Monday, October 19, 2009

Anime Culture in Oman

Yesterday night, I copied around 10 GBs of Data from my brother's pc to a friend's portable hard disk drive. The data I copied was japanese animation or "Anime" as it is called by its fans. Although all of the three guys involved (my friend, my brother and myself) are in our twenties, we still enjoy watching anime. Virtually all of the good animation series that we watched while growing up were japanese anime but dubbed into arabic and sometimes arabised by using arabic names for the characters instead of the original ones . An example is Capatin Tsubasa which we all know in Oman by the name Captain Majid. However some great series like the Golden Dreams or (US title:The Mysterious Cities of Gold , original Japanese: Esteban, a Boy from the Sun 太陽の子エステバ Taiyō no Ko Esuteban) retained all the original names.

Many people may think that the anime is for kids but they are very wrong. The Japanese anime and manga (comic books and magazines) is already a multi-billion industry. There are anime and manga geners for every age group and sex. There is even pornographic anime.
Thanks to Boadband Internet, around five years ago, the revival of interest in anime began. Many young Omanis strated downloading anime series that were usually subtitled in English. Moreover, many Omanis started watching episodes of new series subtitled by fans just a day after being aired in Japan. Nowadays, there are even websites where you can download anime with arabic subs such as Anime Island and Mexat.
I'm not of aware of the number of people who watches anime in Oman. However, in Salalah I know of no less than 15 persons who like to watch anime and the number is increasing. In some cases the interest in anime cuased another interst of the Japanese culture and Japan and I'm an examples.
Finally, this is a list of some of the recent anime series that I watched or still watch:
-Full Metal ALchemist
-Code Geass
-Claymore
-Death Note
-Naruto
-Bleach
-One Piece

16 comments:

  1. I can never understand this obsession, NEVER.

    The majority of my friends exchange different Anime episodes and I could how see excited they all become when they get to meet each other and can't wait to share their thoughts.
    One of the things which helps this particular obsession to spread is the influence an individual can give to others.

    Never watched one, and never will.

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  2. Hi Kitten, actually you can look at anime series to live action series such as lost. They are meant to entertain. Not all anime series are meant for kids, try to watch anime with an open mind just for having a great time. There are really wonderful animes out there. What sort of series do you like? are you into Ugly Betty, Grey's Anatomy or 24? DO you like Disney's animation or american animation movies such as Ice Age?

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  3. Anime RULES!

    But I have to say, it's been a while (*sings staind song* =P) since I last watched an anime series thanx to my excess work load at uni this semester. I truly truly miss it and I can't wait to get back to it as soon as I finish. I have no idea what to start with because I seriously feel like watching them all at once lol. *Yeah! That excited*

    I've seen all the series in your list except for Code Geass, Claymore and One Piece. Although, I think I watched the first 7 episodes of One Piece, I don't know why I didn't continue with it. I guess I was distracted by the other animes.

    Bleach ticked me off!!! It was too slow and very repetitive! So I stopped watching right after Kenpachi beat Espada 4. That was a fantastic fight though lol I LOVE KENPACHI!!!! =P

    Lastly, seeing how I've wrote so much, you should check out Gintama! You will most definitely like it! It's comedy + action...ninja/warrior/swords sort of stuff.

    I love the Japanese culture...it's too too interesting! Oh, and don't get me started on the food lol

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  4. OH! *sorry for double posting*
    I forgot to mention that subbed anime is waaaaay better than dubbed anime. The worst dubbed series I watched to date was Naruto (only the first episode), it was in English and the accent was the American Texas accent O.O

    Arabic dub is not bad, I mean look at Captain Majid (Capatin Tsubasa) and 3adnan wa Lena (Future Boy Conan), they were pretty good. But sub all the way!

    ^^

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  5. Confession Alert! I actually like Anime too. My favourite childhood memories are waiting for Golden Dreams and Captain Majid! Actually, correction to your post, the Golden Dreams weren't about lost cities of gold in the US; it was the fight with the Aztec civilization in Mexico and also parts of South America (i.e. I'm going to South America one day! With or without a man!) .. the fact that many of the details in Golden Dreams were historically true made it more interesting and forced me to go and do research about certain topics. My favourite character was Mendoza. I even had four cats named Tao, Esteban, Zia, and Mendoza. *sigh*

    OK, here's test question number two: do you know a Dhofari artist (guy) who's famous for doing oil paintings on Anime culture?

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  6. Oh, and IHMD, could you program your blog so that we get notifications by email when someone else comments after us on your blog? I asked Ma7feef to do the same and he did. It's easier for us to follow up on conversations in your blog. Thanks!

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  7. IHMD: Ugly Betty for the win, along with Disney's (Classics, that is)

    Even though I'm a kid now, I've stopped watching cartoon ages ago =P

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  8. G-chan: thanks for the awsome comment, we share the interest of the japanse culture :D and as for the anime Code Geass is NOT TO BE MISSED, sreiously you have to watch it.True subbed rules but there are many great dubbed anime. I will download Gintama, btw I downloaded Hard Candy I will watch it this weekend :)

    Nadia: lol finally a confession. I was really into the Golden Dreams that I wished that I could be with the characters (ofcourse that when I was a kid). I meant the title name in US was The Mysterious Cities of Gold, I'll check the settings of my blog :)

    Kitten: I guess, many still think all anime is for kids which isn't true. An Ugly Betty fan , I think there is still hope to get you to watch anime ;)

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  9. Awesome!!
    Prepare to be...gobsmacked =P

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  10. Time for a new post, IHMD! :-)

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  11. Try going to settings, comment setting, then select an icon/box that should say "Allow readers to receive notifications of follow-up comments" or something like that.

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  12. 凄い!I LOVE this post!! I'm a kind of otaku by the way. A female otaku, you know. Anime is actually what made me learn 日本語。

    I don't like Bleach much, but love its songs. I wonder why Rukya isn't in the pic with the guys.

    I love One Piece actually. Its story is really impressive. The last episode I watched was 400. My sisters think it is strange for a girl like me to watch it, but what should I do if its story was so wonderful?

    I thought of writing a One Piece fan-fic story, but when I watched Hunter X Hunter again and read the manga of it, I changed my mind and said that it's better to make it a HxH fanfiction. I love HxH more than One Piece.

    I also love Fruits Basket. It's Sho-jo, so I don't expect you to like it.

    It made me cry once. I love it so much. Why? I just like how spiritual Japanese people can be. It's so wonderful! So Special!!


    I don't feel bad when watching animes, instead of Khalilji series on TV, because animes are culture. I knew that when watching One Piece. You are exposed there to strange creatures that might be disgusting to you, but in fact these creatures are only pictures that show how much intellectual the author is. When you take the name of one of these creatures and google it, you will find out that the author was inspired by a legendary creature in the Greek history or whatever. This is the best thing about animes; you learn from them. Each anime is a culture in its own, but this has nothing to do with the Hentai anime, of course.

    I mentioned the Khaliji series here so I have to say something about them, ok? =p Only two words: Khaliji people don't know the difference between being an actor on a TV series and being an actor on stage. Plus, they have the financial potentials to improve their work, but money is spent only on enormous houses, clothes and things for showing off. That's it.

    Thanks for this post, again. And sorry for the long reply. Sometimes I talk too much... ok I have to stop talking now.

    Kind regards.

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  13. IHMD, did you disappear off the face of earth?

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  14. Nadia and G-chan , sorry I have some internet connection problems. i'm trying to fix my internet issues.

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  15. Non Crowned princess , thanks alot for the great comment ^^.

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