Hello,
Today we'll stop a bit the episodic coverage of this packed winter season 2011/2012 to talk about a slightly different topic that can be of interest to pretty much anyone watching anime, reading manga, collecting figures or playing visual novels (or doing all four like me).
This morning, I was thinking about how much my life has changed since I started watching anime many years ago, and I noticed how the spiral of increasing interest (starting from anime and reaching figures and similar goods) seems to have no end.
Now that I also write in this small blog about the same topic from over an entire year, the whole situation is slowly crashing into real life becoming more and more ubiquitous.
But even in this situation when the fact that I like anime is pretty much common knowledge in my family and close friends (just like the fact that I manage this blog) I still feel blocked to talk about it with people I trust less or feel less confident with.
That's what I consider the creation of a boundary between your passion for anime and the needs of real life. Some kind of social rule that people create to separate your private from what you want to show to the public.
We could even consider this phenomenon as the creation of a mask, two different personalities/faces depending on the grade of "confidence" you have with who you're talking to.
Around one month ago I read a rather interesting post of BeldenOtaku talking about an issue that may well be related to what we're talking about today. By defining "hard to admit" the passion for anime made me thinking about the "image" that the current society have with anime and manga.
Here in my country (and probably in most western countries), anime is the time-killer for childrens up until around middle school. No adults should watch anime (or maybe I should call them cartoons?) at all as the only acceptable cartoons are "The simpson" and similar american stuff.
Watching anime here at first is looked upon just like how you would look a mid-30 woman watching every week some cartoon classic like "Snow white". Yes, I'm talking about a very "pityful" look with no extreme rejection.
The situation is a bit different in Japan (at least judging from what my friends there tell me) where anime, and even more manga is a lot more pervasive and popular even in the common society.
This increased exposition generated an extreme version of relationship between the common world (the so-called "normal people") and the more extreme anime-watchers (the so-called "otaku").
In this cases, disgust is the main emotion generated from the common public against the so-called "otaku" while the random watcher/reader is pretty much immune to criticism apart for some extremely conservative peoples.
I find myself questioning often what is (if it exist) the proper way to approach these real life situations and how other people with my same hobbies are facing this situation.
In the end, should I be frank about my hobbies with "strangers" without exceptions risking being looked upon like a weirdo or softly hide my passion from people I know less or feel less confident with?!
I'm also extremely curious to know how in the rest of the world people with our passion are looked upon by society. This may give off very different results as depending on the culture, reactions may vary by a great extend.
And you? What's your stance when talking of your passion for anime with other people? Do you clearly profess your love with anyone or pick up your encounters? What's the condition of anime fan in your country?
See you soon,
feal87
P.S. Yes, I love Katsura Hinagiku! Anybody is with me? :P