Anime and Manga have been hugely popular among young people for decades, but they often get a bad reputation, so how can you encourage your child’s new passion and still reassure yourself that there are benefits?
Firstly, it may help to think of anime as a cultural export from Japan that introduces western children to Asian society and its history. Watching anime automatically requires children to try and understand a person from a different culture than their own, encouraging them to become more empathetic.
Philosophy and heavier subject matters such as mortality and relationship challenges are often a big part of anime storylines, enabling children to digest and think about topics often avoided by standard children’s television. This is almost always done in a gentle way, ideal for starting family conversations when you watch the shows or films together.
Perseverance is a key theme in many anime shows, with the characters having to put in hard work to achieve difficult goals. Watching a character, you identify with episode after episode as they refuse to give up no matter what kind of opposition they face is exactly the kind of role model we want for our children. Grit is a trait we all need more of.
If nothing else comes from watching anime, your child is sure to pick up a pencil and start drawing. When so many art styles can seem difficult to the beginner or perhaps make more mess than you’ll happily encourage just before dinner, there are anime tutorials everywhere and it is easy to learn the basics and see result quickly. This quick gratification gives a young person confidence and inspiration to try new things.
Inspiring your child’s creativity is always a positive and as they sit and watch and rewatch their favourite characters, having a simple pencil and paper on hand can launch them into a whole new world of self-expression.
Thanks to streaming sites, anime is much more readily accessible these days, and Netflix now provides much of the much-loved Studio Ghibli back catalogue, including huge family favourites such as My Neighbour Totoro, Spirited Away and Ponyo.
Image by Samuel Berner on Unsplash
If your only experience of anime is Attack on Titan or Akira, Studio Ghibli films are completely different. They focus on blending childhood imagination with beautiful music and fantasy as the stories work through friendship, loneliness, the environment, feeling misunderstood or different from others. All the things our children know only too well.
A lot of parents worry about the stereotypes or sexualisation of girls that happens in some anime, but the truth is much of the age-appropriate anime available to children and tweens is empowering for girls. There are even entire genres of anime that cater to a female audience. The Sailor Moon series for example has a diverse cast of female characters with the lead and her fellow Sailor Scouts fighting to save the world while being examples of strong female friendship at the same time.
And finally, and most importantly watching anime, encourages children to read because every episode contains subtitles, meaning they are practicing their reading skills without needing to pick up a book. Most series are based on manga or light novels so once the screen is turned off, they can continue exploring the world of their favourite characters by heading to a book shop.
Very little media is truly bad and with all things if you do it together as a family, the more adult topics can become brilliant opportunities to talk together about what is wrong or right in a scene and what they would do differently.
Here’s to exploring new things together!
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Senad Palic on Unsplash
