just a girl's foray into the anime world

[sunkisser]

(source)

over the past year I've grown distant of kpop for many reasons. I stopped using my main twitter acc so that connection to the community is now kinda lost to me, a lot of my online friends grew out of kpop and into other interests anyway and though my irls also like it they're more into the music than anything else, so that's kinda been my modus operandi (because I still do genuinely enjoy the music) but the rps/rpf road that seemed to define my relationship with kpop for the past almost 8 years I believe(? holy fucking shit) isn't as attractive to me anymore. which makes me a little sad but also a little hopeful that I can get back into it at a later date and form a much healthier relationship with it. because I am nothing if not a fujoshi with a complex

I say a healthier relationship because, between how young I was and then later the pandemic’s influence, I really did form a very unhealthy relationship with rps/rpf and kpop content in general in which I felt I had to watch everything and be constantly reacting to it. it was almost performative in the sense that everyone that followed me on twitter Had to know that I was watching, consuming, supporting and loving everything my favs did and while I did clock it relatively fast and tried to distance myself from that way of thinking, being on the internet and reacting at all just made it all very counterproductive and after a while I found myself back in square one.

the detachment from kpop came about very naturally, firstly because I was very busy and then because, as a result of that and of studying film as well, I picked up different hobbies that seemed less time consuming and even more manageable than following a kpop group's every move, which kind of felt like a full time job sometimes T-T those idols do everything under the sun in the span of a few days, a girl can only do so much to catch up

among those hobbies is, of course, watching anime

now, there's lore about me regarding this and it's that I tried to get into anime circa 2016/2017. back then it wasn't cool and it was definitely the nerdiest thing around so of course I had to give it a try but I only managed to fully watch yuri!! on ice before it lost its charm for me. I tried my hand with attack on titan and fairy tail but both were animes that my friends at the time really liked and therefore spoiled for me which made me lose interest really fast. nowadays spoilers tend to have the opposite effect on me and I do know what happens with almost every single anime I haven't finished watching yet. I spoiled the endings of both mha and hq for myself before I finished watching and it only made me wanna finish both more. something about maturing or about knowing the inner workings of storytelling maybe but I really don't give a fuck about it any more. it wasn't like that when I was 15/16 though T-T

anyway I got into k-pop quickly after that, made internet friends that liked it as well and then proceeded to be fully consumed by it for the next 8 years. I did watch a few animes sparsely like jjk, spy family and demon slayer since they got super popular but I didn't really have any desire to dive deeper into the genre (until everything mentioned before happened and I managed to fall into the universe’s predestined anime hole)

how did I actually get here though? well. I was living through probably one of the darkest moments of my life, I was beyond stressed and sad and overwhelmed. my family had a tough year health-wise and as the secondary caretaker in my home I was out under a lot of pressure and responsibility so my friend who's a huge haikyuu fan and had been asking me to watch it for a while told me to try an episode or two because it would definitely cheer me up. she even sent me pictures of the characters and we made a game out of me trying to guess their personality and it was very childish but also exactly what I needed at the time to feel a little joy so I gave it a chance and well. obviously completely and totally fell in love

if there are a few things you must know about me they're that:

1. I love found family. no. 1 best trope ever in my life, I will eat it up under any and all circumstances, no exceptions
2. I love friendship!!! large group of almost unhealthily codependent best friends that always show up for each other!!! no matter what!!!!
3. I love a dark haired emo boy with a backstory. they'll always get me, I'll never not fall in love and pookie-fy them
4. I love sports!!! they're sooo fun and of course they touch up on points 1 and 2 without fail every single time

evidently haikyuu had the secret formula to absolutely melt my brain and take over every functioning braincell in my body to the point I watched all four seasons of haikyuu in the span of 2 weeks while still finishing my thesis (girl?!) and I used to not watch shows because I thought they were too long!!! bestie that was like 100+ episodes of haikyuu!!!! and then of course I went w my bestie responsible for this madness to watch battle of the dumpster in theatres during opening week <3 and low-key regret not going a second time except girl your thesis T-T you didn't have fucking time!!!

most importantly this also led me into liking REAL LIFE VOLLEYBALL. and now I pookie-fy real life grown men that like to throw around a ball as well <3 [ten minute pause] this post isn’t about him but ran takahashi the man that u are!! why did u have to move to the jp vleague T-T go back to italy where you belong!!! either way he is very much kageyama To Me <3 other favs aside from the jp national team and suntory are of course erik shoji and the u.s. men’s vball team <3 micah christenson u are EVERYTHING. also love perugia and ishikawa AND LOSER I am just a girl anyway

then I took a little break from anime and even thought this might be it when it came to my anime journey but THEN I saw this:

FINALLY!! ITS DONE!!

Portraits of the Todoroki Family!
Individual close ups below pic.twitter.com/NRI7XeaZak

— Mana 🍉 (@MyHairEatsKids) January 5, 2024

and texted my brother the following:


and the fics do indeed slap!!! but either way I was blinded by the twitter hate and thought mha was bad, as evidenced in the texts, but I still wanted to give it a chance for who I later learned was TOUYA lol. and indeed we started watching and then I realized that my brother and the people hating it on x dot com watched this show with their ass because I ended up loving it so much T-T of course there’s certain parts of the story that get a bit boring or slow BUT the overall story is SOOOO good. the premise, the themes, the characters, whatever the fuck bakudeku have going on?! immaculate. I might have to make a whole different post to talk about these crazy ass yaoi anime ships because these authors are unknowingly eating

I have two seasons yet to watch but I am in fact seated. she checks all of the points in my list (except todoroki doesn’t have dark hair BUT he Does have a backstory. so that’s in fact pookie <3)

to round this crazy rant off, I think what finally sold me on anime is that I realized that anime is very approachable and feels very low commitment as well. even if the seasons or the shows themselves are long, each episode is short and obviously my preferred genre is shonen lol so the stories aren't overly complicated or taxing to watch. they're easy, fun and light entertainment even when it gets sad because you know the ending is gonna be hopeful/worth it + they're sooo easy to binge which I've found I truly do need to help me de-stress and just switch my fawking brain off for an hour or two

however as I have continued and deepened my foray into animes that I don't really consider “mainstream” anymore (aka they're popular just not massive twitter fandom, 50k+ fics on ao3, celebrities talking about and making reference to them popular) I have noticed that this is where things get weird. the things people might've warned me about before like the perverted characters and uncomfortable, bordering on explicit scenes involving minors are certainly there. I recently started watching fire force and it was so hard for me to understand why tamaki is always randomly naked like? can that girl please just be left clothed and alone T-T upon investigation I did find out that it's a common fetish in japan and that the author is a repeat offender. despite how certainly icky it feels I have been able to mostly look past it and have still been enjoying fire force a lot ! remember when I said I love a dark haired boy with a backstory? well, shinra <3

I do have a moderate watchlist now and a great desire to get into even more animes but I might take a bit of a break to get caught up with the oscar contenders before awards season starts up in earnest. however I'll be back soon enough, especially once I go back to uni and start working on my second (and final!) thesis, I know I'll definitely need the nightly anime to keep me sane

one last note re: comic cons

I've always been a nerd, though I had a bit of a glow up and people now seem surprised when they find out I do in fact have the likes and tastes of the average 13 year old boy, but I’ve always felt kinda bashful about it. I guess because I got teased a lot about it at school I wanted to materially distance myself from it as much as I could, so as I grew up I tried to engage as little as possible with irl spaces that encouraged literally ANY of my interests. even the “tamer” ones. ask anyone who knew me at any point before uni I never talked about anything I liked EVER.

back to the point, my brother has gone to a few comic cons however and they do seem so fun T-T he invited me along this year and I declined but I kinda regretted it after. I’m a grown ass woman, why should I still be ashamed of my own interests!! so I definitely want to give it a try this year. I even have some friends that have had similar struggles as me with openly enjoying and talking about their passions because they used to be so much more looked down upon (because liking anime really used to be social suicide. now it’s cool!! which I love. don’t get me wrong. I just haven’t processed it yet. clearly) so I’ll see if we can brave it together. we’ll probably have fun? let’s see if we make it!!