A Colourful Life, Thanks to Anime
Looking
back, I never had considered myself as an “otaku” or anime-lover.
Being a child, watching or enjoying different cartoons and animations
seems natural. Everything changed during a summer vacation in one of
my elementary years. My cousin introduced to me this anime called
Naruto, a newly released anime series which he downloaded from the
internet. At first, I wasn’t really interested but as I watched the
whole episode, I started to like it.
I
thought it would be my first and last time watching the said anime
since we don’t have any internet connection. Luckily, Studio 23 has
already started airing Naruto. I had followed the series the whole
summer vacation with my friends. At first, I thought it was quite the
gag type, but following the series, I realized that the whole
settings and plot are really amazing.
Since
then, I started to appreciate all the anime I watched in the TV, I
had been looking forward to new anime that would be aired. While my
classmates were hanging out after school, I was rushing back to our
home to watch an anime series I had been following. Back then, I was only
limited to anime series which are aired on television and was quite
contented.
My
high school years were different. We were able to buy a DVD player
and since then, my cousins who also loved anime have been buying
Anime DVD tapes week by week. It really made me happy! I can already
watch different anime, including those which are not aired in TV,
anytime I want! I was able to exchange tapes with my classmates who
also love watching anime. I also started watching anime online and
reading manga every weekend because I have a relative who owned an
internet café. Every weekend I used to visit their place and they
let me use one of their units freely.
My
addiction to anime and manga recently, in my college days, worsens.
I have a lot of classmates who are more addicted to anime than me.
They had been downloading and streaming anime, which I haven’t
done. They are more updated to new anime releases and are more aware
of the latest updates of many manga I had been reading. I was really
pleased meeting a lot of classmates who are also otaku!
“You know you are an anime addict when you automatically become
friends with another anime addict” – true, indeed. Befriending
them is “as easy as one-two-three”. It is easy once you found out
that a certain person is also an anime-lover like you. A single
conversation about anime would lead you from a certain anime to
another one until you completely lost track of time. And yet, the
time spent would never be considered wasted since you both enjoyed
the whole conversation and you also get to know more about each
other. I guess that’s the start of a great friendship. Most of the
time, we spend our time talking about the anime we have watched,
which anime is good to see, and the latest updates in anime world. I
guess cooperation is one of the traits every one of us has developed.
Since most of us have our own laptop, we had been sharing the anime
and manga that we have downloaded.
I never expected anime would be such a life-changer. Being an otaku
affected me so dearly. My world seems to be wider; I learned basic
Japanese words, I became more sociable – someone who can speak up
my mind and talk with no worries, and most importantly, I was able to
make a lot of good friends. Anime changed my life for the better.
Compared to that dull, pathetic world before, I love the colourful
life that I have now. c(:
