Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Do So Many Anime Take Place in High School?
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WingKing
Posts: 617 |
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Narutaru. I think those kids were middle schoolers, but regardless, the things Aki Honda and her gang did to Hiroko was easily some of the most stomach-turning bullying in any anime I've ever watched (though sadly, some of the things they did weren't that far removed from certain real-life bullying incidents that I've heard about in Japan). One of the scenes that really jumped out at me in Anohana, actually, was where Anaru almost got sexually assaulted by her date, with the school gossip chain shaming and casting guilt on her over the incident afterwards. Those are issues that you see depicted in school anime far less often than bullying even. |
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Wow, that's more than I had expected. Did any of these catch on within Japan?
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Actar
 Posts: 1074 Location: Singapore |
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That was actually an excellent answer... Color me impressed. In addition to all that was discussed, personally speaking, I think it's just because it's easier to tell a story with highschool-aged characters unless it's a story that revolves around a particular profession. These characters don't have a ton of responsibilities and there is much more time to develop a story with all the freedom that they have.
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Animechic420
 Posts: 1727 Location: A Cave Filled With Riches |
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That's no excuse for every other anime revolving around high school all the time. Not everyone wants to see that. It would be nice if we got to see other real world experiences like going to college, getting a driver's license, bar hopping, road trips, working, etc. If anything, it's laziness to bank everything on high school. |
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Parsifal24
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It could be seen as some kind of cultural ethos in Japan but it could also be mere economics teens and adolescents have more disposable income than adults or are perceived to be so.
As far as High School for me that was a mass of isolation for me were as Middle School was more of the stereotypical bullying and social ostracism but I digress. |
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Saffire
 Posts: 1255 Location: Iowa, USA |
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I've always seen it as the light novel equivalent of the fantasy "ordinary farmboy's parents are brutally killed sending him on epic journey" trope. "Ordinary schoolboy stumbles into classmate's hidden secret sending him on epic journey", lol. In both cases it's generally pretty lazy writing, but it is effective in quickly establishing a setting.
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EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
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What, you mean, if there was a Harry Potter story without Harry, but just, say, three adults in the US wizarding community, and one of them is a Harry-like innocent grownup with CGI monsters in his briefcase? What're you talking about, that's got smash franchise hit written all over it! 
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11352 |
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I'm confused here. As you said, these media do show bullying, so why do you say its depiction is at a minimum? Aside from the series already mentioned, bullying shows up all the time. Kill la Kill's Honnouji Academy in general took it to the extreme, but even the flashback of Gamagoori meeting Satsuki showed bullies trying to make a kid jump off a building. Great Teacher Onizuka had a lot of bullying. H2O - Footprints in the Sand was about a bullied girl. Noragami had a short arc about Yato helping a bullied kid. Parasyte features run-ins with a group of bullies as a main plot point. Hell Girl had several stories about bullied students. There are fewer series where bullying is the predominant theme, but from what I've seen, it's always been shown as a fact of life in schools, almost to the point of being cliche, even if just mentioned in passing, or someone asking a character who's behaving oddly (because of their Secret) if they're being bullied. |
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Shenl742
Posts: 1524 |
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I immediately recall an early scene in Kodocha, where Akito tries to force a girl to eat a live frog in front of the entire class.
Or more recently, Another, where a very common japanese bullying technique is actually used to try and ward off a curse. |
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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What I mean is that bullying is not the sole reason why kids in schools have a rough time. Based on my own experiences and others, I can think of social rejection (via cliques, the social caste, cool kids and the "others," keeping up appearances, and approval or disapproval from adults), the pressure of needing to keep up in schoolwork and avoid failing, differing social standards butting heads with each other (I mentioned the magnet kids versus the regular students, for instance), outright criminal behavior (beyond bullying, such as physical attacks on adults and bringing dangerous items onto campus), disappointed and angry parents, drug usage and addiction, hazing, and getting caught up in the school's politics (my high school was pretty corrupt with the government money received and how it was spent, for instance). School is a kennel, or maybe a minimum-security prison, where hundreds or thousands of kids, emotionally immature and empathically stunted, are gathered together with little to no supervision. That's ground zero for a host of mental issues. As far as I'm concerned, kids don't try to kill themselves through bullying alone. They try to commit suicide when they feel there is no one who can help them, that there is no hope left. That being said, Japanese culture's attitude that the victim has to shake off the bully by him- or herself probably adds a lot to that feeling of hopelessness. |
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yuna49
 Posts: 3804 |
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That was one of the first things I noticed when watching high-school shows as well, that bullying was such an important issue and quite prevalent in a lot of shows. However it makes sense given this line from the BBC article I linked to above:
It reminds me a bit of "Yasako's" back story in Dennou Coil where she appears to have been on both sides of the bullying line. As for Narutaru, I had to stop watching that show with my then middle-school-aged daughter when we got to the spoiler[test-tube rape scene]. |
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4082 |
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Wow, 6 pages. Really? Ok...
It's from a design perspective; You can put the majority of the cast in the same two outifts no matter the situation- as long as it's some sort of school, magic to sci-fi- with minor differences and not have to worry about the ultimate cartoon question: "Why are they always wearing the same clothes?" Also works in military/mech shows so we get a lot of those too. Am I cutting too close to the bone here? Every time someone shows up in a new outfit, a lot of thought and design hours go into it, you know. |
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WingKing
Posts: 617 |
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Yeah, I don't blame you. My experience with that show is one of the reasons why I make sure to always screen a series first before I show it to the kids in my anime club. I've heard several stories about parents who bought Narutaru for their kids because they were either fooled by the cute box art or got it confused with Naruto. |
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yuna49
Posts: 3804 |
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The first episode is incredibly deceptive as well. We were watching shows on the now-defunct Anime Network service that ADV provided to cable operators, and Narutaru was among them. |
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CoreSignal
 Posts: 727 Location: California, USA |
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Agreed. My point from earlier still stands. Many great works of literature and film do not take place in high school, have a school setting, or are about teenagers. I'm not saying all anime needs to be about college or adults but more diversity would be nice. Obviously, the high school setting sells, so I don't blame the industry for sticking with it. |
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