The anime and manga fandom is a worldwide community of fans of anime and manga. Anime includes animated series, films and videos, while manga includes manga, graphic novels , drawings, and related artworks. The anime and manga fandom traces back to the s and has an international reach. Otaku is a Japanese term for people with obsessive interests, including anime or manga.
In the anime Macross , first aired in , the term was used by Lynn Minmay as an honorific term. Otaku can be seen as being similar to the English terms geek or nerd. However, the term started to be used by anime and manga fans themselves again starting in the s, in a more general and positive way, and today it is often used by those outside of the fandom to refer to fans of anime or manga.
Anime and manga fandom traces back to at least the s when fans of the series Space Battleship Yamato banded together to get it back on the air after it stopped airing on Japanese television. The fan community in the English-speaking world began in the s and steadily grew. It was the first exposure of Filipinos to Japanese animation. Voltes V soon became very popular between children all around the Philippines which led to the sudden popularity of other anime series related to the Super Robot genre in the Philippines.
It was soon banned in by then president Ferdinand Marcos , four episodes before the end of the series, along with the other anime series airing at the time, supposedly for its violence and warlike themes.
This, however, did not hinder the Filipinos' growing love of anime, leading to the large popularity of anime and manga throughout the Philippines.
