I is a Animes fan!

Last night I started an interesting new anime, Nobody's Boy Remi. While I won't talk about the show (that's what my other blog is for) it did get me to thinking about the hobby itself and where it's come since I started into it a good 9 or so years ago.

I've always been a cartoon fan since I was little. Mickey Mouse, He-Man, Care Bears: you name it, I probably watched it. Being a child of the 80s I ate up plenty of Japanese imports without realizing it at the time. I watched many shows never realizing they were Japanese. Most notable of these were Speed Racer and Voltron.

I first heard about anime being a specific genre thanks to those "This ain't no Mickey Mouse" commercials during the mid-80's. At first I remember being a little put off and so I'm not sure what really got me to check out the genre further. Nonetheless one fateful night in 1998 I caught Venus Wars late night on the Sci-Fi channel. I don't know what it was just how cool it was or if I just had hormones raging for Apollo Smile (when you're 15, you rage over just about any female) but something just drew me in and has held onto me for a good 9 years straight.

The rest they say, is history.

I hate to sound like an old fuddy-duddy with an "I've been in this hobby since you were diapers" argument as there are plenty who could do the same to me. I guess in some ways I just feel that many of today's fans who can go to their local FYE or point their browsers to Amazon or Rightstuf and find literally hundreds of titles and thousands of DVD volumes don't quite understand what it was like for us.

For all that I say that anime fans have it pretty darn good. I am not bitter; on the contrary I am glad that in my small way of trading fansubbed VHS tapes that I helped someone get into a show and that they went on to buy and support and help build this little fandom that continues to grow.