. That pornographic anime is a “dark side” of anime is an opinion stemming from a Western perspective. To accept adult anime, and in fact to accept all anime, it’s necessary to simply keep an open mind and consider anime from a Japanese perspective. Keep in mind that anime is not made for Americans, so it’s selfish and “Ameri-centric” to expect anime to conform to American attitudes of what is and isn’t immoral.