The
year is 1998. Late August, to be exact. My parents had just decided
it was time for us to upgrade our cable service. I was in the 4th
grade and thus, overly excited. The new service would include The
Disney channel (which I had seen during their once popular free
weekends) and a channel I had only heard about in rumors, a channel I
thought was created specifically for me. That channel was, of course,
The Cartoon Network. All cartoons, all the time. It was a dream come
true.
The
day the cable man came couldn’t have been any better. I had a tooth pulled earlier in the morning, so I was "sick" enough to stay
home, but well enough to be out of bed. I spent most of the day doing
what any normal 4th grader would do. I watched some movies, played
with my Tech Decks and GI Joes, begged my grandmother to make me
peanut butter sandwiches, and so on. It was a normal day. Looking
back, though, there was something different.
The
new cable box was installed just in time for me to catch a new show
on Cartoon Network. This show wasn’t like any other cartoons I'd watched. It looked
different, had a different feel. There was fighting and people
shooting lasers from their hands. There was a green alien dude. I had
no idea about it, but I knew that day that Dragon Ball Z was the best
show created and that I would not miss an episode.
And
so the story begins. From that day on, I latched on to any show like
DBZ that I could find. Whether it be on Cartoon Network or Kids WB,
or on video at the local Blockbuster, I knew these crazy cartoons
from Japan were something special. And that’s how I spent the next
few years of my life, watching any episode of any anime that I could
find. I didn’t care about story or character development, I just
wanted to see as much of it as I could. Until I hit the 7th grade.
Growing
up is hard. Being in the 7th grade and liking cartoons was even
harder, I stopped
watching cartoons. It was time to grow up, I figured. And with that,
I threw away all my Gundam toys and began living like a “real”
teenager.
It
wasn’t until my senior year of High School that I realized what I
was missing out on. That year, our cable company began releasing
certain shows on demand. Being bored one night, I decided to see what
Cartoon Network had to offer. Adult Swim had started showing Futurama
and Family Guy some time before, so I decided to see if any episodes
were in the On Demand section. No joy. The only show that was available at the time was Naruto. I knew a little bit about it. Some kids at the daycare I worked at talked about it and were reading some of the manga. Couldn't hurt to give it a try, so I did. I was hooked. Again. It had the same sort of flair that DBZ had so long ago. I finished all of the On Demand episodes, but I waned more. I NEEDED to know what was happening.
The discovery of Naruto led me to the discovery of streaming sites and YouTube episodes, which in turn led me to watching subbed anime. I kept up with Naruto all the way to the end. In my disastrous freshman year at college, I spent most of my time in my dorm room watching Naruto and reading fan theories. I picked up a few more series along the same sort of line. Bleach, Soul Eater, One Piece...things that were popular. They helped me cope in a place I didn't like at a point in time when I didn't like myself much.
Fast forward a few years to present day. As with most things, my interest in Naruto waned. 220 episodes of the original, mostly marathoned, and trying to keep up with Shippuuden were just too much. I got burnt out and stopped for a while. Within the past year, my interest has returned. I've kept up with a few weekly anime and gone back and watched quite a few past series. I'm using this blog in part to share my experience with anime. As a married adult, I want to bring my own perspective to a community that already has so many voices. I look forward to writing about weird cartoons and why I still choose to watch them.
