Ask John: Why Do Anime Fans Also Like Video Games?

Question:
Why does it seem like people who like anime very much also have a large attraction to video games?

Answer:
(It’s been a while since I’ve attempted to be psychoanalytical, so it’s about due.) This may seem like the case mainly because it’s true. Many of the people that love anime, whether they realize it or not, are fascinated by the fantasy element of anime. Anime offers viewers another world to visit, even when that world is mundane and absolutely “normal” like in anime series including Boys Be… and To Heart. Anime is an escape from the commonplace reality that we’re used to. And unlike live-action movies which still retain the visual recollection of reality, the colorful, stylized realm of anime is foreign, even when it tries to be “realistic.” Video games offer the same opportunity. In a video game, someone can loose themself and become totally enraptured, forgetting the stress and worries of the day by totally devoting one’s concentration to the game.

Furthermore, both anime and games appeal to the sense of technological curiosity and wonder. Even the most simple and unsophisticated anime, featuring entirely hand drawn and painted art and primitive animation, still evokes a sense of the modern and contemporary. Perhaps exactly because anime fundamentally doesn’t look like other humans, the way live-action does, we subconsciously equate anime with something advanced and technological. Video games have the same sort of novelty. Even primitive games like Pong and Pac-Man are still glowing lights on a screen, and this exerts a very strong attraction toward people who, for whatever reason, have a predilection for the new, the high-tech, and the “neat.” At the most basic, primitive level, in the same way the first humans stared at and fetishized the stars in the sky, we now find ourselves still absorbed in and fascinated by pretty flashing lights.