I am posting this after reading the YuGiOh Club thread and others who are obsessed over anime.
In my earlier years I often travel to Asia with my parents because they like the culture there. As for me, I had the opportunity to observe a difference of behavior between Asian children and Western children.
I believe it began with anime. During my time in Asia, there were several popular anime just debuted. For example: Patlabor, DragonBall Z, SailorMoon, and a series which I believe to be related to the Ronin Warriors were on the air during the separate years I was there. Other anime you might not have hear of include PizzaCats and Keith Courage in Alpha Zone.
When I was enrolled in school in Asia, I often notice overexaggerated gestures from my fellow students. For example, while taking a picture in a field trip, they often posed in dramatic yet childish poses such as crossing his forearms in front of his face as if he was blocking a fireball. Others pretened they were some sort of power rangers and posed in those silly poses you see on TV. Back in America, I realized children of the same age do not act that way. I would like to further my observations but so far I have not stayed long enough in any other place to make accurate observations. This might seem fit for the ages for I was in elementary school. But ask yourself this: have you seen a third grader rushing to the school restroom during class time pretending he was flying like a DragonBall Z character? I have. I was in the hallway, coming out of the restroom when I see a student of my same grade zoom by me with his hands in fists pointing forward, running into the restroom. At that point, I began to feel embarassed to be in a school with them. A third grader is about the age of ten, yet that was actions that only six year-olds would do. I have been back in America for quite some time now and am now a high school junior and I have yet to see a western child in the third grade pretend he was superman. Next time you see a fresh off the boat Asian, or anyone exposed to excessive anime, pay attention to his behavior and try to notice the difference.
Maybe there is something in anime that induced the strange delay in mental maturity. However, I have no way to find out until last year. It has been years since I met an anime-obsessed person. Our high school allows students to freely create their own clubs insofar as the club is approved and hosted by one teacher. During lunch I was asked to go into a classroom to do some make up work. To my surprise, the teacher was the host of an anime club. I found out when I saw a bunch of students watching anime on a TV in the classroom.
I also saw a friend of mine, and decided to greet him. As the conversation went on it became a "guy talk" in which we insult each other for fun. Suddenly a girl that looked like a man started stomping toward me and stopped right in front of me. She then yelled "Be nice to him!" and launched a kick, directed at my groin. I immediately recognize that overexaggerated preparation for the kick, and that gesture was unmistakable. It was too dramatic and ineffective to be any kind of martial arts, thus it can only be: ANIME. Thanks to the anime-nazi's pretense of herself being an anime, I had the time to dodge her kick. A person next to me was kind enough to inform me that she will not stop until she struck. As I heard him, she landed a kick at me. She then felt satisfied and went back to watching anime. Luckily for me she only hit my left inner thigh and I had something in my pocket to soften the blow (I don't remember what it was).
At that point I knew for sure anime had at least indirect influence to childish behavior. I am letting you know about this so you can raise your children the right way: without too much anime.
P.S. Her name was Katherine McAllister. Any man who values his testicles will do well to not approach the striking distance of her feet..er....to not approach her.
