No seriously, why do we like what we like, and how can that total weeaboo over there actually enjoy something like that?

The anime fanbase is probably the most divisive, controversial, contradictory, and passionate community I’ve managed to make myself a part of. This is probably due to the infinitely broad range of niche markets the anime industry as a whole caters to, combined with the fact that if you’re an anime fan in the US, you probably know how the internet works, and the first thing you do when you watch something is to share your experience online. And when that guy passes your favorite show off as pseudo-intellectual, otaku-pandering, mindless drivel, goddamn but shit is gonna go down.

It’s one thing to see a show as complete garbage, but it’s another thing entirely to find out there’s an army willing to defend that show to the death–defend it in a scientific, literate, intelligent way. How could anyone intelligent enough to weave such arguments together possibly see redemption in this waste of pixels? After all, real anime fans would only watch what I watch.

It’s a topic I’ve spent many a minute pondering on the toilet, and in class. It’s something Gene touched upon in his last post, and was elaborated upon in the comments. Clashing tastes, and why it pisses us off so much when it happens.

How do tastes develop? Arguably, taste is an inherent trait of ours, and can only be brought out, not developed. We can’t suddenly like a genre that we hated previously. Or can we? To explore this, I present to you my 5 Stages of An Anime Fan.

Stage 1: Oh god, anime

No one just starts anime and accepts it as a perfectly legitimate art form that everyone should embrace. In fact, I’m willing to bet many people start just because someone else told them to (it took some incessant prodding from one of my friends in middle school to hook me on).

Oh god, girl cartoons. What are you, 6? Who watches this shit? Why are their eyes so friggin’ huge? How is that middle-schooler firing lasers from his nipples? Oh man, this is so lame. In fact, I’m gonna watch the rest of this, but only to tell you how abysmally terrible it is. What? What do you mean, you haven’t finished it? Now how are you supposed to feel bad about yourself when I tell you how unrealistic the plot was in episode 18? I watched that episode like 4 times just to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating that garbage!

And eventually, we can’t deny it any longer. Fine, maybe there is something to this anime thing. I’ll watch some more of this. Got any good recs?

Stage 2: ANIME IS AWESOME

There’s so much anime, and it’s all so good! Imma marathon Naruto, and Bleach, and Fullmetal Alchemist, and Rurouni Kenshin, and oh god it’s like 3 in the morning. How did I live without this stuff? Too bad all of my baka gaijin nakama don’t see how kawaii anime is. Aww man, I reached my 72 minute limit on MegaVideo again. Guess I’ve got some time to kill. Hey, there’s probably an awesome community online that I can share my experiences with, right? I bet everyone on the internet loves Naruto and Ah My Goddess as much as I do! I’m sure they’ll be a real friendly bunch!

Stage 2.5

Stage 3: The Elitist

And after one too many hours browsing through anime forums, we become disillusioned with the state of anime. Why is everything nowadays garbage? Only a few shows now are actually original and thought-provoking–everything else is some derivative work attempting to ride on the coattails of success. Look at these moe girls doing moe things. God, it’s so disgusting. There’s no plot, no character depth, no complex themes. And it’s so unrealistic. Nobody would do that in real life.

What, you’re recommending me a show? Pssh, this cover art and premise are pretty uninspiring. Look, it got an average rating of only 6.7 on this review site. And I’m pretty sure I remember this forum criticizing it for its budget animation and rushed production. Besides, it’s probably so predictable. I bet the main character’s some oblivious idiot, his childhood friend secretly loves him, and someone dies of animAIDS in the snow. I’m not going to watch this. I don’t NEED to watch it to tell you how horrible it is. This is a terrible show, and you should feel bad.

You’re clearly not a true anime fan for enjoying this drivel. For such an educated viewer as I, only true, intellectually stimulating masterpieces are worth my time. Enjoy your terrible taste in anime; I’m going to rewatch Evangelion to remind myself what real anime is like.

Stage 4: Tsundere

…And once within the confines of your own private room, shutters drawn and door locked (and barred), and computer monitor facing the corner of the room, and with your headphones on (so as to prevent any sound from leaking out of your room), and with plenty of firewalls active so nobody on the internet can ever possibly know it’s you, you pick up the latest episode of Kampfer. Which you’ve been diligently following since its release.

I’m only watching this because it’s terrible. It’s just laughably bad. I don’t enjoy any of this. Every minute I spend watching this trash is making my IQ go down. I’m just watching this so I know what I’m talking about when I chew this show out later on my blog. I don’t think any of this is actually funny. I don’t like any of these characters at all. Nope. Not me. I’m too classy for that. *snort* Oh Natsuru, you’re so silly. *cough* I mean, one-dimensional and shallow. God, you’re such a waste of animated organic matter.

…I’m not enjoying myself, am I…?

Step 4 Stage 5: Acceptance

Somewhere along the line, we shed that fake online personality we’ve maintained to avoid prosecution. We forget that we’re not supposed to be enjoying mass-produced anime in the name of superior taste. And we stand up and say “I have terrible taste. I love shallow girls doing pointless things. I love it when the little sister in my eroge calls me ‘Onii-chan.’ I love this mass-produced moepop anime band.” And we play Koe de Oshigoto at full blast with the windows and door wide open and the bass turned way up. Why? Because fuck you, that’s why.

One of the things that confused me most about anime fans (myself included) is why they so actively hated people with “inferior” taste. If they love Bleach and Strike Witches and Kampfer, and they like cosplaying as little girls, that doesn’t affect us in the least, so why? Why are we so driven to hate everything about them? And I think I have an answer.

It’s because no matter how hard we try to deny it, they represent a part of us. The anime industry pumps out gallons of this stuff every season because they know us better than we do. Somewhere deep inside, we all like this sort of stuff. But we feel like we shouldn’t, that it somehow lowers us as an anime fan.

We hate those people not just because they have crappy taste, but because they dare to have crappy taste. They don’t care what you think, or what the internet thinks. They can watch their “terrible” shows and openly enjoy them. They can do what we, as “superior” viewers, secretly wish we could do; they can be honest with themselves.

Am I saying that secretly, everyone has shitty taste? That K-ON! really is the best show ever, and if you don’t like it, you’re lying to yourself? Absolutely not. Your taste is yours. But I refuse to believe that anyone hasn’t seen a show that they enjoyed for no apparent reason. Everyone’s got a weakness, something that drives them to watch a show no matter how derivative, shallow, mass-produced, and budget-cutting it is. And how much you compare your taste to others is really a measure of how well you can own up to this fact. Because if you know what you enjoy, and you can proudly enjoy it, it shouldn’t really matter what anyone else watches, because they should do the same. That’s what being an anime fan is.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got several gigs of hentai to marathon.