This coming Thursday, I’ll be on my way to Baltimore to attend my third straight year of Otakon. In light of this, I put some effort into watching a spot of fine anime to get my otaku juices moving – after all, for about three weeks, I’d been neither watching nor blogging anime, since I was busy writing my novel. What I found, however, was that the juices hadn’t halted at all.
There’ve been a few times in the past that I started to falter in my anime love due to underexposure. The most memorable of those was in 2008 when I was away from anime for a while, and only got back into it after a marathon of Lucky Star with No Name and my brothers rekindled my interest. It’s been quite a while since I’ve spent as long as I just did without any anime or blogging, so I thought it would be important to re-awaken my fandom up to the necessary level to be excited for the con.
I can't wait to attend the 18+ yuri panels~
But what I found was that in truth, I hadn’t lost the slightest bit of enthusiasm for anime. Watching great shows didn’t feel like some kind of reminder of how awesome anime was – there was never a doubt in my mind that I had awesome stuff to watch. After all, these days, I’ve loved everything I’ve seen – I haven’t felt the ‘jaded’ feelings that I had in parts of 08 and 09 at all.
The big one I had to do was rewatch Lucky Star again, once more with No Name and my baby brother, but the feeling was nothing like it was almost two years ago when I last watched it. I didn’t feel like I’d forgotten anything about the show – it was like I’d never stopped watching it to begin with. That’s not a big surprise with all the outside interaction I’ve had with the series, such as writing about it, looking at images, collecting goods, etc, but it was an interesting feeling that a show which had utterly revolutionized my way of thinking last time now felt like common sense, so to speak.
I’ve taken this to mean that I’ve reached otaku nirvana. I no longer have to worry about burnouts or rekindles. I’m just 100% otaku, 100% of the time. And otakon is gonna kick ass!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afnaW8VJWN0
That’ll be showing up in my nightmares for sure
see you there man
(lol this got caught in my spam filter and I accidentally deleted it. Reposted myself~)
I believe some congratulations are in order…?
What now?
In Zen Buddhist terms, what you’ve experienced might not be Nirvana as such (otherwise you’d transcend this plane of existence, possibly becoming 2-D?), but instead a concept that they call “Satori”– flashes of insight that light the way to enlightenment. It’s easy to remember, because that was the name of the best character in Bamboo Blade. :)
Have fun at Otakon!
Satori is also a hairy cyclops with psychic powers.
Hairy? Or so I’d like to ask, but the chance that you’ll respond with a picture sufficiently horrifying to induce depression/insanity prevents me from doing so. Seriously, please don’t.
I’ve never taken a break from watching anime or felt like my interest had faltered since I started my fandom ten years ago. Does that mean I’ve always been in otaku nirvana? -_^
I’ve watched Lucky Star twice and I want to watch it again, but I want to wait until I can get the official DVDs (not sure when that will be).
Anyway, I hope you have as awesome a time at Otakon as I did at AX this year~! =D
Congrats on reaching another level of fandom and enjoy your time at Otakon.
I’m glad you’ve mastered that attribute. I’d recommending maxing STR next. So your posts do more damage.
Burnout is a concern for me too. Especially when I have to contend with a job that depresses me so much that I don’t have the energy to do anything anime related, much less post about it. Luckily, anime and manga are two things that really get me out of my funk so I don’t worry about it that much.
Have fun at Otakon. I just attended Comic-con (not quite the same thing, I know) and had a blast. And congratulations on your Otaku enlightenment. :)
just remember that if there is an otaku nirvana, there is an otaku shotgun in your mouth
be careful!