Can Anime Influence Your Children? Are Anime Dangerous for Children? Are anime things of the devil? In this article we will solve all your doubts on the subject.
From time to time, we observe on television some generalized report criticizing Japanese anime as a possible culprit of some tragedy. Such reports always speak negatively about the influences of anime, and this also happens with games.
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Do Anime Influence Children?
Not only anime, but games, series, movies, friends, music and anything else can influence negatively or positively both a child and an adult.
We are shaped by everything we hear and see, just look at people living in different locations. Some end up picking up habits of speaking inappropriate words, others have a more formal vocabulary.
In Brazil itself, we have a huge vocabulary of swear words and slang of sexual connotation used with a high frequency, and this has become increasingly common, both in everyday life and in the media.
On the other side of the world, we have the Japanese who use treatment honorifics (Mrs.) at all times when speaking someone's name, and who rarely uses profanity, which usually has harmless meanings.
Some anime subtitled or dubbed into Portuguese, usually change Japanese words of light meaning to slang like p0rr@ ec@r@lho. In my opinion, such changes influence much more negatively than the original work in question.
We came to the conclusion that yes, anime can influence people. In fact, anime has a lot of cultural influence, something that can be very positive.
Understand the influence of Anime
Now that you know that everything can influence people, stop blaming anime. Just like movies and series, there are anime types and genres.
Hardly an anime will have more violence and immorality than any movie or series available on Netflix. Unless your kid is watching Gore Anime (Bloody) or Hent@i anime (adult).
Famous Anime often criticized by television as Death Note which has a dark atmosphere with psychological terror will teach your child about the consequences of actions and will make him smarter. There's no need to be afraid of him writing his name in a death notebook, or believing in superstitions?
Now an important point, just like movies and series, anime has classification and age groups. If you believe that a certain anime series is not appropriate for your child, then that's fine, stop watching it, but don't blame anime, because their movies and soap operas are way worse.
Rarely will an anime show a couple doing s&x0 in the first episodes as in today's series and soap operas. Most anime ends accidentally with a kiss. Even anime with spicy scenes full of fanservice, usually does not have adult scenes.
Anime Offer Positive Influence
The Japanese have a huge creativity with anime, they create works on absolutely any subject. There are anime about people becoming astronauts, anime about sports, anime about arts, music and culture.
In the West we have a macho culture where young men need to like action, blood and violence, but anime has turned many big guys into lovers of shoujo novels and anime.
Japan doesn't need to put violence in its works to appeal to a male audience, usually they focus on stories and creativity, it often takes place in school and teaches important lessons that Westerners usually don't learn in high school.
If you want a child who doesn't get involved with wrong things, getting him to watch anime is the best way. She will learn a lot from the Japanese culture that encourages politeness, respect and effort.
To forbid a child from watching anime is to deprive him of a good influence. The best thing is to be selective and watch it together with your children, because Japanese animations are made for all ages.
Many people, even those who have nothing against anime, usually have a prejudgment thinking it's something boring and dull. Today my mother, my wife and many of my friends have already surrendered to anime.
Hardly someone who makes a good choice and watches the entire anime will not fall in love with the creative and motivating works that the Japanese make. Many fall in love with the culture and even want to learn japanese language.
Imagine, your child starts watching anime, becomes a polite person, helps to clean your house, starts studying a new language, dedicates himself to studies and work. Wouldn't that make you very happy? That's the power of anime!
The article is still halfway through, but we recommend also reading:
Are Anime Dangerous for Children?
Basically talk about the anime influence I have already answered this question by half. Some children are more susceptible to being transported into the setting of the story, which can lead to some of the rare tragedy we see on television.
This is not the fault of anime, but of parents who do not understand their children, how they are susceptible to influences or what stage of life they are going through.
A psychoanalyst friend recently told me that parents often bring their children into the office saying things like: Aaah, my son is too rebellious, my son is too immature or agitated.
This friend of mine said that this is very normal, and that all normal children have to go through this until they reach adulthood. Parents who need to deal with it better.
Do you prefer your child to dress up in costume and play in an imaginary world or get involved with bad company or even drugs at school? Anime poses no risk as long as parents get to know their children.
As long as you comply with the age groups of movies, series, games and anime, these things won't pose any risk to your kids. Often such tragedies happen due to lack of parental attention.
Are anime things of the devil?
In fact, in Japanese culture, Christianity is almost non-existent. Japanese religions believe in various gods and demons, and many often appear in their works as cultural references or characters in the story.
If you are a religious person who firmly believes that it is wrong to consume any material involving magic or supernatural things, you will need to be selective with your child's anime.
But it is worth making it clear that there are types of anime, and most of them have absolutely nothing to do with the creatures of Japanese folklore. The vast majority involve everyday life, science fiction and school life.
In that decade a great wave of Isekai anime that addresses life in another world has been released far too often. These anime usually have something like magical powers or demons.
It is worth making it clear that the demons of Japanese culture are not like the demons of the bible. So, if you let your kids watch Disney or Marvel works, you don't have to worry so much about anime.
I'm Jehovah's Witness, a religion that follows the principles of the bible to the letter, even so, I and many of us love anime. Even because, we consider one of the few appropriate things for Christians to watch if you buy with the series and movies of today.
If you are a religious person who is afraid of your child watching anime, don't worry, just keep an eye out and be selective. In fact, we recommend watching with it, you'll like it! Just look for a story that is interesting to both of you.
Anime to Watch with Your Child
To end a little prejudice of anime, on Netflix there are some cool works for you to watch together with your child. Many of them are dubbed and don't have violence or anything that affects your consciousness.
Violet Evergarden
This anime is in English on Netflix and shows the story of a young girl who was used as a Weapon of War, but at the end of the war she becomes a letter writer
My Anime Experience
Anime has been present in my life since I was 13 years old. Maybe a little earlier with animations that I watched dubbed on TV without knowing they were Japanese animations.
With anime I got to know a world and a reality that seems like a dream, educated people who do things the right way, people who respect each other, a world of peace and without violence.
The Japanese are the closest to my lifestyle as a Religious person, even though they don't follow any Christian principles, they do better than many Christians.
They're people I'd like to have around, so I've always wanted to live in Japan just to see their attitudes and lifestyle in anime. This has shaped who I am today, as well as defining my profession as the author of this site.
At the age of 21 I managed to travel to Japan and have one of the best experiences of my life, confirming everything I experienced and dreamed of in anime as a reality.
Of course, not everything is a dream, however, once again we get into the same issue, there is no need to generalize things from other people's experiences. Live your own experience!
Just like humans, Japanese and anime have their problems, but we can't let that get in the way of our good experiences. We can learn a lot from them!
How the world would be better if everyone followed the Japanese education, hospitality, humility and respect. Of course they, like any human, have their flaws, but I would feel much safer in a Brazil full of Japanese culture, than in the false Brazilian cultural freedom.
I'm not saying that we can't learn from Brazilians, our nation also teaches a lot of good things, in the same way that Japanese can teach bad things too. Sad to say, but today most people cling to the negative influence of things.
I firmly believe that we are bombarded with negative feelings of hate, anger and disgust when consuming some people's content. Just browse YouTube, Twitter, website comments or anywhere on the internet to see this hate being propagated. Is there a worse influence than that?
The worst of all is imagining that some people with hate in their hearts will read this article and will distort some of my words in order to spread hate and discussion...
