Islam in anime

Elvis

Elvis

V.I.P. Member
Why does anime barely (if ever) have something Islam related?

Considering we are talking about anime, a genre that touches on many religions, from Asian gods to Christianity, I'm curious to why they never use any Islam related themes in anime despite how big it is as a religion compared to others like Buddhism and Hindu.
 
I didn't know any anime with Hinduism senpai. Buddhism is popular in Japan so, it is used in most of the anime. I never saw any islam anime though
 
mainly because japan has pretty much been insular for most of its history, so all they had back then was that shinto-buddhist-confucian mash-up

then christianity arrived and got into the mix

i reckon if a muslim missionary came by and preached back in the old days just like what they were doing in other parts of asia (i.e. the southeast) then we'd have a bit of that influence in our anime by now
 
Jinjer said:
mainly because japan has pretty much been insular for most of its history, so all they had back then was that shinto-buddhist-confucian mash-up

then christianity arrived and got into the mix

i reckon if a muslim missionary came by and preached back in the old days just like what they were doing in other parts of asia (i.e. the southeast) then we'd have a bit of that influence in our anime by now
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But anime exists for less than a century... What do the missionaries from the middle ages have to do with modern cartoons?
 
Buddhist influence-->It's a widely followed religion in that part of Asia....
Hindu influence-->Buddhism originated in India, after Hinduism, so, there's an indirect chain of influence, here....
Christianity-->Globalisation and Western works....
Islam-->I guess, it's represented poorly there.... Plus, there have been historically no major connection between Japan and middle-eastern countries, at least not so much so that there'd be influences on anime and manga..... I mean, even in films, I've hardly seen any Islamic influence there in Japan......
 
MadaraUchiha said:
Buddhist influence-->It's a widely followed religion in that part of Asia....
Hindu influence-->Buddhism originated in India, after Hinduism, so, there's an indirect chain of influence, here....
Christianity-->Globalisation and Western works....
Islam-->I guess, it's represented poorly there.... Plus, there have been historically no major connection between Japan and middle-eastern countries, at least not so much so that there'd be influences on anime and manga..... I mean, even in films, I've hardly seen any Islamic influence there in Japan......
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I am not getting this. does all these religions present in some or the other anime? Is that what you are saying?
 
Testaccount said:
I am not getting this. does all these religions present in some or the other anime? Is that what you are saying?
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I think he is saying that there are some anime series that refer to Buddhism and Christianity, but there aren't any anime series that refer to Islam...
 
Testaccount said:
I am not getting this. does all these religions present in some or the other anime? Is that what you are saying?
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Buddhism obviously has a lot of influence on anime, and I have seen anime that have visible influence from Hinduism and Christianity, and not from Islam...... Not that I care.....
 
Elvis said:
But anime exists for less than a century... What do the missionaries from the middle ages have to do with modern cartoons?
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if islam penetrated japanese society much earlier, we would have seen more of it popping up in their culture
 
Jinjer said:
if islam penetrated japanese society much earlier, we would have seen more of it popping up in their culture
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People tend to stick with religions that are present way back, they don't like new religions. May be we would never see islam or any other religion in anime even if those religons blend in a bit with the japanese culture.
 
Nel said:
People tend to stick with religions that are present way back, they don't like new religions. May be we would never see islam or any other religion in anime even if those religons blend in a bit with the japanese culture.
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actually, japanese has a thing for mashing up their cultural influences and claiming it as their own, the key word here being "syncretism", and that's how they're fine enough with having shinto, buddhist, confucian, and taoist elements in their religious and cultural beliefs (and christianity too, if only the shogunate wasn't miffed about it)
 
Jinjer said:
actually, japanese has a thing for mashing up their cultural influences and claiming it as their own, the key word here being "syncretism", and that's how they're fine enough with having shinto, buddhist, confucian, and taoist elements in their religious and cultural beliefs (and christianity too, if only the shogunate wasn't miffed about it)
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Do they really claimclaim things as their own? I know Buddhist but what are those other religions? Did you see any anime having these religions?
 
Nel said:
Do they really claimclaim things as their own? I know Buddhist but what are those other religions? Did you see any anime having these religions?
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when you see samurai ranting about bushido and social order, that's confucianism
when you see mikos and shrines and nature spirits, that's shinto
when you see characters mention spirit energy or something similar, that's taoism
plus there are practicing japanese christians that have been laying low for centuries until meiji restoration when it became alright for them to worship openly, add the fact that they do celebrate christmas and saint valentines day to some extent... so when a character goes around giving valentines chocolate to some boy he likes or whatever, there you go
 
you can find it here and there in anime. even in black butler there is a religion like that. did yous see black butler? it's really good and worth checking out
 
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