When I log into Crunchyroll to watch the latest anime while pointedly ignoring the 30 or so series that I will eventually catch up on, I’m reminded of just how easy it is to watch anime these days.
The anime landscape was very different when I first started watching 30 years ago.
Streaming wasn’t a thing, and if you missed the latest episode of Sailor Moon on Toonami and didn’t have it recorded, you just missed it. By “recorded,” I mean on a VHS tape, not downloaded for later viewing.
Let me back up for a moment, this isn’t going to be a “back in my day” post where I tell you everything was better when I was younger. I’m also not going to argue that older anime is automatically better than newer anime as that’s entirely subjective.
The simple reality is that anime was nowhere near as accessible in the late ’90s as it is today. There were no streaming services, and the internet was still relatively new. Watching anime wasn’t something you did whenever you felt like it.
It was something you blocked out time for, whether that meant watching Toonami when it aired or renting anime VHS tapes and, eventually, DVDs from Blockbuster.
For me, anime was also an escape. Teenage me was a shy, introverted loner who was often bullied in school, and anime gave me something to look forward to. It started with Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z on Toonami and later expanded to shows like Tenchi Muyo!.
I’d rush home from school to find out what monster the Sailor Guardians were fighting that week, what world-ending threat the Z Fighters were dealing with or what new chaos Tenchi Masaki unwittingly dealt with thanks to his intergalactic harem.
Homework?
That could wait until my shows were over.
Of course, sometimes the homework continued waiting because I had more important business to attend to, like writing notes for the fan site I maintained that included a running recap of the Cell Games.
Priorities, right?
Yeah, fan sites were a big thing on the early internet. Part of me wishes I still had a screenshot of mine somewhere. Another part of me thinks perhaps it’s for the best that I don’t.
Fifteen-year-old me had very different ideas about what constituted good writing, and I’m fairly certain 43-year-old me would experience severe secondhand embarrassment reading some of it now.
Throughout high school, anime remained a constant. I watched Toonami when it aired and would rewatch episodes I’d recorded onto VHS tapes.
For the youngsters reading this, VHS tapes were rectangular pieces of plastic that could hold a whole whopping two to six hours of content depending on the recording mode you used.
Truly cutting-edge technology, indeed! Compare that with today, when you can store entire seasons of anime on a device that fits in your pocket.
Anime helped get me through those awkward high school years, but after graduating, something changed. For a few years, I stopped watching; it wasn’t because I suddenly hated anime. I had simply convinced myself that it was something you eventually grew out of, then, one day in 2005, I watched Cowboy Bebop.
Before I knew it, I was back and this time, I was there to stay. By 2005, anime was slowly becoming more mainstream. The internet was far more advanced, early social media was beginning to take shape, and it was becoming easier to find other people who shared your interests.
By 2006, I was deep enough into anime again that I wanted friends I could actually talk about it with, which led me to the OC Anime Group on Meetup. Only a few years removed from high school, I still hadn’t completely escaped my shy and introverted tendencies.
Meeting a group of complete strangers for mini golf sounded like a bit of a risk. I wasn’t sure how it would go, but I went anyway. To say that it turned out to be a good decision would be an understatement.
I made friends that night who I’m still friends with nearly 20 years later, even if life circumstances have caused some of us to drift apart a little over the years.
That first night, I barely talked. After mini golf, everyone went to Denny’s for food, and I remained pretty reserved. At one point I got up to use the bathroom, and some of the people who would eventually become longtime friends genuinely thought I had just left without saying anything. I didn’t and here we are nearly 20 years later; those friendships eventually led to countless others and more memories than I could possibly fit into one blog post.
In those early years, we’d gather at someone’s house or a community clubhouse and spend entire Saturdays having anime marathons.
We’d watch an episode or two of a new series, discuss it, move on to whatever was next, and repeat the process all day. Streaming as we know it today wasn’t really an option, so the anime usually came from torrents or downloads supplied by whoever had been chosen to provide that day’s viewing material.
Those gatherings became some of my favorite early fandom memories because they exposed me to anime I probably never would’ve discovered on my own. More importantly, anime was becoming something different for me, it wasn’t simply a coping mechanism anymore. It was helping me socialize and break out of my shell. Those gatherings pushed me out of my comfort zone and helped me build the confidence to become more outgoing.
As the years went on, my watchlist grew, anime became easier to find, and my social circle continued expanding as I attended more events and found other groups online. For a while, it seemed like there was something happening at least a couple of weekends every month.
Sometimes it was an anime viewing.
Sometimes it was a movie outing.
Other times it was just a bunch of us standing outside a Denny’s until 4 AM talking about absolutely nothing important until the cops came and told us to disperse.
Somehow, the shy teenager who barely talked to anyone was becoming something resembling an extrovert or something resembling one, anyway.
It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, though. Anime had helped me develop a social circle, but there were still times when it returned to its original role as an escape.
Bad day at work?
Anime.
Life deciding to kick me while I was already down?
Anime.
The COVID pandemic, losing my job, and watching my dad slowly die from cancer?
Anime was still there.
It couldn’t fix what was wrong with the world or solve the problems I was dealing with, but it could give me an hour or two where I wasn’t thinking about them.
There’s a meme I’ve shared on Facebook a few times where the original poster talks about how anime saved their life. I wouldn’t go that far when describing my own experience, but anime absolutely opened my world. It helped me build friendships, most of which have lasted more than five years and some nearly twenty years.
As I’ve gotten older, some friendships have naturally drifted apart as everyone’s lives moved in different directions, but my social circle never really shrank. My relationship with anime kept expanding.
I started attending conventions and discovered an even wider side of fandom through cosplay, something I’m now 15 years deep into myself. I’ve already written about my 20-plus years of convention experiences and my cosplay journey elsewhere, so I won’t turn this into another novel about either of those subjects, suffice it to say, both became major parts of my anime fandom.
Anime itself continued changing too.
Streaming services like Crunchyroll, Hulu, and HIDIVE made anime dramatically easier to access. As its popularity grew, conventions grew with it, and new events appeared to the point where it sometimes feels like there’s a convention or anime-related event happening somewhere in the country every weekend.
Anime also expanded my taste in music.
At first, I started adding opening and ending themes to my playlists which eventually led me to seek out other Japanese artists. There was even a phase when my music library was almost exclusively Japanese music. I eventually grew out of that phase, but Japanese music still makes up a pretty substantial portion of my ridiculously oversized music library.
Then there’s travel.
I’ve traveled out of town plenty of times for anime conventions, partly because I enjoy seeing how different conventions operate and partly because they’re an excuse to spend a long weekend catching up with friends.
Inevitably, that also means lengthy discussions about whatever anime we’re currently watching while collectively complaining about the terrible drop rates in whatever mobile game we’re playing.
Looking directly at you, Umamusume.
But my travel isn’t stopping at conventions; as I write this, I’m preparing for a month-long trip to Japan.
Obviously, Japan is far more than “the home of anime,” and my plans include plenty of cultural experiences, sightseeing, food, shrines, and simply experiencing another country for the first time, but let’s not pretend anime isn’t part of it.
There are also pilgrimages to real-world locations featured in some of my favorite series, anime-related destinations I’ve wanted to visit for years, and more than a few places that teenage me would’ve lost his mind knowing I’d eventually see in person.
The trip is largely planned, I’m just waiting for the point when I can finally turn all those plans into reality and that isn’t lost on me.
Fourteen-year-old me used anime as a way to make those awkward high school years a little easier.
Thirty years later, anime has helped lead me toward friendships that have lasted decades.
It led me to experiences I never imagined having.
It led me to attending countless conventions, cosplay, travel around the country, and now a solo international trip to Japan.
That’s quite the journey for something I once thought I was supposed to grow out of.
Along the way, I’ve encountered plenty of people who told me anime was for kids or that I needed to stop watching it if I wanted to be taken seriously.
Rude? Absolutely.
But I can’t pretend I never understood that mentality because, for those few years after high school, I believed some version of it myself.
Even today, I occasionally encounter people who are surprised that I’m still this deeply invested in a hobby they don’t understand or simply don’t care about.
And that’s fine, to each their own.
Everyone has hobbies and interests that make them happy, and at 43 I’ve long since realized I don’t need anyone else’s approval to watch anime or cosplay.
I take care of my adult responsibilities and I have plenty of interests outside anime.
I can go to a baseball game, watch wrestling, travel, attend a concert, go out with friends, and then come home and binge an entire anime series in one sitting.
Growing older didn’t mean I had to grow out of anime, my relationship with it simply grew with me.
Thirty years ago, I had to make sure I was home at the right time if I wanted to watch the next episode of Sailor Moon.
Today, I can pull a device out of my pocket and instantly access more anime than teenage me could’ve imagined.
The technology changed.
The fandom changed.
I changed.
But after thirty years, I still get excited when I discover a new series I can’t stop watching and yes, I will continue doing that while pointedly ignoring the 30-plus unfinished series already sitting in my queue begging me to come back.
I’ll get to them eventually.
Probably.