Calling all animu fans!

If you think of it, it's kinda funny for a people of a country to have the desire to emulate those of a distant, faraway country, in which those two doesn't share any cultural similarity at all.

I'm of course talking about Japanophile, a.k.a. the condition (or disease? lol!) where a non-Japanese person have an affinity with the land of the rising sun. Or as the great wiki sums it: "Japanophilia is an interest in, or love of, Japan and all things Japanese. (Its opposite is Japanophobia.) One who has such an interest or love is a Japanophile."


Looking at Malaysia, there was a time where some of us were so taken by the Japanese that we even start to incorporate some Japanese language into our daily conversation (all together now: "BAKAAAAA!"). I'm referring to that time where high schoolers (myself included) were suddenly confronted with the rise of anime and manga in the country. I know, those 'comics' and 'cartoons' have been around here for a very long time, but it was around 2002-4 that I suddenly hear the word anime being widely spoken, and along with them, words such as 'baka', 'kawaii', urusei', and 'hentai'(hahaha). And before I know it, we were talking about series such as Evangelion, Inuyasha, Mai Hime, Cowboy Bebop... and much, much more.


Anyway, that was the short history on how I was introduced to anime: that is, from my high school friends. But what about the present tho?

If you want to know the truth, I wouldn't really consider myself as an 'otaku' (a Japanese term for nerds/geeks, although generally used for die-hard anime and manga fans) per se, since I don't really go for anime marathon for the whole night, or sacrificing my sleep for discussion on anime related boards late at night... and I don't fork my money on the merchandises (read: ORIGINAL, not the bootlegs one), nor do I know all the seiyuus (voice actors for anime characters), and memorize all the anime songs by heart... well, basically, you get the idea. An otaku I am not.

Guilty of the first, except for the self-designated title

So what am I then? Well, I'd consider myself as someone who merely likes to watch anime in his past time, with a slight affinity for other related stuff (the best example would be fanarts)... and, yeah, that's pretty much it.

Although, very recently, I am frequently browsing through blogs and forums, reading other fan's view on their favourite (or hated) anime (yes, I'm a bookworm at heart, heh).


One would then ask, what kind of anime do I watch? If I have to sum it in one word, I'd say... 'nothing specific'.

OK, so I cheated there, heh. But seriously tho, I'm all for any type of anime. I think I've watched quite a variety of anime (but I'll admit, that they're just a small quantity compared to other serious anime watchers of Malaysia), ranging from the serious, to the funny, to the philosophical, to the utter rubbish, to the ero- err, I meant exotic... yeah!

The only kind of anime I'm not really interested are the one that is too popular, which usually goes on for FAR too long (e.g. Naruto, Bleach, One Piece: I have a rather short attention span when it comes to anime watching). But then again, most of my friends that I know are into those kind of anime, so I guess it all balance out, eh?

Anyway, here's a good article on Malaysia so-called 'otaku' (credit to the blog for the picture as well): the sad case of Malaysian "otaku"