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Reyaz's avatar

I've lived around sports fantatics my whole life and am very skeptical about anime being unique in this sense. The merchandising, the meta content, the social aspect. I feel like the physical manifestation to reinforce an assumed fanbased identity is something natural that springs from any media where people are heavily invested emotionally and financially. I sometimes think that 2D imaginary characters materialised in physical goods that may tap into a deeper euphoria, but every time a friend or sibling meets a star in real life I'm convinced back again.

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Iluzon's avatar

Humans have an innate sense of reciprocity. If they spend a lot of time doing a thing, they feel like it needs to account for something.

There are 5 main ways to interact with media in this way:

1. Talk about them

2. Create them yourself

3. Idolize the creators

4. Idolize the characters

5. Gather related stuff

When it comes to anime:

1 is easy to do through the internet. However, if it goes too far, it isolates the person from people who criticize his interest, making his in group more and more zealous.

2 is hard when it comes to anime. Animation has a high bottom threshold of even seeing ones work work as intended.

It takes a lot of skill and knowledge to get a picture moving. Especially in the anime style, as most of the resources are foreign language.

3 is uncommon, as the creators are mostly inaccesible, leaving the "studio" to be thé face of the creation. Also, they Are Japanese, thus removed from even thoughts about getting access.

4 is simple to do, and they can serve well as role models similar to religious figures (what would Jesus/Twilight/Haruhi do?). But, if talent too far, they can take their fans on a downward spirál of simpage, removing them from society. It is hard to make friends with someone knowing they would always prefer a fictional character over you. People do be proud like that.

5 is the easiest way to reach for reciprocity.

It can start as an aesthetic urge, but it creates a positive feedback loop, as buying stuff becomes an additional way of consumption, building its own feelings of reciprocity and inadequacy. Collections start that way and usually only transform into a particular aesthetic or serious endeavor (collecting a smaller niche of something) after some kind of external reality check.

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