Love is blind, right? Love doesn’t care if you’re fat, skinny, rich, poor, black, white, smart, dumb, so on and so on. But does love care if you like anime? Nine times outta ten, love doesn’t care what your interests are; it strikes when you least expect it. So is it harder for anime fans to find true love and still hold on to their anime lifestyle? Anime fans (well, any type of extreme fan) have been painted as desperate, overweight otaku who’ll take what they can get when it comes to finding a mate.
Personally, I disagree that most anime fans live up to this stereotype. I like to believe that the bulk of anime fans are just like other folks and are just as picky about their love interests as the rest of the known world. When David and I met, neither one of us were as deep into anime as we are now. I sincerely doubt, however, that either one of us would have stopped dating the other if one of us wasn’t as interested in anime as the other. We grew into anime together and that’s such a beautiful thing to experience.
It’s hard to explain anime to friends who haven’t a clue, or worse, have the wrong idea about anime. I bet it’s even harder to try and explain to a potential mate what anime means to you. What to do when you love anime and it’s such a big part of your life and the gal/guy you’ve been wanting to ask out gives you the raised eyebrow when you list anime as one of your passions?
I can see why this could pose problems for folks looking for the perfect partner. Do you troll for love in the anime community or do you take your chances with the world at large? How much does anime mean to you? Is it a passing phase you’ll grow out of and give up in favor of love or do you stay true to yourself and hold out for that special someone who’ll accept you and your hobbies? Are you one of those who say “Love me; love animeâ€? Or can you come to a compromise with your partner? Any anime love stories out there?
I really got into anime after I was married, but I was a huge Star Wars fan prior to meeting my wife. It’s just one of those things that she has had to accept about me.
After all, I put up with all those Law & Order episodes and the Gilmore Girls…
@Kidan, both David and I were hardcore Star Wars fans when we met. We’re both total geeks and while we geek out about different things at times (me= rocks, astronomy, nature, David= special effects, action figures, comic books) we’re both still dorks at heart. Compromise, however is essential in any relationship. It sounds like you and your wife have an amicable one.
Anime is no more a phase than watching movies, dramas, or cartoons are. It should not be termed a phase unless the person is involved to such a deep degree, and even that is pretty subjective. I personally don’t think that anime should be judged as something you go through in life, because that demeans and downsizes the merits of the medium into a behaviour pattern (of course, if you’re behaving differently because of media consumption you’re definitely got issues).
That being said and done, I wouldn’t call it love — someone who really loves you wouldn’t want you to change for them; rather, they’d accept you for who you are. Probably the degree in which anime permeates your life would be the exception to this rule, but like I said earlier, moderation is key.
Also, substitute “anime” with any other hobby for a moment and think about it. I would never ask a girl I truly love to give up something she was passionate about, unless it was something self-destructive or an obstacle to her living a full life. Is anime self-destructive or an obstacle to the average person living properly? Either way, you’ve got the answer. (:
Owen’s response pretty much reflects how I feel as well. Thankfully for me, my boyfriend is also an anime geek, which I was fully aware of when I met him. So, in the same way that I expect him to accept my bouts of fangirling over bishounen, I cannot expect him to tone down drooling over Rei Ayanami. The good thing about relationships like this is that we don’t feel like we have to explain or be excused for acting like dorks over 2D characters. It’s just how we are.
Besides, I think relationships are more fun if both partners have some eccentricities. It also makes it easier to make fun of each other when one goes overboard and starts buying too much boylove doujin… *_*
i dunno about other nerds, but i would consider myself more picky than someone w/o fanatical interests. i’m not interested in someone unless they share at least SOME of my hobbies (which include a whole host of nerd subcultures: anime, star wars, video games, tech, nintendork in general, kung fu movies, japanophile, etc. ). i can’t imagine EVER dating anyone whose interests include such mundane things as watching football, or playing pool, or something more “normal.” those things are fine, but no obsessions? what a boring existence that would be.
Despite being quite the hardcore anime fan, I still have tonnes of other hobbies. Yet, I cannot ever stand hanging out with another half who would not understand my hobbies.
The beauty of anime is that there are just as many girls who like it as guys, so there can be happy couples. If you look at gaming or other more male-dominated hobbies, there are a lot more single guys lol.
Nope, not really.
It’s not so much “love me, love anime”, I’m just being practical. She doesn’t have to be into anime, she just has to let me do what I want. If she wants me to give up anime she’ll want me to do other things for her as well, so even if I give in, it’s just a matter of time till I get annoyed with her demands. Maybe I am awfully prosaic
but love can’t last with one (adult) person trying to mold another.
In my previous experience in relationships I found it easier to get along with girls interested in anime. When I dated girls uninterested in anime they just stared at me nodding their heads pretending to understand. I felt kind of lonely in that relationship not having an intellectual girl to discuss why an anime is good or bad or needs to stay true to the manga.
example: in my longest relationship I introduced her to Ranma 1/2 (good gateway anime) and she liked it however she we would still not understand each others life styles and we eventually broke up. Looking back I question if I loved her or I forced myself to love her. but she wanted to go out when their was nothing to do and i wanted to relax until we found something to do.
Right now I’m looking for a girl with an intellectual look at anime but even that is really hard to find and most of the girls like that are taken.
But for now life is good so for now I’ll wait until Ms. Kawaii comes into my life.
@Owen S., agreed in full. However, I do wonder whether or not I’ll still be seeing the young fans I see now 15 years down the line. And damn straight it isn’t love if someone asks you to sacrifice a part of yourself!
@Reika, isn’t it great to not need to explain to your honey why he has no competition unless Vincent Valentine is suddenly a real man? M’yep, good times.
@lain, I think that opposites attract and while I agree there should be some level of dorkage in common, I don’t believe that the dork interests should be totally equal. However will cross-pollination of interests occur if two people like the exact same things? And yes, mundane interests like sports and that blow, but there might be a geek in there somewhere waiting for that special someone to let it out.
@tj han, I personally could never imagine dating someone with any one interest, no matter how awesome that interest is. Having more than one hobby rounds out a person to a healthy degree.
My friend/ platonic soul mate has no clue about anime/ manga/ Japanese culture/food (she’s allergic to seaweed and hates seafood) and isn’t sure if she even likes it, but she accepts wholeheartedly my going ‘nanners over it. So I agree 100% that I couldn’t bear to hang with someone who didn’t accept my past times. That could be a litmus test for a friend/ mate; whether or not they accept your past time even if they don’t like it.
@shinigami, your words are too true. What kind of relationship would exist if one was constantly having to hide or shed pieces of themselves for another? Love IS blind to such trivial matters.
It’s not love if someone dictates your style of dress, who you hang out with, how thin to be, what to listen to, what to watch, etc. Ditch that person/s and run for the hills!
Ah. Interesting stuff. I gave up anime for a good long time, not because of my wife, but because of the obsessives I met around campus. My wife doesn’t care for much anime, but she’s down with Gantz, Bobobo, and Tamala 2010 — I guess the more esoteric or exciting fare.
I’d been a longtime anime fan, but I caught the wave before it became big. Anime was a place for strange cyberpunk tales and ultra violence. I was introduced to the genre through Akira, Ninja Scroll, Fist of the North Star, Angel Cop, Golgo 13, and a bunch of the Streamline pictures titles. It wasn’t until much later that the whole “fat drooling otaku” stereotype began to prevalece in people’s minds. In fact, it made it seeped into mine as well, and I became somewhat ashamed of my earlier uber-cool underground hobby.
Now, I can say I’m a happy cursory fan. I don’t like everything, but I dig the occasional sci-fi and supernatural adventure, as well as the gonzo comedy. It’s hard to come to terms with enjoying a hobby if it’s widely seen as completely nuts, but I think that can be the case with many other hobbies besides Anime. Obsessives can be offputting, but they’re not indicative of any interest’s overall fanbase. It’s just getting other people, including one’s self, to see that which is the problem.
So, long story short, I no longer really see a reason to give up a hobby if it’s enjoyable for you. Even for love.
In followup, lest my last post be taken as a slight against hardcore anime fans (sorry, I’m at work so my flow’s a bit interrupted), I wanted to mention that I do think Anime fans on the whole are far more open-minded and accepting than other fanbases. You don’t have the sort of rampant animosity that you see amongst comic geeks, or even certain classes of gamers. And, to further the love comment, I also think that if the person truly IS your love they will be understanding of your hobbies, no matter what they may be.