Ninja's, Steampunk, and Other Strange Things in the World of Anime

Everyone has that one hobby that they can't reveal to their friends, for fear of being mocked for the rest of his or her life. This is usually a big deal in high school since everyone is worried about their image and no one wants to stand out in a bad way. The only socially acceptable ways to stand out in high school were in sports, theater, or schoolwork. People just didn't talk about their hobbies that were considered "different." I'd like to say that I was the exception to this phenomenon and that I didn't care what people thought about me, but that would be a complete lie. I was just as self-conscious as the other students in high school. In general, I didn't really have any particularly weird hobbies; I danced, did theater, and was a good student. Yet there was one hobby that I couldn't tell anyone about. You probably guessed it from the title, but my secret hobby was watching Japanese anime.

Anime is a type of entertainment that can have a polar effect on people. Most people that encounter anime either love it or hate it (or they walk away thinking "what was that?").  The reason behind this is probably because we're not only dealing with a different style of entertainment, but also a different culture of ideas and expectations. The Japanese style of animation and humor can be overly dramatic, completely over the top and crazy. So to the Western culture, the Japanese extreme style can come across as incredibly cheesy and weird.  As far as humor goes, Japanese anime humor is both zany and a bit bizarre. To those not accustomed to the style, the humor would be seen as confusing and strange. However, this also depends on the person and what kind of humor they like. I've always been a fan of the odd and zany humor, so when I discovered Japanese anime, I fell in love with this style immediately.

Why do I love anime?  Besides liking the style of humor, I don't really have a straight answer for that.   Even back then, I couldn't explain why I loved those strange and funny cartoons. I just knew that the shows I watched resonated with me. One reason may be that I've loved all types of cartoons since I was a little kid. I was always drawn to animated shows and movies. This love was likely born from constantly watching Disney animated movies. I believe my earliest exposure to Japanese anime was when I started watching Saturday morning cartoons. The local channels on our TV had a few anime-influenced shows. Cartoons such as Shaman King, Sonic X, Digimon and Pokemon filled my imagination with awesome monsters fighting each other and a wide variety of funny characters. I have a soft spot for Digimon, since it was probably my first encounter with the anime style, even though it was in English. There was also shows like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (the version that came out in 2003), Teen Titans, W.I.T.C.H, and Code Lyoko. All of these TV shows helped me to gain a love of stories and characters, something I've been using today as I write my own novels. These shows also likely helped me to develop my love of zany humor.

 However, while these shows had Japanese anime elements, they were all American influenced and not strictly Japanese (Code Lyoko was actually French-based). I was exposed to authentic Japanese anime when I was about thirteen and discovered Naruto. It had started airing on Cartoon Network, and I watched an episode out of curiosity. I immediately became hooked. I loved everything about Naruto: ninjas with incredible powers and attacks, brutal fights, and characters going beyond their limits to protect those precious to them. This anime was different from the other shows that I had watched, in that it was more serious and even showed some blood, something I hadn't really seen in the previous cartoons. Of course, there was still plenty of humor, but the plot and the character development was intriguing to me and kept me waiting for the next episode. Naruto showed me that there were anime shows out there that could be entertaining and serious: shows for teenagers/young adults. Naruto was also the first anime show that I watched in Japanese with English subtitles, which led to my love of watching anime with the original Japanese cast. After Naruto, the world of anime was opened up to me and I dived into it with a gusto.

So I had a new love, a hobby. However, I couldn't tell anyone about it. I knew that anime was considered weird to the general populace, likely due to the expectation that cartoons were meant for kids. The notion of teenagers watching semi-serious cartoons was just weird. I knew that those people who did like anime were often social outcasts in school, and frankly, a bit strange themselves. While I didn't have much desire to be popular, I knew that talking about anime openly would potentially result in a lot of  ridicule that I just didn't want to deal with. I also knew that if someone asked me why I liked anime, I wouldn't be able to answer that question without sounding like an idiot. Besides, I had several other interests, and my love of anime was just one aspect of me. It was easier to simply keep this new hobby a secret, which I did all throughout junior high and high school. Even on those personal surveys that asked about my favorite TV shows, I would always put down a couple of well-known shows that I had seen and liked. But I could never put down my actual favorite shows because I was too afraid to show this part of me that was relatively new. I guess I was too afraid of what people would think if they knew.

When I was fourteen, I did find someone to share my anime hobby, and it came in a surprising form: my brother, Brant. My brother is 7 years older than me, so we weren't incredibly close when I was younger. I mean, we loved each other, of course, but we didn't really have anything in common. One day, I was watching an episode of Naruto when I heard Brant come in. I braced myself for the ridicule of my choice of entertainment, which I saw as inevitable. To my surprise, Brant said, "Hey, I've seen this show. It's Naruto, right? I like it!" I stared at him in shock, completely caught off guard. We ended up watching a Naruto marathon, laughing at the humor and holding our breath through the intense scenes. Afterwards, I was surprised to discover that Brant watched anime too and had seen several other shows. Since then, we've traded different shows, showed each other hilarious internet videos and have grown much closer. I found out that he and I have the same sense of humor, in that we both love the zany and odd humor. Now, whenever we see each other, we usually end up talking about the latest anime shows that we've seen and quoting our favorite lines. It's rather funny that anime brought us together. Who would've thought?

Once I graduated from high school, I found myself being a bit more open about my love of anime. This stemmed likely from my increased confidence and the fact that I was no longer part of the cliques and drama surrounding high school. As I went to my first year of college, I found out that one of my roommates also loved Japanese anime. We talked for hours about our favorite shows, ranted about stupid characters, and squealed over which guys we thought were the hottest. She also introduced me to manga, the Japanese comic book (many anime shows are based on their manga counterparts). She also shared with me her love of crazy Japanese and Korean music. Basically, college helped me to not be afraid to show this part of myself. As I tentatively shared my love of anime, I discovered other people who like it. Of course, the fact that I go to BYU may help this matter, since we're all geeks here.

So now, I share my love of anime with pride. I plaster the walls in my room with anime posters, which was something I had never dared to do before. I talk to others about anime and share my favorite shows. And now here I am, writing about it. I still have plenty of friends and my roommates treat me like a (relatively) normal person, though they do tease me that I have a specific laugh when I'm watching anime.  I don't know what I was so worried about before. I've noticed in general that this is something we all hopefully learn as we get older. At college, I've noticed more people are open about random hobbies that they have. It's no longer bad to like something out of the ordinary. In fact, people don't really care whether you like Pokemon, or anime, or Jane Austen, or dressing up in medieval clothes and sword fighting (they really do have a club for that); as long as it's something that you enjoy, then that's great!  I suppose I was just so scared of what other people would think, but I've realized now that it shouldn't really matter. My love of Japanese anime is a part of me, and if people can't accept that, then it's their loss. I'm proud to be me!