I’ve always thought anime fans were on the upper rungs of the geek ladder, possibly even higher than myself. I could never see the attraction of the badly-animated cartoons, and how someone could spend hour upon hour watching them — especially when those people are around my age. I mean, sure, I was a huge Speed Racer fan back in 1971, but cartoons are something I mostly outgrew years ago (although, admittedly, Adult Swim on the Cartoon Network is a whole other matter. I completely understand the attraction there).
I cut the guys I work with a little slack — after all, they are a bunch of Asian guys, so maybe it’s a cultural thing I can’t be expected to understand. A couple of ‘em have been recommending things to me for years, but… well, come on, they’re cartoons. I have better things to do.
Well, I did. It seems I’ve really gotten hooked on Naruto lately, after finally having it recommended to me by a fellow bakgwei I know from outside work (and yes, I do realize I’m using Chinese slang in an entry about Japanese animation, but I don’t know a Japanese equivalent of bakgwei, and we white ghosts have a reputation for not being able to tell them apart, anyway). I’ve been downloading fansubs and transferring them to my phone, and it turns out they’re just the right length to fill up one of my train rides to or from work. I feel like such a dork; while everyone else on the train is reading the paper, or listening to their iPods, or just taking a quick nap, I’m glued to a cartoon about a bunch of 12-year-old ninjas.
I’ve never denied being a bit of a nerd, but I’d really thought I’d plateaued, and that my dorkiest days were behind me. However, it seems that, even in middle age, I’m finding way to elevate myself into ever-higher reaches of geekdom.
Feel free to give me a hard time about it, but if you do you’d better be ready for the Thousand Years of Pain.
