I already did this as a decent sized Facebook post awhile back but with not everyone having access to that and with me actually getting way more reads than I was every expecting thanks to you guys I feel like getting this out is important for numerous reasons.
That being I owe the anime community, particularly certain people I've known, but just the community in general a giant apology.
WHY THOUGH ??
I'm sure a lot of you might be thinking why does he feel that he owes an apology, well that's simple, for the longest time I wrote anime off as something ridiculous (even though I watched Dragonball Z, Sailor Moon, and Pokemon as a kid I never thought of it as anime) and for that reason I scoffed at the entire community. The "weird shows" people liked, the figure collecting, the manga collections, and most of the people I'd ever come across in my life who liked the stuff were quiet and strange loners. Considering how big of a loser I was (and technically still am) I have no right to judge anyone. But I did. I judged the anime community because of the weird people that were associated with it, the weird shows that it apparently had, and all of the jokes about tentacles. It was something strange and something I wanted nothing to do with, ever.
Now, I never personally went out of my way to make fun of or mock those people I had met, I just thought they were strange people with exceptionally strange taste in things. And I'll never be able to apologize to those people personally so I feel that as a community apology this works just as well since I was judging the entire community not just a few.
Though to those people that would ninja run like Naruto in hallways, c'mon, everyone including myself can only take so much; everyone looks at you weird, ESPECIALLY the anime community.......just stop.
WHAT BROUGHT THIS ON SUDDENLY ??
Well, the most important reason is I still have a lingering set of regret about the whole thing: was I a jerk? What did I do? How did I behave? What could I have done better? etc, etc. I don't think it was as bad as I'm making it out to be because I don't remember it to and I'll never know unfortunately. I don't remember it that way but I have a lingering regret about it, maybe it's because of my current spot that I will always think about this.
What would I do probably not much different than before but I'd at least be more open to hearing out things without dismissing them I think would be my biggest change. BUT......................
Now I truly know what it's like to be on the other end of things.
I find that while some of my friends do watch anime now, I've become the "weird guy" who has the giant collection of manga, the anime collection of Blu-Ray and DVD, the subscriptions to all sorts of services like Crunchyroll and Funimation, the figurine collection that continues to grow, etc. and while I'm not judged because of that, I still think and notice......
........I notice there are different things from my end now. Things that didn't exist before. Those moments where I explain shows or books to my friends and they look at me weird, the moments where I think something is really cool and try to show others but they brush it off because they'd rather watch something like the cliche shows on Netflix, etc. Like now whenever someone says, "oh watch this, watch that," I don't want to because with what little free time I have I would rather play my video games and watch anime, if I have free time I'll catch up on or start a new anime series rather than something like Game of Thrones, Arrow, etc. but that honestly comes across as weird so I never say it but it's true. I'd like to so I'm in on the "conversation" with these things but at the same time they bore me. It's sad sometimes to have your friends not interested in anything you do, when a lot of people aren't interested in what you like.
That feeling, is what I hope I never gave to people. I really truly hope I never gave that feeling to anyone, if I did, I can never apologize enough. I'm glad we can all like what we do, never change.
And so everyone knows this picture's caption sums up my apology.