Buy essay on Anime in relation to fandom

One of the most phenomenal cross-cultural exchanges in recent years has been that
of manga and anime, Japanese comics and animation. The paper covers the topic of fandom phenomenon, and the anime fandom in particular. This topic is widely discussed nowadays in media, and that is spoken about in the essay by Jenson J. “Fandom as pathology: The Consequences of Characterization” in a book “Adoring audience: fan culture and popular”.
There is an opinion about fans as dangerous in mainstream American cinema, many people speak about them as obsessing over their object of fandom to the point of turning violent toward that object, or toward others for the benefit of that object, but there are many examples to protest this view.
Anime is not an American cultural product, however, anime fandom nowadays has become practically popular culture phenomenon in the States. To most US audiences animated fare was considered only for children, but that is incorrect, as anime is a special case of “common knowledge” being proven grossly incorrect.
There are more and more otaku, Japanese animation fans, in the United States every day. American college students are leading the way with hundreds of anime clubs across the nation.

Anime in the US culture
The term anime means animated productions for television, film or video made in Japan or in the Japanese style, and are usually based on successful titles of manga, that are the Japanese comics books. The main difference between the American and Japanese cartoon is that in Japan, cartoons are made and intended for all ages, not just children and teenagers, as in Japan every group has their own comic genre from young to old. This mass appeal to many different groups is why Japanese animation has become so popular in America , as American young people may not like comics that are only for children, so they have found anime and manga as an interesting alternative.
Japanese anime represent a highly developed art form which surpasses western comics in their quality of artistry, social comment and adaptability to people of races, genders, and social-economic groups. Anime is more comparable to American film and theatre than U.S. comics because of the difference in quality of artistic, social, and cultural content.
Naomi Kasa in “Constructing Animerica: History, Style, and Spectatorship of Anime in the United States” says that: “Anime does not attempt to emulate reality – it knows its own limits – instead it offers an alternative that became very acceptable to young American viewers. Perhaps… it is the flatness, the surreal framework of anime’s style that allows American viewers to so easily project their own cultural and experiential likenesses onto anime.” (Kasa 2005, 140)
One of the main factors that drew American fans toward anime was its realistic depictions of everyday events and interactions, even if they were set in a fantastic past or a science fiction based future. The realistic depictions of violence and demonic forces have been a source of criticism of anime, and even fear as some parents fear the effects of the anime on their children as something that may encourage violence.
Though violence is never shown as something good, as a good solution of problems and is usually seen as a temporary solution against evil, but which always leads to further problems in the future. This point is very important for critics, because to denigrate an entire fan group because of an unjustified fear or an misrepresentation of anime is unjust and inappropriate.
There are a lot of studies that says that “as with other forms of media, there has yet to be a clear case made regarding anime and its direct effect on school violence.” (McCabe and Martin, 78)
But in fact television and movie viewing habits of violently offending youth are not significantly different from those of the general population, that was also proved by British study in 1994. (Thompson 1998, 104.)
In fact some negative views of anime fans have been a problem because some early distributors intentionally presented their product as violent, deviant, or pornographic in order to sensationalize their product and increase sales and social awareness. So in fact parents should not fear anime or its fans. The fact is that anime fandom is community seeking answers to what violence, love, pain, redemption, and life in really means, as it was already mentioned, anime has very realistic depictions of everyday events and life. Of course this and other factors attract a lot of young people who become real fans, because they find something new and unusual, some new cultural phenomenon, that is not understandable by others.
Finding meaning in that life, both as an individual and as part of a society, is what anime encourages its viewers to do, and so they have. The entire concept of what a fan is, and what it means to be a fan, is at times directly opposed to the concepts of being a good American or a good Christian, or any number of other things.
The first reason of fear and misunderstanding of anime is the fact that Americans do not always understand even own cultural and sub cultural products, and especially cultural products of other nations. People understand only some commonly accepted by normative practices things, and everything else is not accepted. But being a fan is the first step toward a self realization, being independent of the social group. Fans are not afraid to express their own tastes and views, not afraid to be different, without regard for the consequences, they do not care “what the neighbors will think.”