*cough* damn, it’s dusty in here *cough* *cough* 
This is an extremely late entry for Kai’s (deluscar) carnival project on “why do we watch anime”. I’m almost certain those of you who would chance upon this post would most likely know what I’m talking about (if not have participated in it and have written their own posts). So yeah, getting right to it; the reason I watch anime is because –
It’s fun. :3
A plain and simple answer. Quite possibly boring even. But I earnestly believe that that’s as deep a reason I got for watching anime. Of course, we can further expound on that by explaining how I would describe “fun”, but that strays from the question at hand. I watch anime because it’s fun. It’s one of my cherished past-times for a little over four years now, and it’s something I look forward to when I get home from uni.
I guess you can say I have a very malleable attention span; wherein the only way I can continue doing something, is if I don’t feel tediousness and such. Watching anime, for me, has never felt like “work” in the slightest. Sure I pick and choose what I watch to feel that way, but that is in itself another beauty to this wonderful medium. I’ve watched well over a hundred shows. There’s probably a hundred that I want to watch still. A hundred more that I don’t even know about. And a hundred more in the making. It’s a well-celebrated craft and I think it deserves the affection it gets from fans even outside of it’s immediate viewership.
Being in the Philippines though I suppose it’s not as “alien” as it is in the Western parts of the world though. Rather it had it’s fair share of the spotlight in our culture for some time. The chogokin 80’s mecha Voltes V is, even up to this day, considered a very iconic snippet of Philippine history. Yeah, that’s right, history. We’ve also dubbed a lot of shows locally really just about any mainstream shounen from the 90’s. In essence, anime was just always right there. I spent a lot of mornings in front of the TV because of that. Pretending I was sick to watch re-runs, man, those were the days.
However, it was never really something that I grew out of, as supposed to other things that I did/watched back in the day. I always just assumed that the more “complex” anime were merely for those like my older brother. Like a natural progression of interests – cartoons, to anime, to live action stuff, to news (lol, I watch the news nowadays though so I guess that’s valid). I suppose it’s because it can still cater to someone of my age, and possibly deliver even more entertainment than it would five or so years ago. People change over time. Stuff like preferences, ideologies, interests, perceptions and pleasures. Anime covers so so much ground that it’s easy to level with it.
I could go on and on, touching more bases in terms of how I experience fun through anime, but I think I’ll never be able to pinpoint something concrete. Though I think that goes for most of the things I find enjoyable. Like, I can say I like music and reading as much as I like anime, but not in the same way(?). Now it’s starting to sound very school girl-ish, but I’m gonna go ahead and assume that you know what I’m talking about. This is not me being intentionally vague or anything, but it’s “that” kind of feeling when you’re doing things you enjoy.
Compared to me (not even posted yet) you are fashionably early.
It is kind of hard to hone in on what it is you “exactly” like about anime, but I think you summed it up nicely. Compared to other types of media, it is something that no matter times I seen the scenario, it always manages to have something worth noticing and talking about. Fun to watch is the best think I also thought of, lol.
lol, it was twitter’s fault on my end (didn’t know how DM’s functioned, apparently)
To think we’ve been doing it for so long even, haha, but yeah, anime really becomes a media of it’s own (apart from TV shows at the least) at times, and I agree that there really is always something to talk about, and talking about those things is fun too 😀
Western culture definitely has a different outlook on what anime is and the audience it’s meant for. It’s unfortunate that society here is quite resistant to the appeal of anime, but that’s to be expected.
I don’t think any one person will experience anime in the exact same way as another; there are too many factors that influence what makes a good anime or why someone should watch XX show. In the end, it boils down to what works for you, and in your case the fun-ness factor is what gets you going.
Maybe I should do a post on what I like about anime. The only issues I have with writing a post like this is that I’ll most likely just go off on tangents. I have a hard time writing about personal thoughts without trying to explain every little detail of my brain.
A friend of mine abroad jokingly mentioned once that anime would always be associated with “tentacles” where he’s based. I’m glad companies like Funimation and Aniplex of America still continue their support of Japanese media, but how is the state of anime there really?
Yep, that goes for a lot of things really. I agree; personal viewpoints are formed by too many factor’s in a person’s life so it’s very unlikely feel something the exact same way as another does.
I’d be curious to read it though. 😀
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Anime is fun. That does nicely summed up all the reasons altogether. Indeed when one grows up, so does his mindset and ideologies, perhaps the reason why I’m open to more genres now (as opposed to watching only shounen shows some time ago when I only just got my internet) is a testimony to that. Hmm, I had matured :3
Philippines does seem like it has it’s fair share anime presence. I had seen a majority of awesome cosplayers from Philippines and I think it also have quite a number of anime events no? Brunei is lacking in contrast but is slowly improving.
I here ya. Four years ago I probably would not even touch shows like Kimi ni Todoke or Psycho-Pass (and even those are quite different in their own right, lol)
I guess there are quite a number of events annually, but it’s mostly cosplaying. Only recently did we have local mangaka setting up booths and stuff, so I guess we’re in the “improving” state as well.
Ahh Kimi ni Todoke. Quite the famous one. I didn’t watch the anime but I did check out the manga to see what’s the hype about. Love how the main character is a reference to The Ring, lol xD
Ahh I see. Brunei is slowly improving as well. December of last year, I joined an extremely mini event which I can hardly called my “first” (not going to have it take my first anime event virginity yet). Then there was another one which technically isn’t an anime event, but is about Japan culture like Japanese food, kimono, martial arts, something akin to Danny Choo’s specialty, lol. I went to both events in awkward timing (due to time shortage and obligations) so I missed out on a lot of events. I will leave it here for now anyhow, as I planned to make posts about these hopefully soon xD
Yeah, it’s probably one of, if not the most, hyped up romances. I’m really glad I’m way more open to stuff like that now 😀 (the Ring reference was way funny, lol)
We’re kinda in the same boat then 😀 Our local “cons” could use a little more boost in terms of what’re actually in the cons (I’d love to see stuff like new season premiers being streamed in a public area). I’d look forward to reading that – I actually am quite curious as to the state of anime viewership and anime in general among other countries.
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