{"id":208,"date":"2001-01-03T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2001-01-03T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/2001\/01\/03\/ask-john-is-all-anime-based-on-fiction\/"},"modified":"2001-01-03T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2001-01-03T14:00:00","slug":"ask-john-is-all-anime-based-on-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/ask-john-is-all-anime-based-on-fiction\/","title":{"rendered":"Ask John: Is All Anime Based on Fiction?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Question:<\/strong><br \/>\nI have watched many anime series (Child&#8217;s Toy, Sailor Moon, Ranma 1\/2, Dragonball Z, etc.), and I realize all anime series out there portray fictional characters with a fictional plot. Is there a rule out there that says all anime has to be fictional?<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><strong>Answer:<\/strong><br \/>\nThere&#8217;s no rule or reason at all that mandates that all anime must be fiction.  Anime fans in Japan and all around the world obsessively consider anime a form of contemporary art, but we too often forget that anime is also a commercial product like Hollywood movies, automobiles or even cat food.  Generally speaking, anime has to make a profit to survive.  As a commercial product, anime is a form of entertainment.  It provides escapism and fantasy.  To make anime accessible and entertaining to watch, creators commonly create fantastic worlds and characters to catch viewers&#8217; attention.  Not all anime, though, is fiction, and not all anime needs to be fiction to be entertaining.  Here&#8217;s just a few examples:<\/p>\n<p>Otaku no Video is a fictionalized account of the actual history of Gainax Studio.<\/p>\n<p>Like a Cloud, Like the Wind and Romance of the Three Kingdoms are both based on Chinese history, and all of the characters and events in both movies are generally historically accurate.<\/p>\n<p>Graveyard of Fireflies and Rail of the Star both feature fictional characters that represent a population of real people that went through similar trials during the time periods presented in the films.<\/p>\n<p>Rurouni Kenshin is a fictional account, but the general events of the time presented are accurate, and many of the characters in the series are loosely based on real historical figures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Question: I have watched many anime series (Child&#8217;s Toy, Sailor Moon, Ranma 1\/2, Dragonball Z, etc.), and I realize all anime series out there portray fictional characters with a fictional plot. Is there a rule out there that says all anime has to be fictional?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ask-john"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}