If you think about it, more 'realistic' anime genres like School Life and Slice of Life, to say the least, seem to be kind of an escapist method to get away from the harsh realities of Japanese daily life. I mean, you very rarely see an anime full of characters who act just like regular Japanese people. Of course, that might be kind of boring but still... I mean, aren't the Japanese on average very reserved, aloof, nonjudgmental and fairly unemotional, to say the least? I've heard from at least a few sources that Japanese men "tend to act like 14-year-olds", too. I've also heard that Japanese romances aren't nearly as "Lovey-dovey", so to speak, as here in the West. They don't speak their minds nearly as often as, say, here in the states, either, from what I hear. Yet anime is full of characters that (pardon me if I sound ethnocentric), frankly, seem a lot more Western than Japanese personality-wise.

I know it's supposed to be entertainment and all, and anime is of course fictional, but still. Do Japanese otaku truly identify with the shows? Is this a symptom of perhaps excessive societal repression of the Japanese people, a people who may want to be a lot more emotional and open with their peers and relatives but can't for fear of how they may come across? Do a lot of Japanese fans of anime feel that it speaks to their wishes to be a lot more open, emotional and less reserved in a society that doesn't really encourage any of the three? To be truly an individual in a much more communitarian and conformist society like Japan?

But maybe this is just me thinking out loud. Maybe I'm just full of it here. I mean, famous American cartoons today, such as South Park and Family Guy, represent what it means to be American fabulously in many ways. We're incredibly emotional, can be very crass and crude at times, love profanity, love low-brow humor, don't discipline our kids nearly as well as we perhaps should, and we speak our minds a lot more often. ...Or are anime characters made to be "less Japanese" simply to fit a worldwide audience's needs and wishes?

Again, I apologize if my little rambling here has come off as 'imperialist' or ethnocentric as an American. I admit that I have yet to go to Japan, so I'm basing a lot of these views on secondhand sources. If the Japanese are a lot different than what I've described, feel free to correct me.