Fandom is better when you’re old.

Anime, Fandom

This weekend I tabled at the Massanutten Regional Library in Harrisonburg, VA. It’s John’s hometown, and his mom invited me to come talk to kids as a published author. I wrote that book in seven weeks and don’t earn royalties on it, but the library carries it, so I went.

I didn’t know what to expect, so I brought stuff for kids of all ages. I converted the Otaku Journalism cover into a coloring page with crayons. I printed out Anime Origin Stories questionnaires. I brought my Cell, Naruto and Sasuke models for kids to play with.

This was not a big event—maybe 200 people attended, and maybe 50 stopped by my table. I had some memorable interactions, like being able to tell a Dragon Ball Z-loving mom about a couple anime with black characters, like .hack//Sign. Most kids flipped through the cosplay book and quizzed me on whether I’d seen different shows (the most popular show with this demographic seems to be Sword Art Online).

But at the end of this meet and greet all I could think was that, man, fandom is so much more fun for me now that I’m an adult.

Growing up, I often felt very isolated in anime fandom, even though I had friends who liked it, too. Before I was able to drive, my time with friends was limited to school or scheduled playdates. Anime was first incredibly expensive, and then incredibly time intensive after I discovered torrents (perhaps even more time intensive was learning to clean the viruses I had unwittingly downloaded with my shows.) When I was in 9th grade, I refused to go to a party with my family on New Year’s Eve, and I remember spending the evening building a “shrine” site, as we called fansites back then, to Gravitation. Of course, since I didn’t have a credit card, my (nearly 90% JavaScript, can you imagine?) website never saw the light of day, thank god.

There was also the nagging feeling that I was disappointing my family. As the oldest sibling, I felt like a bad role model for having hobbies my younger sisters considered “uncool.” My parents also just wanted me to try harder to fit in. And then there was the uncomfortable factor of my discovery of anime paralleling with my coming of age—if you read my anime origin story, you know about the shirtless Duo Maxwell poster I drew for my room. My poor mom walked in, looked at it, and walked out. Eventually my parents grounded me for a month for looking at slash fanfiction, so I can’t really blame them when, even after I found a chaperone and saved my allowance for months to go to Otakon, they forbid me from going. Instead they dragged me along on a day trip to the beach, and all I remember about it was my sister barfing in the car.

Today, my life is incredibly different. I go to several conventions every year. Anime is cheap and easy to get and I watch a lot of it—I am subscribed to Crunchyroll, Funimation, Netflix, and Anime Strike, plus I have a dozen Right Stuf Blu Rays on pre-order. I have since bought everything I torrented. Don’t torrent—you’ll eventually have money and feel guiltily compelled to support every show you pirated, and my taste as a teen was not very good.

Better yet, I now live with my anime fan husband who doesn’t just accept my hobbies, but engages in them with me. Instead of keeping our fandom hidden, we have bookshelves full of anime and manga and a highlighter-yellow cabinet of Gunpla, which the repairman always stops to look at—he loves Transformers, he says, but hasn’t seen anything like this. I also have a lot of supportive friends. Once, I brought a college boyfriend home to dinner, and somehow the conversation devolved into he and my family all poking fun at my anime obsession. Today, I’m too old for that crap. I have friends who don’t like anime, but none who bother me about it.

There’s also the fact that my job involves anime a lot of the time! Sometimes I actually review anime and build Gunpla for money, and I’m still not over that.

I don’t ever miss being a kid. While some people remember the freedom of zero responsibilities, of never having to work or pay bills, all I remember is the emotional confinement. I remember feeling like if I wanted to be who I was and be into what I was into, I’d be disappointing people. I don’t know if this is actually true—today my parents seem as impressed as my mother in law in the fact that I got a book published—but I certainly felt like a big letdown of a daughter. And I remember the feeling of it lasting forever and ever, because I didn’t know any differently. I couldn’t envision a time where I wouldn’t feel guilty and repressed.

At the library this weekend, it was young teens I resonated with the most. A girl asked me about how she could write an anime magazine, and I don’t think she believed my advice about starting a blog for starters (I guess today, teens are into YouTube more). Two 14-year-olds asked me how expensive it is to go to Otakon, and when I told them a weekend badge costs $80, they said it was out of the question, not to mention convincing one of their parents to take them! Another kid told me he wanted to get Crunchyroll Premium, but he would need to use his mom’s credit card and he wasn’t sure he could convince her. It made me realize that even with anime and fandom so ubiquitous today, it still isn’t that accessible to people under 18.

I wanted to look these kids in the eye and say, “Just wait 6-8 years. It’ll be awesome,” but of course I couldn’t. Back when I was a young teen, every afternoon felt like a lifetime.

There’s nothing I can do for teens today, but I’ve been glad to see the way that Anime Origin Stories has been helping to dispel the loneliness people felt when they were young fans. I have more than 30 complete (15 posted now), and some of the most impactful stories are the ones about how anime inspired people to feel less alone, whether it helped them to find their people, escape a traumatic home environment, or simply become more confident in themselves.

If I could go back in time and tell my teen self one thing, I’d say “be patient.” She might not believe me though. The difference between anime fandom when I was a kid and now isn’t about accessibility, or what shows people are watching, or convention culture. It’s about mindset. Back then, I don’t think I could have imagined that rather than being the cause of my teenage loneliness, anime fandom would be its cure.

Otaku Links: Fish food

Otaku Links

  • How do people in Japan eat healthy when there are so many delicious, sugary breads to snack on? This week, Answerman published a field guide to common Japanese breads. When I vacationed in Tokyo, John and I went to 7-11 almost every morning for bread—a melon pan for me, a chocolate and cream French baguette for him.
  • My favorite Japanese art-inspired puzzle company is trying Kickstarter again! They’re less than $500 away from meeting their goal. I backed $69 (nice) because I’d love to own both gorgeous puzzles.
  • Why it’s “fanfiction,” not “fan fiction,” and more importantly, why the nuance is so important to fanfiction writers.
  • After two years, Anita Sarkeesian’s Tropes vs. Women in Video Games project is over. I was a backer, and I don’t know if you’ve watched these videos, but they’re fairly innocuous and bland, hardly what you’d expect from somebody who has become the center of so much ire. I liked this Glixel interview that looks not at Sarkeesian’s past, for once, but her future.
  • One of my first stops in Boston was to Muji, which I fondly think of as “Japanese Ikea.” Now, I could completely engulf myself in one of their minimalist Muji huts.
  • Sakura Quest and Sincerity. I loved Emily’s analysis of an untruthful blogger in Sakura Quest who pretends her life is better than it is. So relatable.
  • Finally, my friend Soul Tsukino is looking for writing work and asked to be featured. His portfolio is here, and he’s done some excellent work for Japanator. Otaku Links are for my readers, and if you’d like a similar shout-out, don’t hesitate to ask.

Lead photo by yoppy. 

On passion projects and working for free

Careers, Fandom

I’ve launched a lot of new products and businesses over the years. But Anime Origin Stories is the first new endeavor I’d characterize as a passion project.

Normally when I start something, I think, “OK, how am I going to fund this?” When I wrote Build Your Anime Blog, for example, I priced the book and limited my time working on it so that once it came out, my royalties would amount to a decent hourly wage.

I didn’t do any of this for Anime Origin Stories, because I didn’t think it would be very big. (Usually I survey my audience and test if business ideas are viable, but not this time.) I impulsively decided anime fandom needed an archival project, and that I, with my master’s in journalism, was going to be the one to make it happen!

But I was wrong about interest. Anime Origin Stories turned out to be very big! I’ve gotten more than 105 responses and counting now. And because I write custom follow-up questions to each participant, I’m not very fast at getting through them.

Over the weekend, I managed to plow through 30+ surveys and write follow-up questions, and it’s only because on Saturday, I hardly did anything else! I’d say that overall, the time I’ve spent making the site, coming up with questions, and posting stories totals more than 20 hours. I’m putting as much time and effort into it as one of my paid gigs.

I’m not saying this to make you feel bad for me. Not only did I choose to invest my time in this way, but I’m having a blast doing it. Everyone’s stories are so intensely personal and yet entirely relatable—it’s almost like we all have a hobby in common or something.

Still, it’s the opposite of what I normally do. In the past, I’ve turned my hobbies—writing, watching anime, building Gunpla, even lighting candles, into revenue streams. For Anime Origin Stories, I’ve turned interviewing, a thing I usually do for money, into an unpaid pastime.

First, let me tell you why I normally monetize everything I’m interested in. My secret is that I want to minimize the time I spend working and maximize the time I spend actually living life. I figure if I can turn the things that give me joy into income, I won’t have to work as much.

I realize this doesn’t work for everyone. Upon hearing this, some people tell me that turning their hobbies into jobs would make it so they could never enjoy their hobbies again. But I am obviously not one of those people. I know I need money to live, and I know I have a finite amount of time alive, so I got creative with where that money is coming from.

Like many people who have not studied economics in the slightest, I dream of the day everyone gets a universal basic income. I fantasize about the things people would create just for the sake of it, not because they have a paycheck on the line. Until that day comes, (or more likely, doesn’t), I’d say money is the largest motivator I have to get up and do things. But—it’s not the only reason I do stuff, and Anime Origin Stories is proof of that.

Still, work is work, whether you get paid or not, and I’d rather get paid. Considering how much of my time it’s taking, I will be including affiliate links on Anime Origin Stories soon, most likely in the sidebar. I’ll also be working on a paid ebook that compiles the first 100 interviews—plus some original research by me about each decade—for sale later this year.

While money can certainly taint a project, I don’t think it does by default. I don’t think Gunpla 101 is less genuine or speaks less to my belief that “Gunpla is for everyone” because it also happens to link to the tools I use and kits I build. I don’t think, had I launched the site with zero affiliate links, people would say, “Wow, Lauren is so noble and self-sacrificing.” I don’t think anyone is saying that about Anime Origin Stories now.

If you’re in the same boat, and your hobby has turned into as much work as a second job, don’t worry about being judged for adding a monetization factor. When my friends launch projects that include paid products or Patreon, I’m thrilled to support them. I’d be even more excited if, thanks to support like mine, they could do their thing full time.

And finally, thanks for helping to make Anime Origin Stories a success to the point that it compels me to write a post like this.

Otaku Links: Blast from the past

Uncategorized

What an overwhelming week it’s been for me! On Monday I announced my new project, Anime Origin Stories, and immediately got inundated with your amazing fandom histories. We just passed the 100 submissions mark today, and since I’m planning to post one a day, I’m going to have my hands full for a good part of 2017! I couldn’t have done this without my readers sharing and encouraging people to check out the project.

I’ll be posting Anime Origin Stories even on the weekend, but that’s only two links. So here, have a ton more, several of which are inspired by my dive into early fandom:

  • How VHS Tapes and Bootleg Translations Started an Anime Fan War in the 90s. Back when American anime was for boys and nobody would take a risk on shojo, fansubs were the only way to get Fushigi Yugi, and stuff got heated.
  • What were early fansubs like? Somebody asked Answerman at Anime News Network why a fansub circle called Kodocha had purple VHS tapes, and it turns out Answerman was part of Kodocha! Anime has come a long way.
  • Speaking of subs, my first Anime Origin Stories interviewee, Mark, told me about AnimEigo, one of the first companies to legally bring anime to the US and, what’s more, with extremely detailed liner notes describing all the untranslatable jokes that might go over viewers’ heads. They have them all archived, and I can’t believe how deep they go into things in Urusei Yatsura, for example.
  • Megan covers the Josei Renaissance, and how a manga marketing shift in the ’00s led to an increasing number of manga being made for, and read by, adult women.
  • From Daicon to Gonzo to EMON: An interview with Shouji Murahama. Wave Motion Cannon translated this interview that details the producer’s storied career.
  • What does ‘otaku’ really mean? Is it an insult? Everyone’s favorite dictionary covers the history of my favorite Japanese loan word.
  • Finally, this is just a good time to remind you of the existence of 80s Anime, a Tumblr that belongs to khoda who also happens to be an excellent translator—though it may be old, some of the stuff she posts is in English for the first time!

Scan via Fushigi Yugi.

What’s your anime origin story?

Fandom

Today I’m launching a new project: Anime Origin Stories.

It’s a reporting project in which I’m hoping to interview as many anime fans as possible (yes, even you), about their introduction to the fandom.

Share your story

I got the idea because I have really been feeling my age lately. A few examples:

  • @iblessall asked me what 1337 means. For any younger readers who want to know, it’s part of an older alternative online alphabet.
  • This tweet about how much it cost to get Gundam Wing on VHS looks reasonable to me, but is clearly a shock to younger readers who never had to deal with that.
  • A friend’s teenage brother asked if I’d heard about this older, mostly forgotten but still good anime called The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.

This really got me thinking about different generations of anime fandom. We’re a niche group, so usually I focus on what we all have in common, whether we live in the United States or Zambia. But there are definitely some dissimilarities in the anime fandom experience, depending on your age, location, and when you began participating.

Starting today, I want to hear from fans of all ages and backgrounds about what got them into this weird hobby. Your story will show fans younger than you what they missed, and fans older than you how the fandom has changed.

I really don’t need to give myself more work, especially for a project I’m not planning to monetize, but I really feel like preserving the history of our hobby is important. If you feel the same way, please consider being a part of it!

Lead photo taken by Ejen Chuang at Anime Expo.