by Kimberly K

Created on: June 18, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

The Life of an "old" anime fan

From a young age I have been interested in sci-fi and fantasy, and other "unusual" kinds of fiction. I read Spiderman and X-men comics, I played Dungeons and Dragons, and I read Narnia as a young child and Lord of the Rings as I got older. It was only natural for me to move on to anime and manga once I finally discovered it in college.

Anime was not as popular in the United States in the early 1990's as it is now. However, a friend introduced me to Dragonball Z and then to Sailor Moon, and I soon found myself hooked. I took a break from anime after having my eldest child, but then found the English dubbed versions of both Sailor Moon and Dragonball Z on Cartoon Network one afternoon in 1998. Although they were considerably different than the original Japanese versions I still enjoyed them. Soon I found myself on the internet searching for more episodes of my favorite anime. When I was able to afford broadband internet service my love of anime and manga quickly turned to passion as I was able to quickly download episodes I had missed.

One night, while rocking my daughter to sleep I found Inuyasha on Adult Swim, and fell in love with it. I stayed up late on Saturday nights to watch it, even though I had to be to work at 7:00 the next morning. Then one Saturday night I waited for Inuyasha to come on as usual. What came on instead was the anime that would propel me down the road to anime obsession with such force it made my head spin. Fullmetal Alchemist drew me into its world from the very first second. While I had enjoyed other anime shows with fervor, this was something entirely new to me. I couldn't get enough of FMA. I read the manga online (and still do). I found English subbed episodes of the anime and watched the whole thing. I even wanted desperately to go to Japan when the FMA movie was released. It was excruciating for me to wait until the subbed version was posted online. Finally I bought the movie, and all episodes of FMA. I still love to go back and watch them.

My list of great anime has entered double digits. Bleach and D. Gray-Man are my most recent fixation. I can't wait for Wednesday each week when the new episodes are subbed and released. After Wednesday anime day I wait for Friday when the manga chapters are released. It has become my ritual, and my life is thrown off when I can't get to my computer to watch my favorite shows. This may seem sad and pathetic to those who don't understand anime, but those who do understand

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