Despite ''otaku'' being a derogatory term in Japan, I believe that it is a good word to overall describe my interest in anime and manga.
Sorry this will be a long post it IS basically a recount of a large part of my life story.
I haven't always been an ''otaku'', as my interest didn't peek till c. 2007, however I have been watching anime since I was about 5. This was when I thought anime was just any cartoon that spoke Cantonese. As a kid I grew up with anime in the Cantonese dub such as Doraemon, Cardcaptor Sakura, ママはぽよぽよザウルスがお好き (uber old aired in 1995), とんでぶーりん (1994), Chibi Mariko-chan and of course Sailor Moon. So I thought the home of asian cartoons was Hong Kong! Now that I think about it, all the anime VCDs mum got must of been bootlegs...
Either way watching anime in my childhood made me wanting for more as I finished more titles days by day. It was during primary school that I (after learning to understand the English language, yes I was a sad ESL student) seriously I don't even- watched anime in English dub.
There was a children's television program called '' Cheez TV'' broadcasting cartoons and anime. From my memory I watched Sailor Moon, Yu-gi-oh!, Pokemon, Cardcaptors, Dragon Ball Z, One Piece and Digimon. The program was replaced by '' Toasted TV '' in 2005 where I also grew an interest in western cartoons like TMNT, Winx Club and a French production which I hated called Code Lyoko. I also loved cartoon network and the Disney channel but that's 's unrelated here. However, it was a certain show on this program which changed my life forever...*drumrolllllll* NARUTO~~~ omfg dis show.
Naruto was the first anime I finally realised was Japanese- (the ninjas sorta gave it away). Before all this ''Toasted TV'' business I was still a girl who read magazines with titles like Dgirl (Disney Girl) and Total Girl. I mashed avocado into facemasks in my freetime and gave myself pedicures on the weekend (well I still do these things but then I bragged about it a lot more). What I had then but not now was a friendship circle of Anglo-Saxons who invited me to the best slumber parties watching Australian Idol, hearting Dean Geyer and served me lasagnas and baked potatoes. Excuse the stereotypes but they weren't into anime and such.
However due to the inevitable events of growing up and increase immigration into Australia I made friends with a band of Asians towards the end of primary school. We happily discussed the latest Naruto episodes at school and graffitied each others pencilcases with '' Believe it! '' and ''I <3 Sasuke/Gaara/Itachi/Rock Lee''... (how did that happen?). It was all very fun and crazy and we gave each names from the Akatsuki, I was f-ing Zetsu but that wasn't the main issue. We grew more fanatic as we watched more anime and ate more Pocky so I'm sad to say- I WAS A WEEABOO . There I said it. It only got worse after I discovered fanfiction.net and created OCs and stories in my head where I'm dating Draco Malfoy whilst two timing with Zero Kiryu... anime was my lyf. Fanfiction also opened up a whole bunch of new vocab eg. yaoi, yuri, lemons, fanservice, seme, uke, ship, canon, non-canon etc... I avoided most of these tags- I was still so innocent.
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| No I don't want to see anyone naked, thank you. |
When I entered high school those friends disappeared so I was on a lone wolf journey of re-self discovery. By the time I was in year eight I dropped the ''kawaiis'', ''baka'' and ''urasai'' and watched a wide range of genres. As nobody around me liked anime etc. I was left to choose what I read and watch without judgement. I also started to read a lot more manga as I didn't have anyone to pass me the avi.s and mp4.s anymore. I learnt more about the genres eg. shoujo, shounen etc. However, I still only read/watched mainstream eg. Vampire Knight, Gakuen Alice, One Piece, Deathnote, that bandwagon. I also played a lot more videogames on my nintendo ds which was technically the first handheld I called my own. Started playing pokemon, mario, final fantasy here comes my J-gaming. Only used to play GTA and Prince of Persia but I finally found out what the hell a Chocobo was.
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| farming is lyf |
I also started figure collecting and attending conventions my first being Supanova in 2008. I also made my first cosplay for that event which was Rukia from Bleach in her school uniform. Fanart was also a strong hobby of mine and you can still find some amateur drawing on my deviantart: @jelloxmello. At first I was a noob buying bootlegs, but after reading some posts on DannyChoo I became more accustomed to what legit ones looked like. On a holiday to Hong Kong I bought tonnes of merch including magazines and posters. I was on a otaku rampage again, but this time, not a weeaboo. thank god.
Now things get a bit complicated chronologically but can't tell you everything!
With higher education came a higher desire to learn about human relationships. Many things came up during this period:
- first ecchi scene in a josei manga- finally got the guts to read that NatsumexMikan fanfic with lemons
- realised Sora will always be Riku's uke
- Xion is a cockblocker
- Togainu no chi is not for kids
- I love bishounens, whatever they are doing.
much more...
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| My all time favourite canon pairing~ |
Fast-forward to the present...
I now enjoy manga more than anime and like a lot more that isn't mainstream. In my old age reading vintage shoujo as well now- I recommend Glass Mask by Muichi Suzue. Only mainstream I've read recently would be One Piece, but stopped after Ace's death... Haven't watched anything new anime wise since Anohana and Fate/zero. You can say I've lost my passion, however I've expanded my interests in not just Japanese anime, but culture, language and fashion. Still then I've found my leaf village flag and burned it, no longer buy bootleg nendoroids and finally bought a pretty hot Lelouch figurine. I mostly play PC games now as I've married every bachelorette on Harvest Moon DS. Went to Japan for a 2 week exchange program and had a holiday in Tokyo at the beginning of 2012. In the future I plan to teach English in Japan and study Japanese at university.
That's it guys! My otaku evolution, hopefully this post wasn't too long...
~Still a closet yaoi fan- what will I become?~
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