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A week and a half ago, I asked my fellow otaku to answer a simple survey so that I could attempt to do an anime-themed version of the classic game show Family Feud and 149 of you answered the call. After playing it in my club last night I can finally reveal the results to the general public. This post is divided into 10 main sections plus 1 more for other thoughts. Each of the 10 main sections start with the question followed by the number of total responses and the top 7 or 8 responses in block quotes. My thoughts and other interesting responses that did not meet the top 7 or 8 threshold are presented afterward. All numbers are shown as raw data without the normalization we applied for scoring. Responses in bold were guessed correctly while those marked by an asterisk (*) were removed for technical reasons which will be discussed in the other thoughts section. One thing to keep in mind is that many of the questions were designed to test two things: What people would answer and how people would interpret the questions. With that said, let’s take a look at the results!
1 ) Name a long-running shounen anime that ended with a conclusion.
Total Responses: 144
- Fullmetal Alchemist – 33
- Dragon Ball – 21
- Yu Yu Hakusho – 14
- Inuyasha – 13
- Rurouni Kenshin – 7
- None. Shounen don’t end – 6
- Katekyo Hitman Reborn! – 4
Apparently many of those taking the survey had a hard time trying to answer this question which surprised me since I thought it was kind of easy. Dragon Ball I thought was the obvious choice considering how famous it is and how much of an influence it has had on virtually every shounen action series that came afterward. Also it ended several years ago. There were also a decent number of people who don’t believe long shounen series end and I couldn’t ignore that so it made its way to number 6. There were not too many surprise answers that didn’t make the threshold. The only notable ones were a few cases of non-shounen series being listed such as K-ON! and a few series that have yet to end like Bleach.
2 ) Which series are you looking forward to/enjoying the most this season (Spring 2011)?
Total Responses: 142
- Hanasaku Iroha – 12
- Nichijou – 9
- Kaiji 2 – 9
- Gintama’ – 9
- C – 8
- Stein’s gate – 8
- Deadman Wonderland – 7
- Maria Holic Alive – 6
I’m glad to see see Hanasaku Iroha at the top of the list since I love it. There were responses for most of the new series and it was fairly evenly distributed. There were a few answers in which people named series that are still currently airing such as Gosick and shows from American television like Community. I found those responses quite clever since the question never specified new series or that they had to be anime.
3 ) What is the most important trait for a mecha pilot?
Total Responses: 145
- Courage/Hard Work and Guts – 20
- Talent/Skill – 13
- Determination – 12
- Intelligence – 11
- Looks/Style – 7
- Badass/GAR – 7
- Hotblood – 7
In retrospect I realize I didn’t group some of the traits together in the best way possible but it’s too late now. There were some good responses that just barely fell short of the cutoff mark such as age, having a mecha, having special powers and angst. Some funny answers included libido, being bisexual, stupidity, having/being a pretty loli and Gainax. My personal favorite though was a shout out to Macross Frontier in the form of “the ability to portray a woman in theater.”
4 ) Name a good anime to suggest for a newcomer to watch.
Total Responses: 146
- Cowboy Bebop – 18
- *Death Note – 15
- Fullmetal Alchemist – 11
- Neon Genesis Evangelion – 5
- Code Geass – 5
- *Gurren Lagann – 5
- *Baccano – 5
This question came courtesy of Alex Ninamori. This had the second highest spread of diverse answers suggesting that anime fans have pretty different ideas of what is a good gateway anime. Although the top answers weren’t too surprising, it was in fact surprising that some notable series failed to garner enough votes to break the top 7. Haruhi only got 3 votes and was beat out by Boku no Pico and Ghost in the Shell with 4 each. I’m not even kidding about Boku no Pico either. Miyazaki only got 2 votes total from Spirited Away and Totoro together which I’m guessing is because people assume that others will just watch Ghibli films by default or that people in general were concentrating on TV shows. If pooled together the Key series could have broken the top 7 easily but too many votes were split between Angel Beats!, Kanon, CLANNAD and such.
5 ) Name an anime you would hate for your parents to know or think you watch.
Total Responses: 142
- Boku no Pico – 7
- Seikon no Qwaser – 6
- Strike Witches – 6
- Sailor Moon – 6
- Kodomo no Jikan – 5
- Kiss x Sis – 5
- Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai – 4
- Yosuga no Sora – 4
This question had by far the most diverse set of answers which is why all the top responses have such low totals. I laughed at Sailor Moon being at number 4 which I can only surmise is due to young males being embarrassed about watching a girl show. Koe de Oshigoto had too few votes to tie for 7th place. There were plenty of H anime responses besides Boku no Pico such as Urotsukidouji, Sensitive Pornograph, Bible Black, Night Shift Nurses and Uchuu Kaizoku Sara as well as fanservice responses like Freezing and Green Green. A few seemingly random series like Legend of the Galactic Heroes and Kimi ni Todoke also made guest appearances. The most interesting response I felt however was Maria-sama ga Miteru with the responder citing religious reasons which I can understand.
6 ) What do otaku spend the most money on?
Total Responses: 144
- Figures/Model Kits – 63
- Anime DVD/BD – 25
- Merchandise/Collectibles – 14
- Manga – 12
- Living Expenses – 5
- Dakimakura – 4
- Hentai/Porn – 3
- Cosplay – 3
The only tricky part about this question was top response number 3. Lots of people gave this very vague response which made it both impossible to dismiss as well as impossible to guess during the actual game. Other than that though it was fairly straightforward and had the second lowest number of unique responses though that didn’t mean there were no wacky ones. One person said girlfriends which is pretty normal but another two think otaku spend money on lolis. I’m not even going to think about what that means. Response number 5 is also noteworthy since the question never specified that it had to be on anime-related spending.
7 ) Name a magical girl (mahou shoujo) series that aired in the last few years.
Total Responses: 145
- Mahou Shoujo Madoka★Magica – 63
- Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha – 23
- Precure – 17
- Cardcaptor Sakura – 8
- Shugo Chara – 8
- Tokyo Mew Mew – 3
- Kamichama Karin – 2
- Uta Kata – 2
This question comes courtesy of Picup. The vagueness in this question comes from how people interpret “the last few years.” Madoka is no surprise given its popularity and the fact that it is still airing. The same can be said about Precure and Nanoha since they both always have new material coming out. There were a decent number of people who liked to think a bit further back in time giving us the next most popular responses. There were some other cool things that got single responses such as Princess Tutu, Mermaid Melody and Kaitou Tenshi Twin Angel (which is getting a TV series this year). The only really oddball response was Hourou Musuko which makes me go wow when I realize the troll logic behind it.
8 ) Which trait instantly singles someone out as an otaku?
Total Responses: 140
- Fangirl/Fanboy Enthusiasm and Obsession – 21
- Lots of Merchandise – 20
- Knowledge/Recognition Skills – 14
- *Weaboo Japanese – 11
- Wears Anime Attire – 11
- Shut-in/Antisocial – 8
- Cosplay – 7
- Geeky/Nerdy-looking – 7
This question doesn’t give any indication of it having to be a readily visible trait which is why my anime club did fairly badly on this one. Some really good responses slipped past the top 8 such as public consumption of anime/manga, real Japanese skill (with an emphasis on fluency), and listening to anime music. Some hilarious responses included good/bad hygiene, glasses, neckbeards, misogyny, loli infatuation, forever alone, inflatable dolls and taking anime surveys.
9 ) What is the most important aspect of a good cosplay?
Total Responses: 143
- Costume Quality – 30
- Proper Body Type – 27
- Cosplayer Resembles/Looks Similar to Character – 26
- Acting in-character – 21
- Accuracy – 19
- Hair/Wig – 9
- Believable – 3
- Recognizable – 2
This was probably the most straightforward question and had the least number of unique responses. It was interesting reading some of the more detailed responses especially the craftsmanship vs accuracy ones. Some prefer quality even if it is not perfectly true to the original design while others like high fidelity even if the build quality is not as great. Both definitely have their merits. A couple of people also think being Asian or having Photoshop skills are important.
10 ) Name a popular seiyuu.
Total Responses: 133
- Hanazawa Kana – 16
- Hirano Aya – 13
- Kugimiya Rie – 12
- Mizuki Nana – 11
- Wakamoto Norio – 10
- Fukuyama Jun – 8
- Noto Mamiko – 5
This last question comes courtesy of Suraki and was designed to test a more hardcore aspect of anime fandom. I was interested to see how people would interpret seiyuu whether it be in loan word form for “Japanese voice actors/actresses” or in the original sense for any kind of voice actor/actress. By far most people listed Japanese personalities with just a few naming some English voice over artists (only 4 votes in fact). Though not appearing in the top 7, Horie Yui, Paku Romi, Ono Daiuke and Hayashibara Megumi made decent showings all tying for 8th place. It’s a little sad but some of my other favorite seiyuu made weak or nonexistent appearances.
Other Thoughts
For a “beta test” this game went fairly well. There were definitely kinks here and there but most of them were technical. The template we used to make the actual game was designed for PowerPoint and though it looked nice had it’s own issues. Without going into too much detail, it had a navigation issue which ultimately caused some of our answers to show up prematurely which is why we had to dismiss a few of them as denoted by the asterisks above. Also the template lacked an area to display the question which in hindsight is kind of dumb but we were pressed for time and couldn’t add it last minute. Also the percentile normalization scheme I suggested wasn’t necessarily the best for a few of the questions but we can fix that next time. We also had two very unevenly distributed teams which you can see if you look at the results. I believe there was a complaint or two about where we polled but I honestly think this survey was pretty representative of the otaku populace as a whole especially with such a large sample size. Also, not my problem if you don’t watch anime.
I’ll definitely want to try this again next year if possible. Though it was quite exhausting to count and sort all of the 1424 responses, the result was fun and worth it. This time I did some general response survey questions but next time it would be great to do some more specialized inquiries that will result in more laughs and maybe less varied responses. I hope you all enjoyed reading these results and will be willing to help me once again next time. If you have any suggestions for future poll questions or comments in general, feel free to leave them here.
