Fandom is a fickle thing sometimes. As I sit here listening to Megumi sing one of her older songs on this internet radio station, I’m reminded of how my anime fandom evolved from the rabid foaming-at-the-mouth late teens fanboy, to a mature fan in my late twenties. It’s kind of funny in way, because I can recall clearly the days when I and my buddy Todd would be in my car listening to Megumi sing Give a Reason and having a blast with the song by just being ourselves. Sometimes it seems those days are long gone, never to return. That makes me a little sad, because I can remember how simpler life was then. It’s not as complicated as it is right now, what with being divorced, having put ten years of my life into the computer industry, inching closer to my degree… I yearn for those days at times like these.
Fandom is a fickle thing sometimes. I remember when I would be hungry for any anime anywhere, not just certain genres. Action, romantic comedies, horror, hentai, it didn’t matter to me, so long as it was anime. From there, a certain interest in related topics grew. My interest in Japanese culture and language could not exist without my fandom. And yet, in this current day and age, there’s so many choices with anime that I can actually say, “Eh, I really didn’t care for it.” Maybe therein lies a difference between then and now; more distributors, more titles, more selection, more chance to really be picky about what you watch. Back in those days, anime was anime was anime. And my fandom was closeted for sure, too. I was a big fan but there was not a whole lot of choice in expressing that fandom outside your group of friends. I’ve always been lucky in life to have a good friend like Todd, because chances are that anything I like he’ll like to, and in that we’ve weaved together a close friendship in similarities. Sure, we have our differences, but once recognized, we generally just say we agree to disagree and leave it be.
Fandom is a fickle thing sometimes… but I don’t think I would have it any other way.
2 comments
Have you been doing some interesting formatting things to this entry? On my friends list, it overrides my standard Tahoma with Arial, for some reason…
Not that I mind; I’m just curious as to how you accomplished this feat. 🙂
If you set the font type to Arial, it’ll override anything else.
— ZC 🙂