Live, from Fidonet:Anime and Animenet: Ganalef!
Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2012 6:34 pm
After spending my entire K-12 years largely isolated from pop culture as a whole (moved a lot, religious communities that excluded me, no TV or electronics) I found going to community college super refreshing. I instantly fell in love with video games and shortly afterwards discovered an interesting Japanese storyline to a 2d fighting game in a magazine. I'll share the story as I remember it:
This young male hero fell in a well that was haunted by the ghost of a young girl who drowned there once. Now, whenever he gets wet her spirit possesses him for a while.
This sounded like a gorgeous gothic story (and I'd still like to read it; I may, eventually, be forced to write it.) The tiny pictures that accompanied this sidebar-review of the game were also captivating, but I'll admit I've always been a bit captivated by the art style.
My next interaction with Anime-style art was porn, or more specifically with some graphics that had been ripped from an erotic Japanese game (I remember them vividly) that I found on a local BBS. I didn't know what they were, but I knew they went to an interesting story, and although I had access to some more conventional porn I found these pictures vastly more compelling as well as interesting.
I didn't know what the words Anime or Manga were at this point (I saw a pinup folder on AOL at the time and thought they must be the names of girls; I assumed that "anime" rhymed with "a lime" and misread "manga" as "marga.")
I learned shortly afterwards when I surfed to a local Anime BBS, saw the pictures, and started reading the scripts and synopses (scripts that were used for fansubbing, and synopses for anime that had not been fansubbed yet.) I loved the fanfics, too, and I saw the love that had been put both into making these scripts, synopses, works of art, fanfics, and even the BBS and forums, but also the love that was put into the original product. Also, I saw what I'd never really seen in nearly any American production; lovely stories with interesting characters that developed through stories that had a beginning, middle, and end.
I wasn't picky, at the time. I'd watch anything I could rent at Blockbuster that wasn't dubbed. Nowadays, I don't know if I'd be able to find the time for Outlanders (I had to look up the title using the lyrics of the song) but back then I not only watched it twice, I also placed a tape deck near the TV's speakers and added the songs from the show to my mix tape. I was working a McJob at the lowest end of the totem pole AND going through junior college, but still managed to pick up some blank VHS to tape trade with, went to the Anime BBS's "Get Together" nights (the highlights of my month, always), and hung out with my distant friends from the forums (Hi Greg!) as often as I could get the car. My first commercial VHS purchase was the 5-tape OVA set for KOR, and my Manga collection was small but read to shreds (I still have some of the Battle Angel from then.)
I remember once, as I walked to class, thinking how cool it was that Sailor Moon was going to come to US Television and how annoying it was that I'd have to wait almost two years to see it. Wow. Two years later, I had the bedsheets on my mattress (in a tiny spot in the apartment I shared with three other roommates.) I had a lovely picture of Ayukawa Madoka (Mai Waifu) in a frame, a Nausicaa poster, five volumes of Ranma, two of UY, four of Nausicaa, and the full set of Psychic Girl Mai (all of these were manga) and I would listen to seiyuu and soundtrack tapes I'd traded with people by mail from places like Texas and Canada. I was a strange alien creature to many, but I was happy in my way.
I eventually got a girlfriend. I'd talked to her via email. She thought the fact that I liked Japanese cartoons (I was evangelical, and often obnoxiously so, but not to her. ..though I wore my Lum T-shirt without even suspecting that I maybe ought to be embarrassed at having a bikini girl on my shirt) was as cool as any other niche interest in foreign art...right up until we became an 'item', when she decided that every example she saw (including fricking Nausicaa) was sexist and exploitative. I was young. I put my fantasy and otaku habits aside and eventually gave the stuff away to another Otaku.
...and, years later and after the eventual and unavoidable breakup, I only had a couple graphic novels (Alita) and a handful of fansubbed VHS left (Windaria (I also had and admit to liking the Macekered dub; they both have their own appeal), and it took a while for me to recover my life and, eventually, my collection.
I got to spend a while living in Japan, and while I found it difficult to satisfy otaku appetites there (I can buy toys, yes, but I still need subtitles on my movies) I found my more basic appetites well suited for the place; I miss the food every day and seriously considered, once, founding an izakaya in California, Hawaii, or some other place with a more Japanophilic bent.
Now? I stay closeted at work. It's not always wise to give your employers or cow-orkers too much 'intel' into the ways you're weird until you can trust them (whether they use the word 'weeaboo' or not, some people are just inclined to be tiresomely rude), and even largely benign normaltards are unworthy of entrance into my private life until they've passed a rigorous screening process (though I've got a few signs up for the savvy; an SOS-dan pin, a Laputa-stone, and a couple of go stones adorn my work bag.) I'm well over thirty, spend far too much time on unpaid overtime in order to demonstrate loyalty to the company, and don't get nearly enough time to catch up on all the series and manga (I wonder if there's another chapter or two of Genshiken out? Or Jellyfish Princess? Or Kojika?) that I want to. ..but I have fun anyway.
My beloved of ten years (er, we've been together for ten years. She's not a minor) is also otaku, and she integrates those of my videos that she likes into her shelves, passes manga to me if she thinks I'll like it, and occasionally condescends to try out something I recommend to her (some day I'll get her to watch Madoka Majika.) I've got my own library/room decorated as an Ayukawa shrine (with random figurines on the shelves too--but I try to limit the stuff I own; my possessions are starting to own me as it is) and I make regular trips to the not-so-local Japanese foods store to get some of the foods I fell in love with.
I'm out of steam.
I heard about this forum from Greg. I don't spend a lot of time on forums (my time is limited) but the idea of interacting with, er, gentlefolk who were otaku before it was mainstream is interesting from an admittedly elitist viewpoint, and I'm even more interested in interacting with people who have an adult's perspective on things and are also otaku.
I read a few blogs, but Ogiue Maniax is my favorite.
This young male hero fell in a well that was haunted by the ghost of a young girl who drowned there once. Now, whenever he gets wet her spirit possesses him for a while.
This sounded like a gorgeous gothic story (and I'd still like to read it; I may, eventually, be forced to write it.) The tiny pictures that accompanied this sidebar-review of the game were also captivating, but I'll admit I've always been a bit captivated by the art style.
My next interaction with Anime-style art was porn, or more specifically with some graphics that had been ripped from an erotic Japanese game (I remember them vividly) that I found on a local BBS. I didn't know what they were, but I knew they went to an interesting story, and although I had access to some more conventional porn I found these pictures vastly more compelling as well as interesting.
I didn't know what the words Anime or Manga were at this point (I saw a pinup folder on AOL at the time and thought they must be the names of girls; I assumed that "anime" rhymed with "a lime" and misread "manga" as "marga.")
I learned shortly afterwards when I surfed to a local Anime BBS, saw the pictures, and started reading the scripts and synopses (scripts that were used for fansubbing, and synopses for anime that had not been fansubbed yet.) I loved the fanfics, too, and I saw the love that had been put both into making these scripts, synopses, works of art, fanfics, and even the BBS and forums, but also the love that was put into the original product. Also, I saw what I'd never really seen in nearly any American production; lovely stories with interesting characters that developed through stories that had a beginning, middle, and end.
I wasn't picky, at the time. I'd watch anything I could rent at Blockbuster that wasn't dubbed. Nowadays, I don't know if I'd be able to find the time for Outlanders (I had to look up the title using the lyrics of the song) but back then I not only watched it twice, I also placed a tape deck near the TV's speakers and added the songs from the show to my mix tape. I was working a McJob at the lowest end of the totem pole AND going through junior college, but still managed to pick up some blank VHS to tape trade with, went to the Anime BBS's "Get Together" nights (the highlights of my month, always), and hung out with my distant friends from the forums (Hi Greg!) as often as I could get the car. My first commercial VHS purchase was the 5-tape OVA set for KOR, and my Manga collection was small but read to shreds (I still have some of the Battle Angel from then.)
I remember once, as I walked to class, thinking how cool it was that Sailor Moon was going to come to US Television and how annoying it was that I'd have to wait almost two years to see it. Wow. Two years later, I had the bedsheets on my mattress (in a tiny spot in the apartment I shared with three other roommates.) I had a lovely picture of Ayukawa Madoka (Mai Waifu) in a frame, a Nausicaa poster, five volumes of Ranma, two of UY, four of Nausicaa, and the full set of Psychic Girl Mai (all of these were manga) and I would listen to seiyuu and soundtrack tapes I'd traded with people by mail from places like Texas and Canada. I was a strange alien creature to many, but I was happy in my way.
I eventually got a girlfriend. I'd talked to her via email. She thought the fact that I liked Japanese cartoons (I was evangelical, and often obnoxiously so, but not to her. ..though I wore my Lum T-shirt without even suspecting that I maybe ought to be embarrassed at having a bikini girl on my shirt) was as cool as any other niche interest in foreign art...right up until we became an 'item', when she decided that every example she saw (including fricking Nausicaa) was sexist and exploitative. I was young. I put my fantasy and otaku habits aside and eventually gave the stuff away to another Otaku.
...and, years later and after the eventual and unavoidable breakup, I only had a couple graphic novels (Alita) and a handful of fansubbed VHS left (Windaria (I also had and admit to liking the Macekered dub; they both have their own appeal), and it took a while for me to recover my life and, eventually, my collection.
I got to spend a while living in Japan, and while I found it difficult to satisfy otaku appetites there (I can buy toys, yes, but I still need subtitles on my movies) I found my more basic appetites well suited for the place; I miss the food every day and seriously considered, once, founding an izakaya in California, Hawaii, or some other place with a more Japanophilic bent.
Now? I stay closeted at work. It's not always wise to give your employers or cow-orkers too much 'intel' into the ways you're weird until you can trust them (whether they use the word 'weeaboo' or not, some people are just inclined to be tiresomely rude), and even largely benign normaltards are unworthy of entrance into my private life until they've passed a rigorous screening process (though I've got a few signs up for the savvy; an SOS-dan pin, a Laputa-stone, and a couple of go stones adorn my work bag.) I'm well over thirty, spend far too much time on unpaid overtime in order to demonstrate loyalty to the company, and don't get nearly enough time to catch up on all the series and manga (I wonder if there's another chapter or two of Genshiken out? Or Jellyfish Princess? Or Kojika?) that I want to. ..but I have fun anyway.
My beloved of ten years (er, we've been together for ten years. She's not a minor) is also otaku, and she integrates those of my videos that she likes into her shelves, passes manga to me if she thinks I'll like it, and occasionally condescends to try out something I recommend to her (some day I'll get her to watch Madoka Majika.) I've got my own library/room decorated as an Ayukawa shrine (with random figurines on the shelves too--but I try to limit the stuff I own; my possessions are starting to own me as it is) and I make regular trips to the not-so-local Japanese foods store to get some of the foods I fell in love with.
I'm out of steam.
I heard about this forum from Greg. I don't spend a lot of time on forums (my time is limited) but the idea of interacting with, er, gentlefolk who were otaku before it was mainstream is interesting from an admittedly elitist viewpoint, and I'm even more interested in interacting with people who have an adult's perspective on things and are also otaku.
I read a few blogs, but Ogiue Maniax is my favorite.
And of course I loved reading through your post as well. 
Got any pictures?