One of my hobbies that I developed since I was a child was watching anime. However, for many of my years I would always keep quiet about it because I found out that people look down on those who watch cartoons or animated shows, especially anime. The image that people had of anime, were weird people who watch weird and un-interesting shows. Overall, a very negative image, which persuaded me into hiding my own hobby even though I was not doing anything wrong. Recently, this has changed dramatically. I noticed that this started off with ghibli films. People did not see ghibli films as anime, but rather as films themselves created by a company who happens to use animation. The style of the film was also dramatically different from those around at the same time, they were able to be globally appreciated. Why did others accept the ghibli films, but not anime in general? Ghibli films were representations of a different plot in a completely different world, while also having beautiful animations that people would have to appreciate. Other anime did not do this, instead it grew the image of “big eyes”, “unrealistic bodies”, and “weird behavior,” which made people not want to watch and have a bad outlook on those who do. The anime industry took a huge step throughout the years and started producing anime that had superb animation as well as plot stories that were more intriguing. One of the new common themes that came out within the past couple years is isekai ( or other world ), where one is reincarnated into another world and has to live their life and adapt. This new scenario is similar to why people play games or read books or watch shows, to experience something you cannot in real life. This genre became a huge hit and brought in people’s attention. I noticed around this time of isekai coming out, people would not say the word “anime” with cringe, instead they treated the word as if it was the same as `animation”. The industry was able to change the global view of anime to something positive instead of negative. However, they took it further, a film that came out called “Your Name”, brought in a huge number of asian people to watch anime. The reason is because they derived scenes in the film from scenes in real life, not even famous ones. The scenes were just random walkways, parks, and stairs. Yet people around the world have flown to Japan and have posed in those same environments because the film was just that good. “Your Name”, was a film that had an interesting plot not seen before, paired with amazing animation that brought even the background to life. They had used the idea of living through an experience through films or games, and had taken that further by saying “hey these places exist, and these films will make you feel a lot closer to the plot than anything else.” Closely after this film, anime about heroes or topics that are popular worldwide came out and gained more attention from those outside of the asian community. Anime was able to persuade those globally that it was ok to admit you watch anime and it’s just another genre of entertainment that you can choose to watch. Over the years, they were able to change the negative connotation that came with it and I have been able to experience that shift. Now my friends come up to me and ask for recommendations or strike up a conversation, which I have only been able to start experiencing very recently.