Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Do So Many Anime Take Place in High School?
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Walkbrass
Posts: 5 |
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I could be wrong, but doesn't the first kanji in seishun mean blue, not green?
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meiam
Posts: 3448 |
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Interesting choice of header picture. From an anime that doesn't happen in high school but still drag high school into the mix. Personally I think that greatly weaken the beginning of the anime, the show introduce a bunch of character in the first episode, just to re-introduce a bunch of new one in the second all to shoehorn in the high school setting.
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Lemonchest
Posts: 1771 |
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I imagine coming of age day in Japan to be a milder version of Carrousel. Looking back on ones teenage years is all there's left to do.
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penguintruth
 Posts: 8499 Location: Penguinopolis |
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It's a pretty obvious question. Kids are the ones watching anime in Japan, for the most part. Why do the characters tend to be in high school? Because the kids watching are approaching that age. You can argue the kids watching are probably younger than high school age, but that just means they're looking forward to those years because it makes them feel adult without the pressures of actually being one/dealing with jobs. Anime creators make the shows with young characters so the viewers can better identify with them.
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vonPeterhof
Posts: 729 |
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SaneSavantElla
 Posts: 250 Location: Philippines |
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In ancient usage, it means both blue and green. Here's a nice explanation: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-story-behind-using-the-same-word-for-blue-and-green-in-Japanese This can be observed in other languages too. |
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meruru
Posts: 475 |
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I agree. Especially when you consider shounen/shoujo are much more likely to take place in high school. The stuff I've seen of older people are often seinen or josei, for older audiences. |
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mgosdin
 Posts: 1302 Location: Kissimmee, Florida, USA |
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There are parts of High School & Middle School that I would love to excise out of my memory and some that I wouldn't mind visiting again. College, overall, was much better.
Mark Gosdin |
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Mr. Oshawott
 Posts: 6773 |
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I can't say I remember much of what has gone on in my years of high school, other than to say that much of it was generally not that great. However, that hasn't stopped me from enjoying high school anime show; if anything, I get plenty of fun watching them.
Edit: Alright! 3400 posts! |
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4788 |
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I can understand in general why so much of the Japanese media we get focuses on an idealized portrayal of high school: if nothing else, most popular anime and manga falls into the shounen or younger seinen demographics, so it's explicitly targeted at people in those age groups in the first place. And hell, it's not like American pop culture hasn't dedicated its share of works to high school/college and one's nostalgia for it, even though I don't think it's quite as pervasive as on the Japanese side. But like Justin said, knowing the reasons doesn't mean that one doesn't tire of teenagers with mysterious powers trying to save the world, or teenagers who are experts at piloting giant robots, or teenagers dealing with various sorts of teenage angst, or teenagers just acting cute together. It's not like there aren't really good works in each of those categories (well my personal preferences might argue the last one), but at some point you start to wonder what happens after everyone hits 20. When you hit that age bracket yourself, you start to realize that you're just beginning what's going to be your actual life's work, and overly fetishizing a very small portion of your life just seems unhealthy.
Honestly I think Justin got it most right when he touched on the issue of cultural norms. In Japan, once you hit adulthood, you're generally expected to either take a soul-crushing salaryman position, or else stay at home and raise a family, depending on your gender: you're meant to become a cog in the overall social machine. It's only within the past decade or so that there's started to be any significant pushback against that ideal, and even then it's limited. Contrast that with the Western world, which has always placed a greater emphasis on individuality and self-expression, and at least for the past four or five decades has recognized that you can exercise both while simultaneously building a career or family. If you were born into the former case, it's no wonder that you'd idealize the portion of your life when it seemed as though you had real freedom. |
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Hoppy800
 Posts: 3331 |
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They could do more college anime but college in Japan depending on how optimistic or pessimistic you are can range from a formal vacation (until their last year when they have to apply for jobs and it's not only brutal but mandatory, some hold themselves back for a year instead of graduating right away if they skip the event because it's extremely difficult to get your foot in the door any other way) to preparation for corporate misery.
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Touma
 Posts: 2651 Location: Colorado, USA |
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I think that a lot of anime is set in high school simply because that is where the high school girls are.
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HaruhiToy
 Posts: 4118 |
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Interestingly enough I have noticed that in spite of all the youth-fetishization that many anime push out the message that you have to be adult to be truly sexy. Yes boys and girls under 20 can be and frequently are attractive, but to really be stand-out you have to have enough age to know what you are doing. I'll put my chalk mark up on the side of the board that tallies "No way!" to high-school again. Unless, of course, next time around I could be flush with cash, fit, clean skinned and prepared to ace every test. Then I'd consider it. |
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relyat08
 Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
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High School was okay for me. I didn't love it, didn't hate it. What I did was make a lot of mistakes and act like an idiot teenager. In some ways I enjoy anime that take place in High School, not because I look back fondly on that time, but because I would love to have the chance to do it over again. Do it over again with the knowledge and wisdom that I have gained through time and experience, to be precise. I would ask that girl out that I liked, I wouldn't quit the track team in my Senior year, I wouldn't avoid the other nerds because they weren't cool. Things like that would be nice to redo. So, yeah, in that way, I enjoy anime that take place in High School because I can relate to some of it, and because putting myself in the shoes of a High Schooler again now that I know better is fun. I tend to especially like entertainment where someone goes back in time, or goes undercover as a High Schooler, like Never Been Kissed, 17 again, and all of those other terribly cheesy movies in that same vein.
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Animechic420
 Posts: 1733 Location: A Cave Filled With Riches |
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I agree with your last statement. I...messed up a lot of things between 4th and 6th grade. I got...lazy and the end result was not in my favor. I lost things in the process. 
As much as I hate school now, if I could go back and redo it all for the better, I would. |
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