4 ms·

I would bet a large part (or all of it) is that anime and cartoons and toys aren't seen as toys, as things just for children, it is normal adult interest. Much

I would bet a large part (or all of it) is that anime and cartoons and toys aren't seen as toys, as things just for children, it is normal adult interest. Much anime is very adult and dark. Other anime is war filled. It's no different than painting pin-up girls on on your B-17. Also, btw, US Cartoons bugs, daffy, woodpecker are not uncommon nose art subjects. google "bugs bunny nose art".

jordigh 11y ago
> it is normal adult interest. Is it really? How intimate are you with Japanese culture? I am skeptical that Japanese people generally view anime with the same reverence that they view the works of Akira Kurosawa or Natsume Soseki. edit: okay, anime is serious business.
- sp332 11y ago
  You don't have to be Kurosawa to be a "normal adult interest".
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- fluxquanta 11y ago
  It is its own medium of entertainment and the content can vary wildly between different intellectual properties depending on the target audience. Pigeon-holing anime as being "for kids only" is like watching a Pixar production and saying that all American movies are "for kids only". The difference between intended audiences is more easily observed when you look at manga (comic books, often adapted to anime if successful) rather than just the animated cartoons, since the language used in manga directly reflects the target demographic. Plenty of manga are directed at an older audience and will use harder, more complicated kanji (Chinese characters), with or without furigana (helper text in a simpler alphabet) than those directed toward children.
- ics 11y ago
  My partner's parents and grandparents watch anime, read manga, and her parents definitely game way more than us (PC, iPhone, and handheld PS/Nintendo/...). It's a casual activity like reading a book or watching TV, not just for techies/geeks/nerds/etc. But to address any concerns about value to society, they do hold Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira on a pretty high pedestal. Not the same as Kurosawa, but why should that matter? Edited to add: both her and my parents are roughly the same age and share many interests in art/media/culture. Mine are from the US and were adults by the time Pong came out; despite the explosion of media in recent years I don't think the type of content they look for is much different than it would be otherwise. South Park might be the only exception.
- robotkilla 11y ago
  I visited Japan over a decade ago and it seemed like everywhere i turned there was anime and manga and adults reading it. I stayed a couple of nights in an inn as well and there were several shelves of manga (mostly hentai) on the bookshelf in the waiting room. Also all of my Japanese friends in America (admittedly they were in their teens) were into manga and anime. I think its a pretty well known and accepted fact that anime and manga are popular among all age groups in Japan. They also seem to be fine (at least more fine than midwest America) with softcore porn. There was a lot of waste-up porn on news stands and I saw a row of Japanese men looking at more explicit porn mags in a bookstore in front of the magazine rack like it was a sunday paper -- totally nonchalant. edit: fixed paragraph layout and spelling
- radicalbyte 11y ago
  Gundam is basically Japan's version of Star Trek. So yes, it's pretty deeply embedded in their culture.
- krapp 11y ago
  "normal adult interest" doesn't have to imply reverence, only general familiarity. I doubt as many Japanese people even know who Akira Kurosawa is, as know Doraemon or Gundam or Attack on Titan or whatever. Here is a list of the top grossing films in Japan[0] - note that #1, #5, #6 and #10 are anime. Windows in Japan has official anime mascots[1,2] and Mercedes has used anime to sell cars, at least twice[3,4]. Examples abound of anime covering adult (not necessarily pornographic but that too) themes[5], and of being used as a cultural referent to market to adults[6,7]. It's not even that controversial that anime is mainstream in Japan. They put Pikachu on some of their commercial airplanes[8], ffs. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films_in_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films... [1]http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/microsoft-unveils-its-latest-japanese-anime-mascot-for-windows-10/ http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/microsoft-unveils-its... [2]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNfCEL4M_ac https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNfCEL4M_ac [3]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv7PodxyyWs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv7PodxyyWs [4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucTwMQG1vuE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucTwMQG1vuE [5]https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/239jkw/what_are_the_best_grown_up_animes/ https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/239jkw/what_are_the_... [6]http://en.rocketnews24.com/2015/10/27/rice-rice-baby-strains-of-japanese-rice-get-turned-into-cute-anime-girls-on-new-packaging/ http://en.rocketnews24.com/2015/10/27/rice-rice-baby-strains... [7]http://en.rocketnews24.com/2015/10/10/japanese-employment-site-reimagines-web-developers-accountants-and-more-as-anime-rrg-heroes/ http://en.rocketnews24.com/2015/10/10/japanese-employment-si... [8]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Jet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Jet
remarkEon 11y ago
->It's no different than painting pin-up girls on on your B-17. Yup, my first thought. Then I started googling and found this about how apparently writing on weaponry seems to be an ancient practice. http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=399876&partId=1&searchText=sling+bullet+inscription&page=1 http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/coll... Relevant reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1lmzov/is_there_a_history_of_soldiers_writing_messages/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1lmzov/is_th...
mariuolo 11y ago
I don't know what to think, years ago the Japanese defence minister talked about Godzilla invading and he was only half-joking (http://www.japannewsreview.com/politics/politics/20071220page_id=3567 http://www.japannewsreview.com/politics/politics/20071220pag...).
- chc 11y ago
  Without having heard the full talk, it sounds to me like he was using Godzilla movies as a reference point for an issue he was interested in, which is the moral and practical implications of interacting with an alien species if one were discovered.

jordigh 11y ago

> it is normal adult interest. Is it really? How intimate are you with Japanese culture? I am skeptical that Japanese people generally view anime with the same reverence that they view the works of Akira Kurosawa or Natsume Soseki. edit: okay, anime is serious business.

sp332 11y ago
You don't have to be Kurosawa to be a "normal adult interest".
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
fluxquanta 11y ago
It is its own medium of entertainment and the content can vary wildly between different intellectual properties depending on the target audience. Pigeon-holing anime as being "for kids only" is like watching a Pixar production and saying that all American movies are "for kids only". The difference between intended audiences is more easily observed when you look at manga (comic books, often adapted to anime if successful) rather than just the animated cartoons, since the language used in manga directly reflects the target demographic. Plenty of manga are directed at an older audience and will use harder, more complicated kanji (Chinese characters), with or without furigana (helper text in a simpler alphabet) than those directed toward children.
ics 11y ago
My partner's parents and grandparents watch anime, read manga, and her parents definitely game way more than us (PC, iPhone, and handheld PS/Nintendo/...). It's a casual activity like reading a book or watching TV, not just for techies/geeks/nerds/etc. But to address any concerns about value to society, they do hold Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira on a pretty high pedestal. Not the same as Kurosawa, but why should that matter? Edited to add: both her and my parents are roughly the same age and share many interests in art/media/culture. Mine are from the US and were adults by the time Pong came out; despite the explosion of media in recent years I don't think the type of content they look for is much different than it would be otherwise. South Park might be the only exception.
robotkilla 11y ago
I visited Japan over a decade ago and it seemed like everywhere i turned there was anime and manga and adults reading it. I stayed a couple of nights in an inn as well and there were several shelves of manga (mostly hentai) on the bookshelf in the waiting room. Also all of my Japanese friends in America (admittedly they were in their teens) were into manga and anime. I think its a pretty well known and accepted fact that anime and manga are popular among all age groups in Japan. They also seem to be fine (at least more fine than midwest America) with softcore porn. There was a lot of waste-up porn on news stands and I saw a row of Japanese men looking at more explicit porn mags in a bookstore in front of the magazine rack like it was a sunday paper -- totally nonchalant. edit: fixed paragraph layout and spelling
radicalbyte 11y ago
Gundam is basically Japan's version of Star Trek. So yes, it's pretty deeply embedded in their culture.
krapp 11y ago
"normal adult interest" doesn't have to imply reverence, only general familiarity. I doubt as many Japanese people even know who Akira Kurosawa is, as know Doraemon or Gundam or Attack on Titan or whatever. Here is a list of the top grossing films in Japan[0] - note that #1, #5, #6 and #10 are anime. Windows in Japan has official anime mascots[1,2] and Mercedes has used anime to sell cars, at least twice[3,4]. Examples abound of anime covering adult (not necessarily pornographic but that too) themes[5], and of being used as a cultural referent to market to adults[6,7]. It's not even that controversial that anime is mainstream in Japan. They put Pikachu on some of their commercial airplanes[8], ffs. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films_in_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films... [1]http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/microsoft-unveils-its-latest-japanese-anime-mascot-for-windows-10/ http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/microsoft-unveils-its... [2]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNfCEL4M_ac https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNfCEL4M_ac [3]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv7PodxyyWs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv7PodxyyWs [4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucTwMQG1vuE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucTwMQG1vuE [5]https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/239jkw/what_are_the_best_grown_up_animes/ https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/239jkw/what_are_the_... [6]http://en.rocketnews24.com/2015/10/27/rice-rice-baby-strains-of-japanese-rice-get-turned-into-cute-anime-girls-on-new-packaging/ http://en.rocketnews24.com/2015/10/27/rice-rice-baby-strains... [7]http://en.rocketnews24.com/2015/10/10/japanese-employment-site-reimagines-web-developers-accountants-and-more-as-anime-rrg-heroes/ http://en.rocketnews24.com/2015/10/10/japanese-employment-si... [8]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Jet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Jet

remarkEon 11y ago

->It's no different than painting pin-up girls on on your B-17. Yup, my first thought. Then I started googling and found this about how apparently writing on weaponry seems to be an ancient practice. http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=399876&partId=1&searchText=sling+bullet+inscription&page=1 http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/coll... Relevant reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1lmzov/is_there_a_history_of_soldiers_writing_messages/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1lmzov/is_th...

mariuolo 11y ago

I don't know what to think, years ago the Japanese defence minister talked about Godzilla invading and he was only half-joking (http://www.japannewsreview.com/politics/politics/20071220page_id=3567 http://www.japannewsreview.com/politics/politics/20071220pag...).

chc 11y ago
Without having heard the full talk, it sounds to me like he was using Godzilla movies as a reference point for an issue he was interested in, which is the moral and practical implications of interacting with an alien species if one were discovered.