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#24: Sarah

Age: 36

Location: Ireland

When did you discover anime? Share as much as you remember. As a little girl, I watched loads of shows. I knew they were Japanese cartoons, but they were all dubbed in French. I used to browse the aisles of FNAC whenever I went back to France. In 2012, after lots of recent chats about Rose of Versailles I looked it up online, only to discover I could watch it again! And down the rabbit hole I fell…

So you bought it in France and watched it dubbed in French? Yes, I lived in France from age two to 17.  I used to watch anime on kids TV shows on Saturday and Sunday mornings, dubbed into French.  There was a bit of censorship, but not too much.  There was some collaboration between the French and Japanese animation industries so we benefited from that.

What appealed to you about anime when you first discovered it?
Stories.

What about those stories made them special? They were so imaginative!   Remember, I was a kid back then (mid ’80s to very early ’90s) so I didn’t yet appreciate the various artistic components within the medium.

What would you say was the most popular anime at the time? Dragon Ball, Saint Seiya, Candy Candy, Cat’s Eye. I could go on…

What was it like to be a part of anime fandom at the time? Just like any kids watching cartoons really…

Tell me about rediscovering anime in 2012. Why did you take a break from anime, and what was it like to dive back in? When I was 15 I started going to school here in Ireland, and moved back here full time in 1997.  There was a lot less anime on TV here back then, which is why I stopped watching.  I always remembered them fondly though, and could still sing the theme tunes to some of my favourites. In fact, I’ve also got a playlist on YouTube of my favorite OPs and EDs even today.

Shows from when we were kids was a favourite topic of small talk with friends and family members, but I didn’t have that many in common with those who had grown up in Ireland.   Imagine my delight when I discovered that anime had also been a staple of kids TV in Italy way back when!  My husband is 10 years older than me, so the only show we had both watched was “Goldorak”, which is what Mazinger was called.  Some of our other Italian friends on the other hand were of the same vintage as me.  When we were talking about “Oscar” (French name) / “Lady Oscar” (Italian name), one of them told me she had been watching it recently online… so guess who went on Google as soon as possible?

I started by watching Rose of Versailles, but subbed this time, and Georgie. The first new anime that I watched was Ouran High School Host Club, and I haven’t stopped since.  I’ve come across some real gems, and I appreciate the medium as an art form now in ways I couldn’t when I was younger.  I’ve cried, I’ve laughed, and I’ve been blown away by the intricacy of some shots.  What I love about anime is that at its best, it marries music, sound production, direction, storytelling and visual art into a beautiful whole.

In 2012, did you participate in fandom? Talking on forums, creating fan art or a site, or anything like that? At first I just read some synopses on some sites like MyAnimeList, but eventually I wanted to keep a list of the manga I was reading and the anime I had watched.  That is when I discovered Anime Planet.  I’ve been active on and off on the forums on that site, and I’m a member of the Welcome Committee.  This is my main link to anime fandom, though I also follow a few users on Twitter, which is how I discovered your project!

What did your family think of your interest in anime? Right now my family consists of my husband and my son. They don’t share my interest, but they don’t mind it either.

When you first discovered anime you saw it as just normal cartoons. When did you go from being a cartoon fan to an anime fan specifically? When I started watching anime seriously again in 2012.  I have a much better appreciation of the work that goes into producing each episode… and more patience for different styles and types.

Sarah can be found on Twitter and Anime Planet. 

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#15: Simon C

Age: 22

Location: United Kingdom

When did you discover anime? Share as much as you remember. I began with YuGiOh, Pokemon, and Beyblade. Only really got started when a friend introduced me to Detective Conan in high school.

Tell me how your friend introduced you to Detective Conan. I cant entirely recall. He was a friend with whom I often talked about gaming and other nerdy things with. I think it was something he had just talked about watching and ended up showing to me. He was already familiar with anime from a young age, as his family was originally from Hong Kong. He had already watched a handful of shows such as Gundam, Doraemon, and so on.

How did you get a copy of Conan? As your probably aware, Detective Conan wasn’t legally available in the UK at the time. So we started out watching it by downloading it in parts that had been uploaded to YouTube. After a while we found the Detective Conan Translation Project, which at the time handled the majority of the fansubs for the show. They hosted most of the episodes on their site via Mega Upload downloads as well as torrents.

Why did your friend like it, and why did you? I think a major draw of the show, initially at least, was the fact that it encouraged viewers to guess the solution to each episodes mystery. It was in some ways a game to try and solve the case before the show presented the solution. The puzzles that were at the core of the show felt, at the time, unique, interesting, and difficult to solve—which made coming up with the solution before the  show even more satisfying. Often, me and my friend would talk about whether we had solved the mystery, what had tipped us off and what our wrong deductions had been. So in that way it also furthered the social aspect of the show. As with many long running shonens, once it had hooked us in, the characters and the promise of overarching plot developments kept us watching.

What appealed to you about anime when you first discovered it? Art style and more adult themes than regular cartoons.

When you said you liked its “adult themes,” what do you mean by that? Maybe I should say that it presented events and ideas that I hadn’t seen presented in an animated form before. For example, Detective Conan featured many gruesome murders, as well as suicides. I think more than that, anime presented darker themes in a much more accessible form than live action ever could have for me, at the time.  Detective Conan, for example, was very reminiscent of the many police procedural dramas that dominated UK TV at the time, (and still do). Yet, it presented the ideas of those shows in a more action-oriented style and cut down the length into a format  that was easier for me to consume. Meanwhile, the harem shows that I watched shortly after seemed to appeal directly to me with their teenage protagonists. Shows like Girls Bravo, as much as I would have hated to admit it back then, appealed directly to me as a hormonal teenage boy, and contained themes that I probably would have thought of as adult. By and large, anime was just something different and fresh that seemed to appeal directly to me, while still have at least a little of  what I felt was “adult” at the time.

What would you say was the most popular anime at the time? Had little knowledge of the wider community at the time, just me and my friend.

For you, anime was just something you and your friend did together. What did other people think of it, like your parents? Did they think it was odd? I was, and still am, a very introverted person, thus I didn’t really talk about anime to anyone outside of those I already knew enjoyed it. I think rather than others finding the hobby odd, I rather prescribed that notion to it myself, and so was nervous when labeling myself as an anime fan or bringing the topic up in conversation. The majority of people around me already saw me as a very nerdy or geeky person so I think they saw it as just another extension of that, but again I was myself very aware that others might find it strange or odd.

Tell me about the first time you became aware of a larger fandom around anime. I was very quickly aware of the niche of the Detective Conan community through DCTP, Detective Conan World and other sites.  Finding the wider community I think was a bit more gradual and I don’t have that strong a memory of it. However I think it was around the time I discovered seasonal anime through Angel Beats. I think it was around this time that I discovered sites such as Anime News Network, Anime Planet, as well as the YouTube community.

Did you participate in online fandom? What was that like? I have used forums on and off but never for a long period of time. I did for a while run a YouTube vlog-style channel and participate in things like the 12 Days of Anime, but never really felt like I was interacting properly with the community through it. I also had a few a couple of goes at making AMVs [Anime Music Videos] as video editing was something that interested me at the time. I still like to keep up to date with the conversations surrounding shows via Twitter but I very rarely participate. I think again my lack of interaction mainly came down to my own shyness.

After Detective Conan, what did you really get into as an anime fan? After Conan, the same friend introduced me to Ah! My Goddess and through that we both watched/found quite a few harems and romantic comedies. At this point I found airing anime through Angel Beats and focused mainly on watching airing shows for a while. I think around this time I started to grow bored of a lot of the tropes I had seen in a large majority of the shows I had watched up until this point, and made it a mission to find and watch strange shows. So I ended up watching a lot of Gainax and Shaft shows, anything by Masaaki Yuasa, although at the time stuff like The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya still felt strange to me. I think through this process I became interested in the history of these studios and their creators.

Do you remember your first anime-related purchase? How much did it cost? My first directly anime-related purchases were FLCL and Darker than Black on DVD, each of which cost around £15.

What’s the biggest contrast between anime fandom when you got into it and now? Definitely availability, both in the content itself as well as information about the content. We have gone from maybe one show streaming legally when I was starting to watch anime to almost all shows streaming. This year we are also getting a multitude of theatrical releases. There is also certainly a greater wealth of anime content as well as a greater demand for it.

Simon can be reached on Twitter. 

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#11: Louis

Age: 22

Location: United Kingdom

When did you discover anime? Share as much as you remember. We got a Digibox [a UK satellite TV receiver] for the first time when I was around six years old. Cartoon Network was a channel we had and it had its Toonami blocks. I used to really enjoy watching Dragon Ball Z on there. Because of that, and a few episodes of Gundam Wing and Tenchi Muyo (neither of which I really understood), I looked for similar shows elsewhere.

Toonami didn’t last long, but Fox had stuff like Digimon, Sailor Moon, and Hamtaro. I didn’t get into any of these as much as Dragon Ball but I still super enjoyed them. My mum took notice of this and at some point discovered a super minor early DVD release of Princess Mononoke. It would proceed to be my favourite movie from my childhood through even my teen years. Ghibli movies kept me interested even as, for various reasons, TV anime phased away from me.

But because of Ghibli being so important to me, in secondary school, I eventually became friends with people super into it. It is from them I discovered Angel Sanctuary, and the wonderful teenage crazes of Death Note and Code Geass. From there I was pretty much set. I started airing anime when Dragon Ball Kai came out. And when Attack on Titan exploded I discovered Crunchyroll, and its catalogue led to my current interests today.

What appealed to you about anime when you first discovered it? It was cool. I was a young kid, seeing the magic and explosions in all the stuff on Toonami and Fox was intoxicating. Gohan was around my age fighting aliens and flying. And even though I didn’t catch much of it, even the ads for Cardcaptor Sakura and Sailor Moon seemed, well, magical and fun. I liked colourful cartoons.

What would you say was the most popular anime at the time?
Dragon Ball Z when I was a kid. When I came back definitely Death Note. (Though Dragon Ball never stopped being that huge well-known icon.)

What was it like to be a part of anime fandom at the time? I cant really speak about when I was a very young kid, but when I came back via Death Note and stuff it was nice. I never really had a consistent friendship group growing up so connecting with nerds over cartoons was nice. I was a troubled kid who joined the school quite late through second year. I felt very isolated before then.

Afterwards, I had a whole world of teens being silly. Forum roleplaying, chatting about Light and L during lunch. Even cosplay and con stuff was nice. My teenage social life basically revolved around people I met due to anime.

So you were a pretty isolated kid, but anime fandom changed that. Tell me about your first time meeting other fans and bonding with them over anime. I first really started meeting people through a friend. I met her at sports day and just ended up spending the whole day chatting with her. I didn’t really know much about anime and manga outside of Toonami stuff, but I guess we just immediately started getting along? She even lent me some volumes of Angel Sanctuary to read. Which I guess was quite different to the only manga I’d read at that time, Rurouni Kenshin, to say the least! She was in the year above me so hanging out with her, and her friends, introduced me to a friendship circle it was otherwise doubtful I would’ve been in. I now had people to chill out with at lunch and at weekends. We didn’t do much anime watching together or anything, but just chatting about characters from Death Note and Bleach and just enjoying each other’s company formed the basis of my social life from that point onwards.

How did you and your friends express your fandom? 

For the most part we just chatted. Which character’s we liked, which we didn’t, whether they were hot or not, usual teenage stuff. But also this friendship group did involve some creative people. One of my friends did GCSE art and as part of their workload drew Ryuk from Death Note from instance. Fanart, fanfic, and roleplaying were big parts of most of that group’s self expression. I dabbled a bit. Never really getting into fanart outside of forum signatures, never really getting into reading or writing fanfic either. But I did do some roleplaying, and I also became a moderator for a friend’s website.

What was roleplaying like? I dabbled in the IMVU [2004 instant messaging client] scene for a bit? Which if I remember correctly was huuuge. Like there were huge roleplaying groups with hundreds of members roleplaying being ninjas from Naruto for instance.

That first friend I mentioned was either part of or helped run a pretty major roleplaying group. By the time I got to know her, she’d moved off of IMVU and had made her own website. It was called ‘akiko.net,’ though I don’t believe it’s up anymore. It primarily consisted of people who knew that friend, either IRL or from her IMVU roleplaying days. It wasn’t strictly speaking a roleplaying site. It had a roleplaying section but it was more or less just a small anime themed forum where a bunch of teens hung out. There were classic forum games and a sort of chat room section at the top.

Honestly I can’t really remember much of the roleplaying there. Like it definitely happened but that entire website was probably closer to how I use Twitter these days. It was just a bunch of teens from around the world who’d found people to chat to about stuff that may or may not have been related to some anime.

Tell me about the first time you cosplayed.  I think the first time I cosplayed was at school come to think of it. To raise money for charity, sometimes my school put on fancy dress days. That friend who I keep mentioning because she was really quite the person to know, encouraged me to join her cosplaying from Angel Sanctuary. She was far more experienced than I and had done far more ‘proper’ cosplay before. So we decided that she’d dress as Michael and I’d dress as Raphael (I think I had to Google these to remind myself lol). So she had some charity shop fake leather and a fake arm prop come to think of it and I cobbled together some casual clothes that looked a little like Raphael would wear and used some tinfoil to make a cross.

Looking back I guess it could be a bit embarrassing, but it was fun. I liked the manga, I liked doing stuff with my friends. Dressing up is fun on its own even if I was heavily restricted, and had to explain to everyone who asked who I was cosplaying as. Which, understandably, didn’t help them.

Do you remember your first anime con? My first anime con was a small UK one called J-Con! It’s a little bit bigger now, but I believe when I first went it was only its third year running and it was much smaller. We went with half of us sorta cosplaying casual Bleach—I was covered in green eyeliner and face makeup—and half of us cosplaying Naruto, a bit less casually. And it was just, really exciting? I’d never been to anything like that before, certainly not without my family there, so I definitely remember bouncing in line waiting to get in, even though I must have been quite cold given the wind and me not wearing much.

There wasn’t really much to the con itself. There were some stalls dotted down a hallway, an artist’s room, and the stage. The main things I really remember from that was how I sort of ditched my group at one point to chill with a Maka from Soul Eater cosplayer. Pretty certain I spent most of the con just playing and chatting with her. (God I was one of those annoying teens running around a convention badly pretending to be in character). Never actually got her name or spoke to her again, but I do remember that she had fallen asleep the night before when felt-tipping her Death Scythe.

Also for some reason a bunch of people who totally shouldn’t have been dancing on stage were dancing on stage and I for some reason joined them. No staff actually told us off in person for that but there later was an announcement warning people not to do that or they’d be kicked out.

What’s the biggest contrast between anime fandom when you got into it and now? I don’t think that much has changed from a socialising aspect? At least what little I see of what teens are getting up to in fandoms is more or less the same. Though everything is much bigger nowadays. It’s easier than ever to watch anime, and there’s even legal streams of it! That was not something I even thought would begin to exist when I was first getting into airing anime. Yet nowadays I can open up Crunchyroll and have a sizable portion of everything that’s airing in Japan right now, and a back-catalogue that’s bigger than the sites I was using as a teen. Like Crunchyroll has all of Naruto and all of Bleach. I know as a teen I had to go to separate sites for each of those, and those sites were only interested in those shows.

Word of mouth was all I really had to go on back then. If I wanted to watch a show it’s because I knew someone who was watching the show. Now, even overlooking my knowledge of anime writers and stuff, Crunchyroll exists with recommended anime bits? Like sure, it’s a tad messy. But when I first discovered CR when Attack on Titan aired I sure as hell followed those chains of recommendations. So yeah. I guess legal streaming and more visibility are the key differences I see between nowadays and almost a decade ago.

Louis can be reached on Twitter. 

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#10: Hugh

Age: 22

Location: London, England

When did you discover anime? Share as much as you remember. I remember deciding one day at 18 years old to read the first few volumes of Bleach in my school library. I then decided to watch the anime after looking it up online. I was aware of anime before but it was the first time I really looked into it and took an interest.

What about Bleach made you decide to give it a chance after previously not being interested in anime? Something about that artwork was really appealing to me, and I don’t just mean the eyes; the panelling and the general character design weren’t like anything I’d seen before.

What appealed to you about anime when you first discovered it? It was mainly a way for me get back into animation again, so it having such a unique style and direction compared to Western animation really piqued my interest. It was also appealing to see different cultural sensibilities at work that really hooked me in, especially when it comes to my favourite anime, Gintama.

You said anime appealed to you because it helped you “get back into animation.” What was it like when you were into animation the first time? What I mean is that when I was a kid, I would religiously watch Cartoon Network. All sorts of things happen in animation that can’t happen anywhere else, and I loved that. Then at 12 years old or so, I decided for some dumb reason that I was too old for cartoons so I just stopped watching them. Anime made me realise that I never stopped liking animation, so it was an ideal way to get back into animation.

What would you say was the most popular anime at the time? Attack on Titan. It had just started when I got into anime, so it was interesting to get into the fandom when there was a currently airing show that people thought was going to make anime more mainstream again.

When was anime mainstream before? When Toonami was on the air. Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z were huge.

What was it like to be a part of anime fandom at the time? See previous answer, but yeah it was pretty exciting to be getting into a medium that felt like it was only getting more and more popular by the minute.

How did you connect with other fans? When I was nearly caught up with Gintama in 2013 I joined up with a fan site called Yorozuya Soul, and I still have friends I speak to on twitter from that site. It isn’t really active anymore, unfortunately.

Aside from actually watching shows, how did you participate in fandom? Besides checking fan sites and Tumblr pages, I only starting going to cons towards the end of 2014. London Comic-Con was my first. I don’t really buy all that much merchandise in all honesty outside of the occasional T-shirt and figure. Currently, I only have one figure—Gintoki in a Kamehameha pose, because it was too funny to pass and thankfully wasn’t too expensive.

What’s the biggest contrast between anime fandom when you got into it and now? Not a lot. I go through phases of what I decide to nerd out on, and currently I’m in an anime/manga phase, so I can’t really say if all that much has changed. However I can say,that the anime community on YouTube has expanded massively from 2013 till now. And that anime feels more prevalent in wider Western pop culture than it was in 2013, an example being the Arby’s Twitter account explicitly referencing Jojo recently.

So anime fandom is on-again off-again for you? What inspired your latest foray into the fandom? I find that any resurgence in my anime interest happens whenever the Gintama anime comes back, as that is my absolute favourite show period and I can always make time for it.

Hugh can be reached on Twitter. 

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#4: Andrea

Age: 28

Location: United Kingdom

When did you discover anime? Share as much as you remember.
My first experience was with Pokemon. It was the only anime airing on the tv at the time I started watching.

What appealed to you about anime when you first discovered it?
The story, the animation, the characters, the song. Everything.

What would you say was the most popular anime at the time? Definitely Pokemon. Everyone was watching it, even those who didn’t enjoy other “cartoons.”

How did you connect with other fans at the time? Mostly friends at school. With Pokemon being my entry point I was maybe 10 or 11 at the time talking about it at school and watching it with friends when it was on TV.

What was it like to be a part of anime fandom at the time? I don’t know if I truly was then. I felt I had to “grow out” of it pretty quickly as “cartoons were for kids” and didn’t rediscover it again until last year.

Where did the pressure to “grow out of it” come from? I think the pressure to grow out of it came mostly from society. I lived in a fairly small village and and just the concept of a girl being into “boy things” like games and anime was always a bit strange at my school, even if most of my friends were boys.

The other problem was the anime I saw snips of, after Pokemon and Thundercats, always involved girls being exposed, abused, taken advantage of for laughs. There wasn’t anything I came across that I connected with.

How did you get back into anime again last year? The biggest thing for me really was Anime Feminist and finding entry points that didn’t involve the almost stereotypical aspects of anime.

Also I wrote a blog post back when I was starting out about my history with anime and manga:

I wanted something lighter, though, and my eyes strayed to manga. I had a hard time figuring out what I wanted to try. After some friend recommendations, and a bit of internet research, I invested while at Forbidden Planet in 2015. I went for “Fullmetal Alchemist“ – a friend recommendation, “Blue Exorcist” and “Rosario+Vampire” – internet recommendations. I’d wanted to pick up “Fruits Basket,” another friend recommendation, but unfortunately they didn’t have any.

I found something enlightening in “Fullmetal Alchemist,” not every manga has awkward scenes. “Blue Exorcist” had a few odd moments, and “Rosario+Vampire” showed what you were getting from the start but I realised something about the manga I enjoy – I don’t mind fan-service shots when I know that’s what I’m getting. It’s when they creep into story lines and I don’t expect them that it bothers me. I still stayed away from anime but as I read more and more manga over the last two years I found myself wanting to watch anime too but I didn’t want to take the risk at just finding more and more anime that made me uncomfortable.

A website started up that I’ve mentioned before, Anime Feminist, a site I found from Kotaku and kept an eye on. I read a few articles and found myself returning time and time again. They did reviews on the first episodes of seasons on Crunchyroll and some of them sounded very appealing, but I was wary. A friend offered me a trial of Crunchyroll and I started watching some in October. I began with a recommendation from Anime Feminist, “Poco’s Udon World.” I watched the first episode of that, tried an episode of “Trickster” and also “Attack on Titan.” I’d finally found anime that I enjoyed and other places for inspiration and thoughtful articles too.

What’s the biggest contrast between anime fandom when you got into it and now? I don’t know if I could contrast it. I’m such a different person than the teenager me that felt ashamed to enjoy things that weren’t deemed “normal”. The internet has changed things for sure. Having found people who enjoy similar things and even just feeling like it’s okay to be able to look at anime and say “I like this but not this!” rather than having to enjoy everything to be a fan.

Andrea can be reached on Twitter or her blog.