- Apr 6, 2011
- 104
- 7
So, while surfing the web to find sources for my research paper for my Japanese culture class I stumbled upon an interesting page:
http://www.petitiononline.com/cutiepie/petition.html
Apparently, some overly zealous christian parent (that apparently doesn't get out very much) started a petition online to ban anime in the US because it's a "perverse, evil, insiduous form of animation from the dark land of Japan, and is corrupting America's youth at unprecedented rates. And yes, that is a direct quote from the petition.
After reading this I almost fell out of my chair from laughing so hard. But then I started thinking about just how bad the misconceptions of Anime are in the US. The person that started this petition is obviously an extreme, but a very large number of people have negative views of anime. People that watch it are often seen as weird or nerdy. While that's never stopped me from loving and watching anime, the negative connotations associated with anime and the people that watch it does bother me sometimes.
Why do people view anime in such a negative way? I think it's due to this alienation factor of anime being so different from conventional pop culture in the US that people don't even give themselves the chance to enjoy it. They immediately dismiss it due to their preconceived notions that anime is too weird. One of my friends that lived across the street from me for years knew that I watched anime fairly often and always thought I was strange for doing so. But after convincing him to watch the first few episodes of Death Note, he was hooked. We watched the whole series, and he loved it. It felt like a great accomplishment that I was able to get him to put aside his prejudices about anime and actually enjoy it.
Why do you think so many people are totally against anime?
http://www.petitiononline.com/cutiepie/petition.html
Apparently, some overly zealous christian parent (that apparently doesn't get out very much) started a petition online to ban anime in the US because it's a "perverse, evil, insiduous form of animation from the dark land of Japan, and is corrupting America's youth at unprecedented rates. And yes, that is a direct quote from the petition.
After reading this I almost fell out of my chair from laughing so hard. But then I started thinking about just how bad the misconceptions of Anime are in the US. The person that started this petition is obviously an extreme, but a very large number of people have negative views of anime. People that watch it are often seen as weird or nerdy. While that's never stopped me from loving and watching anime, the negative connotations associated with anime and the people that watch it does bother me sometimes.
Why do people view anime in such a negative way? I think it's due to this alienation factor of anime being so different from conventional pop culture in the US that people don't even give themselves the chance to enjoy it. They immediately dismiss it due to their preconceived notions that anime is too weird. One of my friends that lived across the street from me for years knew that I watched anime fairly often and always thought I was strange for doing so. But after convincing him to watch the first few episodes of Death Note, he was hooked. We watched the whole series, and he loved it. It felt like a great accomplishment that I was able to get him to put aside his prejudices about anime and actually enjoy it.
Why do you think so many people are totally against anime?