My Experience With Anime As I Grew Up

     As time moves your opinions change, you develop more as a person, you start to enjoy different things. Anime is the same, the reason behind why you watch it, and what types of anime you enjoy change overtime. A fair number of people "grow out" of anime as they age, but no matter what, your view on anime changes as you age. This is what I am going to talk about today, my experience with anime and how my opinion of anime changed as I aged.

     I experienced my first anime at the age of twelve. I grew up without cable TV and instead my family would torrent TV instead, meaning that what you watch is limited to what you know. However when I was twelve my dad and I watched Spirited Away, my first anime. This opened up a whole new world for me, I originally thought that all animated shows/movies were meant for little kids (4-10 year olds), I never really thought that wasn't a little kid would enjoy it (same goes for my dad). You could say that my ignorance towards animation/anime was broken, it became obvious that you didn't have to be a little kid to enjoy anime.

Source: http://veewords.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Spirited_Away_Wallpaper_by_behruz.jpg

     A few months later we got the infamous Netflix, and I watched my next anime, Jyo Oh Sei. I ended up binge-watching the show in a single sitting, I was enthralled with the action and more mature theme of the show. Once again my thoughts and opinion of anime was shattered, it became clear to me that there was no limit to anime, the story and animation could take any shape and form it would like. And as a twelve year old kid, I was in shock and aw.

Source: http://pm1.narvii.com/5761/6ba7fdea6ff35d4008ad0082f8ae733c73a45ce3_hq.jpg

     From the ages twelve to fifteen I watched anime for the action scenes and for the sexual jokes, lets face it you can't get sexual jokes like you do in anime, I never really thought of anime as anything more than that. When I turned fifteen I discovered Ken Cannon (He is a con-artist), I watched a few of his videos and I wanted to learn Japanese the first step towards becoming a weeaboo. I slowly started to tread down the weeaboo path, convinced that anime and Japan should be worshiped, I guess you could say my views changed dramatically. Luckily when I turned sixteen I actually went to Japan and realized how messed up Japanese culture is, and how messed up weeaboos are (I also learned what a weeaboo was).

     The shock of reality from my trip to Japan set me straight, and I came to understand that anime should be taken as media entertainment, and nothing more. I continued this trend and by the time I was seventeen I had become very selective of what kind of anime I watched, I was no longer interested in the intense action or sexual jokes of anime. Instead I started to watch anime like Steins; Gate and Monster, I also stopped watching pretty much all "school" anime. I realized that anime could do what regular TV could not, produce horrifying (dark) ideas and storylines which could not be shown in a regular TV show. It pushed the lines of social acceptable ideas in shows, anime can push forward mature ideas, which are not meant for young audiences, nor are they seen on TV.

Source: http://images-cdn.9gag.com/photo/anBYWz0_700b.jpg

     Throughout the years, my views and opinions on anime have developed and changed as I grew up, and became more mature. As I talk to people who have also had their opinion about anime changed as they grew up, I have noticed that I am greatful that it has been part of my life up to this point. I may not watch very much anime now, but the experience and thoughts that I have had while growing up with anime, are something that I will always keep with me. All in all, I am happy that I didn't become a weeaboo, or that I turned out to be like TheAnimeMan.

     Thanks for reading about my experience with anime as I grew up, I am quiet surprised you made it all the way to the end :p If you have any questions or comments feel free to put them below in the comments below :)

AVirginTheory