03.01.10
Posted in Anime, Experiments, Fandom Tags: analysis, fan community, fans on fans, Otaku Diaries at 10:00 am by reversethieves
#0091
Anime has been a part of my life for this long; I can’t imagine not being entranced by anime.
Speculating on the future can be very tricky and the more complex the system you are trying to predict the harder it becomes to be accurate as anyone who understands chaos theory and the butterfly effect will attest. But as anime fans we continually try to speculate on the future of our hobby. What shows will come out next season, what trends will become prominent, what fads will fade away, what will get licensed outside of Japan, who will be voice actors on what shows, and a multitude of other topics are constantly a part of otaku conversations. We may be wrong and we may be right in varying amounts but we are always trying to see if we can guess where this crazy train called anime and manga is going.
In an surprising turn of events everyone said they’d more than likely still be watching anime in 10 years. . . . well, I should hope so! This is the OTAKU Dairies afterall. But beyond the initial response, I found something interesting and possibly (unintentionally) pessimistic. A number of fans responded in the conditional form of “yes, . . . if there are still good shows.” or something similar to that effect. At first it seems like an obvious response, but at the same time it makes me think “what makes you unsure there will be good shows?” However, it must be said that many more people said plainly “yes,” “absolutely,” and “why wouldn’t I?” And then there were a few in the affirmative but with a theory that they would be a more casual fan in the distant future. So while the short answer was a resounding aye, the things ticking below the surface were still diverse.
#0094
Even if I get married, have kids, move, get a new job, or the such there will always be room in my life for anime.
I suppose that anyone willing to fill out a survey this long is in it to win it. Therefore everyone seeing themselves watching anime in the future should be unsurprising. I see this hesitancy to say anything without caveat being partially to do with the chicken little syndrome that tends to be a part of anime culture. There is always someone going around saying that anime as we know it is dying forever. Compounded with a weak economy and some turmoil in anime production companies in the present, it can be easy to make people wonder in 10 years down the line will they still be making shows that will interest them. F0r most people taking the survey there will always be something from them to watch but I understand where this fear comes from.
#0019
The people who are kids now don’t really seem to be growing up into fans like me over time. They seem to just grow out of it entirely, replaced by new kids just like they were.
#0034
Once the current recession passes and they figure out how to [make] money out of online distribution, I think the industry will stabilize at a level where there’s still plenty of good stuff being produced.
#0080
I think fandom will continue for all of eternity . . . there will always be a new generation to pick [up] where the last one left off. It may be possible that the “older” anime fans will dwindle but there will be people like me to pick up for them.
#0060
The advent of a generation that is internet savvy will only lead to more access to anime with less appreciation for it.
#0045
It will be a little less the “in thing to do” that it seems to be now, and fall back into the hands of the fans who loved and supported it from day one.
Asking what the future of anime fandom is is a very broad question to put to people because it partially depends on where you think anime fandom currently is; whether it is health or not or what that even means; and how you yourself fit into the whole scheme of things. I actually learned a lot from the answers in this section. One sentiment that really got me thinking was this theory that the gap between older fans and newer fans would continue go widen, age-wise. There was a prevalent idea that young fans are coming into anime fandom and then instead of becoming older fans they are becoming non-fans; they stick with it for a while but drop out soon after college. So while I didn’t myself think of this, I really found myself following the logic behind it and was able to apply it to what I’ve seen and experienced.
#0079
As long as acceptable strategies are found for legal distribution for new series shortly after their broadcast in Japan, fandom might contract for some time but never lose its appeal. Maybe.
#0029
. . . then in fifty years our fandom will die of old age like sci-fi fandom is about to do.
#0049
I think there’s going to be a point where things all balance out. The moe fans will have stuff to watch, and the not-moe fans will have plenty to chew on, too.
#0011
Some of the short term fans who liked it because it was trendy are starting to drop off from what I’ve seen, and the popularity is starting to diminish slightly.
#0021
. . . a majority of these young fans will eventually grow to become financially independent and upwardly mobile adults who will have children of their own creating a generation of people that are more receptive to anime and more likely to disseminate anime throughout the culture.
An important question is how long do most people stay in any hobby when push comes to shove. All hobbies will have fans who come in and leave due to a wide variety of factors. Is the ebb and flow of anime fans any different than fans of stamp collection, basketball, or even American comics? I can’t say what if any the difference is but I would be curious to see the numbers. As long as there is a steady stream of new fans there will always be some people who stick around to mature and expand their tastes. Opinions on the future of anime fandom ranged in optimism. There were predictions of everything from growth to utter collapse. Most of the participants felt that the bubble of anime and manga had burst and that there was still some normalization in the market to take place. Everyone seem to agree that anime adapting to online distribution was the key. How effective that would be and how quickly and effectively it could be profitable was a major point of contention. Most participants agree that the casual viewers would ebb and flow but there would always be a dedicated fans base that always carry the torch.
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02.01.10
Posted in Experiments, Fandom Tags: fan community, Otaku Diaries at 10:00 am by reversethieves
#0099
I still have a few friends that I knew before I was heavily into anime, but they are few and far between. Most of the people I consider my friends I did meet, in one way or another, through this medium.
Thomas Wolfe said “The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.” As an anime fan that is also a lonely person I think on that quote and wonder how alone am I in feeling alone? Is the otaku by nature a lonely beast? How much do anime fans have friends? How often do they watch anime with others? Do anime fans still go out there and try to recruit everyone they meet to get the word out about these amazing Japanese cartoons? Is there still reason to do that? I don’t think this will answer all of my questions but I do think we shed some much needed light onto how social the average otaku is.
#0019
Several days often go by wherein I don’t actually vocally speak at all. Before, back when I didn’t use instant messaging, I more or less had zero interaction with anyone.
#0042
I talk to my forum friends at least once a day. I feel that they are close acquaintances that I would get a long with if I met them in real life.
Ah, camaraderie. It was one of the first reasons I came to love the Internet in my youth. The ability to find like-minded individuals with your hobbies from all over the world and you didn’t even have to leave your room was a rather enticing prospect. And it certainly made many times less lonely or even expanded my knowledge. It also had the greater effect of making me appreciate when I could have those people or conversations face to face or watch that anime with another. Ideally you get to participate in both experiences because they both have positive attributes. I think anime fans want to be social for the most part, atleast social within a circle of people who they feel think like they do, and with the combination of technology and real life meetings, there is an outlet for it.
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01.04.10
Posted in Experiments, Fandom Tags: fan community, Otaku Diaries at 10:00 am by reversethieves
#0047
Anime factors in because I would like to be able to share things I love with a person I’ll share my life with.
We start off the new year with what everyone is really reading the otaku diaries for: dirty sex secrets. Who is doing what to whom and if farm animals are involved. Well, actually, that is no where near what this part is about. This is mostly a look at the romantic relationships or lack thereof of the various participants. Like it or not there is a stereotype that otaku are mainly lonely, dateless losers who know more about how to win hearts in visual novels than they ever will about talking to a member of the opposite sex. But the survey found a wide variety of people answered from hardcore 2D girl proponents to those who were happily married to love em and leave em Lotharios. The only commonality most people had was that their stories were always extremely emotionally involving.
The answers in this section may be the most varied of them all. Our group of participants ran the gamut from new to the dating scene to downtrodden, rejection of dating to belief in true love, and still much more inbetween. And what resulted were answers that certainly are very personal but still they will resonate, some views more than others, but very much every type of person can be seen here. Heck, this may be the portion of the survey that goes to show most how much fandom is a mix of many different types of people.
#0015
Obviously an interest in anime would be a big plus, or even just someone who would be willing to be introduced to my interest, and in return I’d be interested in hers.
#0009
My ideal mate would be someone I would want to be friends with, not just lovers. Sexual compatibility would be necessary. I’d like a good sense of humor, too. Looks are not really important. God, that sounds so fake and self-effacing, the kind of thing you’d expect in a personal ad, but in all honesty I’d probably settle for anything with two X chromosomes and a heartbeat.
#0049
A young cute girl who’s totally accepting of all my flaws and willing to take care of me.
I was amused that no one said that they would not date another otaku. For all the posturing that some people put on their surveys I think everyone wanted someone to share their hobbies with. I think it is the clearest sign that the otaku who hate otaku idea is merely a defensive mechanism. 70 percent of the participants had a strong preference for dating someone who also liked anime and only 30 mentioned that it did not factor into who they would date but they always said that they would date another otaku if they liked other things about them. Other fans might occasionally annoy us but in the end we want to be with someone who understands that aspect of our lives.
#0079
In considering dating though I would give more weight to “long-term” versus “short-term”; perhaps I am merely naive on such matters, but I wouldn’t consider a “short-term” liaison a relationship in this sense. For various reasons, I’m far more interested in mutual respect than mutual lust.
#0014
I don’t consider “dating” at all. It is an entirely abhorrent concept and one that exists in American movies and TV shows. No one actually does that bullshit in real life, do they?
I would really have liked to see, concretely because we certainly had some more indepth answers, whether the people who listed anime fandom as unimportant had mostly dated non-fans. No one in this section seemed to be adverse to dating a fellow fan which is interesting because of some of the answers given in the section about the word “otaku.” Though there were no answers, or questions to answer, about how deep their mates love of anime should run. Perhaps some wouldn’t want to date another engrossed like themselves, just open to it. While others made it quite clear they wanted to share this passion, for good and ill, because it was such a huge part of their lives that there was no getting around it.
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12.07.09
Posted in Experiments, Fandom Tags: anime fetishes, fan community, fans on fans, Otaku Diaries at 2:13 pm by reversethieves
#0096
You cannot set foot in a convention without being ashamed of fandom.
This is sort of a follow up post to the Otaku! Threat or Menace? article. However, this time around we delve a little deeper into those little pieces of fandom make you just that much more otaku. And still another post will follow this one soon about that question of just what do otaku think of fandom past and present and where is it all headed. But here you will see that anime is this creature that affects people in different ways and has a draw for people that runs both shallow and deep. And amidst all that is the wonder how the community gets along at all!
I see more and more a very disturbing attitude among anime and manga fans. This idea that they are “too good to be anime and manga fans.” The idea that them and maybe a few other people are above the hoi polloi with their horrible taste, bad manners, and overall immaturity that makes people have a bad impression of the fandom. The problem is that so many fans now a days have this feeling it means at least some of them are wrong. Either the majority of anime fans are not as bad as they think or some of the people are that part of the problem see themselves above. We are going to try to see how prevalent and pervasive this feeling is in our participants.
#0039
I don’t really feel disgust towards fellow fans because I did the same things they’re doing. I can just hope that they try to turn themselves around as I’m slowly doing.
#0016
It generally goes along with adding ‘-chan’ to everyone’s name and asking boys to kiss each other.
#0094
Sports fans can be just as sad as anime fans. I just happen to be an anime fan so shitty anime fans piss me off more. I mean there are a laundry list of reasons to be proud of anime fandom and to be ashamed.
So, the sexy statistics. You might assume that anime fandom is made up of horrible people with sickly fetishes seeing how some people talk on the Internet. But overall most people had rather mundane tastes. Guys were unsurprisingly into large breasts and oral sex. In fact that was so mundane and ubiquitous we did not bother tracking it. The most common fetishes were uniforms and glasses which were popular with both sexes. We did have 4 self confessed lolicons, 2 people into futanari, and 2 people who said they preferred 2-D girls to real ones. But they were mostly the same people. So while there were people that get much negative attention they were in the minority. I was surprised that women went into very little detail about their fetishes in anime. Also there were only 2 women who said that she was into yaoi in the fetishes question despite the fact that several women said they were fujoshi. I had always assumed that we reached the point were women were just as comfortable talking about what turns them on as much as men but that might not be as true as I thought.
Okay, can I just say that large chests and oral sex are not fetishes. They mean you are a dude. It would be a fetish if you DIDN’T like those things, thus why we listed flat chests. The only real knowledge gained from this question was that most people are still run of the mill when it comes to their fetishes. Anime otaku aren’t just made up of a bunch of sexual deviants. But just the same with only a sampling for 40 people, prominent tastes like lolicon stand out with about a 10% cut. I, too, was blown away by the lack of yaoi mentions. I am not even sure why it happened because plenty of people mentioned yuri, so it’s not as if people just overlooked these things. However, with our sample of females being very low (only 11 participants) perhaps it just wasn’t large enough to show a more open manner with regards to sexual proclivities.
#0015
. . . being a yaoi fan I often feel quite ashamed of my fandom. I know that yaoi isn’t exactly high art, it’s a pandering genre meant to be instantly gratifying, and so it’s not surprising that it doesn’t attract the most intelligent people. Still, I wish that most young yaoi fans weren’t quite so loud and obnoxious, it really makes the rest of us look bad.
#0079
If I’m ashamed of any sort of fan, it’s the fans who hate what they don’t like with a passion equal to how they like what they like.
#0019
The behavior of other fans tends to irritate me . . . and it’s only recently that I realized that the “at least I’m not a fucking loser like THOSE PEOPLE!” defense is just a defense mechanism that redraws the line a lot. I’m so far over the line of normalcy without ever having crossed the line and become “one of those people” that the line I drew may as well have been meaningless.
Almost everyone who took the survey felt that other people in fandom disgusted them at some point but only a third of the people surveyed ever felt any disgust with themselves. These results can be used to paint two different pictures. The first is there is this small group of anime fandom that gives everyone else a bad name. The second is that there is circular finger pointing at everyone else who they think is the problem. The fact of the matter is both are true. There are people who are just outright embarrassing fans. Only the most lenient in the survey did not bring up people behaving badly at cons. The other problem is best summed up with “Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye?” There are lots of fans who are overall good fans but have distinctly nasty habits. They see the bad habits of their peers but gloss over or ignore their own faults.
#0040
I’m a crusader against 4-chan culture. It’s disgustingly base and I’m a slave to the good and beautiful.
Most telling is that almost all fans were ashamed of other fans, but most not of themselves. So either most participants were upholding their high ideals of fandom or people don’t always see themselves as they actually are. The “it’s not me, it’s them” defense is what us and most other people probably think off the bat. However, that idea contrasts with much of the other answers we’ve gotten for other questions in the survey. People have been rather open about a myriad of personal things. Is it possible there is a disconnect when it comes to their fandom? Are people so caught up in it (otaku afterall) that they can’t really take a step back to evaluate that part of their lives? Or is it that other common happening of a few ruining this for the many?
#0014
Helped me be a better person? Find solace in a shared experience? Provided a comforting, reassuring presence when all around is chaos? . . . Been an inspiration helping me to discover new ways of seeing and thinking? Absolutely.
#0060
I don’t think there are too many good life lessons in anime. Sure, shooting a woman after sleeping with her may work for Golgo 13 but I’m thinking I just can’t pull it off in quite the same way.
Both the internet and cons have similar situations that become out of hand and can cast a shadow on anime fandom as a whole, and have cast a shadow as the opinions here express, which has many people fed-up. Biggest problem, as I see it, it too much information syndrome. And screaming it at the top of your lungs to anyone and everyone who is even remotely involved in your hobby. In a day and age where everyone is comfortable talking about anything, people just wish you wouldn’t. This coupled with, how many participants put it, the younger fans running wild in any anime meet up setting is making fellow fans cringe. But at the very same time, the internet and conventions is what has brought so many fans together. It even made doing this survey possible and as many people mentioned it allowed them to finally connect with others. More than a few people met friends and significant others through this very hobby. And as much as everyone complained about the anime community, almost everyone on the survey wants to continue to be apart of it. Just look at how many fans go one step further and create fan works or write about anime.
Overall I think this trend of anime and manga fans who hate anime and manga partially comes from this idea that people are surrounded by nothing but vile idiots. They enjoy anime and manga but see it as a fandom filled with people everyone should avoid. They get this attitude that they are above such things so they are thereby separated from what they dislike in fandom. But the answer is not to separate yourself from the community. It is to see the value it what makes anime and manga fandom great and and trying to encourage what is wonderful and productive anime being an otaku.
#0029
. . . it has provided a way for people in high school to stereotype me, which makes it hard for me to break through barriers and befriend new people. Pretty much I am know as the “anime kid,” so it takes some effort to convince other kids that I’m a normal, rather friendly person, and not some sort of bumbling social reject.
#0030
I wouldn’t be friends with nearly as many people and it kind of gives me a sense of belonging.
Despite what people said about hating their fellow fans I think the evidence points to people not being a hostile as they might let on at times. 80% of the participants had tried to learn Japanese at some point. There seemed to be a genuine interest in learning about Japanese culture and the Japanese language. A good deal of the people had contributed to some sort of activity for the anime community to enjoy be it a blog, podcast, fanzine, AMV, fan fiction, or fan art. And most everyone else who did not do one of those at least partook in the efforts of someone else who did.
What I really took away from this part of the survey is a desire that everyone wants to be a better fan. Everyone recognizes bad behavior so it is only another step to seeing it, and correcting it, within ourselves. And more positively is that people want to be apart of their hobby, anime fans maybe more than others. With few means to actually communicate with or becoming involves in the creative process of anime, fans are looking to connect themselves in different ways, some fun and some thoughtful (some a little of both). Anime fandom has a huge, and vocal, community and people want to be apart of it even if there are deterrents to it.
As much as they complained about hating other fans they usually had kind words about the people they had connected to. Anime fans want to make connections to their fellow fans and often do. There was rumbling of displeasure with their fellows in most peoples surveys but they were also able to talk about what they liked and who they felt exemplify what had drawn them and kept them in the fandom. The people who took the time to fill out this massive survey obviously cared enough about anime fandom to make their voices heard and that if nothing else is a good sign of people who still care.
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