My face fell a little as she selected the newest season of “The O.C.,” barely throwing my favorite shows a second glance. Stephanie reached for something to watch. How I believed in the concept of empowerment more when I stepped into a world created by Asian producers. About how one episode of “Cowboy Bebop” blasted my imagination into a galaxy further away than “Star Wars.” How I’d risk my mom’s scoldings just to sneak peeks of “Dragon Ball Z” during late night weekends when it aired. I wanted to, but I felt I couldn’t tell her about how these shows had changed my life. I wished I could impress her with my knowledge of anime. In a primarily white class in suburban Portland-my fellow Asian-Americans lived across town and attended the other middle school. My white classmate was one of the coolest girls in our seventh grade class, but the limits of her Asian knowledge didn’t extend past briefly dating one of our Korean exchange students. In between the engrossing stories, this was familiarity. A conduct of propriety when gazing upon the opposite gender. People who looked like us and acted like our parents occupied intricate universes that swept us away, while also making references to cultural tropes that rang true-and were missing from American-made entertainment. When I and other Asian-American kids consumed anime, we felt at home. So we turned to anime, a medium that seemed to make us feel understood.
#BROTHER BEAR AND SAILOR MOON MOVIE#
We had no American media featuring any Asians beyond walking caricatures, such as Annyong on the TV series “Arrested Development” or Long Duk Dong in the movie “Sixteen Candles.” The entertainment industry has just not ever cared about showing onscreen narratives that Asian-American kids can relate to. The term “anime” came to wide use in 1985, according to the 2016 book “ Asian American Culture: From Anime to Tiger Moms” by Lan Dong.Īnime is familiar to anyone who grew up in the Asian-American community as the conduit for resolving our cultural identity crisis. This is the world of anime-a medium of animation style that originated in Japan mid-20th century and is typically based off Japanese comic books (known as manga). The volumes nestled next to “High School Musical” and “Brother Bear” were shows that were apparently hard to culturally comprehend: “ Yu Yu Hakusho” was about a Japanese boy who had surpassed death to become an “underworld detective.” “ Digimon” was about anamorphic digital animals and their adventures with human companions, and “ Sailor Moon” was about young teenage girls who were superheroes, responsible for saving the world. What caught her attention were tapes of “weird-looking cartoons”-my favorite shows. She was at my house for the first time, looking for something to watch, when she stopped. My palms were sweaty as Stephanie surveyed my DVD collection. For Asian-American kids, anime provides an outlet for imagination and acceptance.