Yuri to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito

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The Rules of Anime – You must obey!

Posted on | August 6, 2006 | 11 Comments |

Well, I was struggling with what to post today, so I thought – “If in doubt, start yet another feature that I will soon get tired with and not write any more for!”

So until I can’t think of any more, the theme today is “Immutable rules of anime – Anime rules and regulations”. A coupleof summers ago I was working in a lab in London and my supervisor was a big anime fan, so we did the necessary “introducing each other to each other’s favourites”. At some point he made a cursive comment that all anime was pretty much the same or contained similar themes. I opened my mouth to try and dispute it, but to be honest, it’s quite difficult to dispute.

And so I will be throwing some of the main rules for anime around here. i.e. if an anime follows these rules then it’s pretty much mainstream, whereas if it doesn’t then it’s special ^_^.

Today’s rule:

#1 All animes must involve a school.

| It’s called “School Rumble” for heaven’s sakes

This is the first and foremost rule in the history of anime. most commonly, in 80% of cases, the school is a high school (sort of equivalent of “6th form college” in the UK), and featuring frequently: girls only high schools. But not only these – Middle schools (secondary schools) have also been known to crop up as well as elementary schools (The obvious example of this currently is “Today in Class 5-2″).

But not only this! If not able to insert any of these into a storyline, then choose specialist academies – for Space defence (Uchuu no Stellvia), magic (Zero no Tsukaima) or training ninjas (Himawari!). In fact, I would go so far as to say at least 85% of anime is mostly centred around a school and 90% at least containing a school somewhere in the plot (if not more).

So what is the Japanese obsession with high school age kids? I would guess that the main target audience for most mainstream shows that we watch (obviously not including the never ending shows such as Pokemon and Pretty Cure) are high school upwards (since the showing times are generally midnight or later), most coming from university or higher on.

Is this the Japanese way of saying that high school is the best years of your life? Surprisingly, very very few animes centre or involve a university or college (Genshiken and Paradise Kiss are the only ones I can think of right now), though I believe it is the Western belief that years in university are the best years of your life ^_^. Maybe Japanese people have more fun at high school! (I know I definitely didn’t -_-;;)

Alternatively (and possibly more likely) is that since the main target audience of anime is male, and sailor uniforms are teh sexay, how much better could you market your anime than with lithe, barely legal girls in serafuku? Or alternately non-legal girls. (Depends on your tastes, I suppose ^_^).

| Government conspiracy, eh…

Or third, what if it’s a scheme from the Japanese government to brainwash the useless human effluence called “anime otaku” into believing that education is truly important and to stay in education so that they can become useful to the Japanese Hive Mind? Education, education, education! (Hm, yet another British in-joke)

Who knows?

Reason 2 for me ^_^

Stay tuned for more!

Category: Anime, Comment, Editorials

Comments

11 Responses to “The Rules of Anime – You must obey!”

  1. gatsu
    August 6th, 2006 @ 4:42 am

    wrong, mushishi and gundam haven’t one school, it’s the same for aria the animation…, in the comedie’s show, there was a lot of school

  2. kacpy
    August 6th, 2006 @ 4:52 am

    Since my favorite show doesn’t feature any school anywhere, I personally disagree with this rule. :)

  3. Ashura
    August 6th, 2006 @ 6:09 am

    Interesting and true. Looking forward to read more of this.

  4. Teru
    August 6th, 2006 @ 7:19 am

    Paradise Kiss is not an exception really, both Caroline and the Yaza crowd are in high school, however I guess you meant that they are closer to finish it and the story doesn’t end when they graduate, like almost all other high school anime?

  5. Sasa
    August 6th, 2006 @ 7:36 am

    Hm, and I actually cannot agree at all. Sure, I do agree that there are loads of anime that are related to school, but there’s many anime that don’t. Especially the science-fiction, fantasy stuff:
    - Mushishi
    - Aria
    - Cowboy Bebop
    - Kino no Tabi
    - Haibane Renmei
    - Victorian Romance Emma
    - REC
    - Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou
    - Coyote Ragtime Show
    - Niea_7
    - most of the Ghibli movies
    - Gankutsuou
    - Animal Yokocho
    - Zettai Shounen (at least the first part, I haven’t seen the second)
    And you have forgotten the legendary Honey & Clover that plays in college! *hehe*
    Well, and when it comes to manga, there are whole magazines without any school stories.

    But apart from this, it’s an interesting entry ^^

  6. Milkmaster
    August 6th, 2006 @ 7:41 am

    I’d go with theory number 2, as 3 is too compelling to be true and seems very implausible to me, as especially in Japan university is a time to party hard.

  7. Milkmaster
    August 6th, 2006 @ 7:42 am

    the sentence should go: [...]to be true and 1 seems very[...]

  8. yuribou
    August 6th, 2006 @ 8:52 am

    Sasa: It was not my point that all anime have schools in, just that for every anime you can name that does not involve a school, I can name 9 others that do ^_^

  9. kacpy
    August 6th, 2006 @ 11:51 am

    Why is the rule called “All animes must involve a school.” then? XD

  10. Sasa
    August 7th, 2006 @ 12:14 pm

    I think I will write an “Anime have to involve cats”-post anytime soon. Please remind me of this. I think it there are more anime involving cats than schools.

    And oh by the way, I want a list of 117 anime involving a school. At least. *g*

  11. Zzz...
    August 8th, 2006 @ 2:50 am

    High school is where most healthy people in developed nations grow the most mentally and emotionally. At least in theory. A good anime is about growth and development of its characters so it’s natural for such growth to take place in a backdrop where such development naturally take place. Maybe. Anywho judging from the problem with depression, suicide, and violence among Japanese high schoolers I doubt they think that this period of their life is very fun.

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