AA… Anime Anonymous
“I am an anime addict.”
I’m sure by now you have the obligatory “no sh*t Sherlock” running through your head, but give me a few paragraphs to explain myself.
To me, anime is like alcohol to an alcoholic, drugs to a drug addict and sex to Hugh Hefner. While it lacks the chemical side effects of the afforementioned addictions, it wastes a lot of time. The problem is that I am in college and time is worth its metaphorical weight in gold. I simply don’t have the luxury to watch ten different shows each season. I probably could economize and watch my four favorite shows, but this leads to another problem: focus.
I recall the time when episodes 24-25 of Code Geass came out. I was salivating like a puppy about to be fed his favorite meal. My palms were sweaty and my fingers twitched with glee. I’m sure someone is thinking “wth” about now, but the point is, when I watch an anime I love, I cannot focus on anything intensive like studying for the next twelve hours. My mind constantly shifts back to what it just watched and uses every neuron in my brain to scream out “more!” I’m sure there are many casual viewers of anime just like there are casual drinkers, but I’m the guy who enters a bar and gets dragged out by the emergency personnel.
Now, to get away from metaphors, I’ll elaborate on exactly what caused me to quit. Simply put, college, parents and money. I’m sure many of you heard your parents threaten you with the grim fate of flipping burgers for the rest of your life. My parents sure as hell did. The sad thing is that, at this rate, my future doesn’t amount much more than this. You see, practically all my time and energy goes into anime, and this was most vividly shown recently when I went over the weekly 5 gig upload/download limit three times in a row. When my parents got wind of this they decided to take drastic measures and confiscated my laptop. (I am currently writing from my school computers and would have uploaded an image if my school didn’t have some the goddamn best computer programmers who can block all programs outside of Internet Explorer.)
As a result, I am without the means to watch the latest anime. Now that I think about it, I probably could get my hands on some DVDs, but I realize that I must raise the white flag. It’s really in my best interest to quit now since college is probably going to be the four most important years of my life. I love the Nihon Review and I love working with my colleagues, but I don’t want to flip burgers in real life to support my internet persona.
From the bottom of my heart, I thank you all for taking the time to read my reviews and blogs over the past half year. I am grateful to have your company through this journey, and I hope you have enjoyed this ride as much as I did. Now that History 7A is about to start, I must bid you all adheu.
Oh crap, I’ve taken the Internet seriously. Give me a few seconds to impale myself with this pen… er… keyboard.
This is going to sound like a very strange question, but I’m most curious: does Shadowmage go to UC Berkeley? They’re the only college campus, to my knowledge anyhow, to have a 5 gig limit of uploads/downloads from the dormitories, assuming that’s where Shadowmage is staying. That, and History 7A is one of the more common courses taken by students there and it’s not altogether too surprising to have excellent computer programmers there (the EECS department is really good and hardcore at what they do).
Anyhow, I’ll certainly miss your writings/musings and with luck, someone will pop in to fill that gap. That, and your GPA will go high enough to get your parents to reconsider.
Y’know, I’m twenty-nine years old now. I’ve been watching anime since I was about thirteen. For sixteen years I’ve seen various displays of harems, mechas, shojos, shounens, hentais, comedies, erogames, Ghiblis, and Evangelion remakes, and I haven’t ever gotten tired of it. I figured one day one of two things would happen: either I’d have seen it all, or they wouldn’t produce anymore shit that I’d be interested in.
Oh both counts, I was wrong. In the first case, my hubris led me to believe that whatever was being released in the States at the time was “it” and so I had an endgame. Of course this was retarded, and I learned of ways to get those neato fansubs I’d heard so much about. Now I preview anime from overseas first, buy the good ones deomstically, and show it off to my family and friends. On the second count, yeah I figured that Evangelion was the pinnacle of anime out there and that there’d be another anime like it. So I figured the rest would go downhill and I’d lose interest, much like 90’s cartoons, Star Trek spinoffs, and Homestar Runner. But then came other anime that just rocked my socks, and as they kept coming, I’ve come to the conclusion that this shit just aint going to end, and I’m going to be doing this until either the day Japan blows up or I die, which ever comes first.
And so, SM, I’ve known you since the Anime Academy days, and I am very sad to hear of your situation. My biggest suggestion would be that, like any addict, you take up crime to fund your habit. My recommendation is to start small with Pawn Shops down in the Ghetto. If times run short, remember that you can always steal from your friends because they have enough money to replacce whatever it is you take and they’d want you to have it anyway. Last, but not least, you could always murder the people keeping you from enjoying yourself. I’m sure that Anime Addiction Withdrawl Symptoms have been used as an effective part of an Insanity Plea before.
But if you’re too high on the morality ladder and do not wish to risk jail time (loser) then good luck to you with your endeavors. Hopefully we’ll see you back here sooner then later. I do want to say, though, that anime is fun, but the real world can be a kick too. So smoke some pot while you’re in college, get laid to a few drunk as hell college freshmen who “dont know better”, and remember that the toilet paper must be thrown up into the tree LOOSENED FIRST. That’s very important.
zzeroparticle: Bingo.
TIF: I love you, man.