Animisery – A Blog About Living Miserably with Anime (Among Other Things)

Firstly, for all three of you regular readers who I dearly appreciate, I’m sorry for my absence. I assure you that it will happen again but probably not due to the same circumstances that this brief respite occurred from. Christmas happened and I just could not manifest any energy to sit at my computer and not do anything but play Marvel Rivals or Chaos;Head Noah. It seemed every single moment I acquired that gave me a break from the holiday was precious and so I devoted it to doing anything but be productive in any manner.

Secondly, I started doing that Steins;Gate episode by episode review but I think I’m just absolutely talentless when it comes to that kind of content. I don’t really think of moment by moment details in what constitutes a moment by moment piece of media that you consume, I guess. I just could not think of anything to say about episode three and four of Steins;Gate so my post lingered and lingered in draft hell and was eventually discarded for my own sanity. I can’t be miserable due to the holidays and have to acknowledge my flaws all within the same month!

This is the actual first year ever in my life since I’ve been a real honest to God Gundam fan of anime that I spent without going to a proper anime convention and it really shows in my spirit. I love anime with the burning passion of a Burning Gundam yet I frequently need a morale boost to my interests in the form on an anime convention. I need and crave that collective energy of all my fellow weebs, otaku, and anime enjoyers flushed into the space of a convention area that has poor air flow and outstanding body odor smell. It’s just not the same without the musk of someone with disregarded hygiene I do not know what to tell you. Unfortunately, what I considered my home convention decided to move their dates to close to Christmas which just isn’t feasible to me. I could’ve easily gone to it with proper planning and scheduling out my rations for gifts and all but my inadequate panning is juts another flaw that I’m refusing to give proper attention to.

There’s just something about all the myriad of events contained with a medium scale anime convention that gives me extra fighting spirit to sit in front of my TV, phone, or computer to watch more anime. Maybe it’s the collective notion that I’m really not alone when I’m amongst my fellow anime pursuers? Sure, I spend regular amounts of my day trying to correspond with online friends about anime and manga but it just hits different when I’m eavesdropping on folks talking about how much they hate a show that I enjoy and I just imagine what my defending remarks would be if I was engaged in said conversation. I swear I’m not pathetic; I’m just pathetically antisocial.

I think maybe the greatest joy of the anime convention is mostly that I do spend it with my friends and (more recently) family. I don’t just go to isolate myself even if we do all almost immediately split off if seven different directions. I go with the people I love and we essentially have our own little shonen split adventures. You know how in One Piece every single character eventually breaks off and goes off on their own little wacky hijinks and then meet up half way through or closer to the end and catch up? It’s like that for us. I’m usually more into visual novels and certain more niche elements of the otaku sphere of interests and my company usually have their own interests that don’t necessarily coalesce. We’ll meet up partway through the day to eat lunch and discuss what we’ve seen, bought, peed in and split off again. Sometimes we’ll group up to panel hop together or we’ll even just run into each other at a panel randomly. Usually our phone’s ability to actually make calls and send messages are massively hampered by the amount of people and all the associated issues so it’s not by choice that we do this but almost survival, I think. One of my weirdly favorite facets of the con experience is when my friends and I reconvene at the hotel or AirBNB or small box underneath a large bridge (that was really affordable to stay in all four nights) and show off our hauls. Being into anime means that you’re almost meant to be susceptible to the woes of capitalisms and consumerism but I can’t fix that aspect of the world so why even try to fight against it? The point being is that I get to see the little bought goods that my friends thought were important to them and that gave them a little piece of joy. I don’t think that physical tangible objects are a source of the deep kind of joy that occurs when you truly found a piece of mind in this hellscape of world. I think they do grant you a momentary piece of assurance and for that they can be wonderful as long as you don’t put yourself in debt.

I just love that I get to see what made my friends happy is what I’m trying to convey. These little pieces of plastic or stickers or whatever they’ve chosen to spend their hard earned funds on have granted them temporary happiness and fulfilled their hobby interests more and I’m overjoyed to see it.

I miss also the sheer fandom power that goes into certain panels and their production. I’ve sat through plenty of panelists who couldn’t host a panel to save their own life yet they came in with the passion and energy to discuss the best architecture in Ghibli and by god we’re going to sit down and hear it. I’ve also been a part of so many game panels that we’re so poorly planned and thought out that it’s almost as if the actual panels were forcibly conscripted into hosting and they’re going to make it everyone’s problem. What they lacked in an ability to balance a game they made up for with the drive to bring something to a convention and they brought it for sure.

What I miss, I suppose, is the love in anime conventions because all conventions are founded on a bedrock of love and desire to share joy in some sense. Barring your huge company funded conventions that exist only to shell out more anime tidbits and secretly shill you on brands, anime conventions exist as a totem of the passion that western anime fans have towards their hobby.

As my friends and I have parted ways in the past few years as everyone pursues their own goals and life choices, it has left me feeling more and more isolated in my love of anime and manga. I used to have a huge group of friends who would frequent cons with me and it was so much so that it wasn’t uncommon for us to need three rooms all fully housed with up to thirteen people. Nowadays, one room will house us all with usually one person left to their own spacious bed. The days of my weeabuddies crowding themselves into a car to drive back from the con in a sedan packed with goodies that we got a good deal is over. You can enjoy cons by yourself but it’s like a group execution; it’s just better with friends.

This year without a con has kind of snuck it’s way into a special sort of melancholy for me. Ten years ago, this would’ve been inconceivable that I would spend a year like this. I’m not trying to facilitate a bummer of a blog post but it’s something that creeps more and more into my mind as they year draws to a close. I don’t need social gatherings to love anime yet I find myself craving it as my hobby becomes more and more online driven. John Donne once said that “no man is an island” and I think the truth of that sentiment becomes more and more clear to me. I may be obsessed with the media that one island creates but I can’t obsess alone. My online friends have become a bastion of anime conversation and I appreciate all of them so much for being alive and out there to talk whatever and whenever with me.

In the end, I don’t think going to conventions is necessary as much as I clamor about how much I enjoy them and find them uplifting for my antisocial soul. I just revel in them and the comradery of knowing that I’m not alone in my ardor of anime. If you enjoy anime alone then that’s perfectly fine and I wish I could do the same. I just have to have someone tell me that Dandadan’s seventh episode wasn’t that sad. They’re wrong but I need someone to tell me that.

On a lighter note (to end this somehow somber blog post) I don’t think I’ll ever have a year like this again! This year was a perfect storm of change and disaster yet I don’t think I could even say it was a terrible year to live through for myself. I watched anime way less and spent more time in books and other interests. It wasn’t a bad year for anime even. I just wasn’t as in it like I’ve been before. I’ll be in it even more in the coming year and I hope you’ll continue to peruse my blog when it comes. Thank you all for reading my meandering posts!

If you want more of me then go check out my podcast, the Anime Brothers Podcast, wherever you get your shows! Feel free to reach out and talk with me! It’s always appreciated.