Ramadan is a month when muslims are advised to improve their praying intensity. Mosques are more crowded than usual, people recites the Holy book more frequently. But even in the month full of praying atmosphere, entertainment is still essential for a human being, including when it comes to watching anime and playing video games. But a question may have crossed our minds: are there any changes in the anime fans’ habits of watching anime and playing games, or is it still like the other days?
In 2018, KAORI Nusantara did a small survey to know how Ramadan affects these habits through an online questionnaire. The total number of respondents was 319 people, and their identities were kept confidential. In the questionnaire, respondents were asked about their habits of watching anime and playing games during Ramadan. Respondents only answered some of the questions that were appropriate for their conditions.
A total of 296 respondents or 93% said that they continue to watch anime during Ramadan. Only 23 respondents or 7% said that they do not watch anime during Ramadan. This suggests that Ramadan does not really affect consumption of entertainment that much.
Then what do respondents do besides watching anime? The results obtained were not so surprising: playing mobile games, playing computer games, and reading manga became the top choices of entertainment. Mobile games are certainly more in favor considering that cellphones are more practical to use and most mobile games are not too complicated compared to computer games. We will discuss the mobile game more deeply in the next question.
Surprisingly enough, 12% of respondents or 37 people chose to pray. Praying becomes an ‘entertainment’ is favored considering in Ramadan there is a tendency to increase praying activities compared to other months, whether it is due to a conducive environment or indeed it has become the habit of some people. Anime fans who like to pray may also have something to do with the phenomenon of pious weebs which increasingly becomes more visible.
While the “Others” option contains several activities such as resting, working, drawing, music, and sports. There were also respondents who wrote “none”, indicating that they entertain themselves just by watching anime.
Ramadan does make some changes to the time for a muslim’s daily schedules. force us to change our daily habits, at least those related to eating activities. Most Muslims will wake up early to eat suhoor (eating before the break of dawn) or spend more time at night for tarawih (additional nighttime prayers, usually done in mass). Based on the graph above, we will understand that the time after tarawih prayer is the most voted choice for watching anime. This is because there are rarely people who are still active at this time.
The next preferrable time is during the day after Zuhr (noon prayer) followed by the time before breaking the fast. After Zuhr is, for some people who are not working or attending school, more suitable as a time to watch anime than the time before breaking the fast. Later in the afternoon, people will mostly be preoccupied with preparing food for breaking the fast or going out with family or with friends.
The time during suhoor and after the morning prayer are less favored because most people are still sleepy at that time. Likewise, the time after Maghrib (evening prayer) and during the tarawih prayer, where most muslims will be preoccupied with breaking the fast and praying at these two times, are less favored too.
Now, let’s see how respondents think about changing the duration of watching anime in Ramadan. Unexpectedly, most of the respondents, as many as 61%, admitted that there was no change in the length of time for watching anime during Ramadan compared to other months. As many as 27% of respondents said their time was reduced, while the rest who claimed to watch them more were a minority.
The next question is whether anime is a disruption for someone to carry out praying activities. The majority of respondents, as many as 81%, admitted that watching anime did not interfere with their praying activities. The remaining 19% claimed that anime tends to inhibit their praying activities.
The previous question arises because of the stereotype that has grown in the community regarding sexualized contents in anime. The fact is that genres like this do exist, whether they are merely risque (we’ll refer to this as ecchi for convenience) or those that are outright pornographic (hentai) anime. Putting aside the matter of viewing preferences in other months, the chart above shows that most respondents chose not to watch ecchi or hentai anime during Ramadan. While about 29% of respondents remained steadfast to watch ecchi or hentai anime.
