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Answerman - Why Is There Still So Much Smoking In Anime?


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Deynard



Joined: 08 Dec 2015
Posts: 166
PostPosted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 1:40 pm Reply with quote
So much? Bitch if it would be real world, there should be like 10x times more smokers.
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ReifuTD



Joined: 19 Sep 2009
Posts: 171
PostPosted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 1:55 pm Reply with quote
I do remember an episode of "I Can't Understand what my Husband is Saying" where the Wife quits smoking and because she hadn't had any cigarettes she starts getting paranoid with every nice thing her Husband does thinking he was up to something. It was hilarious watching her slowly go crazy.
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Animechic420



Joined: 25 Sep 2012
Posts: 1724
Location: A Cave Filled With Riches
PostPosted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 2:06 pm Reply with quote
As long as they're not blowing smoke through the TV/computer screen, I could care less who's smoking. Smile
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Greed1914



Joined: 28 Oct 2007
Posts: 4410
PostPosted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 2:10 pm Reply with quote
The main situation where smoking sticks out to me in anime is when we see a character exercising and then lighting up right after their workout. The contradiction between the two activities always seemed like an odd writing choice. Using smoking to signify that a character is supposed to be a sexy, mature woman also struck me as a bit contradictory since smoking isn't exactly helpful when it comes to maintaining a pretty face.
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zrnzle500



Joined: 04 Oct 2014
Posts: 3767
PostPosted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 2:22 pm Reply with quote
The only anime I can think of with any anti smoking sentiment is Zvezda, which had an episode where the leading loli tried to ban smoking in the town.

As for examples of anime characters smoking, you need only look at the episode of Gintama that aired today, though any episode with Hijikata is bound to involve smoking.
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7jaws7



Joined: 17 Aug 2013
Posts: 704
Location: New York State
PostPosted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 2:22 pm Reply with quote
It depends on the content, really. In the Bamboo Blade manga, Miya-Miya smokes. We don't see her do it in the anime, but I can understand why.
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FloozyGod





PostPosted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 2:23 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
there's still nowhere near as much stigma about smoking in Japan as there is in the US.


This. The US has become so uptight about tobacco AND alcohol, that views on the substances are polarized. You either treat the stuff as taboo and stay away, or you feel like a bad-ass smoker or binge drink every weekend. There is barely an in between, or at least that's true in the media.

For example, there are scenes in Shirobako that show all the girls getting together having beer, and the way the scene was portrayed was so alien to me.There's actually happy thoughts going around, and anything that has a negative context has no relevance to the alcohol they consume. There is no upsetting foreshadowing, no sketchy characters for the beer to augment.

Even if a character gets drunk, the reaction is "Oh, your drunk, ok" as opposed to "HOLY SHIT HE'S BLASTED THE END TIMES HAVE COME!!!!!" It's just a prop to move things along. Really the only times I see alcohol so prominently used in the US is in shows like Jessica Jones, where it's used to portray the character as a loafer or set the atmosphere as somber.

But now it's too late. This is why most countries around the world have legal drinking/smoking age so low, and the US has it all the way up to 21. The government will never trust the younger generation to adapt.
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KonradWerner



Joined: 06 Aug 2015
Posts: 22
PostPosted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 2:37 pm Reply with quote
USA is really ridiculous when it comes to media depiction of smoking. I mean, NBC has no problem showing Hannibal Lecter cutting somebody's leg off and then making a dish out of it or forcing a guy to eat his own face, but to have John Constantine inhale a smoke on the screen? OMG! So terrible! Can't have that. Laughing
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zrnzle500



Joined: 04 Oct 2014
Posts: 3767
PostPosted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 2:39 pm Reply with quote
FloozyGod wrote:
Quote:
there's still nowhere near as much stigma about smoking in Japan as there is in the US.


This. The US has become so uptight about tobacco AND alcohol, that views on the substances are polarized. You either treat the stuff as taboo and stay away, or you feel like a bad-ass smoker or binge drink every weekend. There is barely an in between, or at least that's true in the media.

For example, there are scenes in Shirobako that show all the girls getting together having beer, and the way the scene was portrayed was so alien to me.There's actually happy thoughts going around, and anything that has a negative context has no relevance to the alcohol they consume. There is no upsetting foreshadowing, no sketchy characters for the beer to augment.

Even if a character gets drunk, the reaction is "Oh, your drunk, ok" as opposed to "HOLY SHIT HE'S BLASTED THE END TIMES HAVE COME!!!!!" It's just a prop to move things along. Really the only times I see alcohol so prominently used in the US is in shows like Jessica Jones, where it's used to portray the character as a loafer or set the atmosphere as somber.

But now it's too late. This is why most countries around the world have legal drinking/smoking age so low, and the US has it all the way up to 21. The government will never trust the younger generation to adapt.


Smoking certainly is stigmatized fairly universally in the US, but drinking? Really? Have you never seen a beer commercial or a commercial for really any kind of alcohol? Whereas smoking commercials in the US are smoking will kill you in ugly and unpleasant ways, alcohol ones are all Party Hearty and then quietly at the end you know probably be responsible, if you want to.
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cloud8100



Joined: 30 May 2010
Posts: 550
PostPosted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 2:40 pm Reply with quote
I find the whole lack of smoking thing on Western shows to be ridiculous. I watch the older shows and am just like 'oh, I'm surprised they haven't censored the cigarettes or something' nowadays.

There are still tonnes of advertisements for alcohol (and some people, for some reason, under the impression its the only way to have fun) not to mention the gambling advertisements they have on constantly with all the online 'waste your money away and get into debt' things. BUT YOU CAN'T SMOKE. Well, I'm talking about the UK anyway.

lol sorry about the rant.
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EricJ2



Joined: 01 Feb 2014
Posts: 4016
PostPosted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 2:46 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
People who wanted fresh air were basically just left to their own devices -- it was like America as seen in Mad Men.


Ie., in the times before the Surgeon General declared it was Hazardous to Your Health in the 60's, and when people slang-termed cigarettes as "coffin-nails", they weren't referring to twelve forms of cancer.

But then, he was the Surgeon General of the US.
Try going outside of his jurisdiction to France sometime. Shocked

FloozyGod wrote:
Even if a character gets drunk, the reaction is "Oh, your drunk, ok" as opposed to "HOLY SHIT HE'S BLASTED THE END TIMES HAVE COME!!!!!" It's just a prop to move things along. Really the only times I see alcohol so prominently used in the US is in shows like Jessica Jones, where it's used to portray the character as a loafer or set the atmosphere as somber.


And Justin's already done the column on why Japan thinks it not only acceptable to go out and get throw-up-in-the-alley stinking with your co-workers three or four nights a week (including weeknights) to show your all-out will and your free-spirited unity with your peers, but openly looks down on you as "antisocial" if you don't.
Japan needs to abandon some of its six-hundred-year traditions in favor of a Surgeon General, or at least a good hard slap on the side of the head.

As opposed to US TV, where beer commercials are not even allowed to show their users actually drinking the stuff onscreen, which explains why most Super Bowl Bud Light and Shock-Top commercials are so danged goofy, fratboy and off-topic...They don't have anything else to do.
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Emichan



Joined: 09 Mar 2005
Posts: 83
Location: SF Bay Area
PostPosted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 2:48 pm Reply with quote
Smoking/Non-smoking sections of Japanese restaurants can be such a joke. There is often pretty much nothing more than a divider between them, so that even if you're sitting at a non-smoking table, all the smoke wafts over to you anyway.

In Ikebukuro they have smoking areas on some of the streets. Like a little spot on a corner. I always hold my breath and try to walk by quickly. You can see all the desperate and tired salarymen huddled together amidst the smoke clouds.
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zrnzle500



Joined: 04 Oct 2014
Posts: 3767
PostPosted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 2:49 pm Reply with quote
It really puts Japan's severe stigmatization of harder drugs and their users /addicts in relief. Most smokers are depicted as cool or sexy as is relevant but drug addicts are depicted as depraved monsters willing to do anything to get more drugs, recently in one episode of Active Raid and last season's Sakurako. You would think from that that hard drugs kill more Japanese people than smoking, where the opposite is true. Not saying hard drugs are a non issue or that all drugs should be legalized, just that some more sympathy for addicts would be helpful.
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purplepolecat



Joined: 15 Feb 2008
Posts: 129
PostPosted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 2:55 pm Reply with quote
The unfortunate truth is, smoking looks cool. So if you want your fictional character to look cool, it's an easy short-cut. You can't smell their ashtray-breath through the screen, and fictional characters don't have to worry about cancer or shortness of breath unless it's a desired plot point, so there's little reason not to do it.

Back in the real world, people (especially young people) are easily influenced by fiction, so I can see why there was such a push to eradicate this phenomenon in the US.
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SilverTalon01



Joined: 02 Apr 2012
Posts: 2401
PostPosted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 2:58 pm Reply with quote
Emichan wrote:
Smoking/Non-smoking sections of Japanese restaurants can be such a joke. There is often pretty much nothing more than a divider between them, so that even if you're sitting at a non-smoking table, all the smoke wafts over to you anyway.


That is how it use to be in a lot of restaurants in the US as well, but unlike here, I never really had a problem with smoke wafting over to me. Maybe I just tended not to eat at the places where that was an issue?

Emichan wrote:
In Ikebukuro they have smoking areas on some of the streets. Like a little spot on a corner. I always hold my breath and try to walk by quickly. You can see all the desperate and tired salarymen huddled together amidst the smoke clouds.


I don't know how those people can breathe in the smoking areas sometimes. I've seen the ones inside the department stores look like gas chambers.

Speaking of smoking areas, I was always annoyed the arcades allowed it.
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