Between Waifu and Besto Friendo
Parasocial Relationships and Cowboy Bebop, Attack on Titan, and Death Note Fans
Brianey Torres, Eastern Florida State College
(This research has been accepted as a paper presentation to the 2022 PCA/ACA national conference)
The irruption of Cowboy Bebop, Attack on Titan, and Death Note has captivated western pop culture animation fans, allowing a space for fan’s parasocial interactions with the characters and settings. The term parasocial interactions, originally coined by sociologists Donald Horton and R. Richard Wohl, describes one-sided relationships, giving the sense of friendship or a relationship without maintaining the responsibility of interaction. Eastern and western audiences have comparatively different parasocial relationships with anime, varying in intensity of relationship types. Anecdotal stories on social media reveal the differences in the intensity of these parasocial relationships between eastern and western audiences. Complicating any understanding of parasocial relationships is the negative perception of anime fans’ parasocial interactions as sensationalized sexualization and fetishization of anime characters. Depending on the intensity of the parasocial relationship between the fan and the anime, the relationship, as other research suggests, may be beneficial to each anime fan. According to Gözde Aytulun and Ayda Büyükşahin Sunal, several studies have found that fans’ parasocial interactions gain them a satisfaction they may lack in interpersonal relationships, such as deriving support, motivation, or inspiration that they may lack in their real-world relationships.