5 Big Major Misconceptions about Anime You Ought to Deny

Anime is a genre of Japanese animation that revolves around stories with colorful characters and over-the-top action sequences. There are several reasons to watch anime, and several not to, if you make them.

Some people mistakenly believe that anime is just for kids, poorly made, or its fans are weird. Others say it’s cartoonish with no roots in reality, with nothing to be taken as “truth” or even go as far as to claim anime itself is trash just for being “Anime”.

Since judgments exist, misconceptions are also real. These misconceptions are the main reasons why people drop anime even before starting to get to know anything about them because people seem to believe things without considering the facts.

Here are 5 of the most popular ones and why you should deny them:

1. Anime is Just for Kids

Anime = kids’ stuff

This one is probably the most common and frustrating misconception because it’s simply not true. While there are certainly anime titles designed for younger audiences, there’s a huge range of quality and popularity among anime across all age groups. For instance, In Naruto anime, the way of Naruto becoming hokage might seem childish but seen from the lens of a grown-up person, it has deep lessons.

Another misconception that’s proven false by evidence of all animes out there is that all anime is aimed squarely at teenage boys. Similarly, some people believe that all anime is aimed at children, and the only way to fit into an anime community is to be in your teens.

According to some, Anime is only for guys, regardless of the target audience. As an anime fan, I can say that’s simply not true. There are plenty of titles aimed at girls and while they might not be as popular or critically acclaimed as the big boys, they’re out there and they’re good.

Some of the most popular and critically acclaimed titles in anime can be quite mature (for example, Death Note, Attack on Titan, and Clannad).

2. Anime Fans are Weird:

It’s true that anime fans have a reputation for being more passionate than your average person, but there are TONS of other anime fans who DON’T fit the stereotype. A lot of anime fans are just normal people who enjoy the medium.

Would you like to be judged as a stereotype just because they exist in the species homo-sapiens? Well, that’s how people label all anime fans in general.

Some critics claim that because anime fandom is so diverse, it can be difficult to interact with other fans, outside of forums or meetups. It’s also true that you might meet toxic people on Fandom, but that doesn’t mean each and every person watching anime for fun should be the definition of someone you ought to reject!

3. Anime Does Not Teach You Nothing:

This is one of the greatest and most absurd concepts of all time concerning anime. People think that anime is just for the sake of having to wander off in fantasy and ignore life problems for a temporary moment, but that’s not true at all. Anime has things to teach, it has lessons for everyone to learn, and concepts people need to understand to broaden the horizon of their minds.

One anime might be teaching you how to understand others completely so that you don’t yell at someone without completely understanding their perspective while another might be teaching you how to motivate yourself in life with your favorite character as an example.

One might show you the idealistic morals of the protagonist while the other might be all about things to avoid in life to not let regrets get you.

You see, Anime is like a novel that you can watch. It has a better story than movies in general because it is not rushed and you have more time to develop the characters and the plot.

It goes as far as to provide you with the best story at that limited cost with you having to spend even lesser time.

4. Anime is Never Realistic:

Let’s face it. Anime is drawn by hand or CGI that never even comes close to a movie showing you an amazing gauntlet and guardians of your planet earth. Why watch anime when there’s this REAL movie with REAL people for you to watch and enjoy?

I won’t argue about the realism in anime, but ONLY in terms of animation. Have you ever thought that anime might have something even more valuable to teach than movies based on the same stories? That’s the beauty of it.

Anime in general has lower production costs, but it doesn’t provide lower value at all.

Anime is like action movies in that it is realistic where it needs to be, such as in the portrayal of violence or physical action.

5. Anime is Addictive:

Great sentence, but well here I am and I am not at all an addict. While anime might have a lot to make you love it and get more and more of it just like a pie of pizza, on the flip side, it’s also something that teaches you steadily that you need to make a separate time for it and do more of your life duties responsibly.

It motivates you to fulfill your daily tasks FIRST and make time for it separately and by correct order of priorities and time management.

There are always people who are addicts, but addiction again doesn’t mean everyone has it. For EVERY new anime fan, the first phase of getting into anime is where he/she gives all of his/her time to watching it. Then comes the feeling of repulsion from it, and finally comes the phase of balance where he/she’s perfectly fulfilling all responsibilities of life with balance, and also watching anime at a slow pace like 3-10 episodes a week.

Well, these are all important lessons that anime DOES teach us. There’ll always be a minority of people who’d fulfill the definition of what a typical non-anime fan thinks about an anime fan, but also, it always won’t mean that 1% is all the rest of 99%. That’s why anime is loveable for people who understand it.