Category: North America

Age: 30

Location: New Brunswick, New Jersey

When did you discover anime? Share as much as you remember. If I really think about it, the first anime I ever saw were the likes of Voltron, but I obviously didn’t know that it was originally anime back in the late ’80s. I also had a Captain Power VHS tape as a kid that was animated, but didn’t realize it was “anime” until much later.

The first time I really understood what I was watching was “anime” was when FoxKids was airing Digimon and Escaflowne, and then when Toonami was airing Rurouni Kenshin and G Gundam. In 2004 I truly went in full bore as a fan with Fullmetal Alchemist.

At first you watched anime not knowing it was anime. How did you learn it was anime, and how did that change your perception of it? While I’m sure I heard the term “anime” here & there during the 90s, I didn’t really identify what anime was until around the time I was watching Toonami. I do remember watching Pokémon as a child & not identifying it as “anime”, and I think during that short time Fox aired its edited version of Escaflowne it did advertise it specifically as “anime”, so I guess I would say that was the exact moment I learned stuff like that was anime.

As for perception, it did add a bit of an extra allure to it, especially when Fox Kids (later FoxBox and 4Kids TV) started focusing more on airing anime than domestic animation. It was honestly a really cool time to get into anime, as I had a bunch of really cool series to watch, like more Digimon, Dinozaurs, Flint the Time Detective, Monster Rancher, Ultimate Muscle, Shaman King, and even a little tokusatsu in the form of dubbed Ultraman Tiga. Alongside Toonami, anime was being given this special feeling, as though it was something that most domestic animated series just didn’t focus on being. It was to the point where, I’ll admit, I was one of those “Anime isn’t a cartoon” kind of fan, but eventually I grew up and realized that separation like that is pointless.

What appealed to you about anime when you first discovered it? It was so different from what was being made here in North America. Even as a kid, when I saw Digimon, I could tell that it was doing things in a way that I had not seen before with animated television. As I became more and more of a fan, I also discovered my favorite appeal: Anime can truly be about anything.

Could you elaborate? Remember the old ad slogan of “There’s an app for that”? That same concept applies to anime, which is something you really can’t say about animation anywhere else in the world. Ever since I started really getting into anime and manga, I’ve seen, read, or even simply heard of stories about firefighting, wine tasting, basketball, baseball, boxing, American football, soccer, golfing, bread baking, Chinese cuisine, mahjong, go, card games, yo-yos, pachislot, kyotei racing, car racing, cleaning up space garbage, vikings, all manner of world history (not just Japanese), atomic bomb survivors, adapting classic literature (including even the Bible), teaching, poetry, even fictional butt and breast combat, among many others. Plus, this is all alongside the stereotypical stories of ninjas, samurai, swords and sorcery, giant robots, space wars, romances, comedies, and the like. I don’t even have to be initially interested in any of these subjects in order to enjoy them, because they are just well told stories with great characters and heart-felt emotion; I’m not into sports normally, for example, but I have no qualms with watching a sports anime. If you can think of a subject, you can probably be told “There’s an anime/manga for that”, and I don’t think you can honestly say that about any other country’s animation industry. More than anything, what I love the most about anime is that the Japanese are willing to tell a story using anything they can think of, which in turn creates a catalog so diverse that I may never stop being amazed at what comes from it.

What would you say was the most popular anime at the time? Without a doubt, Fullmetal Alchemist. Even someone who doesn’t really follow the general crowd just had to watch FMA, & it was the anime that truly got me to become a fan of the medium in general.

Why did Fullmetal Alchemist resonate with you like no other show before? Admittedly, the main reason I even gave FMA a try in the first place was because I had first heard of it through the video game tie-ins, which lead to me finding out about FUNimation licensing it… Yes, I watched fansubs because it got licensed; everyone had their moments of idiocy back when they were younger. Regardless, once I started watching I was hooked, and it was simply because, even compared to the other anime I has seen prior to it (either on TV or the boxset or two I had bought before then), it was very different. Ed and Al Elric’s journey to regain their missing bits of humanity just felt so tonally different from the Digimons, Arc the Lads, and G Gundams I had seen before. The story was outstanding, the characters instantly memorable, the action thrilling, and overall it just truly, finally, made me want to be a fan of anime in a more definitive & focused way, rather than the fan-on-the-side that I was before FMA.

What was it like to be a part of anime fandom at the time? At the time, digital fansubs were the big thing, so it was a little wild and crazy at times. Multiple groups were doing the same shows, with varying levels of accuracy, style, and polish, and that resulted in most people preferring some groups over others. The end result was either prioritizing speed (for those who wanted it yesterday) or coming out a little later, but with a more polished & natural translation.

Was the Internet a part of fandom at the time? If yes, how? If no, how did you connect with other fans? I quickly joined the AnimeOnDVD.com forums, now known as The Fandom Post forums, and it was a wild time. There was such a strong focus on not just what titles were being brought over, but also on how well done the DVDs were on a highly technical level. Admittedly, I didn’t quite relate to them on the same exact level, but the passion was still there between all of us (both on a good level, as well as a not-so-good level).

How did you express your fandom early on? For a good number of years, I was simply content with watching anime and participating in forum talk over at AnimeonDVD.com. When Chris Beveridge sold the site to Mania.com, a blog section came with the updated forums, and over there I did start writing some pieces on all sorts of stuff, usually regarding anime or gaming; the Mania forums are now long gone, but that proto-blog wasn’t anything special. After I graduated from Rutgers in 2009, though, I started up a YouTube channel, where I reviewed various video games and smaller name anime. To be honest, I put next to no effort in any of those videos, especially from a production standpoint, though I somehow got props and positive feedback from them; I still can’t explain that. After a year of that, I finally decided to start up a proper blog, one where I could actually use my college-educated writing skills and deliver much more detailed and free form reviews for anime that have been forgotten or simply never talked about before. That wound up becoming The Land of Obscusion, and I’ve been doing that for over six years now.

And, really, the blog is simply a more focused and expressive form of my fandom, as I’ve always aimed more on watching what others are NOT talking about. It’s been like that since I truly got into anime (I didn’t move on to Evangelion or Cowboy Bebop after FMA, but rather I watched Ragnarok the Animation, Tokyo Underground, & Tales of Eternia the Animation), & it’s how I operate to this very day.

Do you remember your first convention? What was it, and what was it like?
My first convention was Otakon 2006, and all me and my friends did during the entire thing was buy tons of manga (and some anime) from the dealer’s room. Looking back on it now, I wonder how exactly we seemingly spent a three-day weekend simply buying manga, and we all bought a metric ton of it. Some of it was great & some of it was crap, but we were hungry for manga & just wanted more to read. Still, I did wish that we actually checked out more of the con, which we started doing from the next year on.

Your first Otakon you spent buying stuff. What about the next year? While I loved having such a large amount of manga to read while on the bus I used to get around Rutgers at the time, I quickly understood that there was an entire convention that I missed out on. From the second year on, I made more of an effort to experience more of what Otakon had to offer. In 2007 I attended some panels and checked out some of the video rooms, alongside perusing the dealer’s room. In 2008 my friends and I went to the JAM Project concert and had the time of our lives, while also doing more of what we did the year prior. Today, I am much more of a panel attendee, and have even moved on to running my own panels. My Otakon experiences have more or less mirrored my evolution as an anime fan, starting as a simple devourer of content before becoming one who wishes to learn more, and now being someone who wishes to show others.

What’s the biggest contrast between anime fandom then and anime fandom today?  Easily the biggest contrast is the overall changing of the guard and a general relaxation of what makes one a “real fan.” While I didn’t have to deal with “gatekeepers,” like those who started in the old days did, there was still a bit of a hierarchy in the forum culture when I started. There were some people, who will remain nameless, who seemed to take delight in demeaning those who didn’t follow their “superior” tastes and preferences over at the old AnimeonDVD.com forums (and this also followed through to Mania to an extent), and it was primarily because they were giant fans of what was selling (and getting licensed) the most at the time; they truly felt that they were better (i.e. more of a “real fan”) than others for such petty reasons.

Today, however, the concept of a “real fan” is generally looked at with disdain, and that makes me happy. Nowadays, we get ~95% of everything anime that gets made, which in turn allows a person to be a fan to whatever extent or form he or she wants. You can be a guy who follows the newest stuff religiously, you can be a gal who waits until something finishes before checking it out, you can be someone who enjoys what others may not, you can stick with only watching a show or two at a time, you can watch something for the hope of seeing beautifully fluid animation, or you can be a weirdo like me who purposefully watches the stuff barely anyone else does, and the best part of all is that all of them are now considered “anime fans” equally. People can be as “real” as they want to be today, and I only wish it was like that back in the mid-00s.

George can be reached on Twitter and at his blog. 

Age: 31

Location: California

When did you discover anime? Share as much as you remember. In a mix of unsorted memories, I have big Tom Toonami, bootlegs of Inuyasha, setting timers for Adult Swim to catch .hack//sign and Cowboy Bebop, and waking up early to try to watch Pokemon but getting dragged to school. DVDs of Tenchi in Tokyo and random bits of El Hazard from the Chinese video rental place as well.

You gave me a big mix of unsorted memories! Could you give this to me in a timeline, maybe?  These memories take place during my middle school years,—1996 to 2000—when my family had cable TV for the first time. From there I would discover Toonami and Adult Swim.

I think in that era started with Sailor Moon, and looking it up I remember bits of Robotech and Dragon Ball Z. During this time there was a video rental place in a Hong Kong market my mom would take us to rent movies. They had Sailor Moon LD if I remember correctly, and a limited list of anime titles. Since I did not have anyone to reference these titles off of, I pretty much picked up what was on the shelf. There were no complete runs so I didn’t really watch any show to completion. The place has long since closed down with the downturn of all home rental businesses, so I can’t really pull up everything I have ever seen from there. Tenchi Muyo and El Hazard ended up sticking in my mind the most, though I think I only saw three episodes of El Hazard off of their one DVD. I think the Escaflowne movie was there as well.

When Pokemon first came out I heard how popular it was from school, which got me to try to watch it. I think I had to look up its air time in the TV guide book that got delivered. I remember the show’s first run was on channel 13, weekdays at 6:30 am. But my parents weren’t very hot on me wasting time in the morning before school watching TV. I only caught a few episodes before I had to stop. Both my parents worked so I had more time during the afternoon runs of shows.

I think around 1999 I finally learned how to set our VCR to tape shows, and I used this to record normal Saturday morning cartoons because I took Chinese classes that started during these show times and I really liked cartoons back in the day. This carried over to recording the Adult Swim stuff at night as well. This is where I remember Cowboy Bebop, FLCL, and .hack//Sign came up.

My younger sister at some point, probably around ’98 or later, brought home Inuyasha DVDs from a friend of hers. Actually I think this was during Toonami’s run of Inuyasha, because I remember watching dubs of the first season, and then subs for a bit from these DVD’s. They were bad subs, that I remember.

What appealed to you about anime when you first discovered it?
I think first was the more serious tones compared to the Nicktoons were showing at the time. Action and animation were big parts of it. I also found myself a “slice of life” genre fan and really only anime had these stories. I think shows with a slow pace to them was a stark contrast to the mile-a-minute activity American cartoons had, which kind of stuck with me.

What would you say was the most popular anime at the time? Doraemon. I think that series is Simpsons-old.

What was it like to be a part of anime fandom at the time? The high school anime scene was disjointed. Someone tried to get something going for the lunch hour, but it was way too short for anything to happen. I got more into IRC groups, 4chan, and the Adult Swim anime forums at that time. Never really connected well due to that online nature. Only really got somewhere in college with a proper anime club.

What was college anime club like? I went to UCI for my college, right out of high school, and the club there was Cal Animage Epsilon. There I met a few people who had a good history of anime going back to the tape sharing days. They showed pretty much all pirated stuff, except for a quarter or two of working with Funimation’s Anime Club program, which I remember watching Kiddy Grade and answering their questionnaire. For the first three years the club president was really driven to show things we could not normally see, and then also show things that were just freaky. Sexy Commando was one thing he brought on us. Anything with 12 episodes worked great so we could finish the series within the quarter. One interesting thing he got us to watch was Densha Otoko, which got me to look into Jdrama for a while. I’m looking through the club page of shows and they really covered quite a gamut.

At this time I really got the hang of pirating anime and manga. I made use of IRC while on the college campus, and branched to bittorrent when I moved off campus. My second run of roommates were folks I met at the club, and since they didn’t have TV, more entertainment came from the internet.

Do you remember your first convention? What was it, and what was it like?
Anime Expo while it was still in Anaheim. I volunteered for a free badge for a Saturday and a Sunday I believe. Missed the nice panels cause I was working and was too young to have money to shop, and no real way to record the experience.

Did you go back to Anime Expo or did your volunteer experience sour you on it? Up until their second time at the Los Angeles Convention Center, I would more or less make it to the Expo for a day of volunteering. I believe their first year at LACC I went with a full time position, and shacked up with others for the entire convention. I think for the early years, while it was at Anaheim, being able to catch bits of the Cosplay Masquerade was interesting enough. About that time the video rooms were showing things I could find online, but missing panels was neither here nor there, since I was mostly drawn to one by their subject matter. I never really planned for a panel; only seeing them on the schedule when I got there. I stopped volunteering when they made the change to not providing badges for people who volunteered, and I got my own job. I still went for each year since then, think I missed one and I’m not going to this year’s either. They’ve been getting even more crowded and your ability to attend things on a whim is really hurting.

What’s the biggest contrast between anime fandom then and anime fandom today? I feel like I got into the fandom just as this most recent iteration was taking place. 4chan was the bulk of what propagated anime talk, and everything seemed to derive from that. I definitely felt separate from the legal community as that wasn’t what I was doing for my viewings, since the other two other places I knew talking about anime, ANN and Adult Swim, had restrictions on talking about unreleased stuff. I myself have pivoted for being more legit, and putting off some of the dumber arguments around piracy, but I still feel there’s an argument in putting a priority on how much you’re spending to live. As for contrast, it feels small going from the short period of bittorrent to this run of streaming when right before that was the intricate network of tape trading existed. 2008 seemed to have really changed things though, pushing the kind of experience pirates had up to then to a legit platform. Its definitely a big contrast from getting three-episode DVDs months apart.

Jeffrey can be reached on Twitter. 

Age: 27

Location: New York

When did you discover anime? Share as much as you remember. Was around the 3rd grade when I stumbled onto a show simply titled Pokemon. Needless to say, at the time, I had no idea it was anime. It just so happened to air on TV alongside other cartoons at the time, and I didn’t think much of it.

In fact, I didn’t think much of it for a while since I didn’t really seek out anything else like it—if it was on my TV, and it was a cartoon, I was gonna watch it.

So truthfully I probably did not realize what anime was or could be like until I discovered The International Channel somewhere around 1999 or 2000. It was a channel devoted to showing, well, foreign creations. The two that I remember was Dragon Ball GT (at a time where we had Dragon Ball Z and all) and Slayers…subtitled.

Yes, that’s right, subtitled. I can’t tell you how odd that was, but I can tell you how I remember the subs were also yellow… Anyway, it started with that, then TechTV started Anime Unleashed, and my interest in anime began right here.

What appealed to you about anime when you first discovered it? I have to think at the time it was the stories that drove me than anything else. Most of the cartoons that I watched like Scooby Doo, Tom & Jerry, etc, and even stuff like Power Rangers generally were set for kids to enjoy, so that meant you’ll get comedy sets, monster of the week, etc. Pokemon had some of that too, but the overarching goal was Ash’s journey to become a Pokemon Master. There was a story driven reason to tune in each week. The look of anime might have also been a factor as well.

What was it like to be a part of anime fandom at the time? Very much a quiet thing. Like nobody I knew went out of their way to talk about anime unless it was on Toonami. Forget about buying anime—the only places I could figure out where it was was at FYE or Suncoast, in New Jersey. It was at least a good hour or so by train going from NY to NJ, and the only time I would ever go to the mall was if the whole family was. And I discovered magazines like Otaku USA and Newtype pretty late.

Was the Internet a part of fandom at the time? If yes, how? If no, how did you connect with other fans? While I think you could do a bunch of things thanks to the internet in the early 2000s, I wasn’t old enough to buy anything online, or find out where to watch anime online, or… well, yeah. I was very much a TV person. So I can probably say it impacted others, but not me personally.

So truthfully, I didn’t really connect with many fans around the 2000s.

How did you start connecting with fans then? There were two times where I began connecting with fans: 2008 and 2010.

Inspired by what my friends did in high school, I had the bright idea of starting an anime club… as a freshman in college. I only knew one person at the school who was interested in anime, and that was through a summer program. So it was a case of convincing students before classes started (each class had about 20-30 people), then making my case to the Student Council why the school should have an anime club. For me, it was a very harrowing experience as I’m introverted by nature. I think it took about a month and a half before I had my club officers and six other students that said they’d be interested in joining the club! Anyways, I was President for those four years, and those four years were a mix of stress and regrets yet remains one of the best experiences ever. It was great to meet a number of people who liked the same thing I did, and generally do things I’ve never done before with people that were super passionate about anime. While there are many things I’d like to take back, there are also many things I will cherish for a long, long time.

In 2010, one of those anime club members happened to be a writer. I began desiring to write about anime and manga—I ended up asking about teaming up to start a blog. That blog turned out to be Organization ASG, or Organization Anti-Social Geniuses, sometime in late December. Six years and five months later, I still had no idea this would be the result, as I’ve found friends, met cool people, and traveled to Anime Boston and Anime Expo as press, which I used to believe was for only for super popular (and more established) outlets, and cover a convention. Like anime club, there are many things I’d like to take back but there are also many things I will cherish for a long, long time. Unlike anime club, I hope there’s a lot more experiences to come since I’m still maintaining the site.

Do you remember your first convention? What was it, and what was it like?
The first convention that I went to was New York Comic Con 2006 on a Sunday. I remember because I went with my mom. It was definitely a culture shock since I had never seen so many people that were into all of this, including anime or manga.

My first strictly anime convention I went to was the second New York Anime Festival in 2008. Just like NYCC, just seeing people in cosplay, all the items in the dealers’ hall, etc, I had never experienced anything like it.

When you went with your mom, whose idea was it? What did your mom think of the con? It was definitely my idea to go, but naturally I was not going alone! I guess I was either 16 or 17 when I told my mom about NYCC and she decided she was coming with me since it was my first convention and first time at the Jacob Javits Center.

My mom was shocked at the amount of people that was there, mainly because I don’t think she knew there would be this many fans of comics and stuff. But aside from that and her desire to buy certain art materials that she saw, I can’t remember if she felt any other way about the con.

You said, of your first con, “I had never experienced anything like it.” Could you elaborate why and how? So I think the biggest event I can say I went to where there was a lot of people was a basketball game when I was a kid. The only thing I remember was the stadium I went to (Continental Airlines Arena, where the Nets used to play). School plays had a lot of people (parents and relatives) watching their kids singing on stage, and those were something else since I had to be the one singing!

But just going to NYCC felt different. For starters, it meant a lot of walking around. It meant discovering ways to buy anime (or manga). It meant seeing people in costumes (and finding out what cosplay meant!). For someone who relied heavily on anime on TV and whatever VHS I could find in stores, it was certainly a new experience to me.

Now that you’re a blogger, how has your view of the fandom changed? How has your participation in the fandom changed? Before starting all of this I didn’t really have a view of fandom since I didn’t interact with most of it. But in starting a blog and interacting with not only bloggers, but fans and industry members either to learn information or get quotes for a story, I’ve basically met a ton of passionate people who love what they do. Do they love working on a costume a week or a day before a convention? Probably not. But I’ve met those people and they will spend long hours to express what they love, and that is cool. While there’s always issues, I’d like to think the positives far outweigh the negatives within fandom.

I guess the best way to answer how I participate in fandom is I try to contribute in some way. There are a number of ways to show support for what you love, whether it’s buying anime BDs or manga, cosplaying, drawing, or shooting videos. Before blogging the only thing I did was watch whatever was on TV, then find anime on YouTube (not knowing it wasn’t legal at the time to watch them) and then read manga. Now I’m actually way more aware of upcoming anime and manga, I’m probably watching more anime than I would’ve without blogging, and of course, I try to write about either industry or things happening in the community.

So I’d say my participation in fandom has changed considerably since I started blogging.

Justin can be reached on Twitter. 

Age: 21

Location: California

When did you discover anime? Share as much as you remember. I discovered it by watching Naruto on Toonami in 2005. From there, I started watching Zatch Bell, One Piece, Bleach, and other shows on Toonami. I didn’t branch out beyond that or get involved in the larger fandom until 2013, when I watched Angel Beats, Sword Art Online, Fullmetal Alchemist, Attack on Titan, and several other popular shows.

What appealed to you about anime when you first discovered it? I always liked the particular style of fantasy action you see in long-running shonen that just wasn’t done in other mediums. It had a certain type of cool that I had never seen anywhere else. I had also never seen a TV show with that much of an overarching story or that much complexity. I had only seen American cartoons (and Pokemon) before that, and those rarely had any overarching plot and were largely directed at a younger audience.

What would you say was the most popular anime at the time? Naruto, no question.

What was it like to be a part of anime fandom at the time? I wasn’t really a part of the fandom at the time. I didn’t use the internet as much back then and didn’t know a lot of other fans. What I remember most is watching and discussing the latest Naruto episodes with my younger brother, who began watching it even before I did.

Tell me more about your younger brother. How did he get into anime? Did he stay into it up until today? My younger brother got into anime pretty much the same way I did. We would both watch Pokémon as kids, and he started watching Naruto on Toonami shortly before I did. He isn’t as into it today but he still occasionally watches action shows like Attack on Titan.

Can you tell me about the first time you met another anime fan? Was it in person or online? Aside from my brother, the first anime fan I met was a kid I knew at elementary school who also liked Naruto. I don’t remember a lot of details but I remember talking about it with him during recess. The first time I got involved with an anime related community was through editing on the One Piece Wiki back in 2012, which I still do today.

How did you get into that? I originally started because I was (and still am) a huge One Piece fan and I browsed there fairly regularly. I started editing by correcting small spelling and grammar errors and kept going from there. I’ve stuck with it because I’ve gotten more involved with the community there and I like making sure the wiki is good quality. I’m also a content mod there, which is a step above ordinary users but below admins. I’m not as active as I used to be, but I still edit there fairly frequently.

I also started blogging about a year ago, and I’ve gotten even more involved with the community through that.

How did you express your interest in Naruto? Did you create art or write stories or anything like that? Aside from watching the weekly episodes on Toonami, I began buying Naruto video games whenever I found out about a new one and could talk my parents into getting it for me. They were usually fighting games that I played by myself against the AI, but I also sometimes did matches against my brother. I still have all of the games today, and I think I ended up getting about nine or ten different games, some of which I still play occasionally. I also started reading the manga weekly after my brother picked it up. I had always watched the dub, so the manga was far ahead of what I was familiar with, but I was so eager for new content that I read it anyway. I even bought some Naruto trading cards once, although I never did much with them.

Do you remember your first anime convention? What was it like? My first anime convention was Anime Expo 2014 (I had dropped into a smaller convention for a few hours once, but I didn’t really do anything). It was a lot of fun, but the lines are what I remember most. That was the year the computers they used for badge pickups broke, and I ended up waiting in line to get mine for three hours in July heat and some of the events had such long lines that they filled up before I got to go in. I’m still glad I went to the con, though. I got to go to a lot of cool panels, even with the lines, and it was the first time I had seen so many fans in one place. I had so much fun that I’ve gone every year since, except now I always buy premier badges so I can skip the lines.

What’s the biggest contrast between anime fandom then and anime fandom today? I wasn’t that involved with the community until around 2014, but what I remember most from the early days was how huge Naruto was. Toonami would always promote it heavily, every fan I met knew about it or watched it, and it was one of the first shows I thought of when I thought “anime.” Back then, especially among people my age, the main source of anime was Toonami, so all of the biggest hits were shows from there. Bleach and One Piece were also pretty popular around that time, but Bleach didn’t come around until a little later, and One Piece never quite caught on in like the other two.

Videogamep can be reached on Twitter and his blog. 

Age: 32

Location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

When did you discover anime? Share as much as you remember. Technically the first anime I saw was Speed Racer in the middle of the night on Cartoon Network. And like all kids, I watched Pokémon. But in 2001 I got into Cardcaptors, Sailor Moon, and Tenchi Universe. I was a big fan for a while, but then I turned 17 and was “too cool for anime.”

Fast-forward to 2007. I drove by an anime convention in Pittsburgh (Tekko) and proceeded to make fun of all the cosplayers. My mom called me out on my hypocrisy—I had cosplayed Darth Vader to the premiere of Episode III. So I took a closer look at this anime thing. Seeing how much fun all the cosplayers had at the con melted my heart, and my now-soft heart was ready for anime.

On the night of May 14, 2007, I watched InuYasha for the first time—the episode “Mistakes of the Past”—and I’ve been hooked ever since. I’ve been to approximately 35 cons in the last 10 years. I’m an otaku now, and I’m never looking back.

Your mom sounds like a classy lady. My mom was a first-grade teacher for about 20 years up until her forced retirement due to various health problems. She always looked out for the kids who were getting bullied. Her ability to help the children who were not as popular made her very popular with her parents as well as her students. So it only seemed natural when she pointed out my hypocrisy in making fun of cosplayers when I had in reality cosplayed just a couple years earlier. Thanks to her, I gave up my “eminence front” of being too cool for cosplay, and eventually fell in love with the art myself.

Why do you think your first reaction toward cosplayers was judgement? I was bullied from my very first day of first grade. There was definitely a pecking order in my class, and I was at the bottom. As the years went on, and I got older, and other kids left my school, I moved up in the hierarchy. Eventually I became the bully, making fun of others. That included the cosplayers I saw. It was wrong, but I never realized it until that day my mom called me out on it. I became the very thing that I had suffered from, but my mom set me straight and I’ve been a different person ever since. Becoming an otaku literally changed me from being a bully to being a friend to those who are bullied. The best lesson I learned from my experience is, don’t give into hate.

What appealed to you about anime when you first discovered it? It had to be the fact that female characters were strong, especially in stuff like Sailor Moon, Tenchi Universe, and InuYasha. Strong female characters seemed so new to me, growing up with only American male-oriented cartoons. It was characters like Sailor Mars, Ayeka and later Sango who won me over.

What would you say was the most popular anime at the time? Probably Bleach at the time of my renaissance in 2007. Fullmetal Alchemist was big too.

What was it like to be a part of anime fandom at the time? It was a much more relaxed atmosphere than it is now. Instead of all the political crap that has popped up within convention communities, people were much more accepting of everyone.

How has anime fandom gotten more political over time? I think the defining moment for me was at Colossalcon this past year, when a skit involved beating up a Trump cosplayer with a baseball bat and the masquerade hosts chiding the audience if they weren’t for Bernie Sanders. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no Trumpster, but there seems to be so many political causes these days in Facebook groups that receive hundreds of likes while actual discussion of con activity gets pushed to the bottom. I guess my best answer is that the transition from anonymous discussion on message board forums to putting your name out there on Facebook groups in the past five years has led to people feeling the obligation to push their political views in places where it really doesn’t belong.

Was the Internet a part of fandom at the time? If yes, how? If no, how did you connect with other fans? Yes, I found fellow fans on a website called “Christian Anime Alliance.” At the time, the forums were active and helpful. Also, I’d use YouTube to look up videos from Tekko to see what I missed at the con in which I made fun of people at first (then recanted).

Has your religion continued to figure strongly in your anime fandom? While the Christian Anime Alliance is practically dead, my Christian views still heavily affect the way I watch anime. Over the years, I’ve found many links between my faith and what I watch. It may not be intentional, or it may very well be so, but I’ve seen connections between various characters and Biblical figures. My favorite has to be the connection between Kuniko Hojo from Shangri-La and Moses. Not many people have seen Shangri-La, which is a shame, because it is an utter masterpiece. Kuniko runs away from her people, before having that “burning bush” moment that brought her back as their leader, and after many trials she ends up leading them into their “promised land.” It’s a beautiful parallel that helps me enjoy the series more, and definitely cements Shangri-La as one of my all-time favorites.

Do you remember your first convention? What was it, and what was it like?
Erie Anime Experience 2007—a tiny con but with great cosplayers, a friendly guest (Kyle Hebert), and a video game tournament where I recorded my one and only win at Super Smash Bros. Melee. It was an amazing experience for a con virgin.

What inspired you to begin blogging about anime? I honestly can’t remember the exact reason I decided to start blogging, whether it was something I thought long and hard about, or whether it was just a whim. In any case, I began my blogging journey in February 2008, and while it hasn’t been all sunshine and roses, I feel as if I’m better off now than I ever was before. I’ve found my niche and I’ve crawled into it nicely. While my original goal of blogging was to blog both anime and sports, I’ve discovered that my true blogging passion is for anime, and I now only blog about American football seasonally.

What’s the biggest contrast between anime fandom then and anime fandom today? I think the biggest difference between fandom when I first became a fan and now is the way we interact online. In 2007, everything was still on message board forums. You’d have specific categories to make your posts, and you’d have to make sure you played by the rules. Now everything is social media. There’s Facebook, where you have to make a splash or otherwise your post gets buried, Twitter, where hashtagging is key to get anyone to notice, and there’s Tumblr, which is meme city. The best example I can give is the IchiHime fandom. For those who aren’t familiar, IchiHime is the abbreviation for fans of the romantic relationship between Ichigo and Orihime from Bleach. In the late 2000s, IchiHime had its own message board where fans could post to their heart’s content, and moderators made sure to keep the site free from needless bickering. By 2016, when “we won” (IchiHime is canon now), the Tumblr wars were overwhelming. Opponents of IchiHime purposely tagged their vicious anti-IchiHime posts with “pro ichihime” in order to start fights. Obviously there’s a big difference between then and now, and it’s obvious what I prefer. What will fandom look like in the 2020s? That might be up to Mark Zuckerberg to decide.

Tommy can be reached on Twitter. 

Age: 38

Location: New Jersey

When did you discover anime? Share as much as you remember. My earliest recollection of anime, not that I knew it as such at the time, was watching Star Blazers on Saturday morning. It was the one of the first shows scheduled for that broadcast day, and my six-year-old self loved it. Ultimately, however, it was just another cartoon to me back then.

In my teens, my hormones brought me to the likes of La Blue Girl on the animation shelf at the local video rental store. I laughed off “anime” like most of my peers back then for its ridiculousness, and stayed with American cartoons for the most part.

In college, I roomed with the inner-city youths from the worst parts of Camden, Philadelphia, and Newark (NJ). I came back to our apartment one day to find all three sitting on the couch watching some brightly colored nonsense. When I asked what it was they were watching, all three enthusiastically turned around and said some variant of, “Oh shit, you’ve never seen Pokemon? You gotta watch this!” I declined and left.

After moving into my first apartment in Pennsylvania, a new friend showed me some VHS tapes he had of a ridiculous show called Dragon Ball Z. We’d hang out and drink and watch it. Fun times were had. He also had a VHS of Maison Ikkoku, which is when my thoughts on anime started to shift. During the same period, Cowboy Bebop started airing on Toonami, and when I saw that, I officially came around to respecting anime. (My friend didn’t initially take to CB as I did, but he came around.)

When I moved back to New Jersey, my mother died shortly thereafter. Shortly after that, Fullmetal Alchemist started airing on Adult Swim. This was what harpooned my loyalty to Japanese cartoons. The breadth of genres and stories I sporadically encountered over 30-some years made me realize that my love for cartoons and anime’s fearlessness for subject matter were perfect for one another.

I’m sorry for your loss. Was the focus in FMA on Ed and Al’s mom part of what endeared you to it? How so? The mother’s death and her sons’ desperation was absolutely what endeared me to that show. Until then, I’d not seen (or at least remembered seeing) anything that dark in anime, and the plot was just sort of a right place/right time sorta thing. I actually wrote this piece for Ani-Gamers detailing my connection with the original series after Brotherhood finished its simulcast. Every year since watching it the first time (once I owned the DVDs), I watch the last three episodes and the movie on October 3. FMA is more a part of my life than any other anime though there are definitely better and more mature titles out there. It’s almost like watching bittersweet home movies.

What appealed to you about anime when you first discovered it? When I saw it as a child, anime was just another cartoon. Bright colors, cool explosions, fun stories.

When I discovered anime as “anime,” it was the maturity of (some of) the stories that were being told as well as the art styles behind them.

What would you say was the most popular anime at the time? Respective to my stages of anime discovery: Star Blazers (Space Battleship Yamato), Cowboy Bebop, and Fullmetal Alchemist.

To rewind just a bit, you watched La Blue Girl at a time when you didn’t watch other anime. How did you even find out about hentai in that case? At the time, I really wasn’t watching many cartoons at all actually. My teenage friends and I were just renting whatever R-rated fare we could get away with at the video store when we came across that… which had a 13+ sticker on it (as I recall) and was in the very front of the store on the regular animation shelf. I remember laughing like mad at the plot and the mechanics involved, but my mind’s forever scarred from lines like “I will now thoroughly and violently penetrate you.” I honestly can’t actually recall when I contextualized hentai as Japanese porn cartoons, but at some point it came to be the thing from which I had to (and still have to) explain to people as “not the norm” for anime.

After you rediscovered anime, how did you interact in the fandom? How did you make friends with other fans? What really got me into the fandom, and not just liking the anime I was watching, was spending more time with fellow fans. I owe my initial dive into the deep end to my friend Ben, who decided we should go to Otakon one year. There, I felt connected but also like an outsider for my ignorance of the medium. It was great to know so many people loved the same thing I had come to, and it filled me with a desire to learn more about it.

Although Ben’s more of a cosplayer than a panel freak, like me, I would had never discovered panels and the infinite fun through learning they bring without, frankly, being bored waiting for him to move for all the people requesting his picture. (He makes a damned good Episode 1-3 Obi Wan.) It was in a panel at the first con I went to by myself, the very first Castle Point Anime Con (CPAC), where I met Evan of Ani-Gamers, and I’ve been contributing to that site (and others) ever since. That exposure has led to interacting with many great people online via twitter and podcasts. Cons tend to deepen those ties from all of us gathering together, and now when I give panels, I love hanging out afterwards and talking with possible new friends!

My mind’s memory is that of a dying fly, so you’ll have to forgive the fact that all I really remember about the first Otakon I attended was being absolutely shocked how balls-to-the-wall forward people were regarding wearing their fandom on their sleeves…literally; I felt so out of place wearing normal clothes that my heart for fandom grew three sizes that day. It’s a feeling I would always like to remember.

Could you elaborate on feeling like an outsider? Early on in fandom, I felt like an outsider for just not knowing enough, not showing enough. It felt like my liking of these cool foreign cartoons was not worthy of being around people so fervent in their liking of “anime.” I didn’t know the lingo, and I could only speak to the few shows I’ve seen. I remember thinking, “Oh, god, there’s a history to all of this?!” and kinda freaking out. That was entirely in my own head though, and I’m kinda glad it was. Attending panels is where I learned my love for this fandom as well as what its obsessed with, and I’ve come to see anime fans as some of the most accepting fans out there.

Today you’re on staff at Ani-Gamers, a blog about anime. How did that start? As of this moment in time, I contribute articles and columns to, co-host a podcast (Oldtaku no Radio) on, and perform editorial tasks for Ani-Gamers. It was Evan Minto who started and still runs that blog, and it was he who handed me a business card at the end of a CPAC edition of C.R.A.Z.Y. O.T.A.K.U. to solicit writers. He said he was looking for academic takes on anime, video games, and manga. I said I’m an aimless English major with penchant for overly elaborate analyses. He said, “Welcome.”

How has going from passive consumer to active fan creator changed your fandom? Poetic! I really love the term “active fan creator,” because that’s honestly what I hope I’ve become. To that end, evolving “from passive consumer to active fan creator” has given me social media nightmares (literally dreams where my Twitter feed starts attacking me for the degree of naiveté or incompetence in my reviews/opinions). But dealing with the anxiety is way more than worth it for the payoff of hearing someone say that they read your piece and comment on how it affected them or their views on whatever you reviewed. Creating content that engages while being informative is tantamount to what I aim to do, and to that effect, my fandom has changed to one of bittersweet toil. It’s like being in the marketing department to some degree—a creative job but one with time cards nonetheless. I often feel burnt out for speaking with such passion and craft into a very large void, but those scattered comments, like stars, keep me going further into and along with the fandom.

What’s the biggest contrast between fandom then and now? When I was watching cartoons I didn’t know as anime, those much more intense than I were subbing tapes to spread the love. Now most anime are simulcast legally, supported by a relatively huge fanbase, and dissected/lauded/jeered by the same. This is a wonderful time to be an anime fan. We’ve almost got it all, including creators visiting domestic conventions in person and answering questions about their work. This is high-level stuff! It doesn’t get much better. We should count ourselves lucky and contribute in any way possible to further anime exposure and appreciation.

Ink can be reached on Twitter.