CREATING AND MAINTAINING SOCIAL WORLDS : THE STORY OF ANIME GROUPS IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. One who believes himself the master of others is nonetheless a greater slave than they" Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1762. Compared to Japan and America, there is hardly any visible anime scene in Singapore. There are no cinemas in Singapore that screen anime movies or regular prime-time television slots allocated to showing anime. Shops that specialize in selling anime and anime related goods are scarce, looking for an fellow anime fan is harder than looking for a needle in a haystack. Anime is not accepted by mainstream society. Therefore, what does an anime fan, do in this case? Thus the search begins for these anime fans, for people who understand their interest, who share their passion for anime, to have fun together. Their needs are not met by mainstream society, thus, in trying to cater to their own needs, these anime fans have created groups, social worlds where they have their own space, where their norms and values apply. What makes a person an anime fan? Under what circumstances and how were these groups formed? What did these groups have to go through to maintain these little social worlds in which they have created in order to enjoy anime together? What place do anime fans have in mainstream society? What restrictions do they face in their way of having fun? Theirs is a world on which little study has been done on, therefore, what I will try to do in this paper is explore the experiences of these seemingly unknown groups of people. They exist on the borders of mainstream society, not quite within and not quite without, visible and yet unnoticed at the same time. This is their story.