Anime and Manga Globalization in Algeria: The Soft Power of Japan

Abstract

Anime and manga are Japanese animation products that found their way to Algeria. Their prevalence among Algerian youth is silent and unquestionable. These Japanese mediums embody in their folds foreign ideas that do not correspond to the Algerian context. Thus, the main purpose of the current research is to raise the Algerians’ awareness against the foreign policy of Japan, and to determine how manga and anime are impacting the youth, as well as unraveling the hidden ideology of the inheritance of evil Japan is using through these mediums. To this end, manga panels, anime scenes, and characters taken from popular Japanese anime and manga of Tokyo Ghoul are selected according to the Algerian fan base to be analyzed, to determine their ideologies of the inheritance of evil and psychological violence and their impact on Algerian popular culture. The study adopts primarily the qualitative approach alongside the quantitative approach. While the former opens up to the researcher’s experience and aims at learning more about social phenomena through observation, in this case anime culture globalization in Algeria, the latter, which is summarized in an online questionnaire, aims at a specific category of people. As far as the conceptual or theoretical framework is concerned, the ideological discourse analysis (socio-cognitive analysis of a discourse of Teun A. Van Dijk) and Barthes semiotic theory are used to discuss how ideologies are transmitted through anime and manga. The study concludes that anime and manga have a negative impact on the Algerian young adults due to divergent social, cultural, and historical factors.