You’ll always be an otaku…
Sometimes I wonder why I like the stuff I like. Why do I enjoy heavy metal, what is it that makes me feel so drawn to Hekiru, why do I love anime as an entertainment and art form while I have never felt the same rush from movies? (I will admit to a great fondness for “Misfits of Science” and “Something is out there” though…)
As I mentioned before, I somehow got back into anime. I’d more or less quit after 1998, still loving the old stuff of course but with no desire to see anything new, and yet suddenly after Christmas in 2004, a little over a week ago, *bam* suddenly I was acquisitioning series like no tomorrow and watching anime throughout the day.
Perhaps it had been building up. I had never really left anime completely, despite my lack of interest in new material; I was still reading fanfiction like mad, so I was still immersed in those worlds, albeit not of those from the original anime creators. For my last two Periods at INSEAD, I had devised a business plan to sell anime merchandise to the US. Even then I did not believe! I had spent seven years breaking free from anime otakudom, mainly because I thought the new stuff was crap and there was nothing that appealed to my tastes. I believed that I had outgrown anime, which by itself had degenerated into childish commercialized drivel, far removed from those revolutionary classics from the days of yore, the late 80s and early 90s. Vampire Princess Miyu, Please Save My Earth, Gunbuster, Escaflowne, Kimagure Orange Road, and countless others.
But when I decided to give it a try with Zipang, a serious show about a Japanese warship thrown into the past and Ghost in the Shell 2 (forget Full Metal Alchemist, Love Hina, or any harem anime crap!) …. well, that was the start of the descent! Soon I was watching My HIme, Maria-sama ga miteru, a smattering of Bleach, Azumanga Daioh, Genshiken, Macross Zero and School Rumble (which incidentally did not appeal at all) and before I knew it, I was chewing through Kannaduki no Miko and Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito, moving on to Noir and Madlax… And dudes, this is all in less than 10 days.
Guess you never really stop being an otaku, eh? Yeah, but anyway, I do wonder why I love anime so much. I like it because it moves me, it affects me. It’s not just mindless entertainment, but the ones I like the most are (usually) the ones which hit me emotionally on some level. Be it the Lake episode from Bakuretsu Hunter, which had Carrot befriending a Lake spirit who went from child to old woman in one day, or the grandeur of the great tree on Laputa, or just recently Himeko and Chikane completely overwrought yet still moving declarations of undying love for each other, dammit! I had tears in my eyes. And I’m usually a cold heartless bastard when it comes to sappy romance movies.
So, whassup? I dunno, I think it’s because I’m really an old school romantic. Yeah, there’s just something about love and romance the Japanese way, what with all the misunderstandings and unrequited love and the duality between the weight and unfairness of fate and the most powerful feelings one could have, of longing and selflessness and a strange innocence in it all. It echoes inside me. I’m pretty cynical about real life love, and that’s probably because deep down I’m a real idealist.
Of course, I also have a thing for kickass girls with long dark hair and swords :P Hey, it’s still mostly visual and coolness, okay? Long live anime girls! :D
