My History with Anime

I know some people (especially those from the West) have an aversion to anime and manga, but I’m not one of them. I’ll even admit that at one point in my life I was a huge fan. It probably helps that anime and manga (which I’ll simply call “anime” to consolidate the two words henceforth) are so ingrained in the Taiwanese culture that I got affected by them, going far enough to qualify as an otaku. I’ve been watching anime before Dragonball Z even reached America’s consciousness. Doraemon and Yaiba are just examples of what I followed in my formative years, and I even bought every Slam Dunk manga using my own allowance.

But since college, I’ve stopped being a dedicated follower of everything anime. I could blame this to the lack of free time, but the more I reflect on it, the more I see the possibility that my interest in anime was also dwindling. It didn’t help that the stuff I saw in my freshmen years weren’t exactly golden: Gundam Wing, Vandread, and Hellsing, while interesting in their own rights, did not engage me the way most of the animes I’ve seen pre-2000 did. Those two, plus the glut of unoriginal shounen anime (i.e. the action-packed ones where a fight scene can go as long as 5 episodes with only 10-minute of actual time progression) and harem anime (i.e. one loner surrounded by 5 quirky attractive women who all fawn for him) wore me out. And while I occasionally complete a few series, I just did not bother to keep abreast to the new releases anymore.

2007 was a special year for me, because that was when I successfully rekindled my love to two hobbies I had while growing up, namely RPGs (you can thank Persona 3 for that), and animes. I heard of Death Note earlier, but only then did I manage to read the manga and watch the anime to completion, and I loved both (the manga more than the anime, though). Battle Royale’s manga, while not my favorite incarnation of the franchise, rocked by giving more backgrounds to the characters that the original novel merely glossed over. Nodame Cantabile’s, despite its flaws, had an energetic depiction of life as music school students, and was refreshing in an industry marred with too many me-too hackjobs.

Returning to Taiwan, I got overwhelmed by their enormous anime shops. Plenty of stuff on their shelves had me curious, and finally, I couldn’t help but regret just how out of loop I’ve been about the industry.

So, I have a new goal for this year. This won’t be anything as crazy as my attempt to finish 52 books last year (I eventually only finished 45) but I have a list of anime series I’m going to watch from start to finish. Some of them are old titles, but most of them more recent. Expect to see impressions/reviews from time to time, although I don’t expect the time intervals for those posts to be short. You can also suggest a few other titles.

See what I have planned so far, after the jump. Their opening movies are included too, just so you can get a preview.

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