The Rise and Fall of Anime in the Middle East -Part 2

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How Anime Masculinity Dominated the Middle East
Anime censorship in the Middle East
Genre or type of anime that Arabs liked

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How Anime Masculinity Dominated the Middle East

　Anime was created in Japan and produced in great numbers with creations from many Manga artists. The elements and emotions of the stories varied based on many things, be it their own personal problems or modern society. The stories could be a mixture of action, adventure, horror, mystery, sports, drama, romance, or anything else that could bring the characters to life. The Middle East enjoys the specific genre of anime which features masculinity.

　Tarek Al- Kandari, age 18, from Kuwait, explained the idea of masculine anime as being the type of genre that people liked, saying, “Most of the anime genre in regards to masculinity have action, but towards the side of romance. Arabs are not too much into it, though. For example, in the 1980s in Arabic Dub, it was Combattler V, but in the 1990s, it was Grendaizer because during Combattler’s time, the anime was not as clear to people, but when Grendaizer was released, parents would let their children watch it, so they wasted their time watching anime instead of causing trouble at home. It also helped their imagination when they watched it on TV at home. Some parents found it embarrassing or rude to watch anime out of the home (watching it at a friends’ house or in a video store) because some people in the 1980s thought that if you watched anime at a mature age, like at 18 years old or older, it would be embarrassing and you would be looked at as a child, but as time progressed, from the 1990s and onwards, people’s mentality changed as they realized that each person was responsible for their own actions.”[1]

A female by the name of Awthah Al- Shalahim, age 19, from Kuwait, added her view based on what she thought of the Middle East view saying, “I would say Grendaizer, as well as Slam Dunk. We watched it in Arabic dub, but the main genre would be action, adventure, and mostly robots. They didn’t bring us the comedy genre because I don’t think in the 1980s they thought kids could understand the jokes, but mainly Arabs loved robot anime.”[2]

Abdullah Kodor Attar, age 30, from Lebanon, explains the anime genre in the Middle East, saying, “We have two points of view, the first being that many people of the new generation are interested in shonen anime (male cartoons) and action, but in regards to the majority of anime fans who love the old style animation, they mostly love robot anime such as Grendaizer, Mazinger Z, etc. For action anime, it would be Fist of the North Star, Berserk, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, Grappler Baki, Guyver, etc. So simply put, action, robot, and comedy. There is also a minority who would watch mystery and romance. There are people who watch comedic anime, but the majority watch action and robot anime due to the masculinity found in the main characters.”[3]

Through seeing the popular rise of anime, many Arab anime fans looked back and wondered what the first anime was that they watched and how they became interested in anime, as well as how the idea of masculine anime brought them interest in the Japanese culture.

Fahad S. Oraifan, age 26, from Kuwait said, “The first anime I watched was in Arabic dub, and was Igano Kabamaru, but the first anime I watched in Japanese dub was in the 1990s when I was 7 years old and watched the Guyver the OVA series, subtitled in English, which showed me a clear picture of masculinity based on how a person defends and saves the people he cares about.”[4]

Abdullah Kodor Attar said, “The first anime I watched was Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which was a movie, and also Sinbad the Sailor, in Arabic dub. My family and I mostly watched Sinbad the Sailor. As for the first Japanese dubbed anime we watched, it was Guyver, and that was the first time I bought a VHS tape.”[5]

Aziz Al- Suhely said, “The first anime I watched in Arabic dub was Grendaizer. At a young age I was interested in the robot’s masculine design as well as the story. As for the first Japanese dubbed anime subtitled in English, it was Dragon Ball Z, the movie where Goku battled Frieza. Dragon Ball Z had by far one of the best masculine fighting scenes’ I had ever seen in my whole life and it showed a new atmosphere and some battle scenes no one could ever think of before.”[6]

Waleed Bouresli, age 32, from Kuwait, said, “The first Arabic anime I watched was Tiger Mask, which I loved so much due to its story, stage appearance of the character, the mixing of reality and fantasy, as well as the masculine heroes and villains. The first anime I watched Japanese dubbed was Ranma 1/2. The anime which were first introduced had not only a huge impact on entertainment, but also on cultural acceptance. The Arabs were intrigued not on the idea that it came from the East, but on the originality of the story, art, emotions, personality, and masculinity which were found in the main characters. During the time of anime’s growth in Kuwait, the series of greatest interest were Mazinger Z, Grendaizer, Captain Tsubasa, Igano Kabamaru, Sinbad the Sailor, and Combattler V. In the beginning, when anime was first aired on television, some scenes were censored, and Arabs always questioned that asking, “What’s to censor in a cartoon?” I never understood the reason until the 1990s, when it was during the first time I visited a mall called “rehab”, and in there was a video store where my brothers and I bought an anime called “Ranma 1/2”, which was English dubbed. What we realized was that the owner of the video store forgot to censor the anime, so we had the uncensored version. This was a big shock to us because it contained nudity, sexuality, and masculinity, which made us more interested in anime since we never realized that there would be a mix of sexuality and masculinity.

Due to this incident, my brothers constantly went back to the same video store and started buying all their other un-cut versions of anime, hoping to buy them before the shop owner noticed it and tried to censor them. As we bought them, we spread the news to our friends and our friends spread the news to their friends and so on. It was then that the video store owner noticed that the videotapes were un-cut, and immediately closed his shop to fix the problem, to which previously he was careless about. Before then many Arab anime fans wanted to watch more anime, but there was a lack of anime being shown on television due to the fact that it took time to translate from Japanese to Arabic. Anime fans then started to travel abroad to such countries as America and England in order to buy their anime and bring it back to their own country. But traveling to another country, buying the anime tapes, and then traveling back to their own country was difficult and time-consuming especially because it was expensive, and also not everyone had the time to take a holiday. There was also the risk of getting caught with the VHS tapes in your travel bag, especially during the 1990s. This led to people selling anime underground, putting them in suitcases and in the trunks for their cars, and finally establishing a video store specifically to sell underground un-cut tapes.

The first time we bought underground un-cut anime, it was at a place called “White Tower”. In the 1990s, White Tower was considered a haven for young teenagers to play arcade games. Inside the White Tower arcade complex there was a man who would bring with him a red folder which had pictures of all the anime he owned as well as hentai (adult anime), and the man would search for customers and sell it to them. He would take the customer’s order and collect payment in advance. He would then record the video and give it to the customer the following day. He did this by bringing the videotapes in his car and then calling the customers to pick up the videotapes. I bought some videos from this bootlegger, but when I asked to buy adult anime, he refused due to my young age. Because of this, I became even more curious about sexuality in anime.

Fahad S. Oraifan talks about the first time he watched an un-cut anime which consisted of sexuality, nudity, and violence. He says, “The first time my friend and I bought an anime tape, it was at a video store located inside the Rehab mall, and it was a Street Fighter 2 anime. I was 9 years old at the time. We bought 2 copies of the anime. I didn’t know there was any censorship, but since it contained violence, it had to be censored. Anyways, when I watched my version of the anime in English dub at home, I realized there were scenes that were not shown from the Japanese dubbed version I watched at my friend’s house. There was an erotic scene that was during the battle between Vega and Chun Li. It was when Chun Li was doing her flying spinning bird kick. I could see her panty shots as well as a close scene of her vagina. I was shocked by this and realized there was adult content in cartoons. When I watched Sinbad the Sailor, there was an episode where the main character was fully naked and also a scene where he was captured as a sacrifice and crucified, but what surprised me more was it wasn’t on tape when I watched this, but it was on Kuwait’s TV channel. Later I realized I should not have watched this at such a young age, but as I grew older I wanted to see more un-cut anime because of the story that was mixed with the action scenes and sexuality. They tended to cut out the important scenes in the story so I missed out on what happened.”[7]

Abdullah Kodor Attar said, “The first time I realized the idea of an un-cut anime was when I first bought Guyver, which was from the OVA series. It only had one episode. Before the episode there was a manga trailer showing anime scenes from various anime depicting violence, nudity, sex, and kissing, and that’s when I realized, wow, this is new, strange, and I had never seen it in cartoons before. I wanted to know more about this, so I investigated further and talked to my friends, which led me to a place called “White Tower”, where I could find a bootlegger who would sell un-cut anime to me. I prefer to watch un-cut anime because as a customer, I would feel cheated for not being able to watch the whole movie. For example, if you cut out the scenes of violence and blood from Fist of the North Star, you would have ruined the movie as a whole.[8]

Waleed Bouresli, age 32, from Kuwait, said, “The first anime I bought was an un-cut, complete series in Arabic called Igano Kabamaru. The company that produced this anime was called “Wisam”, and they made this un-cut as well as had good Arabic voice actors. After some time, a new company took over “Wisam”, and this company was called “Studio Venus”, which is a Syrian company. This studio ruined the Arabic anime company by bringing untalented voice actors, censorship, and by changing the anime stories and scenarios by changing the dialogue to their own desire. This was also the reason why many people who watched anime stopped watching Arabic anime, and started buying copied un-cut anime, and when the internet was invented we didn’t have to buy anime, but rather we could watch it for free at our leisure and not have to wait for the anime to be recorded on tape first.[9]

Another competitor bootlegger by the name of Hassan was planning to open a video store in Salmiya, Bahrain Street. Before he opened the video store, he was selling videos outside of White Tower, in a parking lot where many people gathered to buy his videos. He sold it from the trunk of his car in order to hide it from the police. As soon as Hassan established the base of customers he earned while he was a bootlegger, he opened a video store called “Argham Video”. Many customers, both Kuwaitis and non-Kuwaitis, would buy tons of un-cut anime tapes for very cheap prices. It was much less than it cost abroad. The price was 3 KWD (1,200 JP yen) for one tape. Arab anime fans have been buying this anime for more than 10 years and even Saudis, who went to Kuwait by car, bought many anime tapes from this store and put the videos in the trunk of their cars as well as hid them under the seats or inside the seats.

I went to Argham video in 2014 to ask them about their history of buying and selling anime, dealing with illegal businesses, not getting caught by the government, as well as about copyright companies. I made an appointment for an interview with the manager of the shop, rather than the owner, Hassan. The shop manager’s name is Mohammed. I asked him, “When did you start the anime business?” Mohammed replied, “We started in 1993, during the era of Guyver and Fist of the North Star, and we recorded every episode of Guyver, 1 episode per month. When we first released the first episode of Guyver, there were more than 40 people lined up at the front of our store waiting to buy this anime, and this was the start of manga.

After our start, word about our store spread, from Kuwait to other Gulf countries. We even had people coming from Saudi Arabia, buying 40 to 60 tapes and putting them in the trunk of their cars, then going back to their country to watch the anime. Saudi Arabia at that time was very strict. Cinemas were banned, it was illegal for women to drive, and even TV channels were censoring Loony Tunes, because Porky Pig’s character is a pig, which is viewed as a dirty animal in Islam, so Islamic extremists censored it.” “Where did you buy the un-cut anime?” I asked. “We used to buy our anime online. American websites would ship it to us by DHL, and customs did not check. They started to check in 1998 or 1999 because of the Ministry of Information. The Ministry of Information checked the manga cover once, and noticed there was a sexual design on the cover of the video, and thought this was strange. From then on, they started to check the DHL boxes. After this time, anime started becoming more popular on TV, and people started to like it and to buy it. Even if the Ministry of Information tried to censor it, there were other ways to buy them uncensored.” “How did you sell them?” I asked. “People realized when we started the video store that we would buy an original copy of the anime tape and we then recorded many copies of it and sold that to people. Before the year 2000, we sold the tapes easily without the government or copyright people bothering us, but after 2000, America made a law regarding copyright infringement that any western movie could not be sold illegally.” “Is it risky to sell un-cut movies? If so, what is the reason?” I asked. “A long time ago there wasn’t any strict form of censorship from the Ministry of Information, no strict rules of cutting, only regarding sex and nudity was there censorship, but now, even kissing and bikinis are being cut. Before the 1990s, if they caught us selling un-cut movies we would pay a fine of 100KWD (355 US dollars), and receive a warning.

The second time they caught you, the fine would be doubled, but in 2005 or 2007, the fine will be 500 KWD (1,777 US dollars) to the seller who sells the videos, and 500KWD to the video store owner. For example, Silver Video, which was one of our rivals, went out of business because they were caught many times, and so their business became very slow. Even our store was caught for the first time in 2000. America made a law on January 29, 2001, regarding the Middle East Gulf States, against the purchase of illegal copies of DVD’s because many people tried to buy un-cut movies. The Middle East was number 3 in the world for copyright offenses.” “Why do Arabs want to buy an un-cut anime or movie?” I asked. “The reason is because of the story, because if they cut a sexual scene, they would cut out some of the story before that scene. They would cut 2 minutes before they would start the sexual scene. Even for the 2 minutes after the scene, it would still be censored. Simply put, it would be censored a long time and they would censor things that did not have to be censored. It would ruin the film and make the movie difficult to understand. Maybe even during the sexual scene there would be a part of the story, that if cut, would affect your understanding of the movie.” “When you first started the business, did many Arabs come? Why?” I asked. “Yes, many came, from all over the Gulf States and they weren’t only buying un-cut movies because of sex, but because they wanted to understand the story.” “When did Arab anime fans stop buying anime tapes? Why?” I asked. “In 2005 we lost a lot of customers due to the internet, because it was free, fast, and un-cut. This made us lose a lot of business. Before the internet, we sold well to our customers. Now with the internet, our business crashed.” “What was the best-selling anime title that you sold?” I asked. “Everything, they bought everything. The old school anime sold a lot, due to masculinity. Everything in the past brought me profit, but now anime consists of less masculinity. Series that sold well included Detective Conan, Mazinger Z, Grendaizer, Berserk, and Captain Tsubasa. The sales were excellent from 1993 to 2003, but since 2005 sales have been extremely low, because of the internet. Manga, movies, and anime can all be found on the internet. The anime itself gave us a monthly profit of no less than 2,000 KWD (7,135 US dollars), and we sold one tape for 3 KWD (10 US dollars). Anime gave us more sales than American movies did. People of all ages bought anime. Customers were keeping me up to date on which anime to order and which to sell.

The Arabs first liked the English dubbed anime, but now they like Japanese dubbed anime with Arabic subtitles, due to the Japanese voice actors. From 2005 we started the sale of anime with Arabic subtitles. Before 2005 we sold many with English subtitles. Now our profit is less than 100 KWD (356 US dollars). The old generation is different from the new generation in that before many people went to the movies, but now the new generation does not bother to go to the movies because the movies are censored. It is better and cheaper to buy it uncensored. People today can own a special satellite dish to watch movies uncensored. Before, people used to get satellite for the sex movies and erotic channels, but after the internet, they stopped buying satellites. The internet is the gateway for sexual movies, free sexual movies.” “Was there a specific genre or type of anime that Arabs liked? What about character or story? What was it? Why?” I asked. “The type of anime they liked was action and adventure. They disliked drama, and they admired characters that had masculinity. They liked stories that had action and kept the viewer surprised.”[10]

[1]Idib.,

[2]Awthah Al- Shalahi, interview by Ahmed Al- Baroody, AUK, February, 17, 2014

[3]Abdullah Kodor Attar, interview by Ahmed Al- Baroody, Fahads Home, February 21, 2014

[4]Fahad S. Oraifan, interview by Ahmed Al- Baroody, Fahads Home, February 21, 2014

[5]Abdullah Kodor Attar, interview by Ahmed Al- Baroody, Fahads Home, February 21, 2014

[6]Aziz Al- Suhely, interview by Ahmed Al- Baroody, AUK, February 21, 2014

[7]Fahad S. Oraifan, interview by Ahmed Al- Baroody, Fahads Home, February 21, 2014

[8]Abdullah Kodor Attar, interview by Ahmed Al- Baroody, Fahads Home, February 21, 2014

[9]Waleed Bouresli, interview by Ahmed Al- Baroody, Fahads Home, February 21, 2014

[10]Mohammed, interview by Ahmed Al- Baroody, Al- Argham Video Store, March 9, 2014