Forum - View topicSimilarities between Harry Potter and anime fandom
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WesW
 Posts: 144 |
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I just came across this an article about a Harry Potter convention last year in Las Vegas, and the parallels with certain parts of anime fandom were interesting to me, so I thought you guys might be interested as well.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1837941,00.html For about 75% of the article, you could substitute "anime" for "Harry Potter" and be on target, even regarding the more disturbing parts of the fandom, such as that described in this section: "I think that if I hear the word 'discourse' again, I'll scream, although it's when I go to 'Out of Bounds: Transgressive Fiction' that I get really annoyed. It's a seminar analysing Hermione Granger-Professor Snape fan fiction. That is to say, a relationship between a teenage girl and a forty-something man, which often, it transpires, takes the form of a rape narrative. There are 200 women in the room. And a whole lot of talk about female empowerment and gender reversals, but, frankly, if it was 200 men talking about rape narratives involving underage schoolchildren, it would be a matter for the police, and I don't think this is empowering anybody. But then, when it comes to fan fiction, there really are no limits. In 'Written in the Dark of Nox: Fan Fiction and the Social Taboo', the speaker does a quick poll to see who present writes narratives involving bestiality. Hands shoot up. There's just one man in the room, who spends the entire session staring at the carpet. I corner him on the way out. 'I came with my girlfriend!' he says, quickly. I thought it was just about liking nice cuddly wizards, I say. 'So did I!' he says. 'Jeez! I mean.'" |
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Takai
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I remember that series. I used to love it when it first came out. It was the ONLY thing that got me to read... I'm not a big reader.
But about around the 4-5 book, people kept spoiling the book for me! It got TOO popular! Everyone was telling me who died and what happens while I'm reading the book. It made me so furious that I quit reading the series. Oh... How I miss Harry... |
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Amethyst Alchemist
Former ANN Editor
 Posts: 313 Location: where it's always a good morning |
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Wow. That is a pretty disturbing article. And you're probably right. I think there are probably a lot of similarities just because fans for both tend to be teenage and more interseted in magic or occult sort of things. And if there are similarities it would definitely explain why people cosplay as Harry.
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KyuuA4
 Posts: 1371 Location: America, where anime and manga can be made |
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Hey, congratuations. You discovered that the fandom of one thing - is generally similar to fandom of another thing. Just look at Trekkies.
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jetz
 Posts: 2148 Location: Manila, Philippines |
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LOLz you're right. Although I think there's a major difference between the two. There are definitely more Harry Potter fans than anime fans. There's also the age ranges - anime fans are more likely to be older since anime themes have a wider scope of topics. |
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Mephistophilus
 Posts: 200 Location: Fresno, CA, United States |
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I'm assuming you didn't read the article, because it stated that there was an age limit (above 14 ONLY, and non-adults have chaperons) and that many of these fans were 30 and even 40 and above. I've found that people, even adults, tend to latch on to things for strange reasons, and that many people, in the middle class especially, try to latch onto things that seem to possess some sort of substance. Animation will for a while at least be perceived as somewhat "childish," whereas books, even those written for children, can be construed as somewhat adult in our world. This assumption that books are somehow more mature (which in may cases they are, but you have to be looking past the Scholastic pop pulp to find them) is compounded by conventions such as these with "serious lectures" that enable the "academic" delusions of the rabid fandom. Don't get me wrong, as you can certainly derive much from even very simple stories, especially in light of the creator's environment. However, you can't say that anything about how a Snape-Hermione rape fanfiction is empowering women and expect to be taken remotely seriously by anyone not jaded by the clamor and bombardment of popularity. This does get ridiculous. Granted, I'm sure there are anime clubs or conventions somewhere that do somewhat the same thing, but one benefit of anime is that the small fanbase seems to weed out the "crazies" past the age where serious talks begin. There are no massive crowds of 40-something middle-class mothers rushing to anime conventions, and there is surely not a convention of "anime academics" large enough to draw crowds in the thousands. Thus, any analysis seems to be more personal or small-scale, and tends to stay within the bounds of reasonable interpretation based on the intentions of the creator. No "Discourses on the Didactic Nature of Naruto" here. |
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fighterholic
Posts: 9193 |
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I feel sorry for the guy that went there and found out it was something totally different. Some of the women I read about there definetly remind me of fangirls in Japan.
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6921 Location: Kazune City |
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The "serious" panels I've seen at anime cons were, as Mephistophilus said, more based in the panelists' personal interpretations and reactions to the anime, not a bunch of lit-crit name-dropping claptrap. |
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Asako
 Posts: 751 Location: Hawaii |
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marie-antoinette
 Posts: 4136 Location: Ottawa, Canada |
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I am on the staff of Animaritime and this year we had some panels which we called "academic" which all and all went over very well. The inspiration for it was the fact that one of the other staff was a 4th year Sociology major who had written a number of essays for school on various aspects of fandom, so we had her turn that information into panels, such as "Gender and Anime," "Symbolism," and "Cosplay Culture," to name some. So it could be done successfully, if people put the effort into it. |
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Mephistophilus
Posts: 200 Location: Fresno, CA, United States |
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I think with those panels the "simplicity" of the critiquing was kept intact, so it didn't end up going into masses-pandering nonsense. All those topics make sense, and we discuss them all the time here. I suppose sociology has a lot more to do with visual mediums and the content of many books than even literary criticism does, as it seems to have gone beyond its scope. There are many cultural references in anime and various stereotypes, roles, and symbols come into play. Again, the nice thing about anime is that all these things are also more personalized in discussion, and you dodge the tendency of professors to spout their "knowledge" (don't get me wrong, I know they work hard on their subjects, but you can see what I mean) in order to appeal to a crowd impressed by big words. In this case, it's better to have a person of academia less removed from the fandom to discuss it. |
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jetz
Posts: 2148 Location: Manila, Philippines |
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You're right.. I kinda made my post on the basis of KyuuA4's reaction, assuming that I knew what was already in the article (for some reason, the link won't open for me.. )
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Kouji
 Posts: 978 |
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I don't think it's that unusual to find similarities between Harry Potter fandom and anime fandom. Harry Potter is a fantasy series and anime contains many fantasy series. Both are primarily targeted at younger audiences but also have a cult following of adult fans, especially with geeks. Not to mention that there are many anime fans who are also Harry Potter fans, so of course both are going to appeal to similar types of people simply because of the nature of its genre.
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Mirrinus
 Posts: 230 Location: La Thiene Plateau |
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I am saddened by how dead-on that excerpt you quoted about fanfic writers is for both Harry Potter and anime.
I'm personally by no means a fan of Harry Potter (didn't read all the books, never bothered watching much of the movies), but I can see how similar the fandom is compared to anime. Actually, I'd go so far as to say that you can find such similarities among fans of any fictional work. Whoever stated in that other topic that doujins will ruin anime should first watch to see if slash fanfiction ruins Harry Potter, lol. |
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WesW
Posts: 144 |
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I sometimes wonder if our society has hit a type of freak critical point, where knowledge of kinky activities like slash fiction won't raise that many eyebrows as long as it's something that people have to seek out to find, meaning that children won't be inadvertantly exposed to it. Given that this article was posted eight months ago, it doesn't seem to have caused any flap. It makes you wonder if there would be much of an uproar if mainstream media became aware of stuff like lolicon. |
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