Why is Horror Anime so popular?

This article contains spoilers for the “Madoka Magica” series. It also discusses grooming and trafficking, and being treated differently based on having ADHD.

If you follow me anywhere or know me personally then you’ve probably gathered that I like darker anime and stories, such as Serial Experiments Lain and the Danganronpa series. Along with this, I’m pretty open about my mental health struggles, so in terms of stories that cover dark topics in a gruesome manner, I should be offput, but this isn’t the case. Instead, I feel a comfort and kinmanship with these stories.

One anime which I’ve been binging for the past week is the Puella Magi Madoka Magica series, which follows a group of girls who’ve made contracts with a small cat-like creature, Kyubey, in order to become magical girls. The titular character, Madoka, is faced with the choice to make the contract in order to make her friends happy but also with a dark haired girl, Homura, telling her not to. Your teen years are some of the most influential in your life, and even though its a fantastical-horror anime, its something that’s relatable. Madoka witnesses her best friend, Sayaka Miki, lose herself in her misery, as a boy she likes doesn’t reciprocate her feelings. During the ages of 14-16, emotions like heartbreak are turned up to 100, but when you also don’t have anyone to confide in, its painful. Homura, a girl who’s always turning back the time, is desperate to fufill the wish of a Madoka from another timeline. Madoka’s wish is to not make a contract with Kyubey, which Homura tries desperately to prevent in several different universes. The harder part about this is that she can’t confide in anyone, as they wouldn’t believe her.

Recently, some people have been speculating that the entire series is a metaphor of girls getting groomed and possibly trafficked. As if life isn’t hard enough when emotions are turned up to the eleventh degree, being manipulated into things for someone else’s sake without knowing is harder. As the anime progresses, Madoka and her peers slowly realize that Kyubey left out a lot of key details about the contract. If one is to make a wish with Kyubey, in exchange they have to fight against witches, but there’s fine print that many wouldn’t consider looking into. When a girl makes a wish, she becomes a magical girl, but her body is essentially “a shell,” and their soul is transferred to a small gem(called a soul gem). The soul gem also covers up the pain that one would feel from fighting such intense battles, and from a logical perspective this makes sense, but what makes it messed up is the fact that Kyubey never mentioned this. Sure, having powers that you’d never have before is fun, and sure you might have a cute outfit, but what happens when you don’t collect grief seeds? What happens when all you do is fight with the people around you? What happens when what you wish for went against you? Kyubey is speculated to represent groomers in this sense, which is a good description as he leaves out several important details when the girls make a contract to become a magical girl. Along with this, he gives them “gifts”, such as the Soul Gem, magical powers, and a wish.

Whether or not one can call Puella Madoka Magica a “denpa” title, it represents the experience of growing up pretty accurately, moreso, growing up in a heavily-controlled environment. Seeing her friends get into fights that she can’t break up, seeing Homura fight to keep her safe, and seeing all the grief that comes with being a magical girl is very much like my own highschool experience. In terms of my school-life, I bounced from different schools alot and struggled heavily with ADHD and socializing with my peers. During my first year of highschool, I transferred to a Catholic high school that was pretty strict on workloads and whatnot, and due to having undiagnosed ADHD a lot of my teachers treated me differently. They’d ask my parents to get me tested for learning disabilities, and would get annoyed when I asked for a few more minutes on a test. I had people who would try to help me, but instead made things for me worse. While this year wasn’t 100% bad(because there were some great teachers and great people I met), I struggled a lot academically and emotionally. During this time, one of my favorite past-times was reading the Danganronpa visual novels(on Youtube, of course.)

I would become attached to characters like Kokichi Ouma and Toko Fukawa, not just because my friends liked them, but also because in a sense I was like them. With Kokichi Ouma, I related to him being a goofball, and I wanted to have his arrogance, while with Toko, I related to her because I was socially awkward, anxious, and in my “not-like-other-girls” phase. Danganronpa has a special place in my heart because it was introduced to me during a time I was struggling significantly and didn’t know how to cope 100%, but also because a personal friend had gotten me into it.

My highschool years would become a bit weirder due to people I met, but a game I would enjoy consuming after I graduated was Needy Streamer Overload. The game follows Ame-chan, who streams as KAngel/Chouzetsu Saikawa Tenshi-chan/OMGkawaiiAngel, struggling to maintain mental stability whilst keeping up a persona of a cute-internet angel in order to make money and get by. Looking back on it, I’m definitely in a better place compared to where I was during highschool, but I still feel like I can relate to Ame because I used to get upset in a somewhat similar manner. I didn’t have moodswings back to back to back, but I would spiral a lot and needed attention, otherwise I would feel and fear that I did something wrong.

I’m definitely grateful to be in a better place today than where I was in highschool, but I still tend to like a lot of darker anime. For one, it’s entertaining, the stories that are told can be interpreted in all sorts of different ways, and also it gives almost every character within a bit of perspective. When I interviewed my friends about why they took a liking to East Asian horror, one of them noted that it gives multiple different perspectives, rather than just one, which gives more chances for the viewer to relate.

My conclusion is- we tend to like horror anime because there’s a sense of kinmanship to be felt and recognized