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The very sad story of the ten yr old dying after trying to imitate something he saw on the anime series "Naruto" had gotten me to thinking...

Japanese anime and manga were not origanlly intended for kid's entertainment. They were written and drawn for adults. It was not until after some of the anime came over here to the US and we (who are so used to Disney and Looney Tunes) decided that since they were "cartoons" should market them to children.

My husband has some of the earlier anime series: "Vampire Princess Miyu", "Bubblegum Crisis", and "Akira" - definitely NOT children's cartoons!

Naruto has some extremely adult issues, aside from the violence, one of the main character's themes is dealing with vengeance on his brother for killing everyone else in his family. Naruto (the main character) has a demon trapped inside of him which he is constantly fighting.

I've also become a big fan of "Bleach" lately, and that's one that I don't want even the 16 yr old to watch.

The Japanese themes are very murky when it comes to good guy/bad guy stuff; as opposed to toons made here in the states. I tend to enjoy that, because it is more true to life, but it is a truth that is too harsh for children to handle.

I think those marketers that have jumped on the anime bandwagon by aiming this stuff at kids have done them a disservice.

This is an artform that is for adults, and I believe this tragedy just proved that.

Michelle, I think you've hit the nail on the head. Unfortunately, there are people out there who believe that if something is a cartoon, it automatically makes it acceptable to children.

Yes, there is some anime made in Japan geared to kids that's brought over (such as Pokemon), but unfortunately that's an exception rather than the rule.

Back in the 1970's and into most of the 1980's, some anime was brought over and highly edited to make them more acceptable for children (Voltron is an excellent example of how much sanitizing was done to an anime property to make it marketable to children).

Nowadays, there is much less editing being done to anime properties being brought over to the US. Since the original properties really weren't meant for kids in Japan, they really aren't going to be acceptable for kids in the US.

Of course, if you look back, there are instances of kids mimicking things they saw in American animation that's geared to an older audience. I'm especially thinking about the kid who watched Beavis and Butt-Head back in the early-to-mid 1990's who managed to set fire to his home (apparently, he was influenced by Beavis, who liked to say, "Fire!" a lot). Because of this situation being publicly blamed on that aspect of the show, MTV went back and removed every reference Beavis made to "fire" and changed the dialogue to something else.

It's things like what happened this week, the Beavis and Butt-Head scenario mentioned above, and other such incidents that make me believe strongly in keeping track of what my children are seeing on TV and making sure my kids have developed (or in the case of my 3-year-old, working on developing) the idea that there is a difference between fantasy and reality.

And it was kind of interesting for me to see that you're not keen on the idea of your 16-year-old seeing Bleach. I personally haven't seen it myself yet, so I can't really comment on that. However, this grabbed my attention, because not too long ago, I had a 13-year-old kid use the comment submission page to send me a message asking if I knew of any inexpensive costume ideas for a couple of characters from Bleach...

In response to the recent tragedy of the 10-year-old boy who died after imitating something he had seen on Naruto, I wrote and posted an article at the Anime section.

Children and Anime
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Excellent article and advice Lesley!

As far as Bleach goes, the main character is supposed to be 15 (just like Naruto - but Oh what a difference!) But the sexual situations implied in the show are way more adult. There is a character on the show that is an overt lesbian and constantly hitting on one of the main characters; and then getting beat up by one of the other characters for being rude. And a little stuffed animal named Kon that is obsessed with breasts and always trying to get girls to pick him up so he can snuggle into them.

The main character, Ichigo (15) actually seems pretty immune to the sex stuff, even makes the comment "I'm only 15". But then his family is insane. His father is constantly doing sneak attacks on him and they are beating each other up - yet it is not depicted as abuse, but rather just a quirk of the father/son relatioship.

I like the show - for me. I am old enough to register what is fantasy/reality and what might be differences between cultural ways of looking at things. I dont think my 16 year old (or a 13 yr old for that matter) is capable of doing this. But I only get to control what my kid watches.

0_o You know, I really don't think that kid doing something stupid like that had anything to do with it being anime. Remember the kid who jumped off his roof here in the states because he saw Superman? Kids do stupid things, and if they're not clear on the boundaries of fantasy vs. reality then they'll ALWAYS encounter something that they'll latch onto, whether it be a cartoon, a book, or even a dumb commercial on t.v. Hell, plenty of kids just make up stupid things to do (see "MS Paint stupid things you did as a child:BellaOnline ALERT: Raw URLs are not allowed in these forums for security reasons. Please use UBB code. If you don't know how to do UBB code just post here for help - we will help out!