It never fails: you’re enjoying some anime quietly when some family member or normie acquaintance comments, “But isn’t anime for kids?” While you could just brush off their statement and move on, it can be hard to know how to react. We asked J-List customers how they respond to the attitude that anime is for kids, and got lots of interesting responses!
Anime is For Kids? Really?
The attitude that anime should only be enjoyed by kids is obviously wrong, yet to people who don’t know anything about the kinds of stories and genres that are popular in anime, it can still be the default opinion.
Some of the core genres of anime include:
- Shounen anime, with adventure stories aimed at younger boys (Dragon Ball, Demon Slayer, One Piece)
- Seinen, with more mature themes for older viewers (Berserk, Steins;Gate, Kaguya-sama)
- Shoujo, aimed at girls (Cardcaptor Sakura, Fruits Basket, Kimi ni Todoke)
- Josei anime, aimed at adult females (Yuri!!! On Ice, Chihayafuru, Nodame Cantable)
- Slice-of-life, when you want to turn off your brain and relax (Komi-san, Nichijou, Yuru Camp🏕), and so on.
Of course, anyone is free to enjoy any genre they like. I might focus on the more mature shin’ya anime genres in my blog posts, but at the end of the day, I’m more than happy to geek out to “girls” anime like Fruits Basket, or revisit the influential SF series of my childhood, like Space Battleship Yamato. Here are some of the responses from J-List customers!
Saying “anime is for kids” is like saying “paintings are for adults.” Anime is an art medium. It is not an age demographic nor a genre. If anime is a genre, it will not have other genres. A medium will have multiple genres.
Every time someone claims anime is for kids, I give them two instructions: 1. Open Netflix and find “The Promised Neverland.” 2. Watch the first fifteen minutes. The claims usually fall silent after that.
Last time I heard this was 11 years ago. I would just laugh it off and tell them that anime is an acquired taste.
Of course. All anime is meant for children. 
Here are some of my favorite children’s anime!
Black Lagoon. ‘Nuff said.
Anime is indeed 4Kids.
Normie: “Anime is for kids.” Also Normie: *watches The Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park, etc.*
Some magical girl anime is for kids to enjoy. And then there’s this.
*laughs in Corpse Party*
Saying anime is for kids is like saying AD&D is for kids. 
Nothing but wholesome programming for the young ones 😐
Certainly, then I just recommend Bible Black. It’s just Bible study after all.
How Japanese People Watch Anime
It’s been interesting watching my kids grow up in Japan and observing their interactions with their friends. Pretty much 100% of young people in Japan watch anime and read manga growing up, then around the time junior high school approaches, they make a choice: to put their light novels and manga on the shelf and start focusing on their studies and careers, or to keep embracing otaku culture into adulthood.
My house in Japan has a shop built into the front which is a small liquor store that my wife’s parents run, and in addition to beer and whisky, we sell weekly manga like Shonen Jump. I love hanging around the shop on Sundays to see the customers who come in to pick up this week’s issue, like this guy who drives up in a high-end Mercedes Benz car weekly. He’s just a guy doing his job, maybe as a successful lawyer or something, but he still makes time to make his inner child happy with some manga. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Thanks for reading this post exploring whether anime is for kids or not. Got any thoughts on this subject? Post them below, or reply to us on Twitter!
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