こんにちはみんなさん
Warning: Wall of text!
No, it hasn't been a year since I joined MAL. It's been a year since I got into anime. Well, almost. On April 27th 2012, I formally entered the world of anime with Cardcaptor Sakura. Revisiting one of the shows I had watched when I was a little kid brought back many warm memories. But let me explain how this all happened.
Growing up, anime was almost taboo. My parents worried constantly about the 'bad influence' anime had on some people. They were totally against females dressing up in revealing clothing and about the sexual references that were found in them. I still have no idea where my parents got this informatiion from. If I wanted to watch an anime, I had to watch it with my parents around. Eventually, I too began thinking anime was something only weird people got into. Now, growing up in the late 90's and early 2000's, it was almost impossible to avoid anime entirely on TV. English dubs were predominant at the time since the Internet was still getting off its feet. Teletoon in Canada was where I watched most of my TV shows as a kid. Now, since it was a kid's channel and I thought anime was for older people, I didn't know a couple of the shows I was watching were anime. Shows like Pokemon, Cardcaptors, Megaman NT Warrior and Kirby: Right Back at Ya! I also watched Yu-Gi-Oh since I was into the card game at the time (who wasn't?) Since I didn't know any better, I thought some of those shows were just regular cartoons. So I grew up like that, thinking anime was just some weird hobby that people had. I grew up a hardcore gamer instead, spending almost all of my free time playing video games.
Coming back to February 2012, I had just finished my last semester of high school (I went back for one more semester to get extra credits and to make sure I knew what I wanted to do). For the first couple of months, I just played video games to my heart's content, only stopping to eat, sleep, and go to my part-time job. If you know the video game market, you know that starting in April and lasting to June, the number of games released reaches a low point. Since I had all the free time in the world, I had plenty of time to finish all the games I bought. So in April, I started to get bored.
So to relieve my boredom, I began re-visiting my childhood by listening to music from classic video games and TV shows. I told myself: "You're basically an adult now, you can call stuff from over 10 years ago nostalgic." I love the feeling of nostalgia so I washed myself in it, basking in its glory. That's when I remembered one particularly catchy theme song from my childhood: the Cardcaptors Theme from Cardcaptors. I realized that I had never finished the show when I was a kid but I remember it being a favourite of mine even just from the few episodes I watched. But I remembered all the stuff I knew about anime and what my parents thought so I tried to put it out of my mind. Eventually, I decided it didn't matter what my parents thought anymore; I'm a grown man now and I can like whatever I want. Besides, I thought they would prefer it if I took up a different hobby other than video games. So on April 27th 2012, I put everything aside and I watched Cardcaptor Sakura in all its nostalgic glory. Just watching the capturing scenes from the anime brought back memories of me watching it when I was young. So an anime fan was born.
Taking the few anime I watched in my past along with what I watched in this past year, I've seen about 30 anime series. It's not much I know, but enough I think to function in the anime world. I know for a fact my parents still don't approve of anime but at least they tolerate it. Of course, that could just be because I use watching anime as an excuse for studying for my Japanese course in university. I'm actually planning on minoring in Japanese starting next year as well. Perhaps I can even go to school in Japan in my fourth year of university if all goes well.
Thinking back now, I really was sheltered away from anime when I was a kid. I remember thinking all anime either had: people with superpowers (Dragon Ball Z), magical girls (Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura), tentacles, and girls with little clothing. While some of these are true, it's definetely not true for all anime. I do kind of wonder what kind of person I would be if I did watch a lot of anime when I was younger. But I think I'll end this insanely long blog post now. If you actually read this to the end, then you are either really bored or are actually interested in my life. :P
また後で
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