Why Is Anime So Universally Appealing?

Anime helped me grow up and got me to the next chapter of my life.

Photo by Matt Popovich on Unsplash

My older brother introduced me to my first anime when I was 4 years old, and I instantly fell in love with the genre. The two of us were staying up much later than we should have, watching Adult Swim, Cartoon Network’s late-night television programming.

It was a show called “Inuyasha”, about a half dog-demon and a girl that traveled the world looking for pieces of jewel. I played “Pokemon” throughout my whole childhood, and collected Yu-Gi-Oh cards. Gradually, I would get more into other anime, like Naruto, Dragon Ball Z, and as I got even older, into my high school and college years, I would start getting into highly rated anime like “Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood”, “Tokyo Ghoul”, and “Hunter x Hunter”. I know so many friends who have a cult-like devotion to Hayao Miyazaki’s “Spirited Away”, friends who don’t look like me and don’t think like me.

I have taken a long hiatus from watching anime since my freshman year of college, but I’ve started thinking about the reasons why international audiences love anime, given that many of my middle school students in an inner-city school are big anime fans of the same shows I watched when I grew up.

Anime, then, seems to have universal appeal. I have encountered big fans of anime everywhere I go, regardless of race, cultural background, socioeconomic status, or even age. What, then is the universal appeal behind anime? Why can people of all different backgrounds see themselves in anime characters, and why does Japanese anime reach audiences across the globe?

The first reason that anime is so appealing is its physical and aesthetic allure. Simply put, animation just keeps getting better and better. Blogger Angel Qinglan Li makes the following argument for anime’s aesthetic appeal as a premier 21st-century art form:

“Anime at its best is a genuine, richly fascinating contemporary Japanese art form with an exceptionally appealing visual style…young people brought up in a world of computers and video games are particularly open to its distinctive aesthetic.”

According to Brigette Koyama-Richard, current 21st-century anime traces its origins in ancient…