Forum - View topicHas liking anime / knowing Japanese culture ever lead to awkwardness?
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yotsubafanfan
 Posts: 653 |
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Have people ever looked at you funny for knowing something they don't? Or do they not get your references and you end up trying to explain whats going on but in the end they just don't get it? If you've been an anime fan for more than a year it's bound to happen, the strange looks, the glares, the snickering. But hey, that's what we get for being into something as wonderful and mysterious as Japanese culture and anime. Now that my introduction is out of the way I'll tell you of my awkward moment.
It was almost a year ago, and the kids of my church just got back from kids camp, and like always when someone comes back from a mission trip or comes back from summer camp or a Youth retreat they get to tell us about what happened and how they grew closer to God. Well they were all wearing these bright green bandanna's and I was thinking, "How adorable, they're wearing matching bandanna's". And the first thing the preacher asked was "So what are those Bandanna's your wearing called?" And one of the students replied "They're called Yaoi's!" I whispered to my twin sister "Did they just say what I think they said?", and the chaperone said "Yes these are called Yaoi's" and BAM! I had to use every effort of my being just to burst out laughing. I told my friend (who's also an anime fan but was absent that night) about it, and she started laughing as well. Well, now that you know my story let's hear yours! Have you ever been in a strange situation because of knowing something about Japanese culture?, Do people think of you differently because of that or are they like my youth group and weren't paying attention while I was trying to hold my laughter. I'm really looking forward to hearing you responces and replies! 
[EDIT: Made the thread title a little less long-winded. -TK] |
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Ghost10516
 Posts: 33 |
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Honestly, I'm easily embarrassed about being an anime/japanese culture fan. It seems high schoolers now a days have no tolerance for anime or 'cartoons with big eyes' as they may see it. Just last year, a kid saw that I had liked an anime page on facebook, and the look on his face was a look of disgust. Needless to say, I get along with him just fine, but its just not something I can express unless I talk to my other anime loving friends (where there are barely any.) I'm sure once I enter college and it won't be as bad as now. There's bound to be an otaku cult in every college, right?
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rheiders
 Posts: 1137 Location: Colorful Colorado :) |
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I'm sure I get weird looks for liking anime and manga (sorry kids, it doesn't end in college), but I've long since stopped caring about that. People close enough to me to care enough to ask about my hobbies probably don't care what I do in my free time. It's not something I would mention to someone I just met or to a professor or boss (unless it's relevant to the class, of course). I do have a few anime posters up in my dorm room, though, which can lead to some awkwardness when floormates I don't know very well come to say hi. Generally they go, "Oh, what an interesting hobby!" kind of reluctantly and then I have to try to explain it without sounding like a complete nut-case xD
What's really awkward, though, is when someone says something unintentionally wrong or offensive (I only bother when it's something with truly unfortunate implications, since minor inaccuracies are nbd) about Japanese culture and I try to correct them. People don't really like to be corrected, even politely xD One time a person made a crack about Japanese people thinking Hitler was right because they fought with Germany in WWII, for example. I mean, I'm sure Japan has neo-Nazis too, but come on now. |
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P€|\||§_|\/|ast@
 Posts: 3498 Location: IN your nightmares |
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I think I've been into anime so long that I've built up a very effective automatic defense mechanism to avoid awkward moments. Generally it involves anticipating that the conversation is going to start steering that way, so I change the subject. I have a few other interests outside of anime that I can fall back on.
Not that I'm specifically embarrased about it, it's just that when I meet someone my age (which is on the older side of the spectrum when it comes being an anime fan), I like to get a feel of their interests first since they're probably not as weird as mine (even from an anime fans standpoint my interests are on the weird and very niche side). |
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Rhyono
Posts: 1039 |
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It never has for me. I'm not a crazy fanboy about anything, so it's not like I walk around decked out in anime shirts/cosplay outfits. Back in high school, there was this kid that wore a Naruto jacket and headband. He received plenty of weird looks...but he was unusual.
In high school, either my friends liked anime or they didn't. It's not like I went around telling every football player I could find that I like anime. College was much the same. A lot of fellow students liked it or didn't care that I did. |
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Gatherum
 Posts: 773 Location: Aurora CO |
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I am in the U.S. Army and yet, I had long ceased to care even before enlisting, enough that there are Ghost in the Shell figurines and pillowcases in plain sight in my barracks room. It's really more comedic than anything when I meet someone who dismisses the form, though that statement ignores the surprisingly high concentration of anime fans in my unit and possibly elsewhere. There are individuals several pay grades above me who enjoy it, and even among the ones who don't, there is always a general liking and respect for Dragonball Z. Even more amusing when I point out to them that DBZ is an anime.
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publicenemy333
 Posts: 563 Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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I think my lil sister got more flack for it than I did when she was in junior high, cause when she got into high school, she tried to distance herself from it as much as possible (and she was pretty big into it). She even when through a period of really disliking it and even bothering me about it a lot of the time (PS, thats the most flack I've ever gotten for being an anime fan). There was a period she was getting sort of ready to get back into it. One of her friends in HS tried showing her Shiki, she watched like 5 episodes, stopped, said she didn't like it, and for a short while past it off as just not liking anime
She got into college recently, she met a couple of friends who were really into things like Doctor Who (which she at the time had recently got into), and they wanted to watch some anime on netflix that she used to like (like FMA and Ouran). Ever since then, she's been slowly getting back into it, thanks to her friends having tastes closer to hers than her HS friend did. She's borrowed some of my DVDs and manga, and been borrowing my Crunchyroll and Netflix account to watch some shows. She's also used some scanlation and fansub sites (or things like justdubs) which I try to encourage her to stay away from without sounding like a nag. If its available legally elsewhere, I try to point her toward it (I was able to convince her to watch Blue Exorcist on Crunchyroll instead of fansubbing it). She's even asked me to take her and a friend to AX with me. |
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MellowMadman11
 Posts: 17 |
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I get a wierd look from people sometimes, but my friends are pretty understanding even though none of them are into anime or japanese culture in general.
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Nocturne123
 Posts: 268 |
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When I was in high school I didn't get crap for anime. This was when Pokemon and Dragonball Z were great, well that was in 6-9th grade or so. After that, I didn't talk to people in my grade about anime as pretty much no one liked it, but I never got crap for it.
I DID get flak for listening to Japanese music a good bit though. Some of my friends would make fun of it, but it wasn't such a big deal that I ever got like actually mad at anyone, but it could get rather annoying. I mean, I like metal, but half the time you cant understand the singers, yet the people who listen to the same music would be like, "but you cant understand what they are saying". That was hypocritical and horribly annoying. |
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Kruszer
 Posts: 7983 Location: Minnesota, USA |
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No, because I've always had a wide range of knowledge about a large variety of subjects (music, movies, books, computers, sciences, other geeky things like science fiction, etc.) and am basically a walking talking dictionary/encyclopedia so people aren't surprised I know something they don't.
The only thing I can really think of is my Aunt one time asked me what I was listening to when we had the 4th of July family thing there and I told her it was music from a Japanese television show called Noir. We ended up popping it in the CD player and playing it for everyone. Though that just ended up making her a fan of Yuki Kajiura once she listened to it, so it wasn't all that awkward. 
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Nyorai
Posts: 15 |
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It can be some times awkward when you're in you're going on 30 and on that rare occasion your parents still ask I'm still watching "cartoons."
The most amusing moment lately was when I visiting my friend out of state and we were full metal panic every night with her husband. I completely loaded her Hulu account with anime series knowing her husband had absolutely no interested. Without saying, he watch politely and when I got back from vacation the first thing she told me was that he completely hates anime. lol Her motivation to get back into anime took a big hit. I don't know if I could marry someone who didn't love anime to some degree.
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keiwa11
 Posts: 7 Location: europe |
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It wasn't like awkwardness but when I was younger, me and my brother used to watch anime together and our sisters would tell anybody that we were watching some weird cartoons or japanese fairytales. And now I just try to avoid the topic with my friends, because I'm sure they'd be like oh,come on, and most of the people don't even know (I don't need them to know anyway).
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