Organised anime fandom in the UK is relatively young, having originated in the early ’90s following the UK’s first recorded anime screening programme at a convention (McCarthy, 2018a) and, shortly thereafter, the success of Ōtomo Katsuhiro’s Akira (1988) and the launch of Manga Video. The survey’s outcomes are complemented by nine in-depth interviews conducted during an anime convention, further exploring the motivations derived from the survey. Age and gender are relevant predictors for the sample’s motivations and also influence audience preferences regarding genres. Five main motivations were found for anime viewing, with entertainment being the strongest. A scale by Rubin and Perse (1987), originally used in regard to the audiences of soap operas, was adapted in the scope of this article. This article presents and discusses the outcomes of an online survey completed by 568 respondents, most of them young and regular watchers of anime. However, non-Japanese audiences’ motivations for watching this kind of content remain almost unstudied in some countries, with Portugal being one of them.

It is simultaneously broadcasted by traditional media and easily distributed and discussed among fans in the digital and online realms. Japanese animation, widely known as anime, has a global reach.

History of anime pdf