So I haven’t written anything here in a while and, really,
who cares because few people read it and it’s just a writing exercise for me
right now. I’m fine with that, because I enjoy writing. But, that said, I miss
writing about anime. It’s just that I don’t feel knowledgeable enough about any
particular subject, besides just reviewing what I watch, to write with any sort
of regularity. I originally promised, or rather pledged to myself, one column a
week. Well, that was all fine and dandy when I was first starting and had all
these ideas in my head, but now I’m just running out of things to talk about
and that kind of saddens me. But whatever, that’s not what I’m here to talk
about.
What I’m here to talk about now is how I got into anime. I
feel this is an important subject to breach upon because so many new anime fans
could come now that Toonami is back
on Cartoon Network, albeit on a late night slot where adult swim used to be.
But hey, it’s apparently pulling in more viewers than adult swim used to, so
there’s that. And #SoulEater has been trending on twitter, worldwide, for the
past two weeks. So that’s cool too.
But my story doesn’t start recently. It wasn’t as far back
as fansubbed VHS tapes or even no subs tapes with a guy standing up front
explaining what’s happening. No, I was born in 1990 and, as an impressionable
fourth grader, or thereabouts, I was introduced to a few very important shows
to anime in the US. Those titles were Dragonball
Z, Pokémon, and Digimon. These three shows nearly molded
my consumption habits as a child (alongside other staples like Power Rangers and Ed, Edd n Eddy).
Those shows were part of the initial anime boom in the US,
and molded a great many now-anime fans into the anime fans that they are. But
for me, they were really cool cartoons with really cool visuals. Something
anime does well, and perhaps better than any other medium, is the visuals. You
have great stories in Pixar and Disney films, but you rarely get something so
striking as My Neighbor Totoro or Paprika. That’s where anime shines and
it captured the minds of hundreds of thousands of kids in the mid- and late ’90s.
I was no exception. I remember watching Dragonball
Z religiously as it came out, week to week. I still remember exactly where
I sat with my best friend from elementary school, glued to the tube watching Dragonball Z’s Namek arc transpire in
front of us. While I wouldn’t put Z
into my top anything of shows I’ve seen, it most definitely is the one that
influenced me the most.
Now, there was a good three or four year period where I
watched cartoons on TV, not knowing at the time that they were anime, and just
thought they were cool. I watched YuYu
Hakusho and Kiki’s Delivery Service
and several other titles that I can’t even remember (there were so many at the
time! Like Sailor Moon, the ill-fated
Cardcaptors, Gundam Wing, Hamtaro, and
god so many). But when I entered junior high, I just kind of stopped watching
anime. It had mostly gone off TV by that point (well, that’s a lie, but it was
much less prevalent—at least it was in terms of my then-consumption habits). By
that time, I was sucking at Super Smash
Bros and playing the also ill-fated Lord
of the Rings: The Return of the King game with my new junior high friends
(said best friend from elementary school had by then moved away). This was at a
time that I hadn’t even seen Lord of the
Rings, except the first film…during which I fell asleep during the REALLY
SLOW visiting elf land place (I’m poor with Lord
of the Rings names/settings/etc.).
Anyway, junior high was done in two years and I went off to
high school. But my high school years were, like so many others, spent trying
to learn guitar and starting yet another ill-fated band (that is to say that it
is both the third ill-fated thing in this column AND ill-fated as an idea in
general). The problem was I sucked at guitar and was the leader, which I was
poor at at the time. I’m better at being a leader (though still poor compared
to those natural leader-types), but still pretty bad at guitar. But I digress!
My junior year in high school was around the time that I
said to myself, “Man, remember that one show where that guy shot a gun from his
finger.” Me being awful at sentence structure probably actually said that. But
I was remembering with fond memories YuYu
Hakusho. Being the awful person I was at the time, I downloaded YuYu Hakusho in its entirety and have
watched it probably six or seven times since then. And that’s a 112 episode
show.
But that was really the beginning to my re-immersion into anime.
Since then, which was around 2006, 2007 or so, I’ve watched 328 anime according
to my ANN list (that’s 197 TV series, 28 OVA, 72 movies, and 16 specials
according to my MAL list; which is also 6,395 episodes and 108.51 days of
anime). I believe I can safely say that I am an anime fan.
I, like oh so many others born around 1990, was brought up
on those old shonen shows that were on after school. I’ve since grown out of
that phase (no I haven’t; I still love One
Piece). But my anime fandom will live ever strong into my adulthood. It’s
something I’ll pass on to my children, and hopefully they won’t hate me for it.
