A Spanish anime childhood: early perception of anime in Spain by mainstream audiences

This article presents a qualitative reception study combining photo elicitation and narrative inquiry, where three generations of Spanish adults are asked to share their memories of watching anime in their childhood. Their nostalgic life stories are analyzed to identify a series of topics that point to different kinds of appropriation and identity work. We propose the concept of the "anime dream gaze" to describe the fascination that anime awoke in their audiences, and contrast it to an adult censoring voice that is now critical of the affective attachments of the past.