Anime: Confessions of an Anime Addict

Anime: Drugs Would be Cheaper
Confessions of an Anime Addict	July 30, 2002
If you were to tell me one year ago that I was destined to be addicted to Anime, I would have laughed at you. I would have imagined the few episodes of Dragon Ball Z, Card Captor Sakura and Pokemon I had seen, shake my head. I would have pictured those enthusiastic fans who dress up as their favorite anime characters for those conventions I’ve been to, such as Mega Con in Orlando and Dragon Con in Atlanta, who make plans as to which 24-hour anime room they were going to sleep in so they were present for what they really wanted to see. Today, I laugh at myself, and how ignorant I was. Now I am the proud owner of all 3 seasons of Slayers (don’t ask me about the disc mix-up with my Try box-set) and the Irresponsible Captain Tylor OVA DVD collection. I am pondering if $400 is too much for 8 DVDs in 2 box sets for the 52 episodes of Fushigi Yuugi series, and beginning to think it’s not. I find I’ve got a whole new reason to be excited about those conventions. Hello. My name is Christy, and I am an Anime Addict, no da. It started, for the most part, with my husband’s teeth problems. Don’t scoff, its true. Having problems with his teeth (I won’t go into details) my husband ended up with several days of bed rest. In order to make his numerous recovery days more entertaining, my sister brought over the series Slayers, first season, on tape. I watched this series with my husband and sister, and I got hooked. My sister went on to purchase (or already had, I don’t recall) the DVD Box set for Slayers Next and Slayers Try. I borrowed these from her and over the weekends and in the time after work I finished the series. I found I wanted more. Not knowing where to turn, I went on-line and for about a month I was on-line when I came home from work until the time left the house for other things, reading Slayers fan-fic, and viewing Slayers sites. I even started printing some of the fan-fic so I could read on my breaks at work. We went to the video store, and I rented Slayers Special and the movie Princess Mononoke, which I had been meaning to see. Guess which one I watched first. : ) A friend of mine, trying to give me a taste of another anime (I’ll tell you, for a few weeks I was scary-obsessed with Slayers) lent me her Tenchi Universe tapes. I watched all of those almost as religiously as I did Slayers. Unfortunately I did not get to borrow the other Tenchi tapes (some of the movies, and Tenchi in Tokyo, I believe) because my friend moved across the country. When my anniversary came around, I found that my husband was willing to feed my addiction. He bought me the first season of Slayers on DVD (he picked the first season since this was the one my sister had on tape). Shortly after I ended up bidding on Slayers Next and Slayers Try on E-bay, and ended up getting both DVD box sets. (I later found out my Try collection was packaged wrong, and I have discs A, C, C and D, but no B : ( , and am still trying to remedy that.) Nicki, my current supplier, came down to visit one weekend with my sister, and brought Escaflowne, giving me a taste of the more action / less comedy anime. That same weekend, we all went to Media Play (the local Anime-crack supplier) and Nicki found a Slayers manga graphic novel. I bought it, but haven’t read it yet (Oh yeah, I should do that, I almost forgot…) I then borrowed from Nicki The Irresponsible Captain Tylor series on tape. She had lent me this series before, but I hadn’t really gotten into it, then she left for the summer that year, and I forgot about it. Discovering she was about to try to sell this series, I borrowed it. Again, when I watch anime, it is fast and furious. I ended up buying the Irresponsible Captain Tylor OVAs DVD box set. (Argh – subtitles on DVD are so much harder to read than on tape. Why God, why? I had to watch the OVAs DUBBED. Humph) It was during this series (ICT OVA) that I learned the joys / confusions of a limited number of English voice actors, as I heard Zelgadis from Slayers having a romantic tinted conversation with Lina (Captain Tylor and Empress Azalyn, respectively). I visited my sister, who is at home for the summer, and she introduced me to Geobreeders. She only has 1 tape, but I found I wanted to see more (which she plans on getting once it’s available). She also had a Geobreeders manga graphic novel, but that was more confusing to me. I bought a book called The Anime Companion by Gilles Poitras and even though it is set up in a dictionary / encyclopedia type style, I have found myself willing just to sit and read entry after entry. Since I’ve bought the book, I sometimes stop anime I’m watching to look up to see if something is mentioned in the book. Visiting my brother one weekend, my sister found Yuyu Hakusho on Adult Swim on Cartoon Network. She went to bed after 2 episodes, but I stayed up 'til 2 in the morning, so I could watch all 6 episodes they played. Granted, it wasn’t in the beginning of the series, but I found that no matter how tired I was, I couldn’t turn it off. I just borrowed Fushigi Yuugi from Nicki, 16 tapes (15 sub and 1 dub, man that threw me off, right in the middle, too, after I could identify who was speaking by their Japanese voice) and a DVD set with 9 episodes of 2 OVA series (advertised as over 256 minutes). I borrowed them on Sunday. Watching after work, before class, before bed, 1 episode during my 1 hour lunch breaks (isn’t it great to live close to work?), and finally a 14 hour marathon (11:30 am – 1:30 am) on Friday, when I called in sick (well, I was sick, and I tried to nurse my health back with non-stop Fushigi Yuugi), I finished the series in under a week. When my friend moved to California (with her Tenchi collection), her roommate also moved, and took his Cowboy Bebop with him before I could borrow any. I have found a local store (Anime, gaming, comics) that rents this series (and others) on DVD: $4 for 5 days. I am waiting for my sister and Nicki to come back next semester to rent those. I figure a few each weekend until we’re done. Another friend (to whom I’ve lent Fushigi Yuugi, before I return it to Nicki) has anime. She and her husband have some Sailor Moon and Revolutionary Girl Utena. Another friend has some Card Captor Sakura, Oh My Goddess and Trigun that she is eager to share with me. Ghost in the Shell comes highly recommended to me, as does New Dominion Tank Police. A woman my husband works with has two more series she is willing to lend me (I don’t even know what they are, and I’m excited). As I said before, I am an anime addict. And I couldn’t be happier (lets see if that changes when I have to start paying for anime, no da?)

Anime: Drugs Would be Cheaper

Confessions of an Anime Addict

July 30, 2002