/jp/ - Otaku Culture

>>19168598
I was born early 1996.
I had watched anime and played video games since at least 5 years old, as I had cable television and a more cerebral family,
so more geek stuff around.

When I was really young, I'd catch 4Kids or Warner Brothers, if I remember correctly.
I think Pokemon aired on weekday mornings. I also watched the original Yu-gi-oh. (I can't remember how, but Dragon Ball Z, as well.)
I played both of those too: Got the original starter decks from Toys-R-Us and caught Groudon in 3rd or 4th grade.
I played Yugioh until late 5DS era and Pokemon until recently in Gen VII, as I hated the changes they made.
I mostly played against family, since I didn't know where to go to find opponents, until High School when I got a friend group and found Pokemon Crater then Pokemon Showdown!.

From the age of ten I started watching late night television, Toonami and Adult Swim. Toonami was cancelled at some point.
I used to watch Lupin, Case Closed, FLCL and Inuyasha; then Bo-bo-bo, Naruto, Shin-Chan, and,
was introduced to Death Note and Code Geass when those aired (still favorites of mine today).
As I said, my family was a bit geeky, so I got my hands on DVD copies of Full Metal Panic! they bought and fell in love with the series.
Growing up, I played the mainline Pokemon games and spin-offs, Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, Dead or Alive, and later Phantasy Star Online
and Sonic Riders, among many others.
I drew really crappy anime-ish stuff in elementary school: lots of dragons, random anime-like characters, and a Sonic OC (Coldsteel tier).

I didn't really have internet growing up until about 2008 at 12 years old. I watched a lot of stuff on YouTube, back when
people made poops, parodies, AMVs, and Abridged Series. Loved those. S/O to Hikaripop and DNTAS.
With the Internet, I was able to watch anime and read manga that wasn't shown on television. I read Case Closed,
and watched Lucky Star, Azumanga Daioh, Fruits Basket, and later, Ouran High School Host Club.
I did not know about 4chan at the time but I enjoyed a lot of memes which in hindsight I understand were 4chan leakage, like
Motivational Posters, random gifs, etc.
They ended up on my main discussion site at the time, YouThink, so I saved a lot of stuff, but deleted them all before college,
because I thought I moved on (now I regret it because I can't even find the same caramelldansen oc I had anymore).
I also really loved taking quizzes and personality tests.
I ended up cutting my own AMVs and uploading them to YouTube, and making my own tests for Quiztron/YouThink.
Among other things, I did FLCL AMVs, Full Metal Panic trivia, even a response video to a kid who died trying to be a
sand ninja by having his head buried, because the media was blaming Naruto. I closed my YouTube account long ago
because of their bullshit.

I learned "Dear You" and "Organization XIII".
My Middle and High School had one of the few lively anime clubs in the city, so I would go there every week for a while
(first saw Nichijou, Gurren Lagann, and Tower of Druaaga, and heard the term "weaboo" there).
As a group, everyone generally became friends with everyone else through it, so we played games,
hung out at lunch and at each others' houses, and attended the local anime convention every year together.
Back in the days of Higurashi and Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix, I was taking piano classes in mid- and high school,
and looked up a lot of sheet music and MIDIs I never ended up getting around to learning.
Other people played anime tunes in class as well.
Until the anime club, and after I was no longer a part of it, I didn't have friends to share my otaku interests with.
I had actual consoles but played Visual Boy Advance ROMS downloaded from CoolROM: lots of Pokemon hacks, and an Azumanga Daioh card game, among others.

At the tailend of my time with Japanese media, I would go to my local library which had the hookup for manga volumes and DVDs,
even video games, and of course books.
I read Paul Varley's "Japanese Culture" first, and in my mid teens read "The Book of Tea" and a few haiku compilations: Basho, and Issa.
I didn't get into Buddhism, Shintoism, or traditional stories, though. I tried reading "The Tale of Genji" but got bored.
I read lesser known stuff like "AX Volume 1: A Collection of Alternative Manga", as well as full fledged series like Rosario+Vampire and Bakuman. I rewatched DeNo and CoGe. I downloaded Paranoia Agent from YouTube, rewatched it, and finally understood it.
Played Dokapon Kingdom with a good friend of mine.
I got to the age where I had other stuff going on, and video games, so I axed anime watching and never got into newer stuff.

Next post is about generational gap.