An introduction to Anime fan fiction: A reading of the fan fiction Rurouni Kenshin (a.k.a. Samurai X)

• Main Author: Lim, Jerelyn D.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2003
• Subjects: Animated films > Authorship; Animated television programs > Authorship; Comparative Literature
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/2146
• Institution: De La Salle University

Japanese animation or anime are cartoons developed in Japan. Usually, they are video or televised versions of Japanese comic books known as manga but some are otherwise original creation. Anime has been translated into several languages and televised to many parts of the world. It has captured the admiration of people from different nationalities and age groups as seen from the popular growth of anime products in the market. The influence of anime has spread even on the internet where inspired fans have made websites and have used various media such as drawing, computer graphics, poetry and fiction to create their own versions of their favorite anime. This study focuses on introducing that medium of writing fiction which fans have labeled as anime fan fiction (anime fanfic). Anime fan fiction in simple description means writings or literature made and circulated by inspired anime fans. They have borrowed the characters from an anime series and have made stories out of it. Anime fan fiction has a broad scope of categories thus for the purpose of this study, I would be dealing specifically with a fan fiction under the anime genre of Shounen (teenage boys) whose subgenre is samurai anime. Shounen pertains to the target audience that a particular anime is aimed at. Samurai anime serves as an example of Shounen. It is an anime centered on the life and adventures of a Japanese swordsman. I have taken ten samples of fan fiction based on the story of Rurouni Kenshin (a.k.a. Samurai X). The creator of this anime is Nobuhiro Watsuki who was born on May 26, 1970. Rurouni Kenshin begins when Kenshin Himura, a skilled assassin, is hired to defeat the government and to put the emperor Meiji back into power. During this time, he meets Tomoe, who becomes his wife and later on killed by his own blade. After a victorious struggle, he decides to be a wanderer and vowed never to kill or murder again. The war may have ended Kenshin wanders through Tokyo, he meets new friends and a new home with his beloved Kaoru Kamiya. They help Kenshin face his enemies and adventures along the way. Using Vladimir Propp's Morphology of the Folktale , I attempt to show that anime fan fiction, specifically samurai fan fiction, has a single structure in which a specific description can be derived. I will also show that samurai fan fiction has eight functions that comprise its structure.