Today’s guest post is from my friend Katriel. I asked Katriel to contribute something after our recent discussion on learning Japanese, and how there’s a lot of fandom baggage that can come with it, compared to when you’re learning other languages.

Katriel Paige is a translator, editor, lecturer, and occasional journalist. They love Japanese yokai stories, convention cultures, good conversations, and fox plushes. They also contribute to Study of Anime.

---

So, you’re finally making the big step. You’ve seen the occasional words or titles in anime or games, but now you want to dive into the “real” stuff.

You want to learn Japanese.

There are plenty of resources to do so. Associations like the Japan Society offer classes, and there are a wealth of online opportunities both beneficial and questionable. But dealing with a Japanese class can sometimes send fans, especially older ones, into a frenzy of fandom-fueled panic.

They want to be taken seriously. So they ask questions like, “Should I take my pins off of my favorite messenger bag or backpack? Speaking of backpacks, is the Survey Corps backpack a no-go? What about my cell phone charms? Do I need to learn kana first—will other students there think I’m silly if I don’t already know it?”

In addition to these questions are others, lurking underneath the surface. The nightmares of becoming the eldritch shambling horror of the Actually Ridiculous Fan Stereotype who haunts other fans’ nightmares with, “Actually, the REAL meaning is…” or “omg kawaii!!” The fears of cultural appropriation, of assuming a meaning that isn’t there. The fears of multiple writing systems to deal with, and doubts of ever having a conversation in Japanese. Of any length.

First, calm down. Breathe. Continued breathing is good for your health.

Once you’re reasonably relaxed, I have three pieces of information for you:

Learning doesn’t make you a weeaboo

No matter your reasons are for learning a language, making it part of your daily life helps you learn it.

It’s the same rationale behind classes putting up sticky notes on blackboards or windows with the words for “the blackboard” or “the window” on them. It’s something you can relate to, something you see in school life.

It’s also why people learn phrases like, “How are you?” a bit easier than isolated words like “airplane” or “alchemy.” Greetings can be used right away. Same with words like, “Thanks”. It sticks. I remember when I was first learning Spanish and the teacher taught us our first words: “No sé” = “I don’t know.” That way, even if we didn’t know the answer, we could at least respond some way in Spanish.

It doesn’t matter what other people think

Most American learners are used to two languages being offered in classes: Spanish and French.

Often, the reason for learning them is a simple “my school required one or the other”, so we don’t think much about our reasons, or what others might assume of us. When I first started learning Japanese, I admit I was listening to songs from Yu Yu Hakusho, trying to do my own translations of the song “Nightmare”. I was reading about the puns in Sailor Moon.

Was I made fun of? Yes.

Did I get defensive? Yes.

Did I feel ridiculous? Still do, in fact.

But the trick to language learning is to not let that stop you.

It’s hard. But how do you get better at anything? You keep doing it. You might mess up, but you get back up and learn and do it all over again.

You’re not the only one

If you’re in a Japanese class, chances are other fans will be there too.

If someone does makes fun of you for your fandoms, you can always say that you’re studying the Japanese language because you want to learn more. Yes, you’re a fan. But learning Japanese language might help with other things as well.

For example, understanding translation choices. Puns. Talking about electronics in DenDen Town or Akihabara, as well as apologizing that you don’t know Japanese fluently. Or asking a friend about their ikebana class, or if you should check out that new karaoke place down the street.

Let me tell you a story.

In November 2013, I spend an evening speaking with my friends in English. My voice does not have a noticeable accent, even here in the city. To another American, I have no accent. I realize I might need to look at Japanese-style resume templates (which are different than American style ones), and so I stop in at Kinokuniya. It is the night before the Japanese Language Proficiency Test and I am hearing English and Japanese spoken from many different people: different accents and dialects all over the place.

Hesitantly, I go to the information desk. I am white, I am very conscious of my weight, I have blue hair—I knew those things obviously but here, in a Japanese bookstore, I worry how I will be seen and how I will sound. My language is not expected. I am taking too much time looking at pens and study books and fiction titles. I fear I will stand out too much. I fear I will be misunderstood, even though I have spent many years studying, even though I hardly speak in Japanese and my speaking is rusty. The forms have their own word— “rirekisho.” I have always had a problem with ‘r’ sounds in any language. I stutter.

I clear my throat anyway. And speak.

“<…Excuse me, but do you have personal history resume forms here?>”

The clerk looks up. “<Personal history forms? Japanese style ones?>”

“<Yes please.>”

“<Yes, they are in the stationery section over there. If you are applying to a job, I wish you good luck.>”

All of these fears, and it went more smoothly than expected. I was able to talk with someone and get what I needed.

Yes, I may have sounded awkward. Or used language in unexpected ways. But in the end, I accomplished my goal. I now translate written works, I now do panels, I now teach every now and then. Learning Japanese was difficult at times, but I hope that new learners to Japanese will keep going, and never give up.

頑張り続きてねよ。（がんばりつづきてねよ。）
Keep going and do your best.

Photo by Danny Choo

Ever since I started this blog, I’ve been more comfortable covering other people’s fandoms. From gothic lolitas to Homestucks, the fact that these other communities dovetailed with my own interests simply made it easier for me to write about them from an informative point of view.

So until now, I’ve been hesitant to share my obsessive descent into Yowamushi Pedal fandom.

I’ve liked shows before, sometimes a lot. I was crazy about Natsume’s Book of Friends last year. But it’s always been a passive, individual, and fleeting thing. This is the first time I’ve felt compelled to join a community and create things because of how much I loved a show.

I mentioned earlier that I started writing a fanfic. I finished it, and then I wrote two more. My fics are actually very popular, which isn’t too surprising since I write all the time and I do it for a living. I worry about giving away my livelihood like this, but let me tell you, it will be a cold day in hell before somebody writes on my professional work: “I read your story three times in a row and it got better each time!” Or even more touching: “You made me feel like I was falling in love.”

I have made friends purely because of the fandom. One is a girl whose writing I have admired for years, who I never had the guts to reach out to until I saw we shared this fannish interest. Another draws fan art of my fanfics and sends me gifts in the mail. It feels very special and rare to be in such a predominantly female space online, too—most of my aniblogger friends, for whatever reason, are male.

Until now, I never realized that reporting and blogging on fandom have helped me to keep a degree of distance from it. It’s been since middle school since I felt this heart-pounding, wobbly bundle of emotions about characters. That’s what makes it really embarrassing—none of this is real. I have no right to have so many feelings about something pretend.

So I hide it. I have been deleting my tweets more often. I started a new anonymous Tumblr to keep my fandom from spilling into the rest of my life. I have a weird lifestyle/career in which my blog, Twitter, and even Tumblr support a semi-professional representation of the public image I feel comfortable projecting to everyone—my family, my colleagues, total strangers. My new hobby authoring romantic fanfiction does not mesh with it in the slightest.

I love to write about fandom. But now that it has happened to me—and it really does feel like something that happened, like falling in a hole I can’t get out of—it feels trivial. It’s like some wonderful, horrible dream I should conceal until the inevitable day when the show is over and the spell is broken and I awake, my reason restored, and say “Wow, I sure had a lot of emotions about that show. Thank goodness I didn’t make a mockery of myself by sharing them on the Internet.”

But you know, I have never been drawn to other people’s fandoms in order to poke fun at them. I think it’s incredible when people are more invested in their fandom than anything else, to the point that it drives them to create their own works. To not give myself the same understanding and esteem would be hypocritical.

So this is the giant mass of guilt and embarrassment and deep, obsessive love that has been going through my head the past few weeks. Have you ever fallen too hard for a fandom?

Actual photo of me and my friends via Yowapeda episode 29