KOCHI: Cartoon addiction is something which has been growing among children and anime which is a Japanese term used for animated cartoons is gaining audience around the world. With no exception among Keralites, especially the youth and children are increasingly getting obsessed with the world of anime and manga. Many of them proclaim themselves as otakus (someone obsessed with anime and manga).
Majority of them fell in love with it when they were still children; they just didn’t know what it was called. “I started with watching Dragonball in cartoon network when I was in Class VII and later started using the internet to watch much more alike series. It is not just for kids instead some of the series also deal with the mature topics and it’s far better than western cartoons,” says Arjun, a long time otaku. “Watching anime is definitely good if you watch the right one,” he said.
For the uninitiated, anime series does not have any specific genre like crime, romance but falls into five different categories - shonen, shojo, seinen, josei, and kodomomuke which focuses on a specific target demographic. ‘Shonen’ deals with action and adventure aimed at teenage boys, ‘Shojo’ deals with interpersonal relations, ‘Seinen’ deals with high highly mature content aimed at adults, ‘Josei’ deals with adult women discussing realistic personal relationships along with dark subjects like rape and infidelity and ‘Kodomomuke’ deals with children to teach morals. The most popular anime series are Death Note and Naruto. “Beautiful animation, complex storylines, great theme songs and excellent characterisation: anime seems to have it all. With action, romance and real-life stories, there is something for everyone,” says Riya, a student.
The popularity of anime and the rise of Otaku generation is raising an important question. whether Anime series are good or bad for the younger generation, as the themes spread across all the subjects and if is it appropriate for all age categories? It is true that genres have emerged that explore homosexual romances while originally pornographic in terminology.” If one goes deep, there is a dark side to this colorful realm of anime. It includes the objectification of women which ranges up to the fine line between acceptable broadcast material and porn, Stereotype stories that might pave the way to sleaziness and improper conduct,” says Soumya Suseelan, Psychiatrist.
“It is necessary to have discretion on the internet to make sure that only the appropriate content is reaching our children,” she adds. Not all anime is suited for children, but many of the ones-especially those created for kids-teach valuable moral lessons.The craze for anime series is getting so high that various Facebook fan pages are being made and the lack of merchandise or highly expensive online shopping does not seem to hold back the trend in the city as the fandom here shows no sign of slowing down.