With the current boom of popularity anime is experiencing worldwide, it’s easier than ever to get into the medium and be greeted by open, friendly fans who are eager to introduce more people to their favorite art form. However, not all of anime’s countless fanbases are equally welcoming. Anime is unfortunately infamous for the anime elitism phenomenon – a subgroup of fans who don’t tolerate nonconformity and view their taste in anime as indisputably superior.
Elitists are often fans of older series or those only interested in the avant-garde side of anime. They like to sour other people’s experiences with the medium by disregarding and critiquing everything that doesn’t align with their tastes. The subjectivity of art never crosses the minds of anime elitists, and they’re always eager to point out how their favorite series is better than whatever is popular at the moment. Even when associated with genuinely incredible shows, these elitist fanbases make the whole community look bad.
10 Legend Of The Galactic Heroes
The Legend of The Galactic Heroes fanbase is, by and large, a literal definition of elitism. Justly, a 1980s long-running military science fiction space opera is the perfect show to encourage elitist fans. The series’ age and obscure subject matter keep casual fans away from LOTGH.
Yet, those willing to dedicate the time and effort to this cult classic often leave ensured that nothing will ever compare to LOTGH in terms of quality and impact. Thankfully, most LOTGH openly recognize themselves as elitists and rarely try to push their favorite show on others, even if they deem all other anime inferior in secret.
9 Mobile Suit Gundam
The Mobile Suit Gundam franchise has been around since 1979, and during the peak of mecha popularity, liking the series was considered mainstream. By the time the mecha craze came to an end, Gundam had already produced a vast interconnected universe even dedicated fans struggled to follow. The less popular Gundam was getting, the more its fanbase adopted an elitist mentality, looking back on the mecha glory days with bitter nostalgia.
Recently, the public’s interest in the franchise was revived by the release of The Witch from Mercury. However, the old-school elitists scoffed at the newcomers instead of welcoming them, accusing them of their lack of knowledge about the series’ roots.
8 Monogatari Series
Nisio Isin’s Monogatari series is famous for its clever wordplay, remarkable deconstruction of harem tropes, and, unfortunately, an extremely entitled fanbase. It’s not unexpected for such an experimental franchise to gather an elitist cult following, especially considering the series’ countless merits. Yet, the show doesn’t take itself seriously most of the time, so it’s surprising that its fans are so pretentious.
Monogatari fans often treat the franchise as the peak of smart writing in anime, ignoring the show’s open self-indulgence and occasional silliness. And anyone who dares to critique Monogatari for its use of fanservice or obnoxious meta-humor is immediately accused of not “getting it.”
7 Hunter X Hunter
For one of Shonen Jump’s most popular series, Hunter x Hunter‘s fanbase is shockingly dismissive of every other title in the magazine and other shonen series in general. Hunter x Hunter fans are the designated elitists of the shonen community, all because of their unwavering and aggressive belief that every other series in the genre is inherently inferior to Hunter x Hunter.
With the rise in dark shonen popularity, it’s difficult to justify why HxH is considered so different and mature by its fans. However, the toxic part of the fanbase still holds on to the notion that their favorite shonen is the best thing the genre has ever seen, and they never hesitate to push their opinion on others.
6 Berserk
There’s a subgroup of seinen anime and manga fans who strongly believe that all series targeting younger demographics are inherently worse than the mature side of the medium. Such elitist seinen fans can be found in the fanbases of many series, from Monster to Goodnight Punpun. Yet, the darkest and most popular work in the seinen genre, Berserk, definitely has the largest number of elitist fans.
For seinen elitists, a show’s quality is decided by how likely it is to cover mature, controversial, or morally ambiguous themes. As such, they hatefully dismiss shonen fans as childish and unable to handle their superior anime tastes.
5 Fate Series
Most casual fans are familiar with the Fate franchise through such popular titles as Fate/stay night and Fate/Zero, both brilliant standalone anime enjoyed by many. However, diehard Fate fans are invested in the ginormous, convoluted Nasuverse – a series of interconnected multimedia works by Fate’s author Nasu Kinoko.
The franchise’s vastness and complexity led to the expected immersion of elitist fans, most of which only acknowledge those equally engrossed in the Nasuverse as them. Fate elitists treat anime-only fans with disrespect, seeing most adaptations of Nasu Kinoko’s work as unfaithful and incomplete. And while there’s some merit to getting into the Nasuverse games and light novels, no one should feel dismissed in the fandom due to not engaging with its every part.
4 Mushishi
Anime elitists naturally gravitate to relatively obscure and unorthodox anime series. So, they often cling to genres most find difficult to enjoy, such as iyashikei. Mushishi, iyashikei’s most popular work, is a soothing, meditative supernatural adventure one would never associate with something toxic or arrogant.
However, a significant part of the Mushishi fandom likes to criticize fans of more action-oriented anime for their lack of taste and dependency on easy, immediate engagement in entertainment. Getting into Mushishi’s slow-paced plots can be difficult for fans used to more dynamic storytelling. Yet, it doesn’t make one type of show superior to the other.
3 Serial Experiments Lain
Avant-garde anime is one corner of the community elitist fans claim as their own. And the more eccentric a series is, the more anime elitists enjoy comparing it to other shows they deem lowbrow. Serial Experiments Lain, a 1999 sci-fi anime many praise for its thematic exploration of identity and eerily accurate predictions about the social media age, is a show elitists like to push as an example of cleverness and sophistication in anime.
And while the series is definitely profound, enjoying something like Serial Experiments Lain doesn’t make one incapable of being entertained by a battle shonen or a lowkey slice-of-life flick.
2 Neon Genesis Evangelion
Released in 1995 and actively discussed to this day, Hideaki Anno’s Neon Genesis Evangelion is a series of countless controversies. The original Evangelion anime was a confusing deconstruction of mecha tropes with a convoluted psychological subtext, and many left that anime feeling disoriented and unsure about the show’s message.
Yet, just as many fans dedicated themselves to explaining the “true meaning” of Evangelion to anyone who would listen, growing alarmingly confident in their belief that understanding the series’ subjective and elusive meaning makes them superior to those who read the show differently.
1 Attack On Titan
Surprisingly, one of anime’s largest fandoms is also the most elitist. Attack on Titan fans, without a doubt, take the crown when it comes to toxic exclusionary behavior. For some fans, even a suggestion that there are better anime series than Attack on Titan gets taken as an invitation into a never-ending debate about the show’s merits.
AoT’s worldwide popularity also doesn’t help with the elitism issue, as many fans don’t let their limited experience with the medium stop them from proclaiming their favorite series the best. Infamous for treating other anime fans and even their beloved series’ creators poorly, AoT elitists don’t help the anime community’s reputation.