WATCH A LOT OF ANIME OTAKU TV
(Prior to the show starting, regular old Japanese folks apparently liked watching Saint Seiya Omega on Sunday mornings.) It’s important for anime nerds to recognize this, and nowadays, I think most of us do understand that your typical TV watcher in Japan is going to be able to tell you more about Doraemon and Detective Conan than Encouragement of Climb. One of the things I’m trying to reveal about Rowdy Sumo Matsutaro, both by pointing out its celebrity stunt-casting and nostalgic period setting, is that it isn’t something made for anime fan sensibilities, but for regular old mainstream Japanese folks to watch on Sunday mornings. Along the way, he says something very revealing about why Matsutaro and Kochikame may not have any takers in the English/Western/American anime world: In his post, he discusses Abarenbou Rikishi!! Matsutaro, a 20+ year syndicated manga with an anime adaptation running this season, and then takes you into a discussion of another long-running Japanese franchise, Kochikame. Mike Toole’s column is what kicked off my renewed interest in this question.
So, below: Who watches anime? Are you an otaku just because you watch anime? Do you have to be Japanese to really “get” anime? And, most importantly, do we give a shit about Free! Think Genshiken –> Lucky Star –> OreImo.īut this is all a digression, made up of unproven, conclusory statements by yours truly.
WATCH A LOT OF ANIME OTAKU SERIES
Many anime series revolve around the idea of “otakudom” – what is it, what does it look like, who is in it, how do we stay/get out/evolve/progress/regress – and this in turn feeds back into the community and is broken apart on a meta-level by the community, and even when the product (the anime) isn’t aware of that meta-level commentary, when the next product comes around proclaiming what and who and how otaku are, we act as if this is a progression from it. Sometimes I think there is no community that is as self-hating and self-celebratory as otaku (and Star Wars fans). KyoAni and Free!, as discussed below) instead, it’s an almost religious sense of self-projection and need to form community and bonds with people who get you, be they other fans or the anime itself (c.f. Today’s topic is on one of the most basic of the basic questions, “Who exactly watches anime?"įundamentally speaking, who you are as an audience will flavor everything about your anime-watching experience, from your enjoyment of it to your ability to critique it both artistically and as a cultural assessment to whether or not that anime was even, as it were, "meant for you.” I think as fans of any pulp genre, the idea of whether something is “meant for you” colors so much of how we as anime fans think or feel that we don’t even recognize how many of our opinions and feelings are grounded in “this was made for me” / “this was not made for me.” This goes beyond mere entitlement or betrayal (c.f. Previously on 5 Anime Things: My Boyfriend is a Sailor Scout. On an irregular basis, I’ll link to (at least) 5 Anime Things I Have Read and Found Interesting, each speaking around or about a theme.
WATCH A LOT OF ANIME OTAKU HOW TO
(main blog here)ĥ Anime Things #2: How To Make Money and Influence Otakuĥ Anime Things is a poorly conceived attempt to make an anime remix of Alexis Madrigal’s 5 Intriguing Things tinyletter. I-it's not like i care about anime or anything. 5 Anime Things #2: How To Make Money and Influence.
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