by Jeannie Sather

Created on: December 30, 2008

Is Anime Changing the way we look at demons ?
Having been an anime fan for many years, I still find it interesting how many people seem to think anime will take over the world. If you were to poll people randomly, you would find that while many have heard of anime, few could tell you what it is, fewer still could name over four titles, and very few could tell you what each of the titles they named were about. Forget about most people being able to name characters or telling you character history. So for them, anime has not changed how they look at demons.

If you go to an anime convention, you will find that anime is not a genre but an import with titles that fall into many categories: Mystery, science fiction, fantasy, social commentary. drama, and comedy to name a few. So it is possible to be an anime fan who watches lots of anime and never sees one demon. For these anime fans, their view on demons has not been altered.
Now, anime that has demons in them range from Hell Girl to Nana. Nana makes a mention of a Demon lord that the one of the main characters blames for problems in her love life. It is worth noting that this is caused by her guilt over an affair she had and her belief that she must make up for the affair before she can find happiness in love. This is not much different from beliefs in the west that we must be forgiven before we can be happy, even if the one we must forgive is ourselves.
Hell Girl is about a demon named Eye who will help people get revenge on whoever has wronged them for the price of that person's soul. This is very much in the style of Faust: when you make a pack with the devil, you forfeit your soul. The only difference is that Hell Girl doesn't show anyone trying to get out of their pack (at least, not in the episodes I have seen so far).
In other anime, demons are used as a way to explain a character having super natural powers, much like Marvel uses mutations. In these stories, use of demonic nature makes the stories timeless. The characters have no say in how they were born and having demonic powers make for great characters. The characters are often shunned by regular humans and looked down upon by other demons. This makes the character feel as if they don't belong. InuYasha is a good example of this. Fans of the show can often relate to InuYasha because of this, especially with so many broken homes, kids often feel split and like they do not belong to either home. The isolation and conflict within the character is what appeals to the fans of InuYasha, not the demonic nature of the characters.
If you go to the websites to talk to fans or go to conventions, you do not find excessive talk of demons. Instead, fans talk about the latest plot points of the story and make guesses about what will happen next. Again I find no evidence that anime is changing anyone's mind about demons or their nature. If anime had a more concise and universal view of demons, I might change my mind, but as it stands, I can not. So to anyone who was worried about anime making them think differently about demons, rest assured it won't. In fact, you can find a lot of anime that doesn't have any mention of demons at all, and the ones that do are just fun entertainment. Write your article here

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