If you’re gonna gatekeep anime, do it right

First of all, a little disclaimer: This post isn’t meant to shame people who gatekeep anime, but rather those who do it incorrectly.<br><br>You know how on some other topics, people like to confuse things like quality and popularity, or commercial success and cultural impact? Well, the same problem exists in the anime community when people are accusing others of not being “real” anime fans.<br><br>Too many times I’ve seen ignorant people saying things like:<br><br>“You’re not a real anime fan if you don’t like Dragonball Z.”<br><br>“You’re not a real anime fan if you don’t like Attack on Titan.”<br><br>“You’re not a real anime fan if you don’t like One Piece.”<br><br>And of course, the easy counter to those statements is saying:<br><br>“Yes, I am. I just don’t like that specific show.”<br><br>But that’s not what I want to talk about here.<br><br>What I want to talk about are gatekeeping statements that are rooted in facts, statistics and whatnot. And as an example let’s take the Dragonball Z gatekeeping from above:<br><br>“You’re not a real anime fan if you don’t like Dragonball Z.”<br><br>Is wrong, because you can be a fan of anime and dislike DBZ.<br><br>“You’re not a real anime fan if you don’t know of Dragonball Z.”<br><br>ISN’T wrong. If you like anime and don’t know of DBZ, then you’re not a real fan of the medium. And I’ll get to that in a minute.<br><br>So why am I bringing this up?<br><br>Because there is a huge difference between these two statements, even if the subject is the same. The first one is clearly bullshit, and a lot of people in the anime community know of it. However, when people then hear the second gatekeeping statement, they’ll instantly think of the first one and assume it’s also bullshit. But it isn’t.<br><br>So in these cases, people who are calling others out on not being a “real fan” of anime are being shutdown due to a strawman argument.<br><br>Now, why do I think that you’re not a real fan of anime if you don’t know of Dragonball Z?<br><br>Simply put, DBZ is one of the most influential shows in the history of anime. It popularized the Shonen genre and has influenced countless other shows like it. Shows that you might even like. So if you don’t know of DBZ, then you either don’t know the basics of anime, don’t know of the most influential shows in anime history, or you don’t care about either of those two things.<br><br>If you don’t know the basics of anime, then you can’t call yourself an anime fan. And if you don’t care about the basics of anime, then you don’t truly love anime. You might love a specific show, but you don’t love the medium.<br><br>And that’s not just true for DBZ. That’s true for a lot of other shows. So let me explain what I mean with the basics of anime with another example:<br><br>Attack on Titan is a very popular show, that was made in the 2010s. It’s also based on a manga. Now, if you know of Attack on Titan, but not of Berserk, then that’s like saying you know of Attack on Titan, but not of the show it was based on. And knowing the basics of anime also includes knowing about the shows other shows were based on.<br><br>So if you don’t know of Berserk, but of AoT, then you don’t know one of the most influential dark fantasy anime, and thus you don’t know about one of the most influential shows in anime history. And if you don’t know of the most influential shows in anime history, then you don’t truly love anime.<br><br>So what I’m trying to say with all of this is, that you can’t call yourself an anime fan if you don’t know about the basics of anime or the most influential shows in anime history. And if you call yourself an anime fan, without knowing these two things, then people should be allowed to call you out on that.