Introduction

A community is a group of people who share something in common such as goals, interest, problems, belief, etc. The gathering of people within the same community brings about joy and unity. Every community is useful in their own way and one of the most popular communities is the anime community.  

The anime community started blooming in the 1980s, which is when people started to watch anime and become fans of it. Anime is a Japanese cartoon show that is driven from a book comic known as a manga. People of the anime community often say the major difference from a normal cartoon and anime is the plot. Most cartoons’ goal was to create humor for everybody, especially kids, while anime was made for people to relate in a way that could be enjoyable. Anime is made for people of specific ages to watch, depending on the content. Most anime are rated 13 and up due to the bloodshed it reveals. Fans rate anime from its plot, character’s development, and life lessons. Although all cartoons that are made with Japanese animations are anime, fans tend to consider only the cartoons that have these 3 things as anime.

Anime Background

The biggest or one of the biggest anime community from the day it came out is One Piece. One Piece is an anime where a boy named “Luffy” wants to go out on an adventure as a pirate to fulfill his dream of being pirate king. To become the pirate king he would have to travel across the world and find the former pirate king’s mysterious treasure called “one piece”. His reason for becoming king is not because of the treasure but because the person who becomes the king has the most freedom in the world. Being a pirate is a taboo, so the government despises them and sends marines after them to capture them. Throughout his journey we see how corrupt the world is and much more struggles he went through. 

 Population and Community 

This community started around 2007-2008 when the anime was on its 150^th episode. One Piece has about 1 million fans on Facebook and sold over 473 million copies of the comic. This implies they have over 500 million fans because most of the fans that read the manga watched the anime, which was stated on from Instagram and in a survey in 2016. On a post on Instagram it asked how many people watch the anime One Piece and all the people who stated they read the manga stated that they watch the anime to see it in action. In a survey (http://www.onepiecepodcast.com/2016/05/23/winter-2016-survey-results), the dominant gender to watch the anime are males and the ratio of male to female and other are 76: 23.6 : 0.4 respectively. One Piece ran for 20 years and is still continuing, so the people of the first generation still watch it colliding with the second generation. 32% of the people who watch it are 15 to 20 years, whereas 58% of the people who watch it are 21 to 30 years of age. Then the people who watch it that are above 30 are 9% of the fans. The One Piece community is possibly even bigger due to some fans do not participate and interact with others in the community. 

Over 56 languages are spoken throughout the community but the most spoken language is English. Although many speak English, the people who can’t speak it are happily accepted and are able to easily assimilate within the community. Most fans watch the anime in subtitles due to they prefer the original Japanese voice of the characters in the anime. Almost all the fans know the words ‘baka’ and ‘nani’ from watching it in subtitles. Throughout comments in Facebook, if someone says something stupid but funny they will reply with the word “baka”, which practically means “idiot” in Japanese; they say this in a joking, friendly manner. On the contrast, the word ‘nani’ is said as a mean to insult a person for an illogical thing that they said. The word “nani” means “what”, but when a fan uses the word they use it to make others feel dumb. When interacting with the people within the community they all stated that they prefer someone calling them the word ‘baka’ then someone responding ‘nani’ to their post. 

Rules and Regulations

Like most communities, there are rules that are established to control people’s behaviors. The most common rules in a One Piece community are the rules of no posting and sharing anything that breaks copyright rules and no bullying. Another rule is preventing members of the community from posting porn, hentai, and other sexual content. Apart from these rules other groups within the community have their own rules. In a Facebook group called One piece-One Million Fans they added the rules of the prohibition of purposely posting annoying content, the maximum limit of posting is 5 times per day, and translating everything to English before you post. Most of these rules are kept by the fans and are made to prevent people from deviating from acceptable community behavior. In conventions the rules the people in the community must follow are, don’t lose your bracelet, don’t carry props that look very realistic and dangerous, no costume that is considered inappropriate while walking outside, and no selling unofficial, unlicensed, or bootleg products. These are the main common rules followed in a convention and if they are not followed you are most likely to be banned, suspended or kicked out of groups within them. Even though this is not a rule most members in the community dislike spoiling the anime to people who are behind. If they want to spoil they tend to give a reasonable warning.

Disadvantages of the Community 

Most people in the community can turn on you fast if you say something about their favorite character. The community tends to be toxic at times when you say something bad about a popular character. For example someone can call Luffy weak due to him struggling against another captain crew member and the community will tend to ignorantly argue against the fact and conjure up excuses. Another problem is that people within the One Piece community tend to pest people to watch the anime so they can make people realize how good it is despite sometimes poor animation quality. It is good that they want to express their love for the anime, but it can become irksome.  

Conclusion

Anime is a form of Japanese cartoon loved by many worldwide. They use common phrases such as “baka” and “nani” that are exclusive to their community. They also have rules that are to be followed, like a real, in-person community. The anime community, specifically of One Piece, is an excellent example of online communities.