"Let?" That's certainly an... "odd" way of putting it. Anyway, instead of answering your narrow question about politics and religion, I'm going to open it to beliefs/identity as a whole. Politics and religion seem to be a rather arbitrary line by which to divide the topic. It's like asking if your opinion of rap influences your enjoyment of anime, rather than all of your opinions on music.
Edit: Not trying to give you a hard time or anything, just explaining why I'm answering a slightly different question than the one you're asking.
In answer to the broader question: If a work of fiction (anime or otherwise) insults me, it lessens my enjoyment of said work of fiction. It doesn't matter if it's targeting my race, my nation, my profession, my beliefs (religious or otherwise,) or anything else: it's going to negatively impact my view of the work and the author. It's just human nature to respond negatively to insults in some form or another, even if the reaction is fleeting or barely perceptible. Can I look past such things and still enjoy the rest of the work of fiction? Sure. I've got thick enough skin that I shrug a lot of the lesser stuff off, but it's not totally without effect.
To clarify, I'm not talking about anime/fiction that simply advances a set of beliefs I disagree with: I'm talking about ones that attack my own beliefs/etc. When it comes to fiction that advances a set of beliefs I disagree with, it depends on the beliefs in question. If I find the advocated viewpoint highly reprehensible (i.e. if a hypothetical work were to advocate some sort of genocide,) then I get irritated, which negatively impacts my experience. If I find the beliefs annoying (i.e. the "killing in self-defense is murder" nonsense I see pop up from time to time,) I get... well, annoyed.
Now, this is not to say I don't respect the author's right to include whatever he/she wants in his/her work. Make whatever the heck you want, just be aware that I'm not necessarily going to applaud you for it.
So, in summary, my identity, beliefs, and so forth impact my enjoyment of anime. I can't imagine anyone (short of a complete nihilist, perhaps) being able to detach themselves from their identities enough to evaluate something without that sort of baggage. I mean, come on, I'm fairly certain that some of you would get pretty irritated if, for example, an otherwise-amazing anime seriously advanced the belief that the ecchi genre needed to be purged from existence.
Just my two cents. Take them seriously, discard them as the ravings of a brainless fool, or pick something in-between: your choice.
Edited for slight clarification. |