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Anime

Introduction to Anime/Manga

Anime
A style of animation developed in Japan, characterized by stylized colorful art and often adult themes

Manga
the Japanese word for comic book, manga is a Japanese graphic novel, typically intended for adults, characterized by highly stylized art.

It’s the fastest growing market in book stores, it’s taken over Saturday morning television, it’s own cable channel is in the works, and it’s on the cover page of the November 2007 issue of Wired magazine. Anime/Manga has become an inescapable issue for today’s youth pastor.

For convenience sake, we will refer to Anime/Manga as Manga, since they are essentially two sides of the same coin. Anime is just manga that has been exported to television. Manga was introduced into the United States in the 1970s and has been growing quietly in popularity since then. In the last several years, their popularity has exploded. It started with the introduction of cartoons such as Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, and DragonBall Z and comic books such as Fruits Basket and Sailor Moon. Now, teenagers are embracing Japanese culture, learning the Japanese language, and listening to Japanese music. As with any cultural revolution, this one has parents worried. The Japanese culture seems very alien to most of us. Most worrisome to parents, is that manga contains sexuality and violence that are inappropriate for teenagers.

A Closer Look at Manga

Manga is not a genre of books or shows as most Americans seem to think. Manga is a style of animation. There is science-fiction, horror, comedy, romance sub-genres of manga. There is also a genre called hentai which is made up of sexually perverted material.

The most basic split of manga is between Shounen and Shouja. Shounen is primarily intended for boys and is action-driven, similar to American cartoons like SpiderMan and Batman. Shouja is intended for girls and contains stories driven by relationships.

Wisdom on Anime/Manga

In some sense, manga is no different than any other form of entertainment. Parents should use the same criteria to evaluate manga that they do anything else. All manga is not the same just as all television is not the same. No one would argue that Sesame Street and Saturday Night Live are both appropriate for the same audience. The same is true of manga. It is a huge conglomeration of a bunch of genres with all different levels of appropriateness. So ask yourself:

What is the content?
What is the message?
Is it appropriate for my child?
Is this edifying?
Is it Christian?

Parents should evaluate manga case by case, just like they would movies. There are some Christian websites that can help parents decide on the appropriateness of a given manga title without them becoming manga experts. There is a collection of links that will substantially reduce the research time of parents. If parents decide that manga is off-limits, they should make sure they enforce the same standards for “normal” TV.

Take a look at Wisdom on Music, Movies, and Television that will provide a more indepth look at these issues.