There are some wonderful things about growing up. Especially if you manage to somehow avoid all responsibility in the process! For example, no one can tell you to turn off those silly Japanese cartoons and go do something productive with your life. And that’s good, cause you’re a responsible human person, you don’t need that type of advice.
Welcome to the club friend, I am also a responsible human who does not overindulge in simple pleasures at all. In fact, I have created a list of completely normal and unremarkable things that occasionally happen when you watch sensible amounts of anime. Because normal, reasonable people do stuff like that!
5. You get excited about seeing merch in the wild
As people, we tend to form groups and loose affiliations based on shared goals, interests and/or beliefs. It’s a pretty deep-rooted part of human behaviour. But anime fans have long been a little visible minority and access to organized communities is still not a given for many.
This is why seeing a complete stranger out and about with an anime backpack or a recognizable accessory can be downright thrilling. Suddenly, we are no longer alone. Not that we’ll necessarily go talk to that person. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. But we’ll notice, and the knowledge will give us a little boost all day.
This is the privilege of being part of a group that’s not yet prevalent. Sightings remain rare enough to be special!
4. You constantly catch yourself referring to anime
When you expose yourself to a medium, your brain starts to form connections. That’s normal. So of course when you try to explain things or describe situations your mind will go back to that medium to come up with examples. There’s nothing weird about that.
And if all your comparisons and examples happen to involve anime, that’s just because you are super efficient and manage to get everything simile you need from a single source. Yay! Besides, anime is incredibly varied, there’s really no need to look elsewhere.
So what if people have no clue what you’re talking about half the time. At least it made them really think about it. Win!
3. Anime starts to influence your lifestyle
If we enjoy watching something long enough, it’s not uncommon for some of us to want to bring a bit of that fantasy into our reality. It’s normal and healthy. Really there’s no shame in buying an overpriced skirt that’s too big for you and paying extra to get it fitted just because it slightly resembles what a character you like wears. It’s ok to dye your hair the same ridiculous colour as your fave if your boss doesn’t understand, do you really want to work their anyways.
And driving an extra half hour to do your groceries at the Asian market just makes sense. Your daily omurice and okonomiyaki are just not going to taste the same without Japanese mayonnaise. Most people would drive a full hour for that stuff. In short, living your life as if you’re part of your favourite show of the moment is just a reasonable standard to set for yourself.
2. You pepper your speech with Japanese words and otaku expressions
Anyone learning a new language would be excited to show it off! And I bet your friends, family and casual acquaintances are super happy to know everything is daijoubu thank you very much! It’s cute to refer to your new crush as your dream waifu/husbando. Sharing knowledge is like sharing wealth.
So what if you’re learning this language at the rate of three words a year and some of them may not mean what you think they mean? That’s no reason not to show off a little. And yeah, a lot of them are exaggerated exclamations or expletives that would never be commonly used in public because that’s what’s said with the most emphasis and easy to remember but let’s not pretend we don’t all learn the swear words first!
If anything this mix of several real languages and a few fan-based dialects is an entirely new language you are pioneering. Impressive!
1. You start an anime based blog
You want to devote your precious little free time to writing about anime? A challenging art In and of itself. And then you’re going to edit and format those pieces of writing, get pictures, write captions? You’re going to put together an entire working website and upkeep it. Fuss with the layout, personalize the whole thing. You might even try to promote it a bit.
Not only that but with any free time left over (how much time do you have?), You’re going to read other blogs. Maybe you’ll try to keep up with general anime News and shows that come out every season. Ok well, that might be going too far. It’s nice to have a hobby and all but there are limits, you know?
I guess I finally found one sign that you may be watching just a smidge too much anime and four perfectly normal things a lot of great people do. This turned out to be a weird list. Do any of you have any lovely little quirks that coincidentally developed around your anime watching? Let us know.
