This topic has popped up one a couple of threads I’ve commented on, so I figured I’d open up a separate on to discuss it.
As I’ve noted, I was an otaku long before that term was common. I watched “Speed Racer” and “Astro Boy” as an elementary kid in the 1970s. In the 1980s and into high school, it was “Robotech” and “Star Blazers”. Into the 1990s and college, it was “Bubblegum Crisis” and “Ranma 1/2”.
We relied on a lot of bootleg VHS tapes back then and the people who were even aware of anime and manga were few. The best place meet people in the community were the “Japanimation” rooms at gaming and comic conventions.
Now, I find myself as a middle aged otaku in a community I helped create but find myself distanced from. The question I have for our younger members is: does the presence of us old otaku bother you? Do we strike you as weird or creepy? It certainly feels like it does, but I may be projecting.
For my fellow Gen X pioneers, how do you feel about the state of the community we built? Share your interesting interactions. Tell stories of meeting someone our age that was a good experience.
Quite likely, I’m afraid. I’ve met a few at conventions and such, to be sure. I’ also sure otaku culture was not even a thing at all when you were coming of age. Must be rough.
My biggest problem is talking about anime I grew up with as great pillars… only for younger folks to have no idea what I’m talking about. There are exceptions, Evangelion for instance, but if I try talking about Slayers, Rayearth, or Lost Universe, a lot of younger people will look at me like I’m talking about something mega-obscure. It can feel disheartening.
There is a lot of anime out there, and it would be impossible to watch them all, but it still feels awkward when people talk about Naruto and the like being formative anime for them. Meanwhile, my first thought when discussing ninja anime is Ninja Scroll…
I have a hard time accepting Megumin as overpowered. Sure she can effectively cast the Dragon Slave. But she can do it once per day and then be out for the rest of the adventure.
Meanwhile, Lina can, and has, chain-fire Dragon Slaves and has two spells way more destructive than even that on top of an extensive repertoire of spells. Even the one time a month she can’t use spells, she’s still competent.
So maybe Lina just set too high of a standard for “overpowered” in my mind.
Naw, it’s a blast. With the exception of Kimba the White Lion (whatever the original Japanese title was), Star Blazers, and Speed Racer, it’s all new to me. I’m lovin’ it!
Record of a Lodoss War is part of my current watch rotation. Wishing there were Deedlit figures in lieu of kits.
I too am starting to be middle aged. I was born in Gen X but right on the cuspus of Millennial. So people call me Millennial even though I tell them I’m Gen X.
I feel like sharing my love for anime irl, but the community I live in fly off the handle often. I always fear that if I do share my love for anime that they’ll deem me inappropriate for the younger generations. Its a conundrum I hope to find a solution to.
Also, I know how it feels to feel like everyone around you is unknowledgeable of most things you have watched or seen. In a way it makes me feel a little wiser than most, but also feel like what you know is useless at the same time.
“Old” anime movies that I caught when I first got into anime: Ninja Scroll, Macross Plus, Appleseed, Vampire Hunter D., Akira, Grave of the Fireflies, and Fist of the Northstar. It surprises me that a lot of these young pups (I’m 41) don’t recognize these when these were the pillars that held up anime until it became popular.
I remember watching record of lodoss war the same time book five or six came out for the wheel of time. I binged that with ninja scroll and Akira that day I had tons of my barracks friends come over and get stuck in them with me, good memories.
Me too. It had the same problem as a lot of theoretically good anime…too damn slow in the beginning! I don’t have the time or patience to slog through two 400+ page books to get to the good part.
I’ve written five novels myself and am in the process of editing them now. The one thing I do is to try and have something important happen in the first chapter. A book/movie/manga/anime/etc has to have a hook.
Thank you for your interest. Well, here’s what I’ve got:
“Teacher Voice” - a loose novelization from my time as a high school teacher
“Parallel Lines” - a story of 4 teenagers whose normally private life became out in the open.
“Sour Cream & Onion Apocolypse” - A “zombie” story with the focus on the relationship between three people hiding out in the East Texas forest.
“99 Days of the Dog Game” - Technically unfinished, but about a family’s trials during the Covid-19 pandemic. I made the questionable choice to have every chapter as a single day and am only 77 days in.
“Tales True and False” - a short story collection covering the kids growing up in my neighborhood in the 1970s and 80s.
Long time lurker first time poster I was trying to reply to somebody that was saying that they remember their first anime being record of the lodoss war… And I think I ended up posting a reply into the forum itself rather than a reply to a specific message LOL and honestly I’m not that old that I can’t figure out how to work a computer but I remember getting started on record of lodoss war, ninja scroll slayers and a handful of others that I can’t recall right now
but I remember getting started on record of lodoss war, ninja scroll slayers and a handful of others that I can’t recall right now