Faith Is Restored - An Interview With “Anime For Humanity”
Ever since I started this blog, I thought to myself whether I or someone else can start up a mental health organization that helps people using anime. I had some optimism at first, but grew jaded after seeing people’s impressions of anime and how anime was treated under the geek hierarchy over the years. Yet I found out that someone or should I say, a group of fans is doing what I envisioned in my head and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect
While I was reading up on the sudden “mental health” question that popped up in an “anime census”, I found out about an organization that anime fans should support when it came to mental health discussion. That organization is known as Anime For Humanity. They are based in Los Angeles and have been traveling throughout California at various conventions since starting in 2017.
I went to their site immediately and I was amazed that AFH are a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to using a medium that many fans love to promote mental health awareness. So I decided to get an interview with AFH and their outreach manager, Ruby, got back to me. Here’s what she had to say on Anime For Humanity, their beginnings, a couple of their projects, the hashtag movement they started, and more.
Q: How did Anime for Humanity get started? What made you see that anime was inspiring for anyone with mental illness?
Ruby: Before Anime For Humanity (AFH) started, we were an anime club with a passion for anime and community. We volunteered with local charities and hosted events that people enjoyed. Then we realized there were specific ways anime could have an impact and make a difference in people’s lives.
When we first thought about the causes Anime For Humanity should tackle, we took a moment to reflect on what anime brought and changed in our personal lives. We found out that most of us suffered through depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicidal thoughts. Only a few us did get professional help and others didn’t because of the so-called “stigma."
Q: What professional backgrounds do you have in mental health?
Ruby: Since AFH started as an anime club, we all came from different backgrounds, including artists, teachers, computer scientists and therapy counselors.
We do close work with other LPCCs (licensed professional clinical counselors) and LMFTs (licensed marriage and family therapists) that volunteer to host panels, speak at events and run support groups.
As a member of the Anime For Humanity Clinical Advisory Board, it is very important for AFH to work with therapists and counselors who understand the fandom and use it as to a tool to help people find healing and recovery.
Q: Clinical Advisory Board?
Ruby: The Clinical Advisory Board is an initiative made by Anime For Humanity. It is still under the work and part of the Anime Therapy Project. Since we attend a bunch of cons, a lot of licensed therapists stop by our booth and ask us to be involved in what we do. We call them the "Anime Therapists." :)
The purpose of the Clinical Advisory Board is to discuss scientific research done on anime and help polish Anime For Humanity’s upcoming projects/programs. We also have been working on building a "find an anime therapist near you" (which is similar to our “Find Healing” resources, but with a twist) where the anime/geek community can find a therapist near them who understands the fandom and maybe uses it as a tool for therapy.
So far, the project is still on alpha mode and local to LA. We are hopeful it will expand to other cities, states and around the world.
Q: With anime consumption almost completely online and anime conventions sometimes being the only spot to get fans together, how did you come up with ideas to get fans to come to your programs offline?
Ruby: Here in SoCal (Southern California), it happens that there is a convention every month where we get to be in touch with the attendees and tell them about what we do.
We are very grateful for all the convention organizers in our area because not only does the anime scene keep growing, but we also get to hand out local resources for people to get professional help.
Q: Describe what a typical workshop/support group session from Anime for Humanity is like.
The AFH support group is part of the Anime Therapy program, which is still under the works.
Q: What challenges came along the way as Anime for Humanity began to grow?
Ruby: One of the challenges Anime For Humanity faced when we first started was we weren't able to collaborate with other organizations because there wasn't much acceptance and support towards anime when discussing our mission and purpose.
Q: What did it take to get some of those who were skeptical onto your side? How did you convince them? I always felt anime has better acceptance in a place like California due to a large Asian population, Hollywood celebrities loving it, and a vibrant arts scene.
Ruby: At first, we couldn't convince them due to what they have been told about anime (ie. anime containing violent and sexual content) - things that didn't go with their mission and values.
But once we showed them how conventions were growing (especially the growth of Anime Expo) and how anime presents themes such as kindness, courage, and friendship. We also told them our story of how anime gave us a purpose to make a change in our community. That gave a spark to start the conversation and change their minds about anime. And yes! You’re right about anime being more accepted in California. As I mentioned earlier, there is more than one convention happening each month here in California, where people celebrate their fandom (comics, anime, cosplay, etc) Seeing cosplayers on the train/metro, cons popping up everywhere; that made it easy to promote Anime For Humanity!
Q: I liked how you involve gamers of all kinds to support Anime for Humanity via the "Play Anime Project." In your opinion, what is it about gamers that make them the most charitable people out there?
Ruby: Gamers are a great community. They are passionate and empathetic. Especially when gaming with a purpose comes to play. Everyone would love to do what they are passionate about and help others at the same time.
The "Play Anime Project" is about taking and promoting new and fun anime games to non-anime conventions and start the conversation about the stigma of mental health with attendees.
Q: I found out about a program you had to combat illiteracy called “Take a Manga, Return a Manga Project." Given that manga literacy and comprehension can translate well into reading non-visual material, how did the program work and which series were the most helpful for fans struggling to read?
Ruby: “Take a Manga, Return a Manga” is a unique and exciting program we launched when we first started Anime For Humanity. Here are the 3 reasons why:
1. We wanted to promote anime/manga to a community who aren't familiar with either. Because as mentioned earlier, reaching out to that community was/is still one of the challenges we are facing.
2. We all have a bunch of manga collecting dust in our shelves. We thought how can we put those manga into use and make a space where values like sharing, friendship, and community are built in the anime community.
When we took the AFH library to a couple of conventions, we would invite the attendees to build one in their community, college, high school, etc. to bring those values and show the rest what anime is about.
3. Like you mentioned in your question, manga literacy and comprehension can\translate well into reading non-visual materials.
We have a special box for people to donate manga that will be taken to kids in orphanages as a way to fight illiteracy. Since the donated books were random, we do pick and choose the appropriate ones that will be given to the kids while the rest go back to the library.
Q: I wanted to ask about your thoughts about the recent Flying Colors Foundation situation where the now-defunct organization asked a question regarding users' mental health. There was a good amount of criticism towards FCF about that particular question. What concerns did you have over how they presented it?
Ruby: We believe the question about mental health could have been worded better or not have been asked at all. The survey was to show Japanese animation studios what most Westerners think and want in an anime, and not about personal mental health issues which are generally unrelated to their survey.
Q: I love the #SavedbyAnime hashtag you started, but there are times, as you and I know, where anime consumption can be harmful to someone. We've seen toxic situations involving fandom. How do you tell someone who may be letting anime or anime fandom take over their daily life that it's a good time to step back?
Ruby: “Too much of a good thing is good for nothing.” Moderation is always the key. Over-consumption of anything such as food, exercise, entertainment, and also medicine can be harmful. Finding balance in our lives is so important, yet it is so hard.
This is one of the complex questions that we face at conventions most of the time, since we have encountered many people saying “If it wasn’t for over-consuming anime, I'm not sure if I would be here right now.”
We tend not to judge or give advice to people, but paradoxically, our first approach is to invite people to watch an anime that would speak to their situation in life (Naruto, Welcome to the N.H.K, etc. for example).
Then we follow up with them to ultimately help them understand what they are going through and hopefully get professional help. We believe all the struggles anime characters go through is to share with us their experiences that we can learn from and use it in our daily lives.
This is where we start the conversation and and educate people about the hashtag #SavedByAnime which is about how to use anime to find balance, growth and purpose in life.
Q: I noticed that there's an upcoming program called "Anime Therapy" on the front page of your site, which looks like screenings with some conversations afterwards, I believe? Can you talk more about it?
Ruby: We will keep you updated once it's ready for launch.
Q: Given that mental illness is becoming a popular topic in graphic novels and manga like “My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness” have hit mainstream success, what would like to see going forward in terms of anime covering portrayals of characters with mental illness?
Ruby: We would love to see more of the kinds of anime that cover characters with mental illness. For example, Welcome to the N.H.K depicted the struggles of a person who was suffering from mental illness. We also hope to see anime touch on the subject of getting professional help when in crisis.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
You can visit Anime For Humanity at http://www.animeforhumanity.org.
