Quote Originally Posted by rossmum View Post
:irrelevant life story:

Along comes anime. Suddenly, 1.people who are older than me, people who are supposed to be at least a little bit mature, are obsessing over preteen girls and plastering every available inch of their bedroom with posters and figurines. They're looking at me like I'm some kind of freak for saying "I honestly don't find anime appealing. I don't watch it, and I don't want to." 2.For every one sensible person I meet who can watch anime without basing their entire life around it, it seems another five who can't come along. 3.I finally get told what this 'hentai' stuff is that people are drooling buckets over while discussing, and I think to myself, would they honestly feel the same if it wasn't for anime, or more specifically the way anime seems to be the latest cool thing? Would they still find fictional, cartoony preteen girls more interesting than real women? I think long and hard about this. No. Probably not, once they're past the age of about five or ten. Yet here I am, being blasted for questioning the logic of this and daring to speak out about it.

I don't hate anime. I don't hate anime fans, per se. 4.I just find it exceptionally odd and exceptionally confusing as to why people obsess over it so much, for no readily apparent reason. I've heard things like "I'm just interested in Japanese culture" or "I like the animation style", but it seems that more people are obsessed with individual characters or animes than anything else.

5.If any of you have any reasons you wouldn't mind sharing, I'm genuinely interested. I hate not understanding things, and how anime has come along in the last twenty years or so and just about taken over has me completely vexed.
  1. Obsessive nerds crop up with every medium from Videogames to Celebrities to Comedians to Airplanes.
  2. Perhaps (and I've raised/seen this point rased so many times at you and never see a decent counter) a lot of the people you don't know like anime... like anime! Obviously you're going to know the obsessive nerd loooooves his aimies, but the quiet afficionado will likely be just that; quiet about it. Not ramming it down your throat. invisible to you.
  3. Some wouldn't, some would. Again, it's the art style which does it for some people where as others just want something more interesting to fap over than "OH FUCK YES *TEETHBREATHE*, CUM ALL OVER MY BIG TITTIES FUCK ME YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAAH!!" or humans with visual imperfections. It doesn't have to be logical man, it's a fetish. People get off to feet ffs (something I don't understand but hey, to each his own and just keep it to yourself).
  4. Again, you get that happening with all sorts of media. People really get into shit (usually reading too much into it) and look for heaps of depth when it really isn't there (the shit they make you write in highschool english over stuff like Shakespear is a good example)
  5. Wapanese culture, circlejerking-elitest nerds, kids who want to seem cool/counterculture, people hearing about some "cool new show" and checking it out, the usual way shit gets popular.