Anime studies should be offered in American high schools

Con's rebuttal does not for most part contradict my claims that anime takes youth seriously, nor does he deny that anime deals with modern themes, or that it expresses a different way of thinking that reflects the viewpoint of a different culture. His main arguments are than none of the potential benefits will be realized because students will do no more than be entertained, and that other subjects would be more valuable. I think those are legitimate concerns, but there is really no problem making an anime course a challenging learning experience. I'll deal with Con's R3 arguments first. Anime has the Depth for Serious StudyCon says he has never benefited from anime beyond the entertainment. I doubt that's true, because anime is to permeated with Japanese thinking. If one only read classic literature I doubt they would recognize what benefit they have derived from it? Of course it's also possible to read only trash novels without getting much from them. Anime is produced in such volume that there is lot of it without much substance. Not just Pokémon and Sailor Moon, but the whole genre of mindless action like Dragonball Z have little more than action sequences with a Japanese twist and high production values. Anime that has value, examples of which I've cited, is generally difficult to fully appreciate without some formal instruction. Shakespeare is better with a lot of explaining, but Shakespeare was targeting the mass audiences of his times. I think that there is something to be gained from unstudied enjoyment of the better anime, and that's why anime is so successful worldwide, but it really benefits from instruction. Anime instruction is helpful. Consider the clip of Sanosuke fighting Seito[1]. The point that's commonly missed is that Seito is performing in the role of a master preparing an apprentice. At the end Seito begrudgingly accepts that Sanosuke will join Kenshin as an ally, even though Seito has up to that point consistently insulted Sanosuke's ability and dismissed him as a worthless incompetent. Sanosuke ultimately recognizes what has been going on when he notes that Seito never hit his injured shoulder during the fight, but had carefully avoided a direct strike. Seito could have disabled Sanosuke had he wanted to, and Sanosuke realized that. It ends with Sanosuke inspired to train harder as a result of the encounter. This type of master-to-student relationship recurs. In the Kenshin series it happens several times, including Kenshin's relationship with his swordmaster. In the romance Ai Yori Aoshi, [4] the hero, after going to enormous lengths to prove himself worthy, begs his girlfriend's father for permission to marry. The Japanese-stereotypical authoritarian father responds with all manner of insults and deprecations -- but never says no. The crestfallen hero has to have it explained to him that the old man actually approved. Compare the anime approach to encouragement to the "everyone gets a trophy" approach [12. . http://www.huffingtonpost.com...] that's trendy in American education. In contemporary Japan there is an annual examination for the highest ranks of mastery in Japanese archery, wherein "attitude" is rated along with hitting the target. Hundreds take e test, but years go by with no one succeeding in achieving the rank. There's a popular Japanese TV series with athletes running obstacle courses. Only every few years does someone complete the whole course. People try all the harder. I don't know if the Japanese approach is the right approach, but there is much to consider. It seems deliberately destroying self-esteem sometimes motivates better than nurturing it. I pointed out the obsession with placing characters in distinct physical environments. Strong clues are given to the nature of the physical surroundings, the time of year, the time of day, and the weather. Why is that? When the Buddha was asked if he was a god, a king, or a prophet, he replied "no" to each. "Well then, what are you? " He replies, "I am aware. " Being aware is thought to be an inherent virtue. The characters in anime often adjust their attitudes to the environment, particularly the seasons. Japanese shops traditionally change decorations to mark the four seasons, as Americans do with holidays. I mentioned many other themes and topics. There are dozens worth discussing in an anime course. Anime reaches students. Why anime rather than a survey of world cultures or some other art form? A survey course can only teach a list of trivia, and rather boring trivia at that. To get to interesting cultural and philosophical material there has to be sustained exploration of one culture. Other cultures have many interesting features that bear study, but anime is uniquely suitable for the reasons I've cited: it's interesting, it's mainstream, it deals with modern society, and avoids the limits of political correctness. No one is going to have a robot girlfriend or boyfriend any time soon. However, dealing with machines on a personal basis is a dominant feature of modern society right now. Video games, computers, smart phones, and omnipresent video streaming are personal machines unlike steam engines and power plants. The threat is the depersonalization of society. The Japanese are ahead of the rest of the world in experiencing the impact. A resort in Japan promoted a pseudo-romantic weekend for isolated male anime fans who idolize the female anime characters in a certain series. Anime characters have official birthdays, which are celebrated with cake. This is creepy, and the Japanese including the participants know it. The theme of human relationships competing with artificial relationships recurs in anime. An anime course must be curriculum driven. Con worries that an anime course could degenerate into fluff posing as learning. I think that's a valid concern, and I argued that the way to prevent that is with a structured standardized curriculum. There are several good texts to support the curriculum, notably Napier's Anime from Akira to Howl's Moving Castle: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation. [13. . http://en.wikipedia.org...] and a number of less ponderous texts, like Anime Explosion [14. . http://en.wikipedia.org...]What motivates a student to take the study of, say, geometry seriously? The desire to get a good grade is common to all coursework. Most students will not much immediate application nor later importance in learning geometry. Most study it because they do not want to be saddled with a failing grade, and if they enjoy it, it's because the problems pose interesting challenges. The benefit of learning geometry is in the methods of mathematical logic by which theorems are proved. Anime starts out with the advantage of being inherently interesting because it deals with problems currently facing young people, and which they will continue throughout life. That's a result of the design for a mainstream audience. The different perspective is inherent in it's basis in Japanese culture. A good curriculum will ensure challenging problems that will keep the material interesting. Religion. Con argues that religion can be studied outside of school. In the West, Eastern religion is uncommon. Moreover, anime is not really teaching the religion per se, it is introducing the philosophical style of thinking. It sort of parallels the goal of geometry to teach an alternative method of deriving a conclusion. I am not advocating that anime ought to be a basic course in high school, but it compares well against other electives. Students will learn critical analysis, new approaches to life's problems, and new essay themes. It will increase future appreciation of the art form. And it's a sneaky way to make learning fun.