Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies
Volume: 3 – Issue: 3 – July - 2013
© Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies 199
The Influence of Online Anime towards Children
Normaliza Abd Rahim, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia
Roslina Mamat, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia
Hazlina Ab Halim, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia
Arbaie Sujud, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia
Siti Nur Aliaa Roslan, International University Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Abstract
Online anime has been a major influence towards the growth of children in Malaysia.
Therefore this study investigates the online anime that influence children in their everyday
lives. The study also discusses the influence of online anime that contributed to positive
interaction in the discussion between the children. The study involves 10 nine year olds
subjects from a class of one school in Putrajaya. The children were selected based on their
experience in watching online anime. The subjects were interviewed. They were in groups of
3 to 4. They discussed about the characters, setting and storylines from the online anime that
they had watched and the conversation were taped and analyzed. Selected extracts were
analysed and discussed by using the discourse analysis method. It is found that subjects were
strongly influenced by the characters, setting and storylines from the online anime. They were
happy and contented to be like the characters in the story. It is hoped that online anime were
able to give positive influence towards children in their everyday lives.
Keywords: Online Anime, Influence, Discussion, Interaction, Communication
Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies
Volume: 3 – Issue: 3 – July - 2013
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Introduction
Anime has been the liking for youngsters from early age of 5. There were not only for
youngster but also for teenagers as well as adults. Anime has been introduced by the Japanese
where it consists of beautiful drawings of cartoon and has storyline accompanied. Anime
started with Manga where according to Brienza (2009) in Cooper-Chen (2011) there were 200
million Manga books in the Dragonball series originally published in Japanese by Shueisha
have been sold worldwide. The selling has increased since 2002 with 60 million to 210
million in 2007 but unfortunately due to economic downturn it declined in 2008.
Due to the high demand of manga in year 2000 onwards, online anime were introduced due to
the high demand reader from all over the world (Cooper-Chen, 2010). There were large
number of series collection of anime and there were also involved in large recruiting of staff
involved in the drawings. There were also courses in the universities in Japan specially
majored in anime. It was really a crucial time when there were lack of talented anime artists
and therefore the courses in this field were introduced. Until now, there were not only manga
but also online anime were sold worldwide and a large number of the selected anime were
transferred to dramas and movies. The movie Hana Yori Danga was filmed in 1995. The
same storyline was then features in the drama series Meteor Garden (2001) from Taiwan and
were famous with the Flower Four handsome boys where later on the same drama were
produced by the Japanese, Hana Yori Danga (2005) and Hana Yori Danga Returns (2007).
From there, the same storyline from the manga was used in the drama series Boys Over
Flowers (2009) by the Korean where the drama series were accepted worldwide. Here, it can
be seen that manga and anime were accepted no matter in the form of storybooks, dramas,
movies or even online anime (Richmond, 2009).
Research on online anime was also researched by Umi Khattab & Gin Chee Tang (2012) on
animes like Doraemon and Pokemon and were popular most in Taiwan and Indonesia. The
results of the study confirmed that the popularity of anime in Asian countries was due to the
same cultural proximity. Umi Khattab & Gin Chee Tang (2012) also stated that their finding
on the anime and video games were not 100% from the Japanese culture. That includes the
character, setting and some of the items in the anime were not appropriate for the Japanese
culture. This has negative impact towards the readers outside Japan to understand the
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Japanese culture. Some of the culture that was introduced was Chinese culture and some of
the settings were in Europe and Paris but still they tried to include the Japanese culture.
Sheuo Hui Gan (2012) states in the research that there were differences in identity between
the Sky Crawlers and Evangelion. The characters in Sky Crawlers were bored and
unmotivated whilst the characters in Evangelion were full of youthful energy, even though it
might be anxiety of even anger. Sheuo Hui Gan (2012) results stated that characters played an
important role in an interesting anime. According to Norhaslini Abd Alim (2012) in her
article stated that Malaysian community has accepted animation in the form of movies. For
instance the movies like, Putih, Usop Santorian, Upin and Ipin, Keluang Man, and Kampung
Boy. The characters in the movies were ideas from Malaysian cartoonist and animation. These
had led to the near level of Malaysian artists with the cartoonist at Walt Disney. In 2007, the
movie Saladin has won an award at the Tokyo Big Sight Award and this showed that
Malaysian artists are very talented.
Another research by Fukunaga (2006) showed the narrative style of anime where it has been
an interesting as well as accepted by most people in the world. Anime has looked into various
themes like fantasy, everyday lives in Japan, food, action, journey, self-defense, sports,
romantic drama, comedy and the relationship between people. Norris (2009) mentioned that
Japanese culture has given the relationship of manga and anime in culture, gender and
religion. On the other hand, Normaliza Abd Rahim (2012) research on cartoons has given
high impact towards the learning of foreign language. The cartoons were influenced by
Japanese anime and were favourites among the students at Hankuk University of Foreign
Language, Korea. The subjects had high confidence in speaking the target language after
watching a few series of Malay cartoons.
In accordance to the research done on anime, manga or the media technology, this study
investigates the online anime that influence children in their everyday lives and also discusses
the influence of online anime that contributed to positive interaction in the discussion between
the children.
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Volume: 3 – Issue: 3 – July - 2013
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Methodology
The study involves 10 nine year olds subjects from a class of one school in Putrajaya. The
children were selected based on their experience in watching online anime. The subjects were
interviewed. They were in groups of 3 to 4. They discussed about the characters, setting and
storylines from the online anime that they had watched and the conversation were taped and
analyzed. Selected extracts were analysed and discussed by using the discourse analysis
method.
Results and Discussion
The Influence of Character in Online Anime
There were a large number of favourite characters in online anime and the characters played
an important role in giving great influence to the subjects. Since there were nineteen top
online anime, there were also more than nineteen characters that made favourites towards the
subjects. The lists of favourite characters were listed according to the subjects’ favourites. 10
subjects liked the characters in Bleach, 9 subjects for Naruto Shippuuden, 9 subject for One
Piece, 9 subjects for Ao No Exorcist, 9 subjects for Fairy Tale, 9 subjects for Naruto, 8
subjects for Kaichou Wa Maid-sama, 8 subjects for Freezing, 8 subjects for Beelzebub, 8
subjects for Eyeshield 21, 8 subjects for Mayo Chiki, 7 subjects for Nurarihyon No Mago, 7
subjects for Deadman Wonderland, 7 subjects for Hidan No Aria, 7 subjects for Sekai Ichi
Harsukoi, 7 subjects for Seikon No Qwaser, 6 subjects for Uta No Pr, 6 subjects for Detective
Conan and 5 subjects for Inazuma Eleven. The above characters chosen from the online
anime had great influenced towards the subjects. The numbers showed that the subjects
preferred the characters in the online anime stated. The characters either the male or female
characters were being the major influence on the subjects and they did not miss watching the
anime online.
The subjects mentioned that the characters were interesting, good looking, pretty, strong and
also clever. The subjects stated that, ‘The character has the ability to see the ghost. Really
superb!’, ‘Madoka is really magical’, ‘The mermaid princess and Lucia are both pretty
together’, ‘Vesper was really strong. He fought the alien’, ‘The Royal Princess is really
pretty!’ and ‘Higurashi has a powerful jewel in his body’. The statements given by the
subjects were merely on the characters. It seemed that the subjects were really interested in
the characters and they were explaining about the characters to their friends. Most of the
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subjects seemed to know about the story mentioned and they were telling each other about the
characters. They even argued about their favourite characters when some of their friends did
not like the characters that they mentioned. But overall, they seemed to know the characters
well and they were enthusiastic to talk about it.
The Influence of Setting in Online Anime
Setting of the online anime also influenced the subjects in liking the online anime. The setting
had made the subjects imagine the different places that they had read from other online anime.
They had chosen the best setting for their favourites. The subjects stated that their favourite
setting were as follows, ‘10 subjects liked the settings in Bleach, 7 subjects for Naruto
Shippuuden, 6 subject for One Piece, 7 subjects for Ao No Exorcist, 7 subjects for Fairy Tale,
8 subjects for Naruto, 8 subjects for Kaichou Wa Maid-sama, 8 subjects for Freezing, 9
subjects for Beelzebub, 9 subjects for Eyeshield 21, 7 subjects for Mayo Chiki, 6 subjects for
Nurarihyon No Mago, 6 subjects for Deadman Wonderland, 8 subjects for Hidan No Aria, 6
subjects for Sekai Ichi Harsukoi, 9 subjects for Seikon No Qwaser, 9 subjects for Uta No Pr, 8
subjects for Detective Conan and 7 subjects for Inazuma Eleven. The statements above
showed that all ten subjects liked the setting from the online anime Bleach. It showed that the
subjects liked the setting about ghosts and fighting scenes. The settings in the online anime
were changed most of the time and it was so colourful and interesting that the subjects felt
like real when they watched it. Next were Beelzebub, Eyeshield, Seikon, No Qwaser, and Uta
No Pr where nine subjects preferred the setting from the online anime. They mentioned that
they setting were interesting and related to the storyline in the online anime.
The subjects also mentioned that they were amazed to see the setting from the favourite
online anime. The settings were related to the storyline and at the same time were different
with the other online anime. They were stunned to see the creativity that the authors and
illustrators for the setting had. They stated, ‘The setting in Beelzebub were beautiful. It has
amazing buildings’, ‘In Inazuma Eleven, the setting were spectacular. The scenery in the
forest were so detailed’, ‘Naruto had good setting as well’, ‘I like the setting in Uta No Pr the
best’, and ‘Really interesting to have such setting in Eyeshield. Looked really real!’. The
statements from the subjects showed that they loved the setting and the setting had made them
want to watch more. The subjects were contented with the setting when they mentioned that
the setting in the online anime were really detailed even the tiny bits were in the setting. They
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looked happy to explain and tell about the setting to their friends and their friends agreed to
most of the statements.
The Influence of Storylines in Online Anime
The influence of storylines in online anime was also being discussed among the subjects. The
subjects were excited to tell each other about the storyline from the online anime. They were
also seen laughing and giggling when they were telling each other about the same story. Most
of the subjects were seen involved and were trying to tell about their own version of the story.
The subjects stated that their favourite storyline were as follows, ‘10 subjects liked the
settings in Bleach, 6 subjects for Naruto Shippuuden, 9 subject for One Piece, 8 subjects for
Ao No Exorcist, 8 subjects for Fairy Tale, 7 subjects for Naruto, 9 subjects for Kaichou Wa
Maid-sama, 9 subjects for Freezing, 8 subjects for Beelzebub, 9 subjects for Eyeshield 21, 8
subjects for Mayo Chiki, 6 subjects for Nurarihyon No Mago, 7 subjects for Deadman
Wonderland, 9 subjects for Hidan No Aria, 9 subjects for Sekai Ichi Harsukoi, 8 subjects for
Seikon No Qwaser, 8 subjects for Uta No Pr, 7 subjects for Detective Conan and 9 subjects
for Inazuma Eleven. The numbers chosen for each online anime were based on the subjects’
favourite storyline. All the subjects had chosen Bleach as their favourite storyline. This was
due to the fact that all the subjects liked the story about ghost and the fighting scenes in the
story. Although it was fighting scenes but the scenes were to fight against the ghost. Next,
nine subjects had chosen One Piece, Kaichou Wa Maid-sama, Freezing, Eyeshield 21, Hidan
No Aria, Sekai Ichi Harsukoi, Inazuma Eleven as their favourite storylines. The subjects had
chosen the storyline about energetic, handsome, pretty, strong and love storylines for their
favourite. The stories were interesting and they mentioned that most of the time they felt like
it was real and had happy endings where the characters won in the battle or the characters left
with good deeds.
The subjects also gave comments on the storyline of their favourite online anime. The
subjects were trying their best to tell each other what they knew and some of the subjects
were trying to argue about the storyline of the online anime. The subjects stated, ‘The bad guy
supposed to be caught by the hero!’, ‘The dolphin was not captured!’, ‘What happened to the
sword? It was taken, right!’, ‘Where did the ghost gone to? It was not there in the last
episode!’, ‘The boy was so good looking when he fought the alien’, and ‘The cute boy had
flew up in the sky to fight! That was cool!’. The statements from the subjects seemed to be
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about the storyline. The subjects were trying to explain or even get assurance from the friends
about the storyline that they had forgotten. The other subjects were giving answers to the
questions and the rest were seen nodding their heads. They were happy to continue reminding
each other about the story line and as the matter of fact, the girls were seen giggling when
they mentioned about the male hero in from the story. The boys were giving odd remarks on
their faces when they were talking about the male heroes. Towards the end of the discussion,
the subjects were happy and contented to have given their version of the storylines.
To sum up, the results and discussion of the study postulate that the subjects showed
confidence during the discussion. The subjects had given their thoughts about their favourite
online anime. Here, is can be seen that technology has played a major role in boosting up their
confidence level in speaking and giving ideas and leaving comment. The subjects also
managed to retell the story among the group. Here, it was obvious that the online anime has a
great influence to the subjects. The results of this study is parallel to the results from the
research done by Normaliza Abd Rahim (2011) where technology has played a major role in
giving them the space in speak up, giving ideas and at the same time confident in arguing
about the matter that they were good at. This study also has the same results as Sheuo Hui
Gan (2012) where characters has played a major role in an interesting anime or manga and
also the characters must be able to attract the reader or viewers.
Conclusion
The author concludes that this study implicates not only researchers but also educators and
students from all over the world. Anime has succeeded in attracting most people in the world
and will continue to make them satisfied with their reading and viewing. Moreover this study
will help the ministry of higher education in offering new courses in anime so that new artists
with talent will pursue their studies in a higher level. It is hoped that future research will look
at Malaysian viewers in the perspective of culture and content.
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Volume: 3 – Issue: 3 – July - 2013
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It's just something being copy and paste so it might get a little scramble..
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