How Does One Become an Anime Fan

In this day and age, finding out that one likes anime isn’t as huge of a deal as it was some years back. Because these days, liking anime has actually turned to something cool if I should say. Back in the day, liking anime was a crime. Well, I for one, wouldn’t blame the normies hating or bashing out people for liking anime back then because, to be honest, seeing all those random otakus back in 2005 running around recess shouting Rasengan or Kamehameha or throwing some random balls at cats and dogs in order to claim them as their Pokemon wasn’t exactly making one look like one of the cool kids. So most people back then would keep their love for anime on the down low. Most times, they would form secret groups just so that they could talk about anime in peace without being bullied by the normies. But today, liking anime makes you one of the cool kids. The anime community has grown to such an extent that being an Anime YouTuber is now a thing.

 

But, my question is, how does one become an anime fan? Why did so many people decide to become anime fans and what made them go down such a path? Well, there are many MANY reasons why one would become a fan. But first things first. Who is an anime fan? Well, that’s simple. An anime fan is a person who watches and enjoys anime. Now of course, there are many types of anime fans. The most common one is The Mainstream Fan. These guys are those fans that watched anime like Naruto, One Piece, Dragon Ball or Pokemon. Most of the time, they stop there and still consider themselves anime fans. Well, they’re not wrong. I mean, if you liked them, then yeah. You are an anime fan. But the anime community of nowadays doesn’t really accept that anymore. They consider someone to be an anime fan if he or she watched more than 10 anime and at least 5 of them are non-mainstream.

 

Now going back to how one becomes a fan. Well, most of the times, it starts from watching one of the mainstream anime. If you were to ask 10 anime fans what their first anime was or what anime got them into anime, 8/10 would say anime like Naruto, Sailor Moon, Pokemon or Dragon Ball Z. And of course, there is nothing wrong with that. But it isn’t always like that. For there are some who watched anime at a certain point in their life but didn’t know that what they watched was considered an anime. Take me for example. I watched Digimon Data Squad, Tokyo Mew Mew, Fate/ Stay Night The Movie and The Pet Girl At Sakurasou close to 10 years back. But I never knew they were called anime. I didn’t even know what anime was. It wasn’t until 5 years ago that my younger sister recommended me Naruto that I got to understand and love anime. And look where that got me? I am a bonafide Anime YouTuber.

 

Most of the time, people tend to become anime fans based on the recommendations they get from other anime fans. But one problem that we face in that aspect is recommending an anime they end up disliking and end up not giving anime a chance anymore on the sole reason that they didn’t like the one you just recommended them. To avoid that, I for one start all the way from the bottom line and ask them what sort of movies they’re into. And go from there. Because, you can’t really expect a person who is mostly into horror and gore stuff to enjoy anime such as Golden Time, Toradora or Clannad. Of course, there are rare occasions when one would actually enjoy them even if they’re not into RomComs. Sometimes, it’s the other way around. There are people who are mostly into RomComs and don’t really like action or horror stuff. Now one thing I have noticed is that when other fans recommend anime to non-fans, they mostly go for these three. Attack on Titan, Tokyo Ghoul or Parasyte. And the main reason why is because of a very well-known and quite annoying stereotype. That anime is for kids. So at that point, we as anime fans tend to recommend them these anime or show them some horror scenes from horror anime. It’s the same the other way around. The other stereotype is that anime is all about action and fighting. And that’s when we tend to recommend some of the most wholesome anime with a deep story behind it such as Violet Evergaden, Carole & Tuesday, Clannad or Your Lie in April.

 

And there are rare occasions when people become anime fans because of us Anime YouTubers. But I’m glad that so many people are getting into anime and I hope that in the future more people will start loving anime just like I do.