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A perspective on current "top" anime in Japan.

I remember when I was studying Japanese at university, none, literally none of the Japanese people on the course liked anime. Unlike all the non-Japanese people obsessed with it:) My Japanese friend rolled his eyes every time people mentioned anime...

When a few people form Japan came with a foreign exchange program, they had not heard of any of the series/films people mentioned, except for Miyazaki's films and Fullmetal Alchemist.

Which made me think that it obviously is popular, but there is a great deal of people out there who really do not care about it at all

Long-time animation enthusiast, first-time ANN poster.

I live and work in Japan as a conversational English teacher.

If you were to talk to someone in Japan who claims not to be familiar at all with anime, I'd bet that you'd probably get the same response from that person as you would from some of your Inazuma Eleven watchers if you mentioned titles like:
Oreimo
Moetan
Nurse Witch Komugi Chan
Pita-Ten
Yumeira
and perhaps even Excel Saga.
How familiar are you, yourself with any of these series?

I also wonder if the people of Japan studying English can be considered to propotionally represent the population of Japan as a whole - the demographics that watch anime and the demographics that study English might be completely different.

rojse wrote:

I also wonder if the people of Japan studying English can be considered to propotionally represent the population of Japan as a whole - the demographics that watch anime and the demographics that study English might be completely different.

I was just thinking in terms of a general audience, or random sample, in which case I think most of my students are a fair example of such a survey. A great number of my students are either forced by their parents to go to English school (as an alternative to cram school), or by their companies (as many larger Japanese companies are now running all business meetings completely in English). Even so, the ones who truly want to speak English often have little if any interest in western culture. They just seem to like the challenge of learning a new language. I would say my survey sample is pretty diverse, and proportionally represents the population of Japan as a whole quite well.

DustyKramKram wrote:

rojse wrote: I also wonder if the people of Japan studying English can be considered to propotionally represent the population of Japan as a whole - the demographics that watch anime and the demographics that study English might be completely different. I was just thinking in terms of a general audience, or random sample, in which case I think most of my students are a fair example of such a survey. A great number of my students are either forced by their parents to go to English school (as an alternative to cram school), or by their companies (as many larger Japanese companies are now running all business meetings completely in English). Even so, the ones who truly want to speak English often have little if any interest in western culture. They just seem to like the challenge of learning a new language. I would say my survey sample is pretty diverse, and proportionally represents the population of Japan as a whole quite well.

I would suggest that your class might be considered upper-middle class, since student's parents can afford for their children to have extra classes, and adults can afford the expense of attending your class, or their place of employment considers it a worthwhile investment into their worker to pay for them to be educated in English.

In your view, would this be a correct assumption?

Out of curiosity, what time do shows typically air, and on what sort of stations? Sticking with the current season, shows, like C, Steins;Gate, and Deadman Wonderland.