Reflections of an Aging Otaku

I first started watching anime, fully aware of what Japanese animation
actually was, sometime in early 1993, approximately twenty years ago.
As a child I was enamored with Battle of the Planets, completely
unaware of its national origin, or the tweaks which were made from the
original Science Ninja Team Gatchaman. I was aware of other shows, like
Robotech, and Speed Racer, and I have a vague recollection
Thunderbirds 2086, but Battle of the Planets was, for years, the
ultimate action cartoon in my mind. I loved Transformers and GI Joe,
but Battle of the Planets trumped them both. As a teenager I was an
avid comic reader and stumbled upon listings for anime VHS tapes in
the back of Previews, though it was well out of my ability to purchase
at the time. Similarity of styles to Battle of the Planets, however,
made everything click in to place. I finally knew why Battle of the
Planets felt so different from everything else on television. And I
wanted more.

From there, though, my introduction to anime was fairly slow. We were
nowhere close to the halcyon days of thirteen episode boxed sets for
$50 MSRP. Anime tapes were as much as $40 for a single thirty minute
episode. My entire exposure to unadulterated Japanese Animation was
through those product listings as well as magazines like Animerica and
Protoculture Addicts. Close to the end of my Junior year of high
school, one of my classmates, an ESL (English as a second language)
student originally from Taiwan, discovered that I and several friends
were interested in anime, and brought us a dubbed-from-laser-disc copy
of Venus Wars, subtitled. That afternoon we went to my friend's
apartment after school and devoured the film. My friends enjoyed it,
but not as much as I did. For me, it was a true beginning.

Ever since I've been an enormous fan though I've never been
particularly active in fandom. After beginning college in late 1994,
I quickly sought out online fan groups beginning with USENET, and
participated in discussion, but I've never even attended a single
dedicated anime convention. I've never written for an anime
publication, print or online. I've never participated in a podcast.
But these were my Salad Days and small though it was, at the time,
USENET was a world that I never imagined existed. I held my breath,
closed my eyes, and performed a cannonball right into the middle of a
growing but already well established community full of knowledgeable
people. Inevitably the combination of youth and enthusiasm ran
slightly amok. Looking back at my time on USENET Some things were
said in a less than elegant manner, some things were said that were
better left alone, and some seem to have emerged from a person who is
now altogether foreign to me. Lucky for my generation and onward, our
youthful indiscretions are forever preserved in a digital amber from
which we can never escape. What's left for it? To embrace it and
examine it, hopefully learning a little about ourselves along the way.

I'll begin shortly with a post that I made to rec.arts.anime on
October 5, 1994. It's a doozy and likely my most embarrassing moment
online. Join me as I remove the rose-colored glasses and begin
Reflections of an Aging Otaku.

Posted via email from Newtronika