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#83: Austin B

Age: 22

Location: North Dakota

When did you discover anime? Share as much as you remember. I’d say it was in ’99 or ’00 when I was around five or six years old. My older bro and I would run home from school to watch the Toonami programming block on Cartoon Network. We were always excited to see the latest episodes of Gundam Wing, Dragon Ball Z, Outlaw Star, Ruroni Kenshin, etc. All of our favorite anime.

What appealed to you about anime when you first discovered it? It was a whole different world of animation, storytelling. Worlds full of characters, settings and thought provoking themes that some Western animation lacked. It was a form of escapism for me to get away from a terrible childhood.

If it is not too personal for you, could you elaborate on how anime helped you through a difficult childhood? As a child growing up in North Dakota, I was bullied a lot whether it was because my last name sounds funny to kids or my being a skinny, geeky redhead unable to fight back. Anime was helpful in the sense that you had these strong, tough, badass characters that were ready to take on whatever obstacles stood in front of them. Gene Starwind from Outlaw Star and Kenshin from Ruroni Kenshin were always favorites of mine because they were such cool and badass characters that just so happened to be redheads. Anime was a form of escapism that could temporarily make me forget how cruel and unforgiving the world is.

What would you say was the most popular anime at the time? I’d say it was either Dragon Ball Z or Mobile Suit Gundam Wing.

What was it like to be a part of anime fandom at the time? Growing up, being a fan was hard. It felt like many people ridiculed and ostracized me because I was a fan of something that was different. Something that was against the norm, something most people didn’t understand.

Did that make you consider not watching it? Liking anime made me an outsider, but not once did I ever consider not watching it. I enjoy anime too much to do that. Growing up though, liking anime made it really hard to make friends.

Was the Internet a part of fandom at the time? Growing up, Internet wasn’t part of the fandom for me. I just told people I liked anime and I hoped for the best.

Can you tell me about meeting other anime fans? As a child, some people I foolishly believed were my friends didn’t like the fact that I liked shows such as Dragon Ball Z. Not every interaction was bad though. Nowadays, I’d say that most of the friends I’ve made are people I’ve met after graduating high school. The friends I finally have are real friends that do enjoy anime.

What was the first fandom you got really invested in? How did you express your fandom? The first fandoms my older bro and I got into were without a doubt Dragon Ball Z and Gundam Wing. We had all sorts of Dragon Ball and Gundam merch growing up. Shirts, video games, toys, etc. you name it. That was how we expressed our fandom.

Is your brother who got you into anime still interested in anime? Do you still watch together? My older bro and I pretty much discovered Toonami at the same time, so I guess I wouldn’t exactly say he introduced me to anime. We don’t really watch anime together anymore because we’re always so busy with work and life these days. I’d say I watch more anime regularly than my older bro, but we still reminisce about all the classic anime we watched on Toonami. As far as recent anime goes, the two of us really got into Attack on Titan when that first came out.

For you personally, what’s the biggest contrast between anime fandom then and anime fandom today? Personally, I feel that the biggest contrast between anime fandom then vs. anime fandom now, is that it’s much more open. Back then, it felt like being an anime fan came across as weird. Now it’s so much easier to talk about liking anime because it’s much more accessible. It could also be that I might have developed a thicker skin over the years and that I stopped giving a damn if people thought I was weird for liking anime or not. History shows us that people become hateful and afraid of things they don’t understand, but when given enough time and exposure, maybe they can learn to love and respect certain things. Anime is one of those things.

Austin can be reached on Twitter. 

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#82: Zubat

Age: 23

Location: Michigan

When did you discover anime? Anime was something I had seen at various points throughout my life. Growing up, Pokemon and YuGiOh! made it into my Saturday morning cartoon block every so often, and in college some of my roommates would occasionally have friends over to watch whatever “popular” show they had discovered at the time (Sword Art Online and Steins;Gate being the two I remember most clearly). But I didn’t “discover” anime for myself until April 2015, when right near the end of my time at school one of my roommates decided to spend his whole Saturday watching the first 25 or so episodes of Soul Eater. I was present and while at first I only sorta paid attention to what he was watching, by around eight or nine episodes in I had actively joined my roommate in watching something that felt FAR different from and much more emotionally engaging than the usual anime I had been exposed to.

Fast forward some months from there after graduation, and I mentioned to a friend offhand that I had been introduced to Soul Eater and was curious if there were more shows that would be good to start out with. That friend recommended a short 12-episode show called Madoka Magica, and well… judging by the “Puella Magi” in my Twitter handle I don’t think it’s an understatement to say that it literally changed my life. Madoka was a revelation for me—never before had I been exposed to media that was simultaneously so emotionally devastating and uplifting, and it left me shell-shocked for the better part of a week as I grappled with the numerous themes I saw in the show’s story. Though it would still be a few more months before I fully dove into anime, these two moments always come to mind when I think about where I started with anime.

What appealed to you about anime when you first discovered it? One of the key parts of both Soul Eater and Madoka Magica that appealed to me in my first watch was the surprising emotional depth and compassion shown by and towards their characters. I had never seen media that really emphasized the emotional connection between characters besides a few rare cases—before anime, media was often simply entertainment save for that one special show/movie. But Maka’s steadfast pursuit of and desire to connect with Crona was stunning to watch. Here was a show that was saying, “Empathy and compassion and fighting to reach the hearts of others are just as important as the fight happening around them.” Soul Eater was already appealing enough on the action and comedic bits but to have what to me was such a clear emotional message and themes was stellar, and I wanted more media like that.

Madoka Magica hit this mark as well. I related deeply with Madoka and empathized just as much with Homura throughout my first viewing of the show, and the revelation of the show’s finale left me thinking over what it had meant to me for nearly a year.

Past these first two big anime, shows like Noragami and Monogatari, a KyoAni trio of anime, Railgun, and many more shows continued to deepen my love for the unique ability of the medium of anime to convey deep, powerful emotional themes and stories in a way I had never experienced elsewhere. It drew me in and gave me a way to feel during a time where I was struggling to do so; and even now as I’ve moved into a better spot in life, I still remain deeply in love with the emotions anime creates in me.

If it’s not too personal, could you elaborate on how anime helped you through a difficult emotional time? My senior year of college was one of the most difficult years of my life. I had invested a lot of my emotional energy into my different clubs and their communities in the three years prior; and while I don’t regret my decision to put so much of myself into doing so, I was left completely burned out from those efforts. Combine that with the usual college stresses and a hostile roommate situation and I had little to no energy left to reach out for the support I needed for the entirety of my final two semesters of college. The result of this was me coasting through over 9 months of my life with little ability to express what I was feeling, in addition to being limited in my ability to empathize with others as well. For someone like me who is naturally very compassionate and empathetic and others-oriented, to not be able to express those sorts of emotions was devastating and identity-shattering. It led to me questioning whether all of the effort I put into building up the communities I was a part of for my four years of college was really worth it.

But then I found Madoka Magica. The show that I expected to be a parody of magical girl shows (not joking!) was instead one comforted and encouraged my heart and gave me a way to feel again through its characters, even if I didn’t realize it at the time. Despite how hard it had been for me to connect with others for months up to that point, it was easy for me to understand and connect with Madoka and Homura’s thoughts, actions, and emotions; something about their characters resonated with me, as if I was implicitly able to understand their feelings as if they were my own.

[Major Madoka spoilers starting here] In particular, Homura’s repeated efforts to reach out to Madoka, her continued fight to share her feelings with Madoka despite all the pain and sorrow it brought her, was something I strongly connected with having experienced much of the same over my four years of college. And Madoka’s response to Homura’s efforts was a quiet affirmation of all of my own efforts over that timeframe: “I know just how hard you tried to help me across all those timelines… you were my very best friend.” It felt like the show was telling me, “Even though you’ve been left hurting and weak from your efforts, they didn’t go unnoticed, and they were worth the effort.” The person you are, the person you’ve become is something beautiful, and it’s ok to continue to feel the compassion that’s such a crucial part of who you are.” It was one thing for me to feel the emotions I did towards Madoka Magica‘s characters or to empathize with them as they struggled against the cruel realities of their world, but for the show to speak so directly and clearly into my life at that time… there aren’t words that can adequately describe how much Madoka Magica means to me.

There have been other shows that have had helped me through hard or trying times in my life: Oregairu and Sakurasou both helped me remember and celebrate some of my best friendships from college, while New Game and Shirobako offered me encouragement while I was dealing with the stress of starting to work full-time last year. But no show has ever resonated with me as deeply as Madoka Magica did; it remains the most important show I’ve ever watched and continues to reaffirm the person I am today. It is something I will likely cherish for the rest of my life.

What was it like to be a part of anime fandom at the time? I spent a large portion of my first year watching anime on my own, so it was hard to say I was really part of the larger fandom. I would ask friends who I knew watched anime what they thought would be good shows to watch, but for the most part I looked around every so often for shows and watched what sounded good. Anime was still solely a personal endeavor for me at that point, so it was mostly keeping to myself unless I knew prior of someone who I could talk to about what I was watching and ask for recommendations.

It was many months before I would discover r/anime, close to a year before I considered taking part in any discussions on the subreddit, and my involvement with the Twitter community only started at the beginning of the New Year. At the time, I only connected with people I knew IRL who were also into anime, and would spend time talking with them about what I or they liked and what would be good to watch, later also watching shows together.

Do you remember your first convention? My “first” convention was 2015 ColossalCon in Ohio; I was only there for a day, it was before I discovered anime, and ColossalCon is also… not that much of an anime con (people are there for the giant indoor waterpark, among other reasons). But I have plans in the works to attend AnimeNorth as my first “real” convention next month and I’m looking forward to the new experience that will bring!

It took me a while to respond, and your first con, Anime North, must have already happened! Can you tell me about what it was like? What were the highlights? What surprised you? Anime North was a great experience, if a bit different than my usual norm for day-to-day plans. I’m the type of person who likes to fill every day with plans while I’m traveling so I feel like I’ve gotten the “full value” of my time on vacation, but oftentimes it felt like the best option was simply to wander the dealers room and browse the artist alley without any set “goal” in mind. I wouldn’t say I was terribly surprised by this—I knew there’d be a lot of free time in my schedule where there wasn’t a panel or signing that I wanted to attend—but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed simply wandering and looking around at what all the dealers and artists had to offer, even if I didn’t plan on buying anything from them.

I think the biggest highlight was simply being able to spend a weekend surrounded by other people in the anime fandom. I don’t really talk about my anime interest with many people in my day-to-day life (it’s not something I feel comfortable sharing at work nor do I have much desire to talk about it there), so to spend a weekend with thousands of other people all openly sharing our interest in anime and related fandoms was a pretty joyful experience. And as a smaller part of that, being able to meet some of my Twitter friends who happened to be attending was another great part of the experience. It may seem basic to others, but it was nice to simply have a weekend where I could celebrate my love of anime with friends and many, many others.

I actually also attended Anime Expo recently as well! That experience was mostly similar to Anime North, though on a much larger scale. Anime Expo did have the advantage of having Anisong World Matsuri with Aqours performing on stage, and well.. anyone who’s been following me on Twitter these past four or five months knows how big of a fan I am of Love Live Sunshine, haha. But the AWM concert was an incredible, joyful experience that I hope I get to experience again someday; and beyond that, I actually managed to have a great weekend at AX despite the issues many people reported with the lines (I only missed one event due to a line being capped but was able to attend another event as a result, and I managed to get in all other events I wanted to see). I don’t know if I’ll be attending AX specifically next year due to costs, but both Anime North and Anime Expo were great experiences and I’m definitely looking forward to the next time I can get out to an anime convention.

Zubat can be reached on Twitter. 

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#81: Lauren

Age: 25

Location: Southeastern USA

When did you discover anime? I (or rather my mom with my input) rented My Neighbor Totoro as a VHS from blockbuster when I was a little kid in the ’90s and didn’t know what anime was.

Then I became obsessed with Pokémon around the time that Yellow Version was released (I think I was in 2nd grade). Pikachu and Bulbasaur have been faves since the beginning. My interest in Pokémon waned (though I got back into the games later).

I was in 6th grade when I learned the terms anime/manga from a friend. She and most of the friend circle loved YuGiOh. I initially watched it to fit in, but ended up crushing on Seto Kaiba. This was the horrible 4 kids dub because if legal sub streaming existed at the time I didn’t know about it and DVDs for series were expensive.

I watched Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke on DVD and got hooked on Miyazaki. Fruits Basket was my gateway into manga. I would occasionally read scanlations or purchase volumes of other manga. I would also watch anime on websites where you just clicked play—since I was scared to actually download episodes illegally after the one time my cousin did and my computer got a virus.

I discovered Crunchyroll and Funimation during my senior year of college when I took a class on Japanese pop culture—with that I was able to get into so many more shows.

What appealed to you about anime when you first discovered it? I loved the sense of magic and wonder in Totoro as a child and it still captivated me when I learned what anime was. Similarly, the idea of a world filled with adventure and cute, powerful critters drew me to Pokémon. The pretty boys of shojo were a revelation for teenage me—romance stories that cater to girls’ tastes, dudes that were hot but not Manly!Beefcake!TM and lots of feels instead of the western romcom’s “pervasive bickering is love” trope.

What was it like to be a part of anime fandom at the time? The Pokémon fans who I traded cards with as a child were like me, they didn’t know what anime was. At time I learned the word “anime” in middle school, it felt like a niche interest shared by fellow nerds at my school, people on the Internet who I couldn’t meet and people in Japan – who I also couldn’t meet. So anime fandom was both a bond I shared with my friends and another marker that I wasn’t part of the popular crowd.

Tell me about making friends in anime fandom. Amanda is the friend I met in middle school who introduced me to “anime” as a term. Before I just knew I was a fan of Pokémon. Amanda showed me YuGiOh and taught me the terms “anime” and “manga.” Her influence is the reason I sampled manga in book stores and started identifying as a manga/anime fan. We haven’t kept up with each other but are friends on Facebook.

After Amanda introduced me to TV anime and manga, I didn’t make friends with fellow fans until college. I went to a few anime club meetings. It felt refreshing to meet lots of people who shared my love of anime.

In college anime club, I made friends with a fellow Death Note fan named Katie. We talked about which characters were our favs and who should star in a US movie. We decided Cilllian Murphy would be a good fit for Mikami. I have learned that whitewashing is a bad idea since that time so I’m embarrassed of how excited that fantasy casting made me.

Was the Internet a part of fandom at the time? Fanfic was huge for me in middle school. I read fanfic on fanfiction.net . I wrote some in a notebook and shared it with my friend Amanda.

Tell me about the fanfiction in the notebook! I don’t have the notebook full of fanfic that I kept during middle school. I often wrote about idealized versions of myself dating anime boys. Talking with Amanda about our favorite “bishies” (bishonen or pretty boys) was a nice escape during the awkward adolescent years.

How is your participation in anime fandom different now? I now read more analysis of anime, things like Anime Feminist. When I got into fandom, I couldn’t find that thoughtful perspective of fans who are genuinely in love with series/creators but will point out flaws too. It seems like the old days had super fans who gushed over everything vs. haters of certain shows.

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#80: Helen

Age: 26

Location: Washington DC

When did you discover anime? Share as much as you remember. When I was in the 8th grade my mom told one of her coworkers that my brother and I (11 and 13) were still watching Pokemon, which her coworker thought was silly, and sent her home with a copy of Spirited Away. My brother and I found her watching it on our huge old Mac, squished in, and I’ve been a fan ever since.
Also that coworker is now my step-dad and really regrets giving me my anime start.

Why did he say that? He came to regret it because of how big of a nerd I turned out to be (although my mom is sure I’d be an anime fan regardless). They still watch some Miyazaki films and such, and although I like to joke that even my parents saw Attack on Titan before me, I think they only watched an episode or so (you can thank my step-sister for that)!

What appealed to you about anime when you first discovered it? I started watching Avatar: The Last Airbender around the same time as anime, and the AvatarSpirit forums would lead me to anime as well, and one thing that stunned me about ATLA and later anime was that holy crap, you can tell a story with a beginning, middle, and end in a cartoon TV series! No one had ever told me you could do that! I was already a huge book reader so the idea of a having an actual, connected story really drew me in.

What would you say was the most popular anime at the time? I have absolutely no idea. The first anime TV series I watched week-to-week was Romeo X Juliet which I know wasn’t super popular, I’d have to guess Naruto.

What was it like to be a part of anime fandom at the time? I wouldn’t really join the anime fandom for a bit later, I was actually reading more manga before I started watching more anime and I read manga through an elaborate system of book-trading between me and my friends who all belonged to different library systems in high school (we all literally looked at each other one day, realized we all liked manga, and that’s when it really got going).

It was fun, everyone had different things to bring and you had to occasionally rescue a book from a teacher’s trashcan!

What happened that time? One of my friends was, very ill-advisedly, reading a manga during presentations in class (while paying attention, she could practically recite all of the presentations we had just heard) and, while she shouldn’t have been reading in class, this teacher was, like many in my Catholic schools, a bit crazy. So she just snatched the volume out of my friend’s hand, tossed it in the garbage, and we asked a friend of ours in the next period to get it back for us (apparently the teacher never noticed).

Also, tell me more about meeting these friends. How did you all realize you liked manga? I joke that I have a nerd-dar but I really do! I was able to suss out that one girl in my homeroom, one girl in my math/following gym class, and another girl I sat with at lunch which kinda nerdy and since it was such a small school we eventually convalesced into a group (which would grow a tiny bit over the years but the four of us were the center of it). A few of them eventually ended up taking over the Book Club at school and turning it into a secret manga club IIRC, this happened after at least one of them was elected Dictator For Life, but I wasn’t a member of the Book Club so I can’t remember all of those details!

Was the Internet a part of fandom at the time? If yes, how? If no, how did you connect with other fans? Totally, I started spending more time on the AnimeSuki forums and ANN forums as I got more into anime since I loved chatting with people about currently airing shows.

Do you remember your first convention? What was it, and what was it like? Animazement 2008! I’d been looking for an anime convention in North Carolina for YEARS and somehow only found out about Animazement just a few weeks before the 2007 show. I actually did go to a small, one day con in September 2007 first (LibariCon in Fayetteville, NC) but Animazement felt like my first “proper” con. I did two cosplays, cosplaying is an integral part of conventions for me now, had a bunch of friends come along with me, saw the masquerade, met up with a bunch of people from the Animazement forums, did the secret Animazement forum member scavenger hunt, and generally had a pretty great time!

What was the secret Animazement forum member scavenger hunt like? Do they still have that? The secret scavenger hunt was funnily bizarre. These were things you would take photos of and then upload after the con for points to be tallied up, I remember things like “a photo of you in an Animazement t-shirt from any year”, “wearing a school girl outfit”, “wearing cosplay on the toilet”, and “video of you proclaiming your loyalty to [name redacted so my friend doesn’t kill me] of the cookie faction in the cookies vs milk war”.

It must sound really bizarre but it was fun and didn’t hurt anyone which is my own litmus test of if you should go along with something strange and silly or not. And they don’t have it anymore, when I was in college some of the con heads got super pissy that the staff who were also mods on the forums were becoming popular with the con goers (since we talked with them and hung out grabbing food at cons, y’all, we’re all people here and make friends…) so they completely changed the forums one weekend while the main mod was on vacation, locked them out, and that was the end of that. (Well, for at least a few years there was a secretly saved duplicate of the forums elsewhere that was linked to some of us were we heard this explained all in detail, ain’t no drama like con drama!)

What was the first fandom you got really invested in? How did you express your fandom? I guess the first fandom I got invested in in general was Avatar: The Last Airbender, I’m not sure if any other anime/manga/etc I’ve enjoyed has ever had the same scope and size to generate a large, stable fandom. And it was a combination of both the show and fandom that got me into sewing actually, I really wanted an Appa plushie but this was when they were only sold at the theme parks and not year round so I was out of luck in December. So, since I did know how to sew, I made my own plushie, posted it on the AvatarSpirit forums, and got so much of a response back that I went hey, I bet I could do more of these and get more praise, which has spiraled into my deep obsession of making plushies today.

When and why did you start blogging about anime and manga? For someone who hated book reports I found out that I kinda liked talking about what I was reading/watching/listening to? I was trying really hard to keep my Livejournal like a real daily journal so of course anime came up sometimes and I really managed to keep it up first there and then on my own blog for years. I only fell behind in December last year and still just can’t muster the energy to devote time again into it.

For you, what’s the biggest contrast between anime fandom then and anime fandom today? The biggest difference I see between the anime fandom of 2007-ish and 2017 is the size. This is almost certainly partially due to the fact that I went to a high school of only 600 people and none of my friends lived in the same county as me so I was frustratingly alone in general outside of school hours (I wouldn’t get on social media in a big way until I got my college laptop) but even with that I feel like it’s not just my world that’s grown bigger, anime and manga has grown bigger too. It’s strange since technically 2007 should’ve been the end of the “bubble” years, fandom should be smaller! And yet I see even more references all over the place, from daily newspaper cartoons to themed restaurants, today and that tells me that anime and its assorted fandoms are here to stay.

Helen can be reached on Twitter. 

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#79: Tony Y (Manga Therapy)

Age: 34

Location: Brooklyn, New York

When did you discover anime? In 1994, I was over at a friend’s place and he had a VHS tape of Dragon Ball Z (Cantonese-dubbed). He told me that we should watch it. I said “sure” and it was one of the episodes from the Frieza arc. That’s how it all began.

What appealed to you about anime when you first discovered it? The fact that people actually died and bled during fights. I grew up on series like X-Men, Power Rangers, TMNT, Transformers, etc. where the bad guys all got away and good guys didn’t really die (well, Optimus Prime did die in the TF movie). Seeing how different it was from American cartoons got me interested. The character, Vegeta, fascinated me because I learned that he was a villain but turned reluctant hero (albeit slowly during the time). I didn’t think bad guys could change, so that drew me more into the world of anime.

What would you say was the most popular anime at the time? I can tell you from my experience that Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon were EVERYWHERE in Chinese-related neighborhoods in NYC. The Chinatowns in NY had merchandise related to both series.

What kind of stores did you go to for anime and how much did it cost? Did you watch anime in Chinese? There were a few stores in Chinatown. I remember fansubs/original JP VHS tapes were sold in big shops and small ones. I bought fansubs from a tiny kiosk in the basement of a little mall called Elizabeth Center in Chinatown. I got tapes of DBZ/DBGT that contained two to three episodes each and a couple of anime movies for $3-$5 each. There was another kiosk in Elizabeth Center that sold Chinese-dubbed episodes of anime. I got some Dragon Ball GT Chinese-dubs for about $3, but the thing was that each tape was one episode.

I also forgot to mention that I rented Chinese-dubbed episodes of GTO, Rurouni Kenshin, and Initial D from a small Japanese stationery store in Chinatown right near Elizabeth Center. I signed up for some program and I think it was $1-$2 per tape and each tape had multiple episodes. This was about 15-16 years ago. All those places are now gone though thanks to how things changed in the late 1990s to early 2000s.

What was it like to be a part of anime fandom at the time? I never thought I was a part of the fandom at the time because I was only like 12-13 and there was no internet accessible to the public yet. No one I knew at school was into anime because of the lack of access to VHS fansubs around my area. You had to go to places like Chinatown to get them. You know how some of the elder statesmen proclaim how lucky today’s kids are. It was like that.

Was the Internet a part of fandom at the time? Was IRC even around in 1994? I never connected with fans while getting deeper into anime. I kept to myself mostly.

Tell me about the first time you DID make an anime fan friend. My first actual anime friend was one of my little cousins actually! I used to hate him at first when I was a kid, but I invited him over to my place to play PlayStation games when he was about 9-10. I let him play all the PS Final Fantasy games. At the time, he started watching Dragon Ball Z when it appeared on Cartoon Network. Over time, he came over a lot to do homework, play games, have fun, and talk about geek stuff. He’s going to be 25 this year and we still keep in touch over anime/manga (he told me his boss at his current job is obsessed with watching anime and reading manga on Crunchyroll). I guess you can say that a relative was my first anime friend. 🙂

Do you remember your first convention? My first anime convention was in 2003. It was the Big Apple Anime Fest. I remember watching Initial D: 3rd Stage and attending a few panels by myself. I also met one of my best friends who I still talk to today. I also got some goodies there too, so it was a fun experience. Yet I didn’t go to a con again until 2008 for New York Anime Festival.

Why did you start blogging about anime? I blogged about anime because I wanted to share how anime/manga shaped my life and what lessons it’s taught me. I had some success blogging about Japanese music, so why not shift it to something I know more about? Granted, I wouldn’t say that I’m an expert on the subjects, but I take joy and pride in learning new ideas and talking about them with an audience that’s interested.

How did blogging about anime change the way you interacted in anime fandom? Blogging introduced me to the anime and manga industries. I’ve gotten to meet a variety of interesting people that I thought I would never get to meet.

However, I do feel that there’s too much going on in terms of conversations on anime and I can’t handle all of it. It feels like you have to know so much about this series and that one to the point that you have to prove something to someone or a group of people. Maybe I feel that some anime fans are chasing some kind of status that doesn’t mean much in the end. I tried to join an anime club back in college, but I went one day and never came back afterwards.

That’s probably why a relative was my first anime friend because I was a mentor to someone who didn’t know much. Also, I realized over time that anime fandom and manga fandom are two totally different types of groups. They don’t always intertwine. I’ve met manga bloggers who don’t watch much anime and I’m okay with those folks. These days, I follow mostly manga as I grew up reading a lot when I was a kid. I will still have conversations with anime fans, but I do wish I can talk about certain manga (i.e. My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness, Complex Age, I Am A Hero, Vinland Saga, Golden Kamuy) regardless if they get anime adaptations. Books are powerful.

In your experience, what’s the biggest difference for you between anime fandom when you discovered it and fandom today? This is a very tough question for me to answer because I never hung around anime fandom as I never went into IRC to chat with other anime fans back in the day. Yet if I take the time when I first attended my first anime con in 2003 and compare it to 2017, I do suppose the biggest difference is acceptance.

I was teased for being so into anime when I was a senior in high school. Those same kids today probably won’t be teased as much. This generation and our generation as well are a lot more expressive about being anime fans because of Western culture’s continued mindset of encouraging the self. Granted, we still have a ways to go. I still get comments about anime being “sexual” because of nuances in Japanese culture.

Also I feel that with anime/manga being mostly relegated to the Internet, it creates an isolation effect on fans, which ties into what I just mentioned about Western culture’s influence. It’s depressing to hear things like anxiety/depression/suicide being associated with anime fandom. I’m glad that Crunchyroll wants to do events like CR Expo because right now, we need a united community of anime fans that will be there for each other despite whatever differences we have.

Tony can be reached on Twitter.

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#78: Chiaki

Age: 29

Location: San Francisco Bay Area

When did you discover anime? I don’t have a specific memory of when I first discovered anime. I would guess that the first ever anime I ever did watch was something like Folktales from Japan back in the early ’90s. It was either that or watching a copy of My Neighbor Totoro on an Beta tape.

I will say I have a distinct memory of getting manga though, which was when I was 5=five years old. My dad dressed up as Santa Claus for a house party and gave me my first ever comic book, which was the first volume of Dragon Ball, but I know I was aware of manga and anime before then.

I still have the beta tapes and the manga, actually.

Really? Could I have a photo? Sure.

The first photo is of the requested Beta and Super8 tapes along with the first manga I ever read. Clockwise from top left, Sunset on Third Street: Song of the Sunset by Ryohei Saigan, Nonsense Company by Sansei Sato (these manga were my dad’s), Beta tapes of Moomin and Folktales from Japan, a 8mm video of My Neighbor Totoro (the other tapes I had weren’t anime), and the first four volumes of Dragon Ball. This would be what I would have been watching or reading around 1992-1995.

The second photo  features what I would have been reading about 1995-2000ish when I started really getting into anime and manga. Clockwise from top left, I feature vol. 16 of Case Closed particularly because that was the first volume I ever bought (because I thought the cover looked cool); the first two volumes of Ah! My Goddess, which I instantly fell in love with the aesthetics; Evangelion, which I watched on PBS on Sundays in the San Francisco Bay Area; Slayers, which I think also aired on PBS; and the Pocket Monsters gag manga, which I read in elementary school because it was about the only age appropriate thing I was reading back then.

What appealed to you about anime when you first discovered it? For me, as a kid, it was entertainment. I grew up with the TV raising me for the most part. I liked anime because it was more fun than a lot of shows that were on TV. Growing up in America but in a Japanese speaking household, the tapes with anime and children’s programming tended to be a nice opportunity for me to enjoy something in Japanese so I was always on the lookout for that stuff.

What would you say was the most popular anime at the time? I remember going to Japan and seeing Dragon Ball Z‘s Cell saga was on TV? I remember this because I thought it was boring and I really wished I could watch something better… like City Hunter (which I caught reruns of). Sailor Moon was also on TV but that was for girls. (I know, right?)

What was it like to be a part of anime fandom at the time? I wasn’t really part of a fandom so much as I was taking part of my culture? I was the youngest person in my circle of Japanese expats living an hour east of San Francisco. The older kids had more manga than me and I would often go over to their place to read their collection. My parents typically only bought me one manga a year at the time, so I recall reading the same copy of the Pokemon gag comic over and over again.

Same with anime. I grew up really loving Ghibli movies because Nausicaa, Laputa, Porco Rosso, and Totoro were the only movies I had easy access to when I was really little.

You said, “I wasn’t really part of a fandom so much as I was taking part of my culture?” This is fascinating. What would you say is the difference between participating in anime fandom and participating in your heritage? I feel when anime and manga weren’t as popular in the United States, the charm for a lot of fans were how exotic the medium was. A lot of people said manga and anime were “different” or “more deep” than American works.

For me, though, it was more something I consumed because it was stuff I would have been reading and watching if I lived in Japan. I went to a Japanese hoshuko, a supplemental Saturday school for Japanese nationals living in America. My classmates and I lent each other manga and video games all the time. So this stuff wasn’t so exotic.

It actually felt a little jarring sometimes because I didn’t see myself as an “otaku” growing up. If anything, I was taught being an otaku isn’t something to brag about, so I often felt a little attacked when someone asked if I am one. When Hayao Miyazaki got the Berkeley Japan Prize in 2009, I was on assignment to cover the award ceremony for the English section of my paper. I was with another reporter from the Japanese section of the paper and she casually asked me, a pony-tailed guy covering an anime director, “so are you one of those anime otaku?” and I must have given the most distressed face she had ever seen because she immediately tried to console me that “otaku are totally hip these days.” (My long hair was more out of me being a closeted trans woman than being a nerd)

Was the Internet a part of fandom at the time? Again, at the time it was going over to my friends’ places and borrowing their comics. One friend had all of Dragon Ball, another had Dragon Quest and Slam Dunk.

I was actually not on the Internet until about 1998 and I didn’t really discover the “anime fandom” until I found those “web rings” and “shrines” people had for certain characters. I think I Yahoo searched for anime and eventually stumbled upon them.

God, wow, that actually happened.

I did become part of the American anime fandom after joining a webcomic forum back in 2003 or so? I’d peg that as my first time I really started talking to people and interacting with them over anime and manga.

On finding web rings and shrines, you wrote, “God, wow, that actually happened.” Could you elaborate? What was so weird and hard to believe about early web fandom? When you think about these characters that people made shrines for, you realize a lot of the shows they came from were only around for one or two seasons, yet they were powerful enough to get someone to make a website. Like, Outlaw Star aired for six months in Japan in 1998 and yet there I was 4-5 years later, finding myself at the cg shrines (http://ironmouse.za.org/dragon/index.html) to look at Aisha Clan Clan art.

I guess I feel it seems a little corny looking back at it too, and the fact I was into it myself is a thing I’m a little embarrassed to admit. Like, wow, people really liked these characters enough to put in the effort to make a website dedicated to them.

Do you remember your first convention? The first anime convention I ever went to was Fanime 2005. I went on Monday, the last day of the con and I wore a business suit to be a “random 4Kids henchman,” I pointed at people in lieu of having a gun. It was weird and Fanime was much smaller then. I saw some cosplayers, thought dealers hall was full of rare and amazing merchandise and most of the people there were incredibly thirsty.

“Thirsty.” Once again, could you elaborate? I do recall going to things like the yaoi bingo at the behest of friends. The annual tradition is run by YaoiCon and features things like two guys in lingerie giving each other lap dances on stage. I hear they’re still doing it now, but I feel it’s become less central to what I see promoted during the con. And then there was that “dating for otaku” panel featuring a panel of three women giving sex advice in lingerie. Overall, the late night programming was much more raunchy than what I hear about in recent years. I also felt there were more skeevy people back then in general. Personally, I’m kinda glad the culture of “glomping” has since fallen out of favor and that Fanime instituted “Cosplay is not Consent” policies like several other cons have done.

This might be partly because the con itself has grown to attract a larger, more general audience over the years, as well as my own change in how I spend my time at Fanime. (I lately spend my late nights at Fanime in my hotel room with friends instead of attending 18+ panels).

What was it like to meet American anime fans who are not Japanese? Was it weird? Did it feel like they were encroaching on your culture? I didn’t think they were encroaching on my culture. If anything, I feel excited and happy when someone says they enjoy something I thought was great or fun. I’ll still roll my eyes when someone tries to argue that anime as a medium is somehow philosophically or artistically superior to Western animation, but that perspective is no longer that popular.

If anything, when I was a freshman in high school, my school’s anime club (mostly run by white kids), introduced me to stuff like Trigun, Hellsing, Interstella 555, and Samurai X. I was grateful for that.

Even before that, I felt like I had some bragging rights when Pokemon became big in the late ’90s. I knew about the games, anime and manga a good year or two before it came to America.

What was the first fandom you got really invested in? How did you express your fandom? I’m more of a lone wolf and I have trouble getting excited about things with people. I can read about people giving effusive praise for a series and think, “oh, I want to read that series too,” but I have a hard time geeking out about things with other people.

The first fandom I did take part in is the Pokemon fandom. I played through Pokemon Red, Gold, Sapphire and Leaf Green versions religiously when they came out. With friends, I traded Pokemon cards, battled with them and spent time watching the anime when we went over to each others’ houses after school. Online, I got involved in writing fanfiction and chat role-plays around 2003 through 2006. 

I started to drift away around the fourth generation of Pokemon because I didn’t own a Nintendo DS and the monster designs weren’t as appealing to me.

Did you stay a fan the whole time up until today? If yes, what kept your interest? If no, what got you back into anime again? I’d like to say I’ve been a fan without pause since I was little. I’ve never looked at anime as a medium and earnestly said “this is stupid.” I’ve also never quit collecting manga. I don’t recall if I mentioned in the initial response, but I have more than 1,300 volumes of manga, including 92 volumes of Case Closed. I’m still buying manga today, though my taste in what I read has radically changed over the years.

I will note, however, that I stopped watching anime after graduating college in 2010. I just didn’t have time to sit and watch shows and my work was taking me away from pop culture (I stopped watching American shows too so it’s not just anime). I kept active on Twitter to keep up with friends and I kept up with anime gossip there, but I actually didn’t watch anything except Lupin the Third: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine in 2012. I literally didn’t watch anything after that until around summer of 2016 when I saw a screen cap of Felix Argyle from Re:Zero. I then marathoned Re:Zero because I have a thing for gender-ambiguous characters and cat people. While I was on the Crunchyroll website, I figured I should check out some of the other shows and also watched Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju too. Since then, I felt I should start watching more anime again.

Here’s a screencap of my inventory Google Sheet of my manga:

For you, what’s the biggest contrast between anime fandom then and anime fandom today? I think it’s the ubiquity of its aesthetics in America. For sure, it’s easier than ever to read and watch anime and manga in America, but I think what’s cooler is that it plays a huge role in media made in America.

For example, I watched Doraemon and Rocko’s Modern Life when I was little. Rocko is undeniably American and Doraemon is undeniably Japanese. Its setting, situations and aesthetics have almost no crossover whatsoever. Yet here we are in 2017, the kids that grew up watching Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball, Digimon, Tenchi Muyo, Gundam Wing are now making the cartoons kids watch on TV in America. Anime and manga is now an undeniable inspiration for Western cartoons and comics (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvks9zNnNHc). So, I guess to put it another way, the anime fandom is much more broader and undeniably intertwined with mainstream American pop culture now.

Chiaki can be reached on Twitter. 

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#77: Jay

Age: 22

Location: Phillippines

When did you discover anime? My anime experience stemmed from shows such as Slam Dunk and Yu Yu Hakusho in the turn of the millennium; but I was only hooked hard into anime after watching Mai-HiME.

What appealed to you about anime when you first discovered it? Slam Dunk and Yu Yu Hakusho were among the series that kept me glued to the screen every afternoon. Mai-HiME kept me glued as well, but to a point that I kept (day)dreaming of Mai in slice-of-life situations.

Sounds like you really got hooked on Mai-HiME. What was it about the show that hooked you, and how did you express your interest in it? I remember writing a poem about Arika Yumemiya and Nina Wang (Mai-Otome) and a slice-of-life story starring Mai (I forgot this one). I even tried to draw a comic strip (I almost forgot this, too). As for forums, the most memorable Mai-HiME-related forum I got into was the Mai-Universe forum at Gaia Online.

I was writing slice-of-life fanfics on paper as I keep daydreaming, like, what if Mai resembles the average Filipina who loves to cook and likes to sing? Those kinds of daydreams lightened my heart. I aimed for a lighthearted slice-of-life where I’d see a Mai Tokiha that is ready to cheer me up.

What was it like to be a part of anime fandom at the time? It gave me a window of opportunity to connect with fellow fans, and in turn it led to me blogging about the community.

Tell me about how you went from watching anime to blogging about fandom. How did that opportunity arise? The ZEN Otaku Honbu forums was my gateway anime forum where I learned about local anime events. I already had a website and a blog at that time, so I took the opportunity to share my experience about it. The fondest memory that I had was when I was detailing my route and sharing how much it will cost to get to venues such as the SMX Convention Center in Pasay or at Megatrade Hall in Mandaluyong, two of the most common destinations for anime- and otaku- related events.

We were paying to get inside events to cover it at first, but we got the opportunity to actually be a media partner for an event called “Otomonogatari” in 2012, where local cover bands gather to hold one night of music.

The rest was history—we applied for media partnerships for major and community events, were accepted, and we covered it either on our website or on video. That’s what I’ve been doing frequently with my friends while I was in college, but I still find time to do it while I have a job.

Was the Internet a part of fandom at the time? Yes. I was almost finishing high school when I was taught about 4chan. We connected through Facebook as it is a common point, though forums were still the hype back then.

Today 4chan kind of has a reputation. But it sounds like you spent a lot of time there early in your anime fandom. What was it like? It was there that I learned memes, just like most of us who dabbled on either 4chan or Reddit or so. Nowadays, you can see memes on Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter, but nothing beat the likes of 4chan. I laughed at the anime memes there (especially the “Consider the Following” meme).

Do you remember your first convention? Anime Overload Festival 2009. It was my first time visiting south of Metro Manila, and if I had a decent camera back then, I’m sure I’d be getting photos of cosplayers.

In your opinion, what’s the biggest difference between anime fandom then and now? 

  1. Yaoi fans were not as expressive way back then. There were events related to Yaoi before, yes, but it was only around the 2010’s when I realized that the Yaoi fandom got expressive. From Tumblr, then to Free! and eventually to Yuri!!! on Ice.
  2. Idol anime such as Love Live! and THE IDOLM@STER gave birth to the concept of “Primus.” It’s a bit hard to explain this in a nutshell, but I can describe Primus as someone who loves a specific anime idol character so much that he/she tries his/her best to get all the stuff of the said character, which then increases how the fan loves that character so much, therefore having the bragging rights to be called “____ Primus.” I think it’s staying in the community for good.
  3. In relation to #2. I am happy that more anime-related movies are coming to the country at present. We’ve also had the opportunity to screen μ’s Final Love Live, Aqours’ First Love Live! and other live events.
  4. In my circle of friends online, I can see some of them saving up money to go to lives in Japan or other parts of the world. Some of them even went to Anime Expo’s Anisong World Matsuri.
  5. May I also include “memes” in this list?

Jay can be reached on Twitter. 

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#76: Filip V

Age:  33

Location: Belgium

When did you discover anime? As a six or seven-year-old kid in the early ’90s, with not much on Belgian television for kids, I watched the French “Club Dorothée.” It had a great line-up of great ’80s anime classics, like: Saint Seiya, Captain Tsubasa, High School! Kimengumi, Ranma 1/2, and even Dragon Ball Z. I didn’t understand anything of it (I don’t speak French), but I enjoyed watching it anyway.

With local TV-channels broadening their scope for kids and Club Dorothée stopped, I sadly enough forgot about anime even existing after a while. But later on, in the early 2000s, the Anime Boom that was happening in the US also blew over to Belgium and I was re-introduced to anime, with ’90s and early ’00s classics like Gundam Wing, Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Rurouni Kenshin and once again: DBZ.

From there, with broadband internet finally being a thing in Belgium, I started my anime journey.

For your reintroduction, what was the TV block that was a part of? Was it in English or another language? Two TV channels had an anime block, airing on weekdays between 16-18 o’clock [4-6 PM] (if I remember correctly). Both channels relatively new, with a similar target demographic of kids, teens and young adults.

– “VT4” had a block with Pokémon (Dutch), Medabots (Dutch), Gatchaman (English) and Yu-Gi-Oh (English)

– “Kanaal 2” had a block with Digimon (Dutch), Crayon Shin-chan (Dutch), Gundam Wing (English) and Dragon Ball Z (Ocean Dub)

Due to those shows being aired on a (almost) daily basis, a lot of them had a lot of re-runs. I think I saw Gundam Wing like three or four times before it was swapped with another show.

I know VT4 had reruns of some of their weekday shows on the weekends (no, really!) + a few more, like Sailor Moon and Rurouni Kenshin (English).

In terms of dubs, think of it as follows: If the target demographic was young kids, the anime would be dubbed in Dutch. If not, it was English with Dutch subtitles. That’s basically what happens to Flemish/Dutch television overall.

What appealed to you about anime when you first discovered it? The expressive animation, storytelling and action that was unheard of in most kids cartoons from the ’80s.

What would you say was the most popular anime at the time? Saint Seiya, or as it was named in French: “Les chevaliers du zodiaque” (the knights of the zodiac).

What did your family think of your interest in anime? My parents knew that I was a fan of animated series overall but couldn’t tell the difference with me watching classic cartoons, “those yellow guys” (The Simpsons), or anime. Trying to explain the difference was like trying to talk to a wall. They accepted it as typical concerned parents who would rather have their kid spend more time studying instead of watching TV. My sister is seven years older than me and was more of a non-presence at home (either studying, spending time with her BF of going out), so I doubt she ever formed an opinion of my “watching habits”.

What was it like to be a part of anime fandom at the time? No clue! Without internet available, I really had no idea what the fandom was like. And I only heard later on from other Belgian people my age that they discovered anime in exactly the same way as I did.

Was the Internet a part of fandom at the time? No, so I didn’t talk to other fans for a while. Most kids from my town were either not interested in cartoons/anime, or only in the hype show of the moment: Transformers, TMNT, Power Rangers, etc. And those that were interested in more niche things just didn’t want to admit it, out of fear of being bullied.

Heck, when I was twelve and I said in class that I still enjoyed watching the Disney Afternoon block; a lot of kids just laughed at me and I even got reprimanded by teachers for “still watching cartoons at my age.”

Tell me about what it was like once you finally got broadband internet. How did you use it as an anime fan? A lot of the shows I watched were on endless reruns while waiting for new seasons, so first thing I did when I had internet was trying to find more of my favorite shows: Yu-Gi-Oh and Dragon Ball Z. I would download episodes and visit fan-sites to find out more info about the shows in general. Boy can you imagine my shock when I found out there was a better dub of DBZ, not to mention when finding out that Gundam Wing was just one of many Gundam series? Jaw-dropping moments.

I was a regular visitor (and later even a moderator) on a few anime forums that were focused on DBZ, like the “DeadZone Forums” and the Dutch “DBZ-Media.nl” (both now gone) where I got influenced to watch more and more anime and where I got the knack for writing fan fiction (first obviously DBZ related, then my own stories later on).

You said it was hard to make anime fan friends at first. Tell me about the first time you made friends with other fans. The first anime friends I made were on previously mentioned forums, especially the Dutch anime forum. It felt good to know that there were more people that spoke my language that were fans of anime. But while there were a few forum meet-ups in real life, they remained “far-off people”.

Real anime friends I started to make when I started playing Yu-Gi-Oh in real life in Ghent. Most players got into the game due to (one of) the anime series and most of them ended up being anime fans in general.  That was the first time I started being friends with people that had the same interests as me and didn’t live on the other side of the country (in a matter of speaking).

Do you remember your first convention? Yes, that was back in 2006: F.A.C.T.S. in Ghent, Belgium. Back then, I didn’t even knew it was called a “convention”. It was a one-day “event” that happened and was advised to me by a friend.

There was a good amount of people, and I was surprised to see some people being dressed up in military outfits, storm troopers and even Xenomorphs. And I was most interested in the Guests: Anthony Daniels, and some of the cast of Allo Allo (Guy Siner, Richard Gibson and Kim Hartman).

I enjoyed it so much, I returned there pretty much every single year. And I’ve seen the yearly con grow and expand so much over the years: From small one-day event to the (self-proclaimed) “biggest con” in the BeNeLux.

When did you start blogging about anime, and why? That was back in 2012. I had been playing Yu-Gi-Oh for a few years now and was following other Yu-Gi-Oh related blogs at the time. And while I quit writing fanfiction at the time, there remained the “need to write stuff”. It’s hard to describe this feeling, but you’ll probably understand since you’re a writer yourself.

So I ended up creating a blog myself. And while it did start out solely focused on Yu-Gi-Oh, I slowly also started to write about anime in general.

[You can read Filip’s blog here.]

Are your fanfics still online somewhere? Sadly enough, no. Since it was posted on forums that have been long gone, they’re no longer visible. One of the fanfics I co-wrote with others (based on Slayers/Record of Lodoss War and the Shining Force Games) had been archived by one of the co-writers shortly before it was shut down. He shared it with us afterwards so that we had some sort of “memory” to it. But the DBZ one is completely gone.

My main story was “Futuroscope”, about a kid who incidentally wished himself to the far future, where the earth is being attacked by aliens and he has to help defend the earth. Think of it as DBZ meets Stargate in a Futurama-type setting.

Sadly enough, also taken down when the forum it was posted on was shut down. I still have the drafts locally, but I need to rewrite the earliest chapters before I ever dare to publicize them again in any form.

In your experience, what’s the biggest contrast between anime fandom then and now? I think the biggest difference is that today, fans have an appreciation for anime aimed at young kids. When I joined the anime community in the early 2000s, there was a hatred towards “kiddy anime” like Pokémon, Digimon, Beyblade, and many others. It got dismissed by most, and people that enjoyed watching those shows were often hated upon. Think of it as “hardcore gamers” hating on “casual gamers.”

But today, most people in the anime community and a lot of anime YouTubers have admitted that they got into anime thanks to those “kiddy anime.” Look around on the internet and you’ll see many people praise the shows that were hated on in the past, like Digimon or Pokémon. And I think the people that were part of the community back in those days have started to accept that this has been a good thing for the anime community in general.

Filip can be found on Twitter. 

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#75: Joe

Age: 30

Location: Oklahoma City, OK

When did you discover anime? I was 12 when I bought my first anime DVD. I had been aware of it for a while before that, thanks to friends at school that had HBO, and I had seen some stuff on Sci-Fi on Saturday mornings, but there was something extra special about spending my own money on my own interests, so I would say that is when I truly discovered anime.

What was that first DVD? The first anime DVD I bought was Akira. I suppose that’s potentially cliche, but that was the one film I’d heard about from people at school that was supposed to just blow your mind. I wanted to know what they were talking about. The edition I bought was one of the special editions, in a steel book and everything, so it was on the pricier side for the time. If my memory serves, it was around $25 or so.

What appealed to you about anime when you first discovered it? It looked so much different than what I could find elsewhere. It was telling stories that I couldn’t find anywhere else at the time either. There was a sense of getting away with something as well, as what I was finding to watch was clearly intended for an older audience.

What would you say was the most popular anime at the time? Dragon Ball Z was all the rage, but pretty much anything that was aired on Toonami was the talk at school for a while.

What was it like to be a part of anime fandom at the time? Since it was not quite the commodity it seems to be today, it was fun to feel like you were a part of some small group. People would look at you like you were weird, but I was rather used to that.

I never had access to the internet at home, so I had to buy my collection over time at high prices. The nice thing about this was that I really knew what I was getting since I had time to look into them, but it sucked because I just wanted to see everything that I could.

Joe’s anime collection.

Tell me about your collection! Here’s a photo of my collection, as I still have all of it. It might not look all that impressive, since I had to condense it all into DVD binders so I could actually store it all. I’m not sure how many individual titles I have anymore, but disc-wise it’s well over 1,000. It’s very heavy.

You said being part of anime fandom meant people thought you were weird, but you were used to it. Were you “weird” before anime? I always felt weird, and to a certain extent I still do. My parents were both school teachers, and I went to the school at which my mom taught. As a result, all the other kids felt I was the perfect target for whatever they felt needed to be said. I tried to roll with this by wearing strange clothes or things like that. I also did fairly well in school, which resulted in mixed responses from others. Growing up in Oklahoma, doing anything outside of going to church and hunting in the fall resulted in all the weird looks. I think all of this combined resulted in my desire to escape into worlds different than this one.

Since anime was an unusual interest at the time, how did you meet friends who also liked anime? I had one friend in elementary school, and we are still very close. As soon as I bought something I liked, I’d share it with him. In this way we’d kind of build our understanding of what was out there and just go from there. Once into junior high, talking about one’s enjoyment of DBZ was more acceptable, so I made a few more friends that way.

Was the Internet a part of fandom at the time? As I said above, I’m sure there were communities online, but I didn’t have access to them. I tended to just keep my fandom to myself, talking with the few friends I had that were interested in anime when I could. Our tastes were similar so that was nice.

When did you finally get internet? Did it change how you consumed/thought about anime at all? Not to make my family sound too much like a bunch of luddites, but I didn’t get my own personal internet connection until college. This did effect my consumption of media in general, and anime specifically, because I’ve been about five to seven years behind, or at least it feels that way. As evidenced by my collection, I’ve never had success with streaming services like Crunchyroll or Funimation’s service. It doesn’t feel right to me. I desire a sense of ownership over the shows I watch, a sense that I have helped continue the release of shows I like.

For you personally, what’s the biggest shift between anime fandom then and now? The biggest difference to me, and it makes me feel really old to say this, is fan theories. The ability for people to watch shows as they air means they can also fill the internet with theories. This is still so foreign to me. It doesn’t feel like I’m watching anime unless I’m marathoning the entire series in one go. There has never been room for theories in my experience. I enjoy digging into the creators and directors much more.

Joe can be reached on Twitter. 

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#74: Kory

Age: 27

Location: Iowa

When did you discover anime? As I’m sure like a million other respondents also said, I saw it on Toonami and Fox Kids back in the ’90s watching stuff Pokemon and YuGiOh! I wasn’t sure what it was at the time, besides cartoons that I liked. I recall a buddy of mine saying Gohan and Videl had a kid named Pan and I had NO IDEA how he obtained this magical information, but it was because it had already happened in Japan.

I first became aware that these were anime in the later 90s or early 2000s, especially with the Toonami block of the era. Dragon Ball Z, YuYu Hakusho, and other anime really got me interested and, more importantly, clamoring for their nostalgia come 2007 or so, when I delved back into anime of that time.

What appealed to you about anime when you first discovered it? I just wanted to watch cool cartoons, man. And these were cool cartoons.

Though the intellectual answer is that they’re Asian and I’m Asian and I was craving representation beyond the… yellow power ranger.

What was it like to be a part of anime fandom at the time? I dunno if I was ever part of an anime fandom until Twitter. There were anime clubs in high school and college, but I never joined them. My fandom was isolated and sad.

What was that like? Did you have friends you just didn’t talk about anime with? Did you have other hobbies that took priority? High school was a little weird for me. In elementary and junior high, I was a pretty big nerd; I played YuGiOh! and watched all the anime that was interesting to me on TV.

But around high school, I got super into sports. Probably because the White Sox and Bears were doing really well at the time, which helps enthusiasm. Anime and stuff was part of my past at that time, and I had no interest in revisiting it.

It wasn’t until I met some other friends in high school, who were also into this kind of stuff back when, that I wanted to get back into it. I voraciously rewatched all the “classics” of my youth, like Pokémon, Dragon Ball Z, and Yu Yu Hakusho. I talked about it with my friend group, and some individual members of the anime club, but I didn’t see a need to join the club proper. I also wasn’t watching club anime yet, so there’s no influence on wanting to do the thing I saw upon rewatching all these series. I just wanted to shoot Spirit Guns.

Tell me about when you did meet other anime fans. I kinda covered this above, but I didn’t really know these other dudes I was talking to were anime fans.  We were just friends and reminiscing about various things, playing games together or walking around school shooting the shit when anime came up as the cartoons we used to watch. I don’t remember if we knew it was anime at the time, but we did know we liked it.

Actually, this is an unrelated story and going to be a huge digression, but I met this girl from the anime club (though I had no idea she was in it) and we kind of became friends because we both liked anime. She’s the one that got me into shojo manga through Arina Tanimura, Otomen, and many other manga (and thus further into manga over anime). I only found out later that my parents knew her parents because we were both adopted Koreans with heart conditions. Our parents met each other in some group that taught how to take care of your kid with a heart condition, but they moved away. It was very coincidental that we met 15-odd years later in high school.

Was the internet a part of fandom at the time? I mean, almost definitely, but I didn’t participate in internet fandom at all.

Tell me about when you did finally log on. Like probably a lot of other folks, the internet allowed me to revisit these old shows I used to know. First, because we could google vague terms (cartoon shot spirit energy from finger show, or whatever) and actually find the shows we could never remember. But more importantly, we could pirate them… which we did, because we didn’t know any better. Pirating led me to spending thousands on anime and manga, and their tangential merchandise, which may have never happened without the internet. Not that that forgives it.

Do you remember your first convention? What was it, and what was it like?
Yes, AnimeIowa 2009. My friend forced me into going to the con with her, her friend, her sister, and my buddy because I had never gone to an anime con before and I was the biggest anime fan of the bunch. The con is only ~3,000 people, so it was small and chill and almost no one of note was there. I didn’t know anime cons did cool things like panels without voice actors and teach you things or whatever.

How did you qualify as the “biggest” fan of the bunch? I was the dude who knew all the shows, and at the time I was super into dubs. So I could hear a voice and spout off whoever was speaking in most dubs at the time. Everyone else knew anime, and liked a lot of their own respective shows, but haven’t dug much deeper than “anime is cool.”

In your experience, what’s the biggest difference between anime fandom then and now? Twitter, at least for me. Twitter obviously existed in the early years of my fandom, but Twitter as well was in its infancy. In high school and college, having never joined an anime club, anime was always a niche thing that not too many people were into. I ran into a few that liked it in various classes, but it was never more than that. With Twitter, I can talk to a bunch of folks about shows we all love. Or hate, I guess.

Kory can be reached on Twitter.