Ask John: Why Aren’t Jocks Portrayed as Divas in Anime?

Question:
Why are athletes in American pop culture portrayed as such unlikable knuckleheads while the athletes in Japanese anime are seen as nice, regular people who aren’t inherently arrogant or mean? In the typical American high school movie the hero is a runty, nerdy little guy who’s being bullied horribly by enormous, muscle-bound, meat-brained jerks. The jocks are shown as arrogant bordering on god-complexed, intolerant of non-sports curriculum and interests, and as having their own harems of braindead bullying bimbo cheerleaders. Those who plays sports in anime are seen as nice, normal people. The basketball team in Slam Dunk doesn’t beat up people nonstop and the football team in Eyeshield 21 don’t act like raving egomaniacs. Even in the show Touch, where we start out at a high school with one of the top baseball teams in the country, those who plays sports aren’t seen as particularly hateful and spoiled. Why does Japan lack the same negative stereotypes about jocks that America has?

Answer:
Two characteristics of Japanese social culture explain why student athletes depicted in anime appear drastically different than student athletes depicted in American film and television. The relative absence of egomania, bullying, and class stratification evident in sports anime is partially accounted for by Japanese society’s emphasis on politeness and social responsibility. While most societies encourage civility, Japanese society is world renown for its especially prominent social accentuation of politeness and courtesy. Simply because all Japanese residents are communally encouraged to be considerate and, if not tolerant, at least privately critical, students – athletes and non-athletes alike – are typically moderately polite to each other, especially in anime that paints an idealized, fictionalized depiction of Japanese student life.

More importantly, Japanese culture lionizes academic rather than athletic advancement. That’s not to say that Japanese culture doesn’t respect and revere its skilled athletes, but a greater, more widespread emphasis is placed on scholarship than sports, which could be called the opposite of American culture. In average American culture, children are more frequently encouraged to grow up to become sports stars than scientists. Playing professional football, baseball, or basketball is perceived as a more desirable career than becoming a lawyer, engineer, or mathematician. Sports stars in even fringe popularity sports are often bigger celebrities in America than top celebrity scholars like Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking. The fact that appellations including “brainiac” and “egghead” are demeaning and derogatory in English speech attests to American culture’s archaic and disadvantageous sentiment toward scholarship. Japan, on the other hand, encourages academics and trains its youth to be knowledgeable and thereby prepared for practical careers in business, commerce, research, government, and politics. In Japanese culture, excellence is respected, whether in academics or athletics, but athletics by nature carries less focus than academics. As a result, ordinary, average student athletes are not revered or respected to any greater degree than any other average Japanese students. In countless sports anime like Kuroko no Basuke, Cross Game, and Inazuma Eleven, outside of the athletic community, student athletes are treated, and act, just like any other ordinary student. In anime such as Meimon! Daisan Yakyuubu and Cross Game, student athletes distinctly discriminate within their own ranks, but in the larger school community they do not act so haughty or demand so much deference.

American athletes are allowed to, and are even encouraged to act like, and be treated like, celebrity divas because of American culture’s elevation of sports and athletics to a highly respected pinnacle. While outstanding athletes are highly respected in Japan, sports and athletics themselves aren’t as highly valued as they are in America. Since academics is more widely respected and valued in Japanese culture, anime more commonly depicts students with superior intellect or grades earning deference or acting haughty.