No. 319122
Remember when you fell in love with anime and it became your whole world for a few months or even years?
This is a thread dedicated to the simpler times when you were a kid or teen and discovered the magical world of anime/manga and became obsessed with it, before you became critical and perhaps bored with it.
Share stories about
>the first series that got you into manga/anime>characters that you related to, loved and shipped hard>vintage anime/manga that made your days better a long time ago >websites and magazines that you read>conventions and anime clubs >anime-style games that you played>first attempts at cosplays or drawing and where they led you>friends that you met because of anime>merchandise that you dreamed aboutand so on.
Feel free to also mention bittersweet memories (like loving anime, but being bullied at school for being a weeb), but overall keep this thread positive.
Related threads:
>>101949 - general anime/manga thread
>>267683 - anime and weaboo culture criticism thread
No. 319124
>>319123where? I looked and didn't find. A month or two ago I suggested it but did not have time to make it.
I am only aware of the general nostalgia thread for childhood/teen things. This is a weeb nostalgia thread.
No. 319200
File: 1541095280400.jpg (Spoiler Image,825.97 KB, 809x1123, 38 czerwiec-lipiec 04-2002.jpg)
When I was a kid, I was very scared of any violence in cartoons. Because I was taught that violence is bad, I was convinced that the portrayal of violence (even if it's done by villains) is also bad and makes me a bad person to watch such animated movies. Because of that, I missed the initial Sailor Moon craze when the show was being aired in TV (and in Poland we even got the Stars series, I think without major censorship, though I am sure that the last two episodes in Classic were skipped…). Years later, when I was about 10-11 y/o, I discovered a stash of my Dad's gaming magazines from the 90's. Some of them had a two-page anime corner with spoilerific reviews of a show that the staff managed to grab a fansub of that month. I fell in love with the anime art, especially Sailor Moon. I started to doodle the characters all the time. My Dad noticed that and when he saw an anime magazine with a small guide book about how to draw anime characters, bought me a copy (before giving both to me, they have checked if there is no inappropriate content, obviously - like hentai reviews). I became fascinated and read the issue like 10 times. It contained reviews of manga and anime (based on torrents and pirated DVDs traded with other fans on conventions), essays about fandom and Japan, Japanese lessons and a reader mail corner (we will get back to that one later).
To be honest, as important to the Polish fandom it was, the magazine would not hold up today. Half of the reviews was not particularly well written and to be honest, quite spergy. There was one particular reviewer that was a CLASSIC case of an otaku obsessed with fapping to moe anime girls (and that was before we were aware of the term). In each review, he interspersed discussion of plot, art or music quality with BUT ISN'T X CHARACTER SO KAWAII??? HER BOOBS ARE SOOO SOFT AND SQUISHY I CAN'T EVEN. He also subtly changed his nickname with each article to let the readers know to which character he is fapping currently i.e Captain Ruri Tenchi, Captain Canal Tenchi and so on.
(As a side-note, years after the magazine closed down, I stumbled upon the guy on an anime board. It turned out that he was a fucking lolicon and proud. Whenever someone called him out on it, he started sperging that ITS JUST FICTION IT DOES NOT HURT ANYONE).
The reviews in 'Kawaii' were very spoilerific cause it was very hard to come by anime/manga as internet was not widely available to most people. Illegal screenings of anime were extremely popular on the first conventions (which I only read about). Each time there was a review of some series, people were flooding the magazine with requests for someone to trade with them the pirated copies. Anyway your best bet of finding out information about a popular series was reading about it in the magazine (For that reason, I never got the pure experience of watching Evangelion without important plot points spoiled). A good side was that I could find out how many different anime are out there and bits and pieces about Japanese culture. The editors of the magazine were REALLY vehement that if you want to be an otaku or just a 'normal' anime fan, you should try to learn about Japan's culture and history and not just focus on the popculture. There were really cool articles about living in modern Japan, J-Rock, Japanese (and Japan-related) literature and so on.
An EXTREMELY important part of the magazine was the mail corner which allowed fans to discuss and argue with each other. It was truly special as most of the letters were full of teenage angst. Some people complained about ex-friends bullying them since they found that they love Dragon Ball. Many teens had abusive parents that could not understand their almost adult children watching some 'childish chinese cartoons full of pornography and violence'. I remember a letter of a girl whose mother burned her manga collection (not only comics, but also her drawings) and only stopped bullying her once the girl sold her coat to rebuy some of the destroyed comics. A lot of people wrote about their struggles with depression and suicide attempts Because so many 'normie' people were shitty and cause fans were afraid that the few manga publishers are on the brink of bankrupcy, 'converting people to anime' was a sort of meme in the fandom back then. People were sendind letters describing how they made catholic priests change their mind about anime by showing them manga-style drawings of angels (I wish I was kidding) or how they made their football loving friends watch Captain Tsubasa. There were also letters from spergs that wanted to be TRUE otaku and die for manga/anime and who proclaimed their love toward fictional characters.
People were also easily triggered by covers either being too childish or too mature. One metalhead was angry that a hot lady saw him with a magazine with some moe character, stared at him like he was pathetic and walked away (I am convinced the guy was a protoincel and the woman in question did not give a fuck whatsoever kek). Pic related (spoiled just to be sure, cause some ass and tits can be seen) caused A LOT of sperging from people being disgusted by the magazine looking 'like a cartoon Playboy' and people that thought that there is nothing wrong with non-sexual nudity on display. A lot of name-calling happened, from prudes to perverts.
Overall the mail corner was an extremely fascinating look into the Polish anime fandom of the day and age. As a kid, I did not have experience with well, everything described in the letters, but I was fascinated nonetheless.