Blogpost 6: Why do people loves anime so much?

This blog post focuses to the topic "Why do people loves anime so much?" just like the title implies, curiosity leads me to make this as my 6th blog post. Actually it's a hart time to find article for this topic, so what I did was, I survey several person and here's what they say:

Chris, a friend of mine who really loves anime, answer me this "I love anime so much, because of its interesting different genre. And for me anime is an outlet for those who do not have an opportunity to express themselves and also for those who want to escape reality even just for a short period of time."
  
Michelle, my school mate, who doesn't hate nor love anime says that "Hmmm, I don't know why do people love anime that much because I really don't get what's with anime, but based  on my observation towards my friends who really love anime, is that anime is a world all its own. It is a world filled with endless amount of possibilities. It is inspiring and enrapturing, it has the power to change us. It is an art all its own, a meaning all its own. it isn't just one thing , it's everything, and there is an anime out there for every one, and anyone can enjoy just the right anime."

Okay for my opinion on the two answers I've got, and also based on the research I've done.
Maybe before they love anime, they first turned out to be a hater or a people who don't understand what's with anime, but after watching it they become the most obsessive person. And because of that so much obsession to anime they imitate the whole behavior of the character they adore the most. In other word, they want to become the character of that anime.
 

Blogpost 5: Anime as an Escape Zone "Escapist at Heart"

" If you discovered  something that made you tighten inside, you had better try to learn more about it."

People often discriminate those who watch anime, creating stereotypes such as "having no life" and "being in denial", or simply escapism. I myself is a huge fan of anime and what I find amusing is the fact that people from all over the worlds watch anime, regardless of their culture. I have a huge interest in anime and it has always been a mystery to me why anime attracts people of all culture, age, gender, and how stereotype came into being.

There's a question coming up on my mind, that pursue me to make this blog. I attempt to search for articles related to anime and their psychological effects on human: I could barely find any. I believe that the media in general finds anime to be uninteresting and any articles would not appeal to the public.

On the contrary, a massive amount of online blogs have been devoted to anime and their authors consists of people with diverse intelligence and interest levels; this includes those who watches anime for fun all the way to people who analyze and criticize anime deep down into their roots, literary concepts, appeals, psychological effects on the audience, and comparison to other animes.

http://www.thatanimeblog.com/index.php/2010/06/why-do-we-watch-anime-were-all-cowards/

On this link above, it directs you to the blog whose author deliberately tries to explain his point of view on reasons why people are attracted to animes. Below are two portions of the blog post:

First portion of the blog post:

"Isn't the reason why we watch anime because we're all escapists at heart? Don't we sequester ourselves off from the real world and find solace in some form? Humanity has always wanted to escape, though the methods of doing so have even more sophisticated as time went on. In the past it was religion. then after the printing press it became books, then the radio, then the television, and now for us, anime."

Ohm before I state my opinion and understanding about the blog post above, I copied some on the blog post of an anonymous then make it the article that I'm going to give an opinion because of I can't searched for any articles about this topic anymore.

Okay, from the start, I can't really understand what does "Escapist at heart" means, but when I closely look at it for how many times, I've realized the meaning of it. Escapist at heart does mean, we watch anime to escape a problem, usually, anime becomes our past time or problem reliever. Because I myself does it, when there are times I have a problem, I probably lock myself in my room and go infront of my computer and watch anime.

Second portion of the blog post:

" But this obsession with the anime must certainly from a different angle that more escapism. There has to be a reason why we devote out time to watching anime, as opposed to shows like Lost or House. Why do we even go through the trouble of watching anime in the first place?"

In this blog post, I think anime helps us to sometimes escape to problems we have. We can make anime as an entertainment.

First of all, most animes have been claimed and proven to contain morals, behaviors, language and stories that contradict events in real life. According to 'common sense', one would say that this is meant to escape from reality into a world of fantasies where you put yourself into the position of one of the characters in order to satisfy your own ego. I believe this is true, but what I also believe is that this is not an act of escapism, contrary to popular beliefs. I believe this is a deliberate act of imagination with help of physical senses. People have fantasies; they have their own dreams and often times they found themselves making mental movies of perfect scenarios in life.

Blogpost 4: Anime Addiction: Its causes and effects to students

 

Nowadays, anime addiction is very rampant especially among students. There are many factors that urge students to watch anime that leads to addiction. Anime itself serves as a great factor that let the students to watch, because anime became the latest trend for all teenagers and having a good storyline that makes the students hook up. Another one is due to cool animation, which has a vibrant color that tickles their eyes every time they watched a single episode. Next is peer pressure, which influences a person to watch anime, when your group are expose to anime it will surely influences you. Last is boredom buster. As an expert say,"Boredom is not the lack of sensory stimulation: It is just a lack of imagination or creative thinking, so students tend to watch anime more  often and surf the internet to read online manga.

Students who are too much expose to anime become addicted, however being addicted to it may cause good and bad effects to them and for the people around them. Let's first talk with the good effects anime addiction may cause. I've read some articles about the effects of anime addiction to that otaku and to the people around him/her. Below are some of the articles I read and my opinion about it:

Lawrence Eng, a researcher with a Ph.D. in Science and Technological Studies from Ressealaer Polytechnic Institute, studied the effects of anime fandom on IT students. He found that one great benefit that anime has on students was to increases social interaction. He studied his IT students, and figure that they generally been victims of a stereotype that casts them as antisocial and unapproachable. When the IT students become anime fans, they're immediately accepted by all of the other students who like anime, as well as a community of fans on internet.

  Based on these article , students learn to reach to others and make friends to those  who share the same passion with them, like joining cosplay or going to some anime convention. Being with people who have the same likes or hobby you have is much more easier to communicate with.

Some students with a propensity for behavioral problems get ideas from anime. The anime "Death Note", which features a notebook in which the protagonist can write down the name of someone he wants to die as well as the method of that person's death and actually kill the person, hascaused a number of problems in American schools. In Oklahoma in 2009, two students wrote the names of other students they didn't like in a "death note" they made, along with how they'd like those students to die. Similar incidents occured in Virginia, South California, Washington and Alabama in 2007 and 2008.

In these article, it is said that anime addiction can affect their potential behavior problems, which cause them to do or follow what they've watched that they think will actually happen if they do it. I see it like kind of scary, cause I didn't think that this things can affect the mind of a person. Maybe this happening caused them so much addiction to that kind of anime.

Many students interested in anime pursue an interest in art. These students are often interested in designing their own anime characters and creating their own manga (Japanese-style comic books). While some art teachers may be frustrated with these students' desire to draw only in the large-eyed, cartoonish anime style, an increased interest in are is an opportunity to introduce these students to other types of art. Teachers can explain that even anime artists must be able to draw lifelike drawings to be able to convey movement and poses realistically.
In these article, it's all about the effect of anime to students on having an interest in art because of addciction to anime. They enhanced their drawing skills and imagination.

Perhaps the most educational benefit of students' interest in anime is the frequent interestin Japanese language and culture that these students develop as a result. Many Americans who spend time abroad in Japan or who pursue careers in Japan can point to a love of anime as the original impetus. 
In these article, it implies on how the student haves interest in Japanese language and culture. Because of so much love to anime, they want to learn Japanese language, and sometimes apply to their daily life a Japanese live.

 Too much exposure to anime can cause a postivie and negative effects to its viewer. Let's first talk about the positive effect. The positive effects of anime addiction, is it gives happiness to students which satisfy them and instead of engaging into drugs they spend their time on watching anime. Aside from the entertainment perspective, students learn to reach to others and make friends who share with same passion through joining cosplay or anime conventions. Through watching anime, they enhance their drawing skills by drawing their favorite anime character, and through this their imagination widens. Though most of animes are in Japanese language, we have English sub or dub which allows us to understand what is it all about.

Were finish talking about the positive effects of anime addiction, now let's tackle the negative effects. Students are expose to sexual activity through watching sex type of anime or commonly called Hentai, as you go back to my blog post three you'll see what the hentai means. Watching  that kind of anime can also affect the students behavior.

Students starts to be getting to much influence by every kind of fashion. They lose the sense of reality, since they're expose to the world of anime and sometimes students shows a very childish attitude toward life. To prevent anime addiction, must develop self-discipline or self-control. Students must set limitation and know their top priorities. Proper parental guidance is a must to prevent anime addiction. Parents can help their child through guiding them, academic interests must be taught to students so that they would not focus on watching anime.

Blogpost 3: Genres of Anime

"Even when our eyes are closed, there's a whole world that exists outside ourselves and our dreams."

 ― Hiromu Arakawa, Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 01

Anime has many different kinds of genre. There's no such thing like same stories. All of them have different stories and lessons. There are so much genre than we know, because what we just know are those popular genre in today's generation. Some anime are intended for kids or acting a kids, some are just for adults and some are for general viewing. Anime genres itself is so much confusing becuase they're actually connected with each other, but I'll help you differentiate the most common anime genres nowadays.

The following are the most popular genre as of today's generation:

An article entitled "Buyer's Guide to Anime Genres and Themes" by Sedar Yegulalp, I used it as a reference (http://anime.about.com/od/animeprimer/a/animegenres.htm):

1. Action/Adenture - the bulk of shows fall somewhere in this category, which can include martial-arts action, samurai-vs.-ninja, sword-and-sorcery adventures in other worlds, or battles between giant robots.

This anime emphasis on exciting action sequences than on character development or story-telling. Its more on the protagonist/s fighting with the antagonist/s, which the protagonist will lose, but again he/she will try to fight again with the enemy.

2.  Drama/Comedy/Slice-of-life - shows that revolve around romance, coming of age, experiences at school (both good and bad), or the tribulations of everyday life.

This genre are connected to each other that's why I combine them with each other. This genre is relatively popular which deals with the detailed creation and progression of the romantic relationship between two protagonist which sometimes in the first part of the anime the two protagonist are mortal enemy where accidentally falls inlove with each other. This genre normally blended with comedy and slice of life.

3. Mystery/Horror/Psychological - this includes horror that has a supernatural theme, as well as conventional suspense/thriller material.

This genre is not really that scary, it's just more on mysterious that will lead you to curiosity. This genre implies a lot of bloodshed and mutilation and involves a chain of unexplained events, where the protgonist tried to solve them.
 Despite the name horror, it's not actually scary. Sometimes it is much funnier than scary, it implies a lot of bloodshed and mutilation, it just sounds and looks scary because of its sound effects and the animation was quite scary. This is often mixed with the psychological genre.

4. Hentai - from the Japanese word for "pervert", this is the catch call name for pornographic anime.

Mostly, this genre is basically anime pornography. On my own opinion this genre is more adored and watch by male teenagers though we're not sure if there's a  female tennagers who watch this genre.

5. School-Life - this genre is very common, usually connected to all genre, mostly setting is in middle school. The mood of this genre varies a great deal depending on the level of the institution, with the level of maturity of the characters increasing respectively.

Like what it says above it usually connected with all the genre. This genre is very popular mostly to female teenagers.

6. Shounen-ai - Relates to the sexual relationship between two males but is less graphic than Yaoi. It tends to focus on romance, relationships and character development.

This genre is for those who loves/likes male to male relationship, to be exact for those who are gay or in third sex.

7. Shoujo-ai -  Relates to lesbian romance and relationships, its less graphic than Yuri. It tends to focus on romance, relationships and character development. 

These are just the most popular anime genre here in Philippines. All the genres are started here has the connection with each other. Also, the most watched due to its popularity among, not only to its fans, but also to those people who just passed by that anime. I think, having knowledge of the genre is a good things, so when we accidentally watch some anime for the first time, well figure it out what type of anime it was.