The voices of adult anime/‘manga’ fans in Australia

This article extends previous quantitative work done regarding the attitudes that self-identified fans of Japanese popular culture (JPC) have to learning the Japanese language. Following standard qualitative methods, four focus group interviews were conducted in which seven informants were asked a series of questions concerned with their initial contact with JPC, their views about JPC, their consumption habits, and interest in and experiences of learning the Japanese language. While a definitive conclusion is elusive, results point to rather complex associations between the selfidentified fans of JPC, in particular anime and ‘manga’, and how they consume these two media and learning the Japanese language. We foreground the three modes of learning – formal, non-formal and informal – to locate possible sites where fans are able to learn Japanese and about Japan in a broader sense. We offer a preliminary conceptualization of a trajectory that a fan of JPC might take when considering to learn Japanese

Advertising · Aesthetics · Anime · Art · Business · Consumption (sociology · Linguistics · Sociology · Asian Culture and Media Studies · Japanese History and Culture · Psychology