The Gallery

An underestimated art form

Thursday, March 18, 2010 By Tabitha Gaddy and Madison Meddock

Yenifer Serrano has two sisters. She wears mostly black, and loves vampires. She writes dark and beautiful poetry on a regular basis. She hates the way she looks without her glasses, and comes to school on bus 434. But Serrano wakes up every Sunday morning in eager anticipation. The eighth grader knows what time it is—anime time. For an hour, she watches one of her favorite shows, skillfully drawn by Japanese animators and voiced over with English-speaking voice actors. "I get up, like, at seven a.m. and head to the bathroom, then sit down on the sofa with my two sisters to watch InuYasha . For an hour; only two episodes," Serrano explained, "At eight, I usually yell at my sisters to shut up before it comes on. They know I'm crazy about anime." Like Serrano, many students watch anime. The most common is the classic show Pokémon . "Well, everyone watched Pokémon right?" said Anna Acha, also an anime fan, "Aside from Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokémon and Dragon Ball Z , my first anime love was InuYasha around the fifth-ish grade I think." What is anime, anyway? Is it just some Japanese version of cartoons, or is it more than that? K. Matthews said anime was much more than just cartoons. “You’ve got a lot more variety in anime, and more explosions,” she said, “That’s really cool, because you don’t get that much from American cartoons.” Matthews is a fan of Gunslinger Girl , Fullmetal Alchemist , and Bleach. "Anime is basically just based on the eyes and hair," Rebekah Appleton, a seventh grader, said, "And the clothes." The way anime and manga is drawn, with exaggerated eyes, bold hairstyles, large facial expressions and cutesy outfits, makes each character easy to recognize—and to dress up as. Some fans go all the way, dressing up in costumes of their favorite characters and attending anime conventions, such as Raleigh’s Animazement . "[I’d go] because there'd be people that like anime, like me, and are freaks, like me,” Appleton explains. “I wanted to go to Animazement really badly, but by the time I was old enough my sister moved out and my mom wouldn't take me." Animazement is held on Memorial Day weekend for three days each spring. The 2010 convention, Animazement 13 , has a horror theme. The horror genre is a staple in many anime and manga. One popular horror manga, Bizenghast , is the story of a girl named Dinah, who is employed by a mausoleum to keep the spirits at rest. “I like the many different anime there are, like Bleach , Vampire Knight , Lucky-Star , and InuYasha .” Serrano said. She clarified that she liked more romantic anime, but also anything to do with vampires, or that was just plain cute. Out of 10 students, 9 of them agreed that magical/supernatural was the main genre they preferred to watch or read. The second most popular, all with six students behind them, were horror, action/adventure, and romance. When there are those who love anime and manga, there are those who don't. Some parents, despite their children's fondness of anime and manga, disapprove of the Japanese art, reasoning that it is too sexual, violent, and generally inappropriate. CTE teacher Robert Bourgeois argues that parents have lack of knowledge of the variety that anime brings kids, and that not all anime and manga is so sexual and rude. Despite this, most parents of surveyed students were fine with them watching anime and reading manga. Acha agrees that anime is not a problem with her mother. “She likes me to ‘broaden my horizons’ or something like that.”