Let’s face it, as much as we try to promote anime to the “norms” many of them get the wrong idea about it. My first exposure to the medium was less than positive and actually led me to avoid it for six years. It’s bad enough most mainstream culture sees anime as “cartoons” and even though we’re gaining ground we haven’t gotten as far into the mainstream as we should have, in my opinion.
Is part of the marketing to mainstream problem anime itself, or is it something deeper, and more hidden within anime? Some people will point a finger at hentai and decry it as the bane of anime. But then, is having animated porn really the albatross of anime? Or is it the fans of hentai?
To me, hentai, or even yaoi or yuri, isn’t the problem; fans who act up inappropriately for the sake of hentai, yaoi, or yuri are a part of the issue. And personally, well-behaved hentai fans and some of their preferences for helpless bondage nekomimi don’t bother me at all. It’s some of the other, sordid, facets of the art that I take issue with.
Lolicon and shotacon are anime’s dirty little secret but even then, these undesirable facets are nigh buried in the culture. I didn’t even learn of their existence till last year and I considered myself fairly informed.
Moe is a concept most Western women can’t wrap their minds around, yet we’re trying to promote anime to them with it being such a big part of the culture. Some die-hard fanboys drool at the mere thought of a blushing meido tripping over herself to please him. Do we really expect to attract adult Western women to the anime table with that? Or is having moe in anime even an issue if people choose not to watch it?
Considering that some of these none too stellar aspects are nonetheless ingrained building blocks of anime culture, they still don’t even register on a norm’s radar until someone tells them about them. I wouldn’t even have known about hentai if “Mike” hadn’t shown us the entire Overfiend series.
If he had shown something Ghibli, or a Lupin III movie, or even Robotech, it’s possible I would have had six more years with anime instead of missing out like I did. It wasn’t hentai’s fault that I did miss out, it was “Mike’s”. I would have eventually stumbled across hentai, just like I did yaoi, yuri, shota/lolicon and all the others. But that would have been done on my own terms, in my own time.
The bottom line isn’t the actual existence of these things, it’s the fans who act up because of them and give anime a bad name. When I say act up, I’m referring to idiots like Mike who screwed anime up for me for six years, to the yaoi fan girls who scream “You’re a homophobe!” because some people don’t like yaoi, to the loliphiles who believe two kids having sex is cuuutttteee, to the handful of fanboys who have a twisted idea of what a woman should be.
Granted, all these types exist outside of anime anyway. They’d be there even if anime had never been invented. Yet, don’t we have a community like none other on the planet? Don’t we have a rapport with each other, the culture and the creators? Can’t we say, “Hey, what you’re doing is crap and I won’t permit it on my site or be affiliated with anyone who does!”?
Buuut, we all don’t. We don’t all band together and say that. We don’t think that certain fans or sites should flat-out not be in the community. Why is that? I think it’s because we are so outside the mainstream that we feel we all have to stick together since there’s still so few of us.
What happens when we grow? Do we still stick by undesirable behavior? Why wait? Sure, it’s easy to say, “People can choose what they want to read and be affiliated with.” But shouldn’t we have a code of ethics, even an unwritten one, like the norms do? Do we have any responsibility for the upkeep of anime’s image?
The only reason I suggest it is to tidy up anime’s overall outside image. Am I full of crap? Is all this “a part of the culture”? Is it too simplistic? Should we take responsibility and have a “Neighborhood Watch” on forums and websites? Don’t we need to make sure of the content of sites we link to? Should we police our own?
It’s so unfortunate your first exposure to anime/manga was such a horrible/shocking affair. My first exposure was on TV so it was pretty ‘harmless’.
Anyway, I doubt that we can really make a big influence on those who behave like they do, there will always be immature people around.
And about the upkeep of anime’s image, I don’t think it will ever erase the fact that hentai exists. All we can do is just promote the better side of anime, and not it’s ‘dark’ side.
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Um, you should probably check the content of sites you link to anyway, right?
But I don’t think people should start trying to police the fandom – I can understand perfectly that there are several, frankly, icky elements out there, but having a go at them will only create bad feeling. Nothing productive will come of it.
These things aren’t going to disappear, so we may as well all try to get on with one another. If that means avoiding each other at every opportunity, so be it.
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The problem IMO is how to go about policing. Of course, actually getting motivated to start policing is hard enough as it is…
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I don’t think there’s any real good reason to police the fans of anime. Every form of entertainment has it’s own little sub-groups that can turn others off. Think of when motion pictures first came out and if the first thing you were shown was some seedy porno flick. You would’ve been turned off of it in quite the same way.
I think the most important thing people just generally need to keep in mind when they introduce Anime to others is that if it seems niche at least point out it’s just a subset and there’s a lot of other stuff. On the other hand, I think most people can make a reasonable judgment these days that anime is like anything else and there’s a lot of different stuff out there.
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I have a strong libertarian bent to me, so I have to say no. We (anime fans) as a culture, just like everyone else, should not be trying to enforce our views onto others. We can lead folks to our POV, we can say that “hey, I’m not going to be a part of this” and we can even have dialogs such as this.
Is tentacle rape probably the best way to bring an average Western viewer into the world of anime? No. Definitely no. Resoundingly, no. Heck, anime depictions of non-tentacle rape wouldn’t be the best way to do it.
In the end, this stuff exists, and there is a market for it. As a capitalist, that alone justifies its existence to me. While, I personally believe that Overfiend is trash, and am a happier person for not having seen it, I would not want to keep other adults from being able to view it.
Additionally, I wouldn’t want to hide these things from the mainstream. Everyone knows that there are live-action porn movies, why shouldn’t there be animated ones? People need to know that these things exist, or else they’ll see something like Overfiend on some website, and order it, only to get this wonderful depiction of tentacles to view. If people know that anime porn exists, they’ll know to watch out for it.
Consider, my wife was reading a website, and it mentioned hentai. Which meant that she came to me and asked what it was. She didn’t know, even though she was married to an otaku like myself. If she didn’t know such existed, I could easily see her looking through something like jlist for a DVD for me, finding a title that I don’t have on my shelf, and ordering it, only for it to get here and have it be hentai. I’m trying to convert her to this wonderful world, and am certain that if she saw Overfiend now, she’d have the same reaction to anime as you.
Anyone that comes to this, needs to be aware that such things exist. They need to know that there is a darker side to the fandom – much like there is a darker side to live-action movies. Or even print media.
I think efforts to tidy up the image, would be better off on educating people. Animated movies, TV shows, and colorful drawn picture books are still viewed as children’s fare here in the West. That is the issue we need to be tackling.
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@Hayase, I don’t have a problem with hentai or yaoi, yuri, eroge, etc. My main gripe would be directed at “bad” fans. Thankfully, I haven’t run into many bad fans, but in this world, anything negative is going to get more publicity than anything positive.
@ Ramadahl, having a go at them would create negative ripples in the fandom. There are ways and ways and ways to deal with things without looking like they’re being dealt with. I’m trying to look at the bigger picture. I’m talking a picture 5, 10, 20 years from now. I seriously don’t want anime to be known as a genre, (and a smutty one at that) instead of medium, because of a negative image perpetuated by clueless fans.
@TheBigN, I get motivated every time some says, isn’t anime that Japanese porn stuff?
@ Vivican, agreed that every entertainment has it’s shady patches. However, I’m thinking that, since anime is still relatively unknown, that the community might start thinking about ways to make anime more appealing. It’s been my experience that the norms are still ignorant that anime is a medium and not a genre. That worries me. Once again, I’m thinking in future terms. Wayyyyy, away. If anime stops becoming profitable to US companies, they will stop distributing it. That maybe okeedokee with some fans who don’t care to much about anything else except the current episode they’re parked in front of, but I bet it means a lot to someone who would like to be able to walk into Blockbuster and have as much of a choice with anime as the norms do with LA.
@Kidan, I consider myself a moderate liberal. And even though one part of me says “Hurray! The internet sets us free! Do what thou whilst!” Another part says “Don’t you ruin this for us!”
I keep playing over in my head the multiple encounters with norms who have a baaadd idea of what anime is. When I say, “Where did you get that idea?” Oh a friend….
Hentai, yaoi, yuri, moe; I don’t care that they’re there. Diversity is fantastic. I’m trying to find ways to not turn people off when they do come across ‘em. So many people think of anime as “adult” cartoons. And yes, education would go such a loonnnng way. That would be a way, IMO of policing our own; positive propaganda. It’s a balance between, as you mention, making the public see that anime isn’t all kiddie fare but also, that anime isn’t all “mature”.
Norms? Hypocrite. How about starting by policing yourself. You’re taking pride in the term, but it implies that you think anime fans are abnormal. You don’t even seem to realise this yourself. Basically you’ve attached your self image to anime and your ashamed somehow so you want anime to be respectable. You are a joke.
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@ snub- snub, how am I hypocrite? I use the term “norm” to describe what the average person on the street is considered. It’s not an insult, because you know what, I’m damn glad that anime fans aren’t average.
We’re part of a world-wide community that talks each other, communicates, and engenders ideas. Most of the average people who consider themselves “normal” don’t have that. So what if I call ‘em norms? It’s like looking at brethren who can’t see what you can and giving them an affectionate nickname. Ohhhh, look at those norms! Aren’t they cute thinking that Matt Damon is the shit on screen! They just don’t about Spike Spiegel or Vash the Human Stampede. Maybe they will, someday….
Hells yes I’m proud to be an anime fan! It’s actually an insult to call anime fans otaku. But there’re a shit ton of fans out there who label themselves otaku and hold anime knowledge pissing contests. That’s hypocritical. “Hey, hey we’re all fans together until I find out I know more about anime boobies than you doooo!” Okkkkk. Yeah, that’s not a bad thing.
I don’t care. Though I’m more on the side of just saying no.
I mean, seriously…if you’re worried about fans as the main problem, then don’t go to cons till you’re 13 or 14, by then you’ll be ready.
It’s not that big of a deal.
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@DKong, it’s not about cons or being of age. Just trying to start dialog about how to tidy anime’s image.
There has to be some way of cleaning up anime’s image…Maybe as a community of anime fans, we could educate the mainstream media about how anime isn’t as weird and/or perverted as they think? Miyazaki’s films have started doing that, but there’s still a long way to go.
I can’t count the number of times that I’ve read an article about anime in the media and either it’s ‘weirdness’ is mentioned…or they throw in the now-customary ‘tentacle’ reference.
Take this quote for example from our city entertainment paper:
“The world of anime is arcane, hermetic, and nigh-unto impenetrable by outsiders. And that’s a good thing; part of the fun of anime is discovering something new in the seemingly-endless barrage of options. The Japanese style of animation is nothing like the American experience of happy anthropomorphic animals in stories aimed at kids (although that does make up a tentacle of the anime kraken).” – RFT article on anime
Like Rachel said, if she has seen a Studio Ghibli movie or maybe one of Satoshi Kon’s films (well maybe except Perfect Blue), things might have started out differently for her. And I imagine that would be the same for many people.
How many of you have known someone a little older who doesn’t watch anime now but they were shown some pervy anime in college? Don’t they usually refer to it as ‘that weird Japanese cartoon stuff’?
I just thought about how there’s also people who think just the opposite. How many of you have seen a film like ‘Spirited Away’ (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi ) in theaters with a bunch of little kids who couldn’t sit through the movie? I bet their parents thought it was ‘just another cartoon for the kids’. Or how many people still think it’s all like the Pokemon incident ™ where kids had seizures?
THEN, there are the ‘I say I like anime ’cause it’s cool’ types who are like ‘I love anime too, especially Heavy Metal and Cool World!” LOL
That’s frustrating – people either think I’m either childish, a poser or a pervo for watching anime! LOL
Or yeah, then there are people who think I’m an ‘industry insider’…but that’s another story.
So here’s my idea for a campaign: “Anime: It’s more than Pokemon and Tentacles.”
Remember everyone – try to keep the comments on topic. This isn’t a post about censorship – it’s about how to clean up anime’s image…if it needs cleaned up (my answer: yes).
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The problem is that otaku didn’t become a shame word separating the extreme freaks from the regular joes. Instead, a lot of people now run around screaming that they’re otaku and end up looking like idiots. If we showed them the shows where Japanese people make fun of gaijin otaku, they might not feel like worshiping Japan the next morning. It’s really embarrassing to watch them trip through the entire episode as the audience laughs at them.
I don’t think we can police the fans. I don’t think anyone could, not even the original Japanese companies (if they cared). It’s definitely a cultural attitude shift here. But I’m definitely going to laugh when some little otaku’s hopes and dreams are crushed when s/he comes to Japan and finds out it’s not Anime Land Tokyo.
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From what I have read, most of you “anime fans” do have a bad impression of Hentai. I mean, many of you refer to it as the “dark” side of anime. As such, you see people who are really into it as “weird”. You feel that they embarrass you in a way by “dirtying” anime and other people’s views on it. At least, this is the impression I get.
This is sad.
For one, what you are saying is that the image of anime is important to you. What this means is that you are basically feeling ashamed when people find out you like anime because of their perception of it. Like any hobby, many people are going to look down on you for liking it (even mundane things such as reading can get a bad rep in some places), this is a fact of life. You can try your best to educate these people, but they will never learn if their mind is already made up.
Another thing, you have decided to disassociate yourself from Hentai. Why? Because it doesn’t follow your moral/ethical code or whatever you wish to call it. Hentai IS a genre of Anime. It is not ALL of Anime, but the fact that it is part of it needs to be accepted by you people. The sad thing is, many of you do this because of strange fetish porn. This is unfair to Hentai. Why? Because some like some things and some don’t. There is fetish Hentai, sure. There is also romantic Hentai and sad Hentai and horror Hentai and dramatic Hentai. It is not all tentacle porn, as you people seem to assume. You, as a sexual human being, can easily find a Hentai that suits you best. And THAT is the beauty of Hentai, diversity. So, in a nutshell, you took the same stereotypes of Anime in the general populace and shoved it onto Hentai.
Now, what bothers me the most, your dislike of Hentai fans that are willing to voice their like for it. Well, I like Hentai. I do enjoy awfully depressing yaoi stories (thats what I like in that genre), awfully cute yuri, I adore loli and shota (they really are incredibly cute), I have enjoyed tentacle Hentai, as well as most fetishes (I’ve glanced at ero guro Hentai, but that goes a bit too much even for me). Why is that wrong? Because you had decided that its “dirty” and “dark”. Because you feel that sex (and this goes back to my other point) is wrong if it does not fit into your simple understanding of it. What I like is what I like (I keep repeating this), and what you like is what you like. As such, you have no right to look down on me and other Hentai fans.
I’ll end this by restating everything one more time. Stop discriminating against Hentai fans. Their hobby is their hobby, yours is yours. Don’t disassociate Hentai from Anime, it is just a separate genre. Many, though they have a certain focus on sex, have beautiful and compelling plots. Something many of you, sadly, don’t see when you denounce it or give it titles and names like “dirty secret”.
I am an Anime fan. I like many genres of Anime. I liked Chobits and I like Elfen Lied, and I enjoyed Gundam Seed and Trinity Blood. But I also enjoyed Another Lady Innocent, Crimson Climax, and Immoral Sisters. Don’t fault me for it and don’t try to police it because, truthfully, you have no right to.
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@Maxben, I believe there’s been confusion on, at least, my stance of hentai: hentai=OK. I don’t watch it 24/7 but neither do I judge someone who does. What I’ve been trying to say, on the subject of hentai is, maybe it’s the fans who perpetuate a negative image of anime by only showcasing this one, very small, aspect of the art. Therein giving potential fans only one small piece of a gigantic picture. Savvy? I don’t think hentai is bad at all. That’s my opinion. I don’t have a puritan stance on the matter.
My negative encounter wasn’t negative because it was porn; it was negative because I thought that all anime= porn. I don’t watch porn all that much so why would I be interested in anime if all it was was animated porn? I don’t care if people like hentai. Repeat: I. Don’t. Care. I can’t speak for anyone else, though.
I think many fans dislike hentai, not because it’s porn, but because there are other fans out there running wild with no sense of responsibility in regards to how their behavior reflects on anime as a whole. If they act like pervy jerks, that WILL reflect poorly on all of us.
After reading the comments, I don’t think my readers understand what I’m getting at. I do NOT want to censor anime. If it’s legal, why would I want to censor it? Who cares? I don’t have to watch it. Neither does anyone else.
I’m talking about personal responsibility; something any real fan of anime should have. And if they don’t have that much needed sense of personal responsibility, should they be allowed to give everyone else a bad name? IMO, hell no.
[...] of The Anime Blog, a dreamlogic friendly site, has posted a passionate article on the subject here). Not helping matters are the inclusion of children’s shows like Naruto in the “Adult†Swim [...]
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Hey Rachel. Linked this on my site. Good article
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Hey Rachel, thanks for the answer, I think I understand what you meant better now.
But, I still have to disagree with you. Every fan has the right to be a fan regardless of what it is they are fans of. Meaning, if you are unhappy that hentai fans are so vocal about their like of hentai, are you allowed to try to censor that behavior? Sure it reflects poorly on the rest of anime, but this makes them happy and therefore should not be controlled. If you are really worried and truly care about the way anime looks in society (anime=porn), you can try changing people’s minds yourself rather than try to stop hentai fans from expressing themselves regardless of how they do so.
Not everyone feels that anime fans need to prove to society that anime does not always (and, in truth, rarely) equals porn. As I said in my first reply, everyone’s hobby is their hobby, and I don’t see why it matters that others don’t like it or don’t understand it.
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I’m sorry that you had someone show you that type of anime at an obviously inappropriate age, and that is inexcusable. When I was the content provider for my local college anime club a few years ago, I flatly refused to show that type of stuff. The college had a policy that anyone in the community could attend the club, so many parents dropped off their kids to watch anime. So I always refused to show hentai,or Yaoi during the clubs viewings even though many students requested those types of shows.
Now I’m not a prude when it comes to that type of stuff, if any of the college kids absolutely wanted to watch those shows and they were over 18 I would loan them a DVD or VHS tape to watch themselves.
On my blog I’ve even considered adding a restricted +18 section, of course it would be password protected.
I think that the anime community should do a little self censoring on it’s own especially when their the possibility that children could be affected. A blog or web site that children could access to should not post hentai or porn.
This issue will only become larger as time goes on, as technology increases the ease of media transmission it will be possible for material intended for adult consumption to find its way into the hands of under-aged media consumers. It is a crime to knowingly show porn to minors, be it anime or live action.
Let us not forget that Hentai, Shojo-ai, Shonen-ai, and other types of hardcore anime are intended for Japanese adult consumption. Even thought many under-aged kids manage to get a hold of it, a very small percentage of people blame the medium itself. Alcohol consumption in this country is limited to those +21, and if under-aged people are caught consuming they go after the person providing the product not the product.
Also, in mainstream broadcasts of anime to Japanese consumers very little sex is actually ever shown. Anime girls may dress like loli’s, or anime male characters my be attracted to those girls but they almost never act on that attraction. Take Moetan for example, the main character Ink dresses like a loli, and you see plenty of pantie shots and alike, but when she gets alone with him in his room she blushes at the slightest physical or emotional contact, and nothing really happens. Even though the shown wraps itself in sexual innuendo it is very conservative when it comes to actual sex. I know of only a few mainstream broadcast anime where sex actually occurred, and it was never shown but only insinuated to. One was in His and Her Circumstances, it occurred between the two main characters, and it only happened after many weeks or months of dating it was not a hookup. Another example was in Koi Kaze between a brother and his sister, and it only occurred after they fully understood the full situation(positive and negative). A third example is in High School Girls, one of the girls admitted having sex with her boyfriend but then dumped him when she found out that he knew one of his friends was going to attempt to take advantage of one of her girlfriends. In all three examples sex occurred but was never shown, it always occurred in the context of a serious relationship not a hookup, and it was always shown with the great emotional weight that go along with it. Compared to many newer American TV shows aimed at teens, mainstream anime is much more conservative about sex.
Now to the issue of nudity and so forth, eastern culture and western culture are very different, when I lived in Korea for two years certain things that western society would have found shocking was perfectly normal, and some things that us Americans believed to be OK would shock my Korean friends. So certain types of sexual media geared towards adults in Asia might never be considered appropriate in the United States.
My final thought is that if all of us adult anime fans keep the +18 material away from under 18 anime fans everything will be all right, if the under 18 fans want to watch that stuff let them watch all hentai and pron the want after they turn 18.
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@Maxben, hmm, ok censorship is such a strong word. Here, let me give you an example (bear with me, it’s a long bit of analogy) of what I’m trying to convey in terms of fans “acting up” and what should be done, if anything:
You’re at a concert you’ve been dying to go to for, like, ever. The opening acts were awesome and the crowd is super stoked. Everyone loves the headlining band and they’re all huge fans from way back. All the fans are smiling and laughing together and exchanging stories of how they “discovered” said band and little fun facts about the singers and guitarists. There’s an overwhelming sense of camaraderie; even amongst the know-it-alls that have been to every one of the bands appearances.
The band is finally up, the crowd goes wild. Then someone jostles you and cuts in front of your line of sight. A group of drunk frat boys has made their way to the front and are yelling cat calls at the band. They’re huge fans too, but they’re raucous enthusiasm is ruining your experience. The band initially ignores the loud group. The group starts yelling for the band to perform this, perform that, and are starting a mosh pit where there really shouldn’t be one. Pretty soon, the band addresses the frat boys directly; cut it out please. Too drunk and oblivious to care, the frat boys continue to blithely ruin the concert for all the fans.
Soon, fans are leaving. In twos, threes and larger groups. Why stick around? Can’t hear the band anyway and the bouncers and band aren’t doing a whole hell of a lot to make things right.
After the concert, word gets around that the show sucked and that the only people who like the band are a bunch of dumb frat boys. Potential fans no longer go to the band’s concerts since the band has a bad rep of attracting fans who will ruin it for ‘em anyway.
The band is anime and the frat boys are the irresponsible fans who potentially screw up the experience for everyone else. Would it have been censorship for the non-frat boy fans to collectively tell the frat boys to shut the hell up? Would it have been censorship if the well-behaved fans quietly cut the loud jerks off from the crowd and corralled them towards the door? Is that censorship or communal responsibility?
Granted, we’re not in a concert hall, but how is the fandom really so different from a group of concert goers after all? Aren’t we all in this together? Aren’t we all affected when a group acts up?
I don’t think it has anything to do with hentai, yaoi, yuri, etc. (although a number of these fans do contribute to the noise). It’s like alcohol; drink responsibly. Watch your porn responsibly; no one cares if you do (I don’t) just don’t slosh your beer in some chick’s hair and don’t ruin the concert for anyone else. Simple.
Fans could just as easily be moe or magic-girl fans and f* up the experience for others.
Censorship is too strong a word to apply to collective responsibility. Apathetic fans have no right to complain when things go wrong in the fandom. It’s every fan’s responsibility to keep anime alive and kicking (in the US).
If word gets around that most anime fans are like drunk frat boys, anime will get a bad rep. Sad but true. Negativity spreads hella faster than anything positive, and if anime’s growth is inhibited, companies will stop licensing as many titles as they have been. Money talks. We need new fans to keep up the growing pace in anime that we’ve been enjoying, collectively, in the past five years.
No new fans equals stagnation, equals stunted growth, equals eventual decline in anime, equals eventual demise of anime. Might seem overly dramatic, yes, but I’m talking 10 years (not not next month or next year) down the road. Should I care if someone else is giving anime a bad name? Yes. Too many apathetic short-sighted fans don’t give a damn what happens next week with anime, let alone the next decade.
Education, as suggested previously, is one of many avenues that must be explored in making the fandom more positive and accessible to die-hard and non-fans alike. But collective responsibility, along with individual responsibility will help take the fandom to new level.
@Animewriter, indeed and well put. It’s all about responsibility. It’s good to see a responsible anime fan sharing the fandom and sharing it wisely!