When it comes to the topic of Anime, people tend to be split into 4 separate camps. The first camp consist of people who either despise Anime, or just don’t care much for it, and the second contains people who watch Anime very casually. The third camp watches Anime often, and are sometimes obsessive about it. These people are usually known as Otaku, or someone with a strong addiction to Anime. Finally, you have the “weeaboos”, which consists of people who are 100% absorbed into Anime and Japanese culture. These people usually consider Japanese culture to be superior over every other culture and cannot or will not be swayed by others opinions. If you were to ask someone in any of these groups about what their opinion of Anime was, their answers would differ greatly.

As an Otaku, I am afraid of telling people that I love to watch Anime, and for good reason. This is because of the fanbase and the insanity of it. Many fans of Anime seems almost obsessive and absorbed into Anime, constantly talking about their “waifu” (a female character who they are “in love with”), or acting like nothing is good in the world except Anime. They constantly seem to talk about the “fanservice” in Anime, and want more of it almost as if they are all horny highschoolers. This makes people look at the community almost as if it is the plague, as they seem also completely severed from reality at time. It gives Anime more of a bad reputation than it deserves.

The fans themselves are not the only ones at fault here. The creators themselves are to blame as well. There are plenty of Anime series out there that are just morally wrong and shouldn’t have been made. There are brutal murders, pedophilia, incest, sexualized situations, and sometimes even rape, and most of the time the fanbase embraces this wholeheartedly, saying things like “incest is wincest” and buying the weird merchandise that the creators make. These can range from simple normal figurines to over sexualized hug pillows, and the fans seem to obsess over these just as much.

All of this overshadows the fact that there are some beautiful Animes out there. For example you have the both extreme popular action based Attack on Titan, and the romance slice of life that is Toradora. Both of these Animes are done beautifully and take almost everything into consideration. Character development, character design, animation, storytelling, tension, etc. The only problem I had with them were minor nitpicks, such as Toradora having a few unnecessary fan service parts and Attack on Titan having a few character development problems, but only with one character.

Anime is, to me, an awesome change of pace from normal shows. I enjoy watching almost every minute of the good Anime out there. But the fans and the creators keep giving the genre a bad reputation. So I ask this of you fellow reader, look at Anime at a different angle. Whether it be today, tomorrow, next week, etc. You may find that you enjoy it just as much as I do.