12 days of Christmas- I adopt a baby anime fan

Naturally, as you, over time, watch more and more shows, the whole anime experience starts to gradually become less thrilling. It becomes increasingly difficult to find stellar shows to watch, and growing familiar to the trends in regards to new releases often breeds contempt for the medium which seems to, the large majority of the time, opt for playing it safe instead of exploring different avenues of shows. Therefore, stumbling across a ‘baby anime fan’, one who has yet to become as grizzled as we old timers, is wonderfully refreshing! To them everything is so new, and shiny, and exciting, every single show dripping in promise…

So it should go without saying just how hyped I was to find out the guy I’d just befriended in the anime society I joined at the beginning of my first term at university had only seen ONE anime!

I mean, he’s yet to fall in love with one of the big Shounen Jump 3, become disillusioned with it due to never-ending filler shortly after, begin to properly ship couples, pull crazy all-nighters to marathon shows, cry because of a show, watch the classics, wtf at a SHAFT production, watch and love a show everyone else seems to think is utter rubbish, and defend it from those people, find a waifu, start watching shows as they air every season, experience the twist in Madoka, or the thrill of a favourite getting a second series, AND IT’S SO EXCITING! In that moment I vowed I’d take him under my wing and teach him our ways, and since then I’ve lent him several of my anime box-sets, hoping to ease him into the medium in the smoothest way possible- I’ll wait until after he’s watched a decent amount of shows, and then launch the crazy crap at him (I’ve my Welcome to the NHK box-set on standby)!

Anyway, talking to him about anime, and fervently anticipating the times he does experience all the above, really helps me to relive that initial excitement I had when I first started out nearly four years ago now. It also helps to remind me just why it is I love anime so, because, at its core, it’s fun, and the fandom is fun! And the vast majority of us all go through the experiences that I mentioned at some point, giving us all plenty to discuss and bond over, and AARRGGHH! I love it!!

So adopting a baby anime fan, or converting a ‘non-believer’, is something which we could all do with doing at some point in order to prevent anime watching from becoming more a routine, or a bad habit we can’t kick, than something we choose to do out of sheer passion for it!