Based on the US premiere dates of DBZ, Sailor Moon, and Pokemon, I've been an anime fan for almost exactly 20 years. I'm pretty sure I was already aware of the term "anime" around that time, but didn't really identify specifically as a fan of the medium until a few years later when I was in high school and it really started to boom in the West.

It's weird. I'm 30 years old now and it's only recently dawned on me that the majority of contemporary Western anime fandom is in their teens or early 20s. I always assumed that most of the people I knew in high school who were obsessed with anime would continue to be that way well into adulthood, but it seems like comparatively few have actually stuck around this long.

>>31549
I’m also 30, and I’ve noticed in public life that a lot more people watch it than let on. For instance, walking by a pharmacist talking to a patient the other day I heard one telling the other how they like older anime like Ranma. Both of them were, I would say, in thier mid 30s to late 30s.

I think it’s mostly that once you become older and are finished with school and college, your life takes a very narrow path that you, yourself, stear. You’re also no longer branded into social groups as much beause everyone else is just focused on their own path. When you’re in your early twenties and teens you are still focused on groups, like who is an “anime fan” or “jock” or whatever.

Beyond that age range we are all just people winging it, and what we like doesn’t define us as much as how much money we make or what we do for a living.

>>31549
Yeah, I've also noticed not a lot of people who I used to hang out with still watch anime. My roommate is 25 and still watches it. There's also this woman who's 31 that I know who still watches anime and is trying to raise her kids to like it as well although that doesn't seem to be working out. But yeah I am noticing that there's a huge decline once people start hitting a certain age.

>>31551
>Beyond that age range we are all just people winging it, and what we like doesn’t define us as much as how much money we make or what we do for a living.
Unfortunately this. People only care about you based on what you do and how much money you make. If you're not working people don't want to be seen with you thus you become isolated to no ends. That's what happens to most NEETs. I'm trying to figure out a way out of long-term NEETdom myself and anytime I run into people I went to school with they always try to ask me what I do and intrusive questions like that. I finally wised up and started lying to them. But even then that doesn't seem to matter much. Most of them just sit around drinking themselves to death while they're in their second or third marriage right now with three to four kids. I'm literally the only one left out of my entire class that hasn't had any kids or been married. Also even my younger brother tries to pretend that he doesn't remember watching anime with me growing up because it's seen as "uncool" to his peers. He's in the military and completely changed his persona and looks like he wants to kill himself on a daily basis. Then again that's most people I see anymore. They work and have a family but deep down you really pay attention these people are extremely miserable. I've had an extreme depression over the years about being a NEET and not having but a very small handful of friends. But I've started to look at it like this, I don't have any drama, I choose to actually be my true self despite how unpopular it may be in my area, and I'm not wasting my life away in a damn bar drinking myself to death wasting what little extra money I have on that.

>>31544
I think I found out Anime was a distinct separate medium around 1998 or 1999. Before that I remembered it as just called "eastern cartoons" locally. Same thing with Tokusatsu (Jiban, Masked Rider and co.) which was usually referred to as "Japanese shows".

"Japanimation" was the de rigueur term before anime