I’ve finally got some free time, at least for the next few hours.

I finished up the final project for one of my classes. It was a hell of a ride for the last few weeks due to the amount of work we put into it. For the curious, it was a project for a software engineering course developing an IDE for a logic language my professor had developed, that’s about as far into that as I’ll go though.

Now that I have some time, I thought I would post something so that I can show you guys that I’m still alive. I would have posted a while back but for the project and the shock of having Michael @ Anime Traveler retire from blogging. That was a big one.…(more)…

I thought I would try being a little more coherent than usual with this post due to the topic. I want to talk about being an anime fan and speak a little on my viewing habits. There is a reason that I watch more anime than anything else and also why I like the stuff so much.

Like most of you I was watching anime well before I knew what “anime” meant. Many of my favorite childhood “cartoons” were animation from Japan. It wasn’t until ADV came along that I actually was cultured into the anime thing. I believe two of the first shows that I bought on DVD were Neon Genesis and then Revolutionary Girl Utena.

During my 28.8 days (referring to modem bit rate) fansubs were out of the question. Not to mention that they were not readily accessible at that time. Early on, it wasn’t exactly like it is now with regard to the shows that get licensed. Far more “bad” shows make it over to the States now than originally. I’m not an expert on the anime market, but empirically speaking I could pick up any random anime DVD and be fairly confident that the show would be at least watch-able.

Looking back, it seems that there was an expressiveness in the storytelling and art that was present in anime that I didn’t find in other media. Some find different forms of art speak to them. Some hear it in the paintings of the masters. Others find it in the cinema. Still others find it in literary works. I like all of those, but I’m not fanatical about any of them.

I’ve heard it said that any endeavor that humans take can be considered art. I’m inclined to agree, to an extent.

The art and the story of anime spoke to me. Of all things that I had been exposed to it was the animations that I heard. At this point, one would expect me to say something like, “anime was more real to me” or “anime stories are better than other forms.”

That’s not the case.

When asked what I like about anime, my most often recited answer is, “I like the colors.” When asked about the characters, I like them precisely because they are not real. Real people have subtleties that can vary from moment to moment. Real people are complex. Anime characters are simple (2 dimensional). The most “real” characters in any anime barely scratch the surface of the depths inherent in all actual people. The characters can grow through the series and they can change over the course of the episodes, but they are static creations. They were created in the mind of some person to be some thing, a non evolving entity and imaginary cognition. Every part and every aspect of an anime characters personality is created and molded to be something specific, there really is no randomness to it. Most importantly, anime characters do not actually end. There is no real death for an imaginary character.

Over the years, I’ve learned to appreciate some of the shows that are not as “good” as the series that I really like. Many of the shows this season have been in a word, “bad.” I watch them anyway because at this point the series that I consider masterpieces are on such a high pedestal that I really don’t think there are many new shows that will ever be able to compete with them. I suppose that is the way things are though.

I’m still listening for those characters and stories that speak in a way that I can really hear, but as most of you know it isn’t as easy to find them anymore. I think it is myself more than any other cause that I don’t find shows that I really connect with anymore.

You see, I’m an actual person and I change.