Yeah... I'm actually writing this post that I didn't think I'd ever have to write, being such a cliche topic -..-... So... my Institute is having a Festival of sorts and I wanted to have an Anime Awareness corner in there (everyone else doing Graphic Design/Handicrafts related things). I tried to show the other students in my institute an anime episode (Bleach Episode 1 English dubbed *gags*) expecting a good response since it was a shounen anime with a lot of humor and action that generally everyone ends up liking, and everyone being a graphic designer/animator I thought would be a great learning experience as well. That... crashed and burned -..-... Everyone made fun of/laughed or just simply talked through the still-in-Japanese opening, and then all through the episode the majority of the people (thankfully not all) were behaving like they were being forced to watch something utterly ridiculous. I don't think I felt this discouraged even when my best friend (Maddy) in the beginning laughed super hard at the manga I used to read all the time. It was like they had their minds already made up that it's something childish and not worth spending time on watching. The mere 25 minute episode felt 2 hour long with the subtle jokes/looking at cell phones/laptops and talking out loud instead of looking at the screen where the anime was being shown. I'm honestly discouraged. I miss my old Orkut group and I miss my JD best friend (VT) who was also Indian but was open minded enough to give anime a try (in Japanese with subs no less) and ending up liking it after all. The lack of response from people here was heartbreaking bad. I'm left thinking that if these people who're future animators and graphic designers are behaving like this, how the hell is my Anime Corner gonna end up in the festival in April... really discouraging...
I've watched anime since back in 1998 when they used to air 3x3 Eyes and Grander Musashi Flame of Recca and Ninku on AXN, back when there was no Toonami on the Cartoon Network in India and no one even knew what anime was. It feels like, after all these years, the people still don't know or even want to know.
I wonder how people can place anime as something that's meant for just children? I mean... this... :
is hardly something you'd want your children watching now is it...
I don't understand why people don't even 'try' to give something new a chance, maybe they'd end up liking it. I once again realized I'm in the wrong place at the wrong time, there isn't any like minded person around me and I highly doubt that in my city there ever will be as it so far...
Hontouni kodoku wa tsurai desu. Doesn't matter how huge of an anime collection I have, doesn't matter how much knowledge I have, I have no one in this place to share it with. Well my sister but she doesn't usually have time when I do so we hardly ever watch anything together, we just end up recommending stuff to each other. I honestly wish people would be more open minded.. T__T
