Hello everyone!
I am sure many of you would know, or at least have heard the word, ‘anime’. For those of you who are clueless about what anime is, here is what anime means.
Anime has its origins in Japan, and is the Japanese term for animation. It refers to all forms of animated media, be it hand-drawn or computer graphics. Anime comes in many genres such as comedy, kids, fantasy, gender-specific, teenage, history, romance, drama, culture, music, horror, war or violence, and adult content. This means that anime is for all age groups; however, in India, it’s widely misunderstood that it’s for children only.
Now, even I have watched a lot of anime, including Grave of the Fireflies, Pokemon, Digimon, DragonBall Z, Beyblade V Force, and Shin Chan, just to name a few.
What makes us watch anime could be the art style, music, unique stories, lessons taught by the series or some characters and so on, and I think a kid watching Doraemon can even learn about gravity, and more!
Anime can teach you a lot of things, they give you awareness about things you didn’t even know about. Grave of the Fireflies and even Doraemon talk about Japan during the Second World War and the devastating effects it caused! Now, that is the impact of anime.
Anime makes you ponder about various issues, makes you learn great lessons about a lot of things, be it academic, sports or even values such as friendship, loyalty and courage.
The Japanese even made an animated film on the Ramayana in 1992 “Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama,” but it wasn’t released in India. The censor board thought that the Ramayana shouldn’t be released in the form of a cartoon.
While this is a wonderful example of how anime can look like in the Indian context; however, there is a misconception in India that anime (like cartoons) is for children only. This thinking comes from the kind of content many Indian cartoons show us.
There are many anime fans in India too. They’re not children, but teens and adults.
Now, there are animated cartoon shows in India too such as Chota Bheem and Motu Patlu. But, these are not at all on par with anime or any cartoons. Honestly ask yourself, do you really think most Indian cartoons can make you emotional, teach you something and/or shows you something useful like their anime counterparts? Very few are there, isn’t it?
According to me, anime should be broadcast in all televisions in India. Now, don’t tell me that it’s available on the internet because as of March 2019, 451 million monthly active internet users are there in India. India is a land of villages, and, in rural India, a sizeable portion does not have access to the internet. This makes it all the more important to broadcast anime on television so that everyone can have access to better content. Content like anime should be made in India, too.
Anime has a far-wider audience than one might think. It’s not that anime was never broadcasted in India. Limited anime was broadcasted in India and that too, the censored version. Now, even that is rare. If anime is widely broadcasted on TV channels in India, better cartoons might come up in India after taking cues from the Japanese anime.
This is my opinion. You’re free to agree or disagree. Have a good day.