Another year has come and past, which means that the world is once again occupying itself with making New Year’s resolutions. We here at Anime Maru have already started forgetting about ours, but such is not the case in the rest of the anime-consuming world.

This past month, Anime Maru has been conducting a survey as to what new year’s resolutions the average anime viewer. Out of all of our samples, “earning the respect of friends / family” proved to be the most popular resolution. Eager to find out more, we had a chat with survey participants whose responses closely matched with the mean answers. The following participant preferred to remain anonymous for the purposes of this article, but said that we could call him Paul.

Anime Maru: Sir, thank you for your time today. Could you tell us your New Year’s resolutions for this year?

Paul: Well… it was primarily to lose weight and to regain some semblance of respect from my peers and my family.

AM: Are the two necessarily related?

Paul: …No.

AM: Could you describe your current situation and how that influenced your New Year’s resolutions?

Paul: Nobody has any of the relevant knowledge that would garner the anime-viewing hobby any respect… As soon as I tell anybody that I watch anime, even friends that I’ve known for a while, they’re all like “hahaha like Avatar??? I watched that too!” Words can’t describe my rage… I correct them, but then they just look at me funny all of a sudden. What’s not to understand about an animation made in glorious Nippon? (That’s what the Japanese call Japan, for those of you not in the know…)

AM: I see. So, how long have you been watching anime?

Paul: I started around Thanksgiving, but this is just basic knowledge of the medium that everyone should know, don’t you think?

In other interviews, the participants said that the anime hobby had distanced themselves from their non-anime viewing friends. Some where in denial that their friends had lost respect for them, while others initiated the break of the relationship based on their own expectations of how they would be judged by their peers. Many are confused and unsure as to the origins of their isolation. Of the majority that have been able to identify the problem, however, all are using the new year as an incentive to rebuild ties with their former friends and family in order to do away with the title of being “that guy/girl” at the dinner table during family holiday meals who has to be subjected to the “look who came out of their cave!” jokes.

If you’re struggling with recuperation and re-adjustment, we here at Anime Maru would like to encourage you to contact your local social re-integration facilities in order to help ease the process.

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