This may seem stupid, but I got into it because of imageboards.

>>33890
What drew you to imageboards then?

>>33891
A friend I had in the early 2000s. He told me about 4chan in 2007.

>>33889
Dragon Ball Z and vidya. When I found out things like Dragon Ball, Mario, Sonic, Kirby, etc. etc. came from nipland, I thought that Japan was the capital of cool action packed things and I wanted to explore more jap entertainment. Plus I generally liked the artsyles common in Japanese media at that time more than Western things.

My first 'anime' out of the usual TV shows was some shoujo anime that I found online. I forgot the name of it since it has been longer than a decade ago (almost 2) but I thought the art style was cute and wanted to learn more about this stuff. From there, I started to read some manga from the library and online, began watching vocaloid videos and nico nico douga melodies, and streaming more and more anime. During this time, I began spending lots of my time online on fourms and reading fanfiction. Sooner or later I came across 4chan, and began to browse there frequently. I settled upon /jp/ and that is mainly where my current phase of "otakuism" occurred. Touhou was my first introduction to obscure jap games and then I began to play visual novels and get into other obscure Japanese things.

I haven't regularly browsed 4chan in years, (only go there maybe once in 3-4 months for /csg/ and the untranslated visual novel general on /jp/) but it truly was the beginner phase of what helped shaped my hobbies and interests today, especially /jp/ (/lit/ and /g/ too but that's off topic).(/jp/ introduced me too so many interesting things, and I hate to see it in it's current state.)

I eventually moved to other imageboards due to the influx of newfags and normals on 4chan and settled primarily on 8ch. On 8ch (And the other imageboards I browsed) there were a lot of people who used to browse 4chan but left because of its deteriorating state. The boards I were on had a heavy /jp/ culture so I fit right in. Because boards were slow, there was less shitposting and a lot of people talking about on topic discussion, so I was pretty happy. I learned so much from slower boards and won't ever browse a fast board again.

Today I am basically the same, though I only like Japanese media, couldn't care too much about the country itself (I want to travel there though). I will admit though, I dont watch as much anime as I used to, because I prefer visual novels, vidya, and manga more. I am trying to learn Japanese though, so I can play and read untranslated media and go on Japanese imageboards. And like I mentioned, I primarily browse imageboards, because other than IRC I cannot go anywhere else to discuss anime because anime communities are infested with the worst types of normalfags.

If I hadn't become interested in otaku media, (video games count too ya know) I would probably be more into classical literature. I'd also probably not be alive today because I need my escapism.

>>33889

As a kid I watched anime like Dragon Ball, Dragon Quest or Dr. Slump but I wasn't conscious about it.
In late 90's I played a certain famous on-line game, there was a clan that had a certain anime as a "theme", like the members having the names of the characters and stuff. I joined because why not, and got curious about it, so someday I just bought some volumes of the manga.
It blowed my mind, then all went really fast. I started watching everything that was on TV, downloading random episodes in Kazaa, buying and exchanging VHS.
I think having pretty good series at TV at that time and the cute girls made me fall for it. Maybe I wouldn't have been a wizard without anime. But I think that's a good thing. Without anime I would have been the same loser if not worse, but also sour and unhappy about it.
Also probably I would have focused even more into other nerd interests but I suspect there's something only anime can give me. Somehow, it completes me.

Pic related must be one fo the few pics I still keep from those times.

I saw Slayers when I was a kid. I remember loving it.

Through Konachan, somehow I found that and I thought that the images on it were really nice which drew me towards watching anime.

Same as this guy >>33890
I watched Cowboy Bebop and Lucky Star because I heard about them on 4chan. That's what sparked my interest in anime, and from there I became interested in Japanese related things in general.

I didn’t realize it when I was younger, but many of the things I liked had Japanese influences. I was a huge fan of the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon and 90s movies, and had all of the games and VHS tapes. I loved the original Power Rangers, and of course, Pokemon cards and Gameboy Games were huge.

In middle school I discovered JRPGs like the Playstation Final Fantasy games, and I started collecting rare JRPGs and Yugioh cards with my friend. Of course, I watched things like Pokemon and DBZ, but I never really understood they were anime. It wasn’t until Adult Swim came around that I watched random anime and realized what they were. I remember a few shows specifically turning me down the road of no return, like Inuyasha, Last Exile, Ghost in The Shell, Big O, Cowboy Bebop. Then I started downloading things off Kazaa and Limewire, eventually moved to torrents, and downloaded from specific fansub torrent trackeds, and from there found 4chan, and from there found Tohno-chan.

Evangelion was the shit. Drama, violence, chaos, YEAH!!!

>>37299
The directing and style was so out of this world.

>>33889
>How did you get into otaku interests to begin with
I started out just watching Dragon Ball as a teenager, but it wasn't very long before I found my way to anime imageboards and /a/. I found early on that the mainstream battle shounen shit was very disappointing, besides Dragon Ball which I still really like.
>how do you think it's affected your life, personality and outlook?
I definitely wouldn't have had as many interesting deep diving conversations that helped my sort out my own philosophies and worldviews, that was pretty invaluable to me. And I realised that anime and other japanese media tends to confront philosophical issues a lot more than other mediums. I don't think this is just me being a blind weeaboo, there really is a greater focus given to having characters discuss their opposing worldviews that you really don't see done properly in live action or even most western modern books, unless it's the most entry level ideas possible. For example, japanese media tends to focus a lot on the conflict between the desires of society and the desires of the individual, and I think japanese culture lends itself well to bringing these problems to a head in their art. In western media morals seem to be more well defined and only are discussed in order to reinforce the "right" point of view. While japanese media can do this too with a lot of works that praise and encourage the conformity, the sacrifice of an individual for the sake of society, there are also many works where the characters choose to go their own way and act as their own agents. Some are sacriligeous to western sensibilties where the Nietzschean uberman is shown in its true form, something that isn't even dared to be touched by the west in any great amount or to any meaningful extent. Atheists in the western world are far more dogmatic and religious than the japanese writer it would seem. My own personal views are pretty complex and I disagree with some parts of pretty much every set philosophy, but it's neat to be able to see stuff like Shinji rejecting the unity of human souls in order to remain his own ego.
>What do you think your life would be like if you never became interested in otaku media?
I would have had pretty similar paths in some aspects, but I definately wouldn't have as full an understanding of somethings as I do, and I think the most important part is that being pushed out into fringe communities and seeing a world outside the normalfag sphere of life gave me some outside perspective to reflect on just how limited the average persons knowledge and depth of imagination is, and how limited my own was. I think a lot of people outside it have misconceptions too, but it was valuable to experience the world as someone not mentally linked in to the wavelength of baseline society. I hate to sound pretentious, and I don't think I have all of or even any of the answers just because of this, I just think it's good to crack the social moldings by becoming an absolute outsider to conventional modes of thinking, of right and wrong.

>>37330
>And I realised that anime and other japanese media tends to confront philosophical issues a lot more than other mediums.
Please don't take this the wrong way anon, but were you ever introduced to any sort of literature growing up? I have a book worm mother and grew up reading Dickens and Stevenson so it's hard to imagine having that notion about anime even when I was a teenager. Btw I'm not saying anime is shallow or anything like that, I'm genuinely curious as to what media you were consuming before finding anime to have that impression.

I took the basic toonami/dragonball route and slowly learned about more. FLCL and other things you'd find on Adult Swim were seriously cool. At some point I found out about fansubs and started finding shows through the internet. I think Chobits was the first show I watched fansubbed because it was the first one I found.

I was already reclusive and outcast from my peers and this gave me a way to find people with similar lived experience which drew me in deeper. That doesn't really seem to hold for any "nerdy" or niche interest anymore but at least I got to find all sorts of cool media. I do wonder what sort of life I'd have if I never got into otaku culture. Realistically it'd just be a slightly different route to the same outcome.

>>37331
Not that Anon but given the quality of American entertainment it's not hard to see why many weebs fall into this trap. There's a lot of great western content out there the amount of noise is just so high. Especially since we see all the western noise while we're never even aware of most foreign garbage.

>>37335
>I'm genuinely curious as to what media you were consuming before finding anime to have that impression.
Not him either but the drugery of fiction that we were forced to read all throughout middle and high-school killed any interest in pursuing reading as an independent hobby. It was always the most boring books with themes I couldn't care less about – Scarlet Letter, Beloved, etc. not to mention the insanity of reading Shakespeare's plays (that's like reading a movie script and expecting it to be any fun; not to mention that some of the puns get lost as a result of vowel-shifts). Even supposed "classics" like Great Gatsby or To Kill a Mockingbird were boring and predictable.

Maybe I'm just not the kind of person who's good at visualizing because for me reading things lacks the visual emotions that can be wrought from watching an anime. The only two books that I can remember sort of enjoying were The Stranger and East of Eden. I might have liked other stuff from Camus as well (and I've heard Dostoevsky's works are also similar in this vein) but at this point I've mostly given up on fiction entirely – reading something like Hōjōki or the biography of Yukichi Fukuzawa has been much more captivating and insightful than I ever remember reading fiction to be.

Post edited on 10th Jan 2021, 2:37pm

>>37337
>Great Gatsby or To Kill a Mockingbird
Yeah, both of those sucked. In my school we also had to read The Giver, Odyssey and Farenheit 451, which I really enjoyed. We were only assigned excerpts from the Odyssey, but I went ahead and read the whole thing. The ending when he takes off his old man disguise off, brutally slaughters the suitors and then has all the female servants who slept with them hanged was awesome. That part wasn't assigned, but I made sure to tell everybody in the class about it.

It's funny how much lipservice is constantly given about how getting kids to read more is important(or at least people used to say that), but they blatantly ignore the parts about books which would actually be attractive to young people.

>>37331
I read quite a lot of literature growing up, actually reading was pretty much all I ever did before I was in highschool. I can't say I ever read anything that really dug into a few specific themes I really found interesting in anime, maybe Childhoods End. Now there's a certain kind of style western literature uses in an attempt to approach philosophy, and maybe my patience is just too low, maybe the way japanese movies and stories use exposition is more to my liking, but I find that it tries to be TOO serious and takes the setting and characters so seriously that it almost has trouble actually daring to make any real point. Anime has its fair share of shitheaps, and there are no end to the amount of cliches based around being the typical good japanese citizen. But I have never seen a western piece of fiction approach the real world phenomenon of being a hikki NEET. Sure there's stuff that deals with depressing isolation, like jack london, but NHK actually shows a real hikki and to some people that would probably have been their first and only exposure to the concept in its proper form. There's tons and tons of western mdeia, too, that lauds and talks about individuality, but even the most esoteric of stories sort of dance around the concept of the seperation of peoples thoughts in the very real world and depressing fact that you will ultimately only ever know yourself, and that you can never completely connect with another person. Do writers get close? Yeah, they do, but japanese media has a way of just getting right to the point and depicting the problem as an actual element of its setting in no unclear terms. I guess to me, it feels like japanese media actually adapts western and eastern philosophy of the ego to a fictional medium, whereas western fiction tends to only skirt around it and occasionally reference it. Obviously I'm referring to a certain subgenre of anime but even really fucking dumb anime will sometimes touch on philosophical themes in a more substantial way that any popular movie or even book. I think actually seeing philosophy applied to a scenario and ran through as a simulated test of its validity is pretty important. There's something about the way japan incorporates philosophical themes into their media that just appeals to me and really gets me into it, rather than the cold, almost lifeless approach of serious western literature. Hell, I found max stirner more entertaining than most western fiction and I don't even agree with him at all.

>>37345
>There's tons and tons of western mdeia, too, that lauds and talks about individuality, but even the most esoteric of stories sort of dance around the concept of the seperation of peoples thoughts in the very real world and depressing fact that you will ultimately only ever know yourself, and that you can never completely connect with another person.
I think American Psycho did a good job at this.
"It's hard to choose a favorite among so many great tracks, but "The Greatest Love of All" is one of the best, most powerful songs ever written about self-preservation, dignity. Its universal message crosses all boundaries and instills one with the hope that it's not too late to better ourselves. Since, Elizabeth, it's impossible in this world we live in to empathize with others, we can always empathize with ourselves. It's an important message, crucial really. And it's beautifully stated on the album." - Patrick Bateman.