Story and Photos by Joe Timmerman

Story was originally published in Backdrop Magazine’s Volume 15, Issue 2 in May 2022.

The rise in anime’s popularity isn’t just limited to Athens, but nationwide.

Cherry blossom trees bloom alongside the Hocking River in Athens, Ohio, on Wednesday, April 6, 2022. Chubu University, in Kasugai, Aichi, Japan, gifted Ohio University its cherry trees in 1979.

Sakura has a home in Athens. Known as cherry blossom in Japanese, sakura may sound familiar to the growing number of American anime fans, as it’s the namesake of Naruto’s pink-haired secondary character. As the famous pink and white cherry blossom buds begin to bloom across Ohio University’s campus, many students find themselves waiting for the next episode of their favorite anime show. While seemingly disconnected, cherry blossoms and anime both find an origin in Japan and a home in Athens.

Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, global demand for anime has grown 118 percent, according to Parrot Analytics, which gathers data by measuring video streaming and downloads, social media engagement such as hashtags, likes and sharing and research actions such as online browsing or writing about shows.

At the end of 2020, Netflix reported that “over 100 million households around the world chose to watch at least one anime title in Netflix,” since the end of 2019 — growing by 50 percent since the year before.

“30 years ago, when I started teaching Japanese and Japan anthropology classes and taking Americans to Japan, people were scholars; they wanted to be college professors, translators or diplomats, they wanted to learn Japanese for the purpose of reaching advance levels of proficiency,” Christopher Thompson, a professor of Japanese Language & Culture at OU, says.

Christopher Thompson, an Associate Professor of Japanese Language & Culture at OU, talks to a student after his Japanese culture class on Wednesday, March 23, 2022.

Thompson, who was born in Japan and spent the first 18 years of his life there before moving to America, continues to travel there up to three times a year and finds that 30 to 50 percent of the students taking his classes are taking it because of their interest in animation.

“My typical experience is that students come into our language classes and culture classes these days because they’re interested in media representations of Japan and they end up finding other little niches they never knew about that are even more interesting to them … that’s the power of manga and anime,” Thompson says.

Jack Wire, a junior studying music production at OU and student in Thompson’s Japanese culture class, decided to enroll in the class after watching anime shows such as Neon Genesis Evangelion and Serial Experiments Lain.

“I started watching more anime because a lot of the music I listen to has anime samples or the album cover is anime,” Wire says. “I want[ed] to learn more about Japanese culture.”

Remnants of Japanese writing are left on the chalkboard following Christopher Thompson’s Japanese culture class on Wednesday, March 23, 2022.

Wire says since enrolling in Thompson’s class, he’s gained a better cultural understanding of what’s happening in the anime shows he watches or manga he reads.

“When I was ten or eleven, my parents went to Japan,” Wire says. “I’ve been wanting to go since then.”

Another way OU introduces American students to Japanese culture and introduces Japanese students to American culture is through its ongoing relationship with Chubu University. Chubu University, OU’s sister school in Japan, gifted Athens its now-beloved cherry trees in 1979. Since then, the two universities have exchanged both students and faculty, including 46 Japanese students who are currently in Athens for a spring semester study abroad experience.

“We like to make sure people get an accurate view of what [Japanese culture] really is,” Thompson says.

Sota Mizuno, a 19-year-old student at Chubu University, is currently in Athens participating in the study abroad program. Mizuno came to Athens because he wants to learn about American culture, he says, just as the OU students like Wire want to learn about Japanese culture.

“Japanese culture is so unique, [Americans] should watch anime so they can learn,” Mizuno says.

As anime’s popularity continues to grow, the consumption of Japanese graphic novels, known as manga, has risen as well. According to NPD Bookscan, which covers approximately 85 percent of the United States trade print book market, U.S. manga sales more than doubled, going up 15 million units since 2020 to 24.4 million units in 2021.

Nicholas Polsinelli, the owner of Little Professor Book Center on Court Street, has seen the same trend within the OU student population that shop at his store. Currently, the store has 100 new manga books and another 20 to 30 used manga books.

The newly renovated manga section inside the Little Professor Book Center in Athens, Ohio, on Wednesday, April 6, 2022. The Little Professor Book Center. Currently, the store has 100 new manga books and another 20 or 30 used.

“We’ve seen a ton of college students interested in getting manga,” Polsinelli says. “Younger people as well, in high school or even middle school are starting to read more manga than we’re used to.”

Austin Vega, a junior at OU, works at Little Professor Book Center. Polsinelli says Vega initially suggested that the Little Professor Book Center should stock more manga and goes to him to learn about what series are popular and exciting.

“It’s its own unique style of reading,” Vega says as he stacks manga books on the brand-new wooden shelves during his afternoon shift at the bookstore. “You’re going to see things that you wouldn’t normally experience.”

When the Little Professor Book Center started stocking manga again, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure was the first series they carried.

“As we got that, more people bought it so now we carry tons of different series by tons of different authors,” Vega says. “And we have people who come here just for manga.”

The popularity in manga has not gone unnoticed by Polsinelli.

“I think the last time we had this level of interest from manga was before I owned the store. It was probably 15 years ago,” Polsinelli says. “It has definitely been on the rise since I think 2019.”

As the sakura bloom along the Hocking River, Japanese culture extends its roots further across Athens and across the U.S. Americans are discovering little slices of Japanese life, whether they know it or not, through new anime episodes they stream online, freshly printed copies of manga they pick up at bookstores and through the covers of albums they listen to.