I'm pretty sure the short answer is: "Well, 4chan, right?". But it goes a bit beyond that.

If there's something that I have learned is that your standard :le-pol-face: is nearly IDENTICAL to ISIS, it's just a matter of whether they want to be a Christian CHUD or a Muslim CHUD. Osama Bin Laden was found to be a fan of anime too, among many other ISIS/al Quaeda members. Hell, ISIS members are frogposters just as much as "defend the west" CHUDs. There's a joke online about how fashy a lot of weebs are and I really don't understand it.

Anime is Japanese and Japan fought on the side of the axis is the only connection I can think of, but it's not like Japanese people are considered white in the US, the country that these hogs apparently love so much. Hell, hogs demonized the FUCK out of Japan in the 70s and 80s too despite being a fellow capitalist nation. Now they're coming around?

Also, look at two of the most popular anime: Pokemon is pretty pro-environment and Dragon Ball Z: where Frieza talks almost identically to your average chanbrain and was inspired by real estate speculators because of how evil they are.

Is there a deeper connection besides "4chan lol"?

  • TreadOnMe [none/use name]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    Most anime has by far the most baby-brained story telling elements. Like, it is to the point where I can literally just see a show once and more or less predict how it is going to go for the first season. Later seasons might get weird, but they only get weird in incredibly formulaic ways that you can predict after the first two episodes.

    That isn't to say all anime is bad, it's just most of the anime chuds like is trash.

    Edit: this also shouldn't be surprising as most of it is made for Japanese children. Other audiences are mostly an after thought.

    • Ideology [she/her]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Once you start doing research on imperial-era Japanese fascism, you start seeing tidbits of that Era's philosophy in anime. IMO, the messaging tends to speak to the fears that privileged classes of people have in relation to their colonized surroundings. Shonen anime especially makes frequent appeals to strength and self-sacrifice against an alien extremism, usually in opposition to civilized society. Example: the author of Attack on Titan when it was found out he's racist against Koreans for nationalistic reasons.

      But also, incels love anime tiddies. :hentai-free:

      • ScotPilgrimVsTheLibs [they/them]
        hexagon
        ·
        3 years ago

        Continuing from my original post, I'm kinda surprised that 4chan didn't reject dragon ball because Frieza is a picture perfect portrayal of them. Arrogant to a fault but is deeply terrified of a "super saiyan" that will fight back against them and disprove their delusions of grandeur.

        • TreadOnMe [none/use name]
          ·
          3 years ago

          I mean it's also because they can conveniently hide with the normies. Imo JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is the best of battle anime these days. Dragon Ball Super is pretty bad. That being said, at this point I literally am more likely to listen to a podcast about an anime, than actually watch an anime.

          • Catherine_Steward [she/her]
            ·
            3 years ago

            Not really? They're kind of barbarians, like in the D&D sense. They're not "good" or anything to aspire to, they're just slightly above-average fighters. If they feel enough righteous fury they can access a form which makes them very above-average fighters, at the cost of even more of their already fragile emotional state. And if they get enough D&D good-aligned saiyans together and believe hard enough they can perform a religious ritual to turn one of them into a ... god? Demigod? What is even a god in Dragon Ball is kind of unclear.

            But yeah saiyans were never supposed to be some kind of ideal. For most of the known history of Dragon Ball they were going around committing genocides, not even for some fucked up cause they believed in, but for money.

          • FidelCashflow [he/him]
            ·
            3 years ago

            There is an episode where a german general tries to recruit them because they are blonde haired blue eyed super soldiers

      • TreadOnMe [none/use name]
        ·
        3 years ago

        That is absolutely my read on it. I was just telling a friend like two days ago that all of Japan is incredibly myopic, even if the Japanese Communist Party is pretty great sometimes.

      • UlyssesT
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        15 days ago

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  • StuporTrooper [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Anime was a leftist medium first and has only moved more right with the decades. Somebody made an article about it that I didn't read, but yeah.

  • replaceable [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Sexist tropes + power fantasy + sexualisation of underage girls, these are quite common elements in anime and they all appeal to far right

    • BynarsAreOk [none/use name]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      I mean, imagine being so isolated from the world that you spend your time posting the N word and cuck porn on an image board to piss people off. That’s the level of outcast we’re talking about. It doesn’t help that a lot of anime glorify this kind of behavior.

      Almost every single anime portrayal of otaku is done with the negative stereotypes of Japanese society. We had tons of straight up "you are fucking disgusting and sick" anime like Welcome to the NHK and Re:life. That anime glorifies the 4chan western types is a pretty big exaggeration. Nobody hates Japanese otaku more than Japanese themselves lol.

      You can't mistake pandering for glorifying. There is no argument that anime panders to the worst type of otaku since historically they were the ones funding most of the industry but outright positive portrayal of the 2ch types is quite rare.

      The stereotypical "acceptable" otaku that you'll find is the anime/manga club in high school, maybe a manga artist here or there, maybe the salaryman otaku that goes to comiket and is lonely. Actual 2ch netizens/lolicons are almost exclusively portrayed negatively as hikikomori/NEETs. In fact I don't think I know of a positive hikkomori portrayal, maybe 1/20 references? I know a few hikikomoris that are downplayed as jokes so that is certainly not positive.

      In fact hikikomori is such a problem in Japan that glorifying it in any context is pretty much taboo.

      The western 4chan guy would never actualy pay for shit(piracy is essential to western fandom) or unironically go to a yearly convention more than once for the novelty of it.

    • ScotPilgrimVsTheLibs [they/them]
      hexagon
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      Also, Japan is a hegemonic country. Chuds see their country as a model white people should copy, ignoring the pedophilia, sexual harassment, loneliness, and overwork. Or perhaps this is also what they want to copy to their white ethnostate.

      Fair enough, but this begs the question on why they fearmonger so much about Muslims? If anything, Muslims are MORE "white" than Japan, they worship the same God, both think we all need moar Jesus, and arabs are more "western" than Japan. Hell, there's also the anti-semitism that Muslim hogs like to drum up. Just like them. Even in William Pierce's book, he tolerates Muslim extremists before Japan.

      • The arab world is full of plenty of hogs just like /pol/. Young men who feel emasculated: Bin Laden and Baghdadi took advantage of that by being their Jordan Peterson. If you showed one of them a stonetoss comic, even one that was demonizing Muslims, they'd probably laugh.

      • Charlie Hebdo studios are one of the closest things I'd say to a leftist stonetoss. They were French comrades who literally got attacked by :le-pol-face: types, you'd think 4chan would be nutting on how "those based Muslims DESTROYED those SJW soyboys!" (Oh yeah, point to Charlie Hebdo as an example on how the right REALLY feels about free speech).

      Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to pull a Marine Le Pen or a Modi here, I'm just pointing out that I am surprised that it's interesting that they claim to oppose ISIS.

      • Diogenes_Barrel [love/loves]
        ·
        3 years ago

        i think you're muddling ISIS and chan terrorists a bit too far. ISIS is a religious fundamentalist organisation, but was also founded in the milieu of resistance against american occupation. its membership outside the odd euro larper was experienced guerillas & former army. materially and organisationally they're leagues ahead of chan terrorists, who still aren't mostly affiliated with real groups

        • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          that's because ISIS mainly exists because Saddam Hussein's army was laid off with no pensions and found themselves unemployed

      • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Charlie hebdo have always been just shockingly racist and generally awful. I'm not saying them being bombed was a good thing but it doesn't make them good people.

        Most young chuds tend to be edgy new athiests

      • Tankiedesantski [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Fair enough, but this begs the question on why they fearmonger so much about Muslims?

        Because the Japanese are almost all "over there" whereas Muslims are very much "over here" in most western countries.

        Also there's the stereotype that the Japanese follow rules and try to adapt to host cultures when they do immigrate, whereas Muslims are seen as demanding the host culture change.

  • GreenTeaRedFlag [any]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Anime often comforts/takes advantage of lonely young men. Most anime and manga is for teenagr boys, so this makes sense. Privileged but unfulfilled members of society usually turn fash. The fash, due to privilege, get to have priority and set the tone of whatever community they are in. Lots of the people your average Chad wants dead also likes anime, but they have to actually work and struggle to stay alive or for offline communities. Take the animemes community on :reddit-logo: : when the word tr*p was banned, everyone who wasn't good on trans issues(ranging from chuds to libs) had a reaction. The loudest were the chan heads. Now, the mods were already on the trans side of the issue, but imagining they weren't, the people who have no lives and don't have to worry about getting their injections or actually feel under attack from the words being said can keep up an offensive forever, people with actual problems cannot. So, the community seems more chuddy than it might be in reality. Also, chuds are swarm animals. If some of them do something, they all do it.

  • Dbumba [none/use name]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I think anime plays into right-Weebs ideology of Japan being this perfect utopia of a trad values, a polite homogenous population free of minorities and the "ills" of western society. Anime is a way to connect to that fantasy world.

    And with media, it's easy to pick and choose narratives that fit your worldview. Also, a lot of people just take media at face value without understanding what it's actually trying to convey.

    • UlyssesT
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      15 days ago

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  • FidelCashflow [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Okay but hear me out. I would pay good money to see Bin Laden's commentary tracks for anime.

    • UlyssesT
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      edit-2
      15 days ago

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  • keatsta [she/her]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I think by far the biggest factor is that both the far right and anime attract social outcasts. The far right are just as infested in other hobbies with no social capital, it's just that liking anime leads you to having anime avatars so it's more noticible.

  • OldMole [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    There is a strong trend of anti-intellectualism among right-wingers. Anime tends to be unchallenging compared to other forms of storytelling entertainment that are aesthetically for adults.

  • UlyssesT
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    edit-2
    15 days ago

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    • ScotPilgrimVsTheLibs [they/them]
      hexagon
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      "Cultural Christians" or in other words:

      "I think Christians are dogmatic and unscientific zealots who only want to control people....and that's FINE BY ME!" It insults Christians and "heretics" at the same time.

      • UlyssesT
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        edit-2
        15 days ago

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      • UlyssesT
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        edit-2
        15 days ago

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  • BynarsAreOk [none/use name]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Osama Bin Laden was found to be a fan of anime too, among many other ISIS/al Quaeda members.

    Wasn't that just a computer on his cave or something? More likely one of his younger family members or officers than a boomer islamic reactionary. Mostly the boomer part.

    • ClathrateG [none/use name]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      It was a compound of buildings where several families lived, it's more likely that the computer and the content belonged to one of his sons, or bodyguards

      Although OBL watching Bible Black, Tom & Jerry and playing porn tetris clones is very funny

      https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottabad-compound/index.html

  • HumanBehaviorByBjork [any, undecided]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    mostly the same reasons leftists latch onto anime, perhaps with the exception of a certain fascist sentimentality, but most leftists aren't immune to that either

  • Teekeeus
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    edit-2
    24 days ago

    deleted by creator

  • Awoo [she/her]M
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    Also, look at two of the most popular anime: Pokemon is pretty pro-environment and Dragon Ball Z: where Frieza talks almost identically to your average chanbrain and was inspired by real estate speculators because of how evil they are.

    You're forgetting that there's what they consider anime for "normies" and then there's for want of a better word "d*generate" anime that they self-label and hold up as a good thing. A large quantity of trash fits in this category.