What do Snoop Dogg, Coco Gauff, Leo Dicaprio, Kanye West, Elon Musk, Samuel L Jackson, and John Cena all have in common? They are very famous people and they have an unnecessary amount of money?  Well yes, but they also all watch anime. Now I know not all of you know what anime is. Anime is a hand-drawn and computer-generated animation organization from Japan. 

I would like you to close your eyes for 10 seconds and picture what you think an average anime watcher looks like. I assume you imagined a greasy person who is balding or someone who wears cat ears and has their hair dyed. Well contrary to your belief, that is not the case. I myself watch anime,  and I am a 6’3 250 lb football player who dabbles in a bit of online gaming from time to time.

 Another common stereotype is that most animes are about Chinese life that is really weird and have all those sounds like uwu or just weird noises from the character’s mouth. Now I’m not disregarding that there are some anime that are like that, but most are not and are enjoyable to watch. Just recently I was talking to a friend who judged me about watching anime, and I felt that was unfair. I recommended to her the anime, Say, “I Love You,” an anime that came out in 2012 and is about a popular high school boy who becomes interested in a shy girl after she injures him. That sounds a lot like many high school shows that involve romance that is not made in anime style.

I am not the only person who watches anime either. The percentage of Gen Zers who watch Anime is not what you think it is. It is 69%, WOAH, THAT IS SO CRAZY, considering the fact that most people think it is weird or abnormal to watch anime. BUT NO, People who do not watch anime are the weird ones. You are the minority. Gen Z are not the only people who watch anime. It is also popular with the Millennials and Gen X, but more so with the Millennials. The United States has 167.6M anime watchers, 71.86% of the population, coming in second behind Japan for the percentage of people who watch anime. 

If you made it this far you definitely should try to watch a little bit of anime. It is just like American television and all of it is in English. There are many types of genres of anime. If you want any recommendations or help to find a good anime, you can find some of the anime experts in our school, like me (Bennie Dothager), Judah Hartson, Lake Cowman, or Carson Leathers.