Recently, an article came to my attention about anime and some potential dangers associated with its consumption. This article was written by a well-respected individual who has been working with young people for the last two decades in Christian Schools. The article was well written, and I believe it was written with the absolute best of intentions. He raised some excellent points that should be taken to heart and then lived out. However, I believe his focus on anime as the root issue misses the bigger picture.
As someone who has worked with young people for over 20 years and is involved in “geek culture,” I believe that pinning anime down as the dark culprit for some very serious issues is a misstep. This article aims to highlight some valid points he brought up, while also shedding light on a more deserving place. AT NO POINT do I wish for anyone to attempt to attack the original author or the school he works at, as I said, his article was written with the purest of intentions. That said, I will be pulling a few quotes from his article to shed some light on things.
Please allow me to begin with this fundamental statement. Anime is not a singular monolith as some have projected it to be. It is a stylistic medium of animated art used to create various genres of storytelling for diverse audiences. Some, like Astro Boy, Ponyo, and Pokemon, are made for kids. Some, like Erased, A Silent Voice, or Frieren, are written for a more mature audience and range from mystery thrillers to slice-of-life stories to high-fantasy epics.
When Entertainment Becomes Unhealthy
In his article, he wrote, “The Spiral of Addiction Anime’s serialized storytelling and cliffhanger endings encourage binge-watching, with entire seasons consumed in one sitting.”
The writer goes on to share a story about a young person who, sadly, found himself in a rabbit hole of binge-watching a show or series of shows, leading to him skipping class and becoming isolated. The issue I take with this is that it’s not an anime-only thing, nor is the use of cliffhangers. Over the years, we have seen this phenomenon happen with various series. It wasn’t terribly long ago that people were lost in the world of “Lost.” Please pardon the pun, but it was truly an interesting phenomenon to see how much of our nation was captivated by this show.
A hyperfocus, binge-watch mentality is dangerous regardless of medium, be it books, movies, video games, or TV shows. Experts would argue that even more dangerous is the addiction to “doom scrolling” provided by modern social media. They say that because people are scrolling through social media for hours on end in a loop of instant gratification that seems to fall short, and adds stress. In many cases, anime and other long-form content do give the person a genuine break from stressful reality. In the case of a young person in school, this would create at least 30 minutes of ungraded storyline to help them decompress, and if chosen well, can be positive.
The writer of this article does point out that the central reason for this young man’s binge-watching was that it gave him an “escape from [his] stress.” He goes on to provide some fantastic information on the importance of proper discipleship. His talking points on helping students understand the issue with the abuse of escapism, redirecting them to scriptural principles, and asking poignant questions to discern why they are drawn to certain characters and stories are essential.
I say “the abuse of escapeism” for a very particular reason. Professional counselors and other mental health experts often use escapism as a tool to help “reset” a person’s mind when they are going through a traumatic or stressful moment. The trick here, however, is that it’s not meant to be an extended-use resource. It’s meant to give the mind and body a moment to pause and calm down, allowing the person to be in a better headspace to confront the situation. This is where proper discipleship and proper training in stress management would need to come in, not just for this young man, but for all of us.
The writer goes on to explain some of the physical and emotional tolls that binge-watching can have on a person. Once again, all of this is completely valid, but this pattern cuts across every form of entertainment. Binge-watching is a cultural pattern that spans across multiple mediums of entertainment. The real issue lies not in the medium itself but in how it is consumed and the heart of the individual consuming it. When entertainment of any kind becomes an extended escape from responsibility or a substitute for true rest in Christ, it becomes unhealthy.
Later in his article, he suggested that anime was a bridge to pornography. This, once again, boils down to a discussion on medium. He openly admits that many get into the medium through very innocent and wholesome shows. In fact, my first introduction to anime was actually the Christian-based anime known as Super Book. I later found shows like Robotech and Voltron as a child. But attacking the medium as a whole is akin to attacking books as a whole because over half of the top 1000 sales ranking books are erotic and pornographic. Our pornography problem is a real problem, but attacking a single medium is not the solution.
The writer follows up once again with some fantastic points about protecting our hearts, souls, and minds. He also points out how key it is for us to instill in our children the need to do this. Which, in my opinion, highlights the most significant issue facing young Gen Z, Y, and Alpha.
Our Young People Need Guidance
Rather than asking, ‘Why does anime cause this?’ perhaps we should ask, ‘Where are the parents and mentors of these young people?’ In multiple examples given by the writer, we see a trend of young people who have the freedom to do, well, whatever they want. Instead of asserting the issue is the medium that the young person is consuming, why not ask why a child was allowed access to that medium until 3 in the morning? Why aren’t the parents aware of the watching habits of their children? Why are they allowing their child to have access to media that late into the night? Have they examined the environment they’ve established, whether intentionally or unintentionally, to discover the stimuli that are leading these young people to develop unhealthy habits in dealing with life and stress?
I want to be clear, I’m not saying this to criticize parents. But in the past two decades of serving my community, both in the church and in public schools, I’ve seen an overwhelming number of children and teens left to navigate life on their own. Often, it isn’t because parents don’t care; it’s because so many are stretched thin, exhausted, or overwhelmed by the demands of life. In these situations, what is missing is a network of caring adults, parents, mentors, church leaders, teachers, who can come alongside young people, guide them, and hold them accountable in ways that genuinely help them to grow into the people God has called them to be. And this isn’t a new issue. It goes back ot the days of the “latchkey kids,” when financial pressures forced parents out of the home and left children to raise themselves.
In 20 years of working with young people, I’ve found that kids, teens, and adults trapped in addiction of any kind are often suffering from an environmental issue that pushes them to do things. Why would they be drawn to escapism if they aren’t trying to escape something? Dr. Gabor Mate, a specialist in childhood development, famously said, “Don’t ask, ‘Why the addiction?’ Ask, “Why the pain?” suggesting that if we are going to help heal a person of addiction, we have to find the root cause of it, after all, many addicts are addicted to something masking a deeper issue.
James says in verse 14 of chapter 1, “But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.” So what is taking place in the hearts of people that their desire has drawn them to addiction and into the abuse of escapism? In the case of young people, a variety of environmental factors are at play, and pinning it all on anime is an injustice to the spiritual and mental health of young people.
But rather than presenting more issues, I’d like to present one of many steps that can take place to better the spiritual and mental health of our young people. Parents stepping in to be… parents. Parents working together to guide their child in what God has for them. That takes a bit of extra effort.
It takes being intentional about observing what their child is consuming and what they are not. It takes being the “strict parent” who doesn’t allow their child to have access to certain things. Above all, it takes both parents modeling for their child what it looks like to walk an appropriate Christian walk, which means being vulnerable enough to share not just their wins, but perhaps their downfalls.
Often, I’ve seen many children become closed off or fall deep into some form of depression because they feel like they can’t live up to the standards of their parents, not realizing that the standards were set because their parents are guarding their children from their own failures. But if we walk our children through those things, we may find that they walk in more freedom than before. Proverbs 22:6 teaches us to “train up a child in the way he should go.” The way that God’s people did it was to make sure that their children saw every victory and every failure of the generations before. We have this God ordained record in the form of what the Jews call the Tanakh, and we as Christians call the Old Testament.
Anime is not the enemy nor the poison pill. The abuse of escapism, addiction, and unguarded hearts is. Our response shouldn’t be to demonize a medium, but to disciple our young people, walk with them in their struggles, take their mental health seriously, and model a faith that is firmly rooted in the Scriptures, firmly rooted in Christ.