I’m a 25 year old native English speaker that’s very interested in Japanese culture as well as learning Japanese.
I’ve never watched anime and whenever I tell people I’ve never watched anime, I get a really strange look followed by questions asking why am I bothering with this language?
Is anime something I should watch to improve or should I wait until my proficiency increases to start watching?
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Definitely don’t wait for your proficiency increases, it’ll only add to your strength. A lot of people do this, expecting to be able to capture at least a portion of the anime, but miss everything.
Start watching asap. Listening is an entirely different skill to speaking. Like exercising your legs instead of your arms. While you won’t understand anything at first, it’ll help develop your ability to listen and make out various words and phrases. As children, we watch hundreds of shows and movies not retaining a single moment of them. And it’s the same process here.
And for Japanese, it doesn’t have to be anime! There are definitely plenty of shows completely in Japanese, though I’m not a fan of them. Plenty of amazing Japanese youtubers,
While it’s beyond beginner level, Japanese documentaries and news channels are a good source of input
Nope, you don’t need to watch anime haha — there are just so many people whose interest in Japanese started with anime that people assume that’s why you are interested. You do need to find some comprehensible input, whether anime, other TV, videos (even grammar videos), podcasts, or conversation partners. No reason it has to be anime!
Only if it’s something you’re interested in watching
The reason why you’re getting so many weird looks is anime and video games are Japan’s two biggest cultural exports. So being into Japanese culture, but not being into anime is unusual.
That being said the best student in my Japanese class in college had zero interest in anime so it’s certainly not a requirement.
You’re not beholden to anime and there is more to the Japanese language and Japanese culture than just anime. And there is a lot more media too!
However, listening to the language however it’s presented will help with listening comprehension and add to your vocabulary.
If your a beginner, you’re getting used to the language and picking out what you do know. At a lightly higher beginner stage you’ll be recognizing some high-frequency words and start following along. In the intermediate stages you’ll be following along with the most common scenarios without much difficulty; your vocabulary will also continue to expand. At advanced stages your understanding should be almost complete and you’ll be able to intuit even unfamiliar situations.
It’s very common to start learning Japanese if you like anime, so the two things are often linked together.
I recommend that you give anime a try to see if you like it, it can be really enjoyable, but it’s certainly not a requirement.
You don’t need to. For learning it is very useful because you can do learning and reading practice with it. However, I think you should only go in if you actually enjoy or have some other interest in the content.
I would ask what kind of shows, movies, books, games, or stories you tend to like so you can get a list of recommendations of anime you might be interested in. Just going by you mentioning your interest in Japanese culture, I’d suggest Mushi-Shi. It’s set in a fictional period between the Edo and Meiji, and is about a character that goes to different places to aid people who are having trouble with Mushi, beings with supernatural powers. It’s a very chill watch and doesn’t have an overarching story, so you can watch single episodes without committing to a whole season or a longer story.
Yeah japanese majors have complained about this many times. It just shows how ignorant done people are.
Damn. Learning Japanese doesn’t necessarily mean that you must also watch anime.
I don’t care for anime, I’ve tried to get into it and just can’t.
What I do really like is J rock and especially visual kei. I’ve enjoyed being able to understand more and more lyrics as my studies have gone on.
I mean, I speak German and I’ve never watched any German animation. But I do listen toheir music, watch their news, fillow vlogs, etc. As long as you input SOME media it’s fine.
That being said, there is just a MASSIVE amount of Japanese anime, so it’s very likely you’ll find some that you both enjoy and can help your language. I never liked anime until I realized there’s a lot that isn’t fighting anime made for middle schoolers. (Not that that’s bad, just not my thing)
I really like anime, so I’m biased. But I think you should give it a try, just from the perspective of there being high quality pieces of media available. There’s lots and lots of crap too but that’s true of Western TV. For every Breaking Bad there’s a hundred 90 Day Fiances (which I also love tbh). I’d suggest a classic like Cowboy Bebop or Stein’s Gate (or tell us what kind of TV you like and get better recommendations) with English subtitles just to see if you might enjoy it. If it turns out you really like it then it’s great and you can add it to the parts of Japanese culture you’re interested in, and if not then you’re in the same spot you are now.
It’s not really necessary for learning, because there’s lots of other media out there to practice with. But it’s very popular with learners because it tends to be fun and engaging and a good way to practice listening, and often wanting to be able to consume that specific type of media is the motivation for learning in the first place.
My first experience learning Japanese was in 2005 when I suddenly found myself having a summer internship in Tokyo at Sony and having only a couple months to cram a little Japanese in my head before the trip.
Even back then it was assumed (in the US) that anyone learning Japanese must be learning it because they like anime / manga, which wasn’t the case for me. On the flip side, nobody in *Japan* assumed that — it was mostly an assumption of Westerners, in my experience.
There are dozens of us.
Anime is certainly a part of Japanese culture for some people, but it is WAY overrepresented by western people learning Japanese.
If you ever come here, you won’t run into it that much outside of some very mainstream stuff like you would the Simpson, rick and morty, or SpongeBob in the west.
In fact the people who make every second conversation about anime quickly get a certain ‘reputation’.
You not alone bro… Me too haven’t watched any anime yet
> I’ve never watched anime and whenever I tell people I’ve never watched anime, I get a really strange look followed by questions asking why am I bothering with this language?
Man… It always amazes me when people think anime is the only reason to know Japanese.
Anyways, don’t force yourself to consume content you’re not interested in, it’ll actually hinder your language learning if you’re not enjoying the journey, but if you find something you like then absolutely watch it and don’t wait. Even just incomprehensible input can get you used to the sound of the language which will help you pick out patterns easier for comprehension later.
Anime is just an easy way to practice listening to spoken japanese, but you can use any sort of media, really. If you aren’t into cartoons, just watch movies. Japan has great film-makers.
There’s no explicit reason to watch anime if you don’t want to. That said, there’s a lot of great stories told and cultural insights to be had if you do delve into the medium. Just try to look for what *you’re* interested in, instead of what everyone suggests. There’s a good chance there’s something for you.
If you’re interested in traditional Japanese theater, there’s *Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju*. If you love Japanese language itself, there’s *Fune wo Amu*. If you’re interested in the impact of Jazz in the late 60s, there’s *Kids on the Slope*. Calligraphy–there’s *Barakamon*. If you search, you’ll find your “thing”.
Also, don’t sleep on j-dramas, if you’re looking for things to watch.
So, yeah, if you want something to watch, there’s almost certainly something mature and directed at your interests out there. If not, then don’t worry about it. You don’t *have* to watch anime. But if you do, rest assured that there’s a lot more out there than harems, swords, and power-up fantasies.
it’s so wild how a few decades ago, you would get weird looks for watching anime instead
>whenever I tell people I’ve never watched anime, I get a really strange look
Because a large amount of folks learn the language just to enjoy media.
>Is anime something I should watch to improve
Your call. Just bear in mind that you can’t blurt out whatever you hear on TV shows verbatim, just like talking like, say, Spongebob or a Saturday-morning cartoon villain would sound weird.
Anime in the japanese sense is literally just animation/cartoons– whether for kids like bugs bunny, or for adults like futurama. So from a japanese perspective you probably have seen anime, and its totally okay to not be interested in them.
Japan makes a lot of amazing cartoons for older audiences, which get exported all over the world. So many people with only a passable or no interest in japan itself may love them. They call these exported cartoons specifically by the japanese word anime, even though thats not how the term is natively used in japanese.
So ignore those people. They are allowed to love anime, which in no way affects actually knowing japanese language/culture as a whole. If only those who love anime learned japanese….. well the world would be very different to say the least haha.
Its just like if I loved harry potter and said harry potter was the only reason to learn english. Its not wrong to love harry potter but shows I probably don’t know much/care about english speaking culture.
I taught for a year in Japan and have studied a bit since then. I do it out of interest and a fondness for Japan overall.
Do I watch anime? Yeah probably 1 or 2 a year. It’s a very popular artistic medium (that’s usually based on Manga). But there is so much more to Japan than that. Their architecture, spiritual beliefs, and history have so much to offer.
A lot of reddit hates on people for obsessing over the games/anime from Japan and I can understand it to a certain extent – BUT just remember that you should have your own personal reasons for being interested in Japan.
I miss it everyday and I think about the people I met and can no longer contact.
There’s only 2 people in my 5 person class who like anime. You absolutely don’t have too.
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I emphasize with you because anime and manga weren’t my gateway to Japanese, either.
Since we got both U.S. and Canadian channels, there was quite a bit of anime available in the early-mid 2000s. I remember YTV airing the neutered Ocean dub of Gundam Wing at 11:30 pm in the summer of 2000.
Outside of Pokemon, Sailor Moon, Digimon Adventure and DBZ, I just couldn’t get into most anime series. Not even Yuigoh or Naruto. When I got older and could watch Japanese dubs online, I preferred series with less of the anime clichés: Black Lagoon, Welcome to the NHK and Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 among others.
No, my true gateway to Japanese were trains; manzai like Jinnai Tomonori, Downtown, Unjash and Rahmens; and interestingly enough, Best Motoring. I used to watch the potato quality [NSX 0-400m races](https://youtu.be/A8zICp64GZI) from Temple of VTEC on RealPlayer, which got me hooked on the series.
Jinnai and Anjash contes, Gaki no Tsukai “no laughing” specials on NYE, pretty much everything Rahmens puts out (but particularly “The Japanese Tradition” and whenever Kobayashi and Katagiri pretend to be foreigners in a classroom setting) made me laugh until it hurt because of the surrealist twists on the manzai genre. Also, Katagiri was [famous for other reasons](https://musebycl.io/tagline/apple-get-a-mac).
And trains need no explanation, I can only look on with envious despair from a car-oriented country at Japan’s commuter rail and Shinkansen networks. The departure melodies, and station and in-car announcements, are a masterclass of operations design, customer service and audio engineering.