Saudi Viewers’ Perceptions of Attack on Titan Japanese Animation Online Series

This quantitative study examines Saudi viewers’ perceptions of the Japanese anime Attack on Titan. Data collection was undertaken by means of an online survey of 346 viewers of the animation, aged between fourteen and thirty-eight. The results indicated that the most popular characters were Levi, Eren, and Mikasa, with the least liked being the Armorer Titan, the Female Titan, Sasha, and Christa. The research found that the participants were attracted to scenes including fights between human and Titans, flying blood, and dialogue. The viewers expressed an interest in the unique scenario of the series, as well as each character’s tone of voice and facial expression. Finally, the hypothesis testing (Ho) of viewers’ tendency to like characters based on gender was accepted as confirmed by the 2-tail test (.042), i.e. the participants tended to prefer male characters. This study recommends that future research applies content analysis to provide further insights into the reasons behind the identified preference for male characters.