The influence of anime as Japanese popular culture among art and design students

Purpose: The objective of this study is to investigate the influence of anime on the prevalence of Japanese popular culture among Art and Design students. Design/Methodology/Approach: This study employed a questionnaire-based quantitative survey of 186 college students enrolled in arts and design programmes at three higher education institutions. Five Likert-scale questionnaires were utilised to collect the data, which was subsequently analysed using SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences). Findings: The majority of respondents had rather limited time to watch anime. This is due to the time constraints for completing their tasks and projects. That was proven by the low average viewing rate of anime among respondents. The findings showed only 39 respondents watched anime for more than 6 hours and above, while the majority of 147 others, or 79%, watched anime for 5 hours and below in a week. Nevertheless, the influence of Japanese popular culture still has a significant impact on this study, even at low and moderate levels. Conclusion: This study found that anime has managed to spread the influence of Japanese popular culture among respondents despite being weak and moderate. This result was also due to the low frequency of watching anime. The data may be different if the average frequency of watching anime is high. Research


INTRODUCTION
Anime is a Japanese animation that is influenced by 'manga', or Japanese comics, which are popular cartoons all over the world. It is not only of interest to youngsters and teenagers but also appeals to adults. According to Craig (2000), anime is a type of Japanese animation that is created either manually or digitally using a computer. Aeschliman (2022) claims that the noun 'anime' is derived from the English word animation. Shortening syllables to three became popular among the Japanese. As a result, the fourth syllable 'tion' was dropped, and 'animation' was just referred to as 'anime'. According to Merriam-Webster (2023), the term anime refers specifically to animations produced in Japan. According to Napier (2016), the term anime refers to Japanese animations that attempt to differentiate themselves from Western animation, particularly Disney. Unlike Western animation, anime has caused worldwide astonishment in the animation industry. It is in high demand and has a large number of devoted fans around the globe because it contains a variety of genres that correspond to the age of its audience, from infants to adults. In addition to intriguing and unpredictable plots (Mamat, Rashid, Abd Rahim, & Halim, 2014;Sayekti, 2017;Yusof, 2019), anime's beautiful visual aesthetic (Yusof, 2019) makes it the preferred viewing medium for its admirers around the world. Anime is a reflection of the 2. STUDY BACKGROUND: ANIME AND JAPANESE POPULAR CULTURE Popular culture, also called "pop culture," is a culture that affects how people think, feel, look at things, and even recent occurrences in the culture at the moment. Around the middle of the 20th century, it was used in the same way as "western influence." The mass media spread this effect of popular culture, which then permeates the rest of society and becomes the norm or something that people do. West (2021) says that entertainment like music, movies, TV shows, and games, as well as sports, politics, fashion, technology, and slang, are often the sources of popular culture. According to Duncan (1989), this popular culture is progressive and not radical because it simply adopts the prevailing trends of the time, which the parties involved did not promote. In this way, anime is not meant to spread Japanese popular culture because it was first made for Japanese people to enjoy. However, anime's popularity has spread throughout the world, where people who don't watch it generally accept and enjoy it. Correspondingly, when anime is praised and admired, the culture it contains spreads to the rest of the world. Mamat et al. (2014) say that the people who make anime don't promote their products to spread the impact of popular culture. Instead, it is the fans who spread popular culture among themselves. In 1818, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi used the term 'popular culture' in a writing, which was recorded in the Oxford English dictionary in 1854. John Chapman stated in his 1853 article titled "Influence of European Emigration on the State of Civilization in the United States: Statistics of Popular Culture in America" that popular culture is a culture with a lower education class and subordinate social class that is vastly distinct from the official culture of the highly educated and upper social class. Berrong (1986) affirms this viewpoint. According to Ardia (2014), popular culture is an imported culture that has been unwittingly assimilated into society as a result of the proliferation of mass media worldwide. Fears that the local culture is being lost due to the public's embrace of popular culture were widespread. The culture that embraced this mainstream art form was just keeping up with the times, as no one wanted to be labelled as old-fashioned. According to Storey (2009), the original culture produced by prior intellectuals is at war with popular culture, which is the culture enjoyed by most people. Unlike Chapman (2009) and Berrong (1986), modern society views popular culture differently. This is because members of the upper class' intellectual elite have become impacted by popular culture. Again citing Storey (2009), I will say that I find his definition of popular culture to be insightful: a folk culture created by the people for the people. This form of popular culture thrives in a free and open society where the tools of mass communication are easily accessible. According to Bock and Wallace (2010), popular culture is frequently considered a frivolous and foolish culture that exists for the purpose of attracting public attention and acceptance. As a consequence, popular culture is frequently the target of derision and criticism from a subset of individuals who are devoted to the original culture. These individuals believe that popular culture is a superficial foreign culture that has the potential to taint the culture that is already prevalent in society. Chaniago and Basri (2011), on the other hand, contend that popular culture is not doomed to be a negative culture and can have some unintended repercussions. It is another culture from outside the civilization, which sets it apart from the culture that is already present there. In comprehending this popular culture, anime is one of the agents of J-Pop, also known as Japanese popular culture. The popularity of anime on a global scale, combined with the popularity of other animations such as Western animation, has inadvertently made it the medium of Japanese popular culture's dissemination. Mamat et al. (2018) concur, stating that manga and anime are two Japanese popular cultures that are influential outside of Japan. The popularity of these varied anime series, which penetrated international television broadcasts, indirectly promoted Japanese culture, values, manners, and ways of life. In the early 1990s, when the first series of Doraemon anime began broadcasting on RTM (Radio Television Malaysia), the influence of anime began to have an effect on our country as well. Various other Japanese animated series followed afterward. Previously dominated by Western animations, particularly Walt Disney, children's television programmes at that time were filled with Japanese animations. According to data released by the Anime Industry Report 2021, the anime industry has improved steadily over the past decade. In 2020, the population decreased slightly due to the direct effects of COVID-19. Compared to the previous year, the market for the anime industry has decreased by 96.5%, or by less than 88.4 billion yen. Nonetheless, the demand for anime on the Japanese domestic market increased by 135.8% in comparison to 2019. This is due to the demand impact of people who are forced to remain at home because of COVID-19, resulting in a very high demand online. The greatness of Japanese animation can be viewed from a variety of perspectives, such as its captivating storyline, the beauty of its sketches and graphic effects, and the fact that it has attracted not only children but also adults who are impassioned about it. It differs from Western animated series that target only children and adolescents. As a consequence, anime's global influence is expanding rapidly, and anime also unwittingly introduces Japanese popular culture into the lives of its fans. This emerging influence has generated concerns and complaints from a small number of individuals who believe that the influence of this popular culture has a negative impact on the formation of society. Numerous studies on the effects of anime on behaviour, attitudes, speech, fashion (cosplay), and self-identity have been conducted by researchers. The impact of Crayon Shin-Chan on children's behaviour was examined in Putera (2015). His study showed that people's actions and words were negatively affected. Respondents are negatively impacted by Shin Chan when they are further exposed to it. Andina (2016) found that while anime can have negative effects on viewers, it can also inspire them to reject violent behaviour and other negative attitudes that teenagers may adopt for a variety of reasons (including but not limited to those presented in anime). Furthermore, the research by Yusof (2019) demonstrates that there is a strong correlation between favorable perceptions of anime's influence and many types of moral distortion in terms of religion and property. The examination of these relationships has revealed that as the character's deviation increases in a negative direction, the corresponding attitude becomes increasingly negative due to the influence of anime. The findings, however, also showed that anime had a negative impact on the respondents' opinions, which had the same result. According to correlation studies, moral transgressions are also correlated with how negatively anime-influenced attitudes are perceived. As a result, anime has both good and bad influences. He advised parents or other responsible adults to keep an eye on the content that youngsters are watching in order to lessen the harmful effects. Additionally, Haes and Pratiwi (2019) found that there are influences in terms of clothing or cosplay. This is a practice in which ardent followers of anime try to dress in a manner that is reminiscent of the characters that they enjoy watching. This demonstrates that those who are exposed to Japanese popular culture have adapted their clothing styles to reflect the popular culture of Japan. While the study by Mamat et al. (2018)  there is an influence on the lives of students learning Japanese, 36% of those students discovered that anime and manga have transformed their lives, while 79% believe that anime and manga have increased their fluency in the Japanese language. According to the findings of the survey, anime enthusiasts also have a high-quality conversational vocabulary and phrase selection, which earned them top ratings. This demonstrates that anime is successful in absorbing Japanese popular culture through the language that students learn, and as a result, anime also affects the lives of around half of the students.
In the year 2022, Malaysia hosted a number of different festivals devoted to anime. One of these is the Anime Fest+, which took place in Paradigm Mall over the course of five days, from the 12th to the 16th of May 2022. Then, on December 17 and 18, 2022, Comic Fiesta will be held at KLCC (Kuala Lumpur City Centre) from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and the cost of an entrance ticket will be RM80.00. It would appear that the impact of anime and manga has not been confined to the festival that took place in 2022 alone, as additional activities linked to the medium have been added for 2023. According to a post that was made on the Facebook group for cosplay, an anime fan named Tsukasa shared 24 events that are scheduled to take place between February 2023 and July 2023. These events are scheduled to take place in a variety of locations across Peninsular Malaysia, including Kuala Lumpur, Petaling Jaya, Johor Bahru, Klang, Penang, and Sabah and Sarawak. Anime Fest+, which was the largest event in 2022, will also take place in the Tropicana Gardens Mall in Petaling Jaya from the 29th of April to the 1st of May in 2023. The reality is that anime and manga have sparked a wave of Japanese popular culture that is increasingly influencing Malaysian society. There is a lot of demand from ardent anime lovers across the nation, as seen by the frequent and widespread organization of anime parties. Due to popular culture being incorporated into society, there is a large need for this anime. In order to understand the influence of anime as a Japanese popular culture, this study looked at the opinions of Malay youth who are interested in it, both positively and negatively.

OBJECTIVE OF STUDY
This study was carried out to achieve the following goals: • To identify the frequency of anime viewing among Malay teenagers.
• Identifying factors that explain why teens are passionate about anime.
• Identifying the influence of anime as a Japanese popular culture on the positive and negative attitudes of art and design students.

METHODOLOGY
In general, this study used quantitative research techniques to examine how anime, a form of Japanese popular culture, affected the opinions of respondents who were art and design students, both positively and negatively. A set of questionnaires with two parts-Part A on demographics and Part B on positive and negative attitudes-were given to the respondents in order to determine the influence. Pilot testing was performed on the questionnaire to determine its validity and reliability. This questionnaire instrument was shown to be valid and reliable to the tune of 0.895 alpha cronbach in a pilot study involving 44 students from Universiti Teknologi MARA (Majlis Amanah Rakyat) Shah Alam. A total of 186 participants were included in the sample for this research. All of them were currently enrolled in Design Arts programmes at three different universities: Universiti Teknologi MARA Perak, Universiti Teknologi MARA Melaka, and Polytechnic Ibrahim Sultan in Johor. The instructors at these three institutions played a role in the online distribution of a survey, to which only those with a genuine interest in anime responded.

Instruments of Study
The researchers Yusof (2019) developed this questionnaire, which is split into two parts: Part A asks about the demographic background of the respondents, and Part B is an instrument related to attitudes from anime influences that has two domains, namely positive attitudes and negative attitudes. Both parts of the questionnaire are divided into subcategories. This instrument comprises a total of 90 items, with 45 items representing positive attitudes and the same number representing negative attitudes. The positive attitudes section has 45 items, while the negative attitudes section similarly has 45 items. The Likert scale model with five answer possibilities was used to assess the influence of anime as a Japanese popular culture on the attitudes of these art and design students.

Scoring
This Likert model was selected due to its dependability in data findings that can be readily and precisely determined and its ability to reduce data processing errors (Murphy & Davidshofer, 1988). As shown in Table 1, the following Likert scale with five answer options is used for this study:

Respondent
The study was conducted on 186 respondents who were pursuing the field of art and design at three higher learning institutions, namely Universiti Teknologi MARA Perak, Universiti Teknologi MARA Melaka, and Polytechnic Ibrahim Sultan in Johor. In this study, respondents with a background in art and design were chosen since they are most exposed to anime's influence. This study provides support for it, showing that the vast majority (93 percent of respondents) were fans of anime. The results of this study are, therefore, usually trustworthy.

Demography
In Table 2, the following are the findings of the study on the demographics of the respondents involved: The demographics of the study showed that the number of female respondents was twice as high as that of male respondents. This shows that female respondents who are passionate about anime in the field of design dominated the study. Meanwhile, the age demographic showed a majority of 10.7% of respondents aged 18 to 21 years. The findings also show that the majority of the respondents' household income is below RM (Ringgit Malaysia) 4,850, which is in the B40 group. While only 7% of respondents are from low-income families. The rest are from the M40 cluster.  Table 4 shows the mean distribution of anime viewing frequency with positive and negative attitudes. The data shows that the frequency of watching anime is low. This finding reinforces the respondents' statement when this questionnaire was distributed that their busy revisiting and completing design projects had limited anime viewing.
The data also showed that the mean distribution for positive attitudes is at a high level, while the mean negative attitude is at a low level.

Identifying the Frequency Level of Watching Anime
The frequency of viewing this anime extends beyond viewing on television and includes viewing on the internet. According to Table 5, the majority of respondents-147 people, or 79%-allocated 5 hours or less per week to watching anime, with 28 people watching anime in the 6-10 hour range. While 4 respondents watched anime for a range of 11 to 15 hours, 3 respondents spent between 16 and 20 hours watching. The data also showed that there were four respondents who spent time watching anime for 21 hours or more in a week. Hence, these findings show that the frequency of watching anime among art and design students is low. This is evidenced by the majority (79% of respondents) only watching anime for under 5 hours a week. This low frequency is due to the constraints in viewing time as a result of the busy bustle of respondents as students completing assignments and projects, as notified during the survey.  Table 6 shows the findings of three main factors explaining why respondents are passionate about anime. The findings showed that the majority of 102 respondents, or 54.8 percent, were interested in anime due to the aesthetics of visual graphics. While the other 33.3 percent are interested in anime because of the characters magic powers, being funny, cute, and so on. Only 11.8 percent were interested in anime due to its interesting and unpredictable storyline. These findings clearly show that respondents with art and design backgrounds are particularly attracted to the aesthetics of anime graphics. The findings of this study contradict Yusof's (2019) findings on respondents at the school level, where the majority are interested in anime because of the anime character itself, which has magic power, and so on. These different findings are due to the different backgrounds of the respondents. In addition, Mamat et al. (2014) found that teens are passionate about anime because of anime actors who have a brave attitude, hard work, humor, value relationships, and possess special abilities. Sayekti (2017) finds teens passionate about anime due to the moral value found in anime itself, while the rest are interesting visual factors, interesting storylines, and anime character characters.

The Relationship of Anime to Japanese Popular Culture Upward Attitude of Art and Design Students
To answer the third objective, which is to identify the influence of anime as a Japanese popular culture on the positive and negative attitudes of Art and Design students, Pearson's correlation analysis was used. To better understand those influences, here is Table 7 of the Guilford (1956) used as a guide:  Guilford (1956). Table 8 shows how anime as a Japanese popular culture influences the positive and negative attitudes of the respondents. The data in Table 8 illustrates Pearson's correlation relationship, which is divided into two domains, positive attitudes and negative attitudes, to determine the influence of anime as a Japanese popular culture on Malay adolescents. This indicator of measurement employs Guilford (1956). Based on the results of the above study, it was found that all 45 positive attitude domain items were significant with the influence of anime, but on the criteria of moderate, weak, and very weak, according to guidance from Guilford (1956). The eight positive attitudes at a moderate level are "I always maintain trust", "I always stay honest", "I always keep promises", "I always try", "I am always captive", "I am a responsible person", "I am an obedient person" and "I am a tolerant person". While there are two items that have a very weak relationship, namely "I like saving" and "I am a firm person". The remaining 35 items had a weak correlation of about 0.20 to 0.40 on Guilford's criteria.
While the influence of anime as Japanese popular culture on the negative attitudes of respondents was found to have a significant relationship in the negative correlation value of 45 items, three more items were found to be insignificant in this study. The data also showed a very weak association with 45 negative attitude items, where the correlation score was only around 0.20.

DISCUSSION
The findings showed that there was a low frequency of watching anime among art and design students. This is due to the time constraints they face in completing the assigned tasks and projects. The majority of respondents only spend under 5 hours watching anime in a week, while only 15% of respondents watch anime at a frequency of 6 to 10 hours. The respondents who watched 11 to 20 hours comprised only 7 people, and those who watched 21 hours and above were 4. This low viewing frequency has led to the findings of studies on the influence of anime, as Japanese popular culture has a relatively low correlation in both domains, i.e., positive and negative attitudes. There are only 8 items of positive attitudes that show a moderate correlation, while for negative attitude items, all have a low level of correlation. This suggests that the low amount of exposure to anime also affected the level of correlation, although it was seen as significant in this study. The findings of this study support (Yusof, 2019) finding that there is a significant relationship between positive and negative attitudes and the frequency of anime viewing for respondents from secondary school. The study also found that characteristics of anime's graphics and visual aesthetics largely influenced respondents' interest in it. The second aspect is the magically gifted, funny, adorable, and other anime characters. The intriguing and unpredictable plot is the third factor. According to a prior study (Yusof, 2019), anime character actors were the primary reason respondents were interested in anime over other aspects. Mamat et al. (2014) discovered that the reason why people are interested in anime is because the anime character himself enjoys having a bold attitude, working hard, being funny, appreciating other people, and having exceptional talents, while Sayekti (2017) found that the moral factor found in anime was the main factor in why respondents were interested in anime compared to other factors such as good visuals, storylines, and anime characters. The influence of anime as a Japanese popular culture in this study was seen as significant despite the low correlation between positive and negative attitudes. This is due to the lack of anime exposure among the respondents. This study actually supports the findings of Yusof (2019), even with respondents from different backgrounds in terms of age, educational level, and educational background. There is further research on the impact of anime on teenagers. One of these is the study by Sallehuddin and Omar (2011), which found that anime has a negative impact on young children. Additionally, Chamimah (2011) discovered that watching anime has both beneficial and harmful effects on kids. Parents' supervision and direction are necessary for children to be protected from the harmful elements of anime. Putera (2015) also found that anime brings a negative culture to children's behavior. But Andina (2016) found that anime also carries positive