Since OreImo started airing, there have been a lot of posts about how people can relate to Kirino’s feelings,circumstance and how similar her situation to theirs. Which are impossible for me to relate to. Because since I started reading manga/watching anime I’ve never met anyone who seriously looked down on them or laughed at me for loving these things. I suppose I’m just lucky but my road to anime/manga has always been smooth.
Anyway since some people wrote about their fan-life, I feel the urge to write about them too /o/ I’ll start with Middle School since well, elementary kids love cartoon and picture books in general.
Middle School:
I transferred in 8th grade so there were 2 phases here.
-6-7th grade: There were at least 6 kids with manga-style drawings including me. Almost everyone read manga, some went to the manga store on a daily basic to rent them (not me though, I’m cheap and I prefer to own the thing), some bought manga weekly, some discussed Pokemon everyday since Pokemon was airing at that time, there was this boy who was really good at drawing Pokemon, and there was this girl who was scolded because she kept drawing in the middle of class. Basically it’s a heaven for manga fans. When my teacher told us to write a short paragraph to practice grammar, I even wrote something that looked like it was taken out of a manga.
We went to school in the morning, stayed there all day and came home in the afternoon. All students must take a nap in the mid-noon so they wouldn’t feel sleepy in the afternoon when they self-study or go to class. Apart form the classroom, each class had 2 rooms -one for boys, one for girls- with beds and small tables to rest and self-study. There were people get caught every week (or even day I’m not sure) for reading teen magazines and manga in napping/self-study time. There were always some manga in teachers’ desks, I think my school’s always-closed-library was full of confiscated manga/magazines/books.
Needless to say I was full of manga-related activities all the time, and some of my friends were just as enthusiastic as me.
Lol moment: My friend and I tried to design our own characters based on Magic Knight Rayearth. I was so jealous of her drawing that I cried and she cried while trying to comfort me. We stood in front of the school yard crying where people were passing by to go home.
-8-9th grade: There were less manga fans in this class than my previous class but some of them were more hardcore fans. I started to join a forum, making friends online and went to small conventions organized by fans because of a friend. She and I also made some manga drawing project but it never went anywhere. I suppose it was because we spent too much time dreaming about a harem full of cool and hot bishounen. She also told me more about anime, but I was more interested in manga and she was more interested in dreaming about bishounen so we didn’t really watch them together. One noticeable change for me was I went from “I don’t want anything to do with shounen-ai/yaoi” to “I still don’t like them but I don’t hate them”. I played my first eroge at this time, I didn’t know what it was when I bought it, I only saw a pretty cover and liked that anime-style.
It was also the first and last time I made a family online with other fellow fans, a huge one at that, from great grandchild to great grandfather/mother. This was also one of the better time for Vietnamese manga, they published 2-3 different magazines and some groups, artists were pretty well-known. One of my fellow classmate/fan’s sister was in a big group so she told me a little bit of this and that about that group’s drama when I asked.
Lol moment: My online younger brother (who was actually one year older than me) said he would find my ideal boyfriend for me if I told him.
-Me: It’s impossible. He is just a fantasy.
-Him: Just say it, I can find him.
-Me: He has strange hair and eyes color. There is no way you can find someone like that.
-Him: Then he is just a foreigner.
-Me: Not really a foreigner.
-Him: Geez just tell me.
-Me: Umm… well… he is 1m80 tall, has long light-yellow hair and silver eyes.
-Him: Well he can use contact lenses and a wig.
That doesn’t count! -A-”
High School:
There was less fans here than before. Though it’s more like I moved from one kind of group to another. Some of my classmates did read manga but they were like newbie/casual readers compared to me, they also liked the manga that I hated so I didn’t really talk with them. There were some fans in my neighbor class but I didn’t bother with them either.
I introduced yaoi to a friend, she then told her closest friend about yaoi, they then became hardcore yaoi fans together. They were NOT manga or anime fans, they were just yaoi fans. They literally saw yaoi everywhere, from classmates, friends, lovers, cram school teachers, favourite bands (Linkin Park), movies to completely strangers. I don’t think I’ll ever understand how their brains work.
Since there was no fans for me to interact with in real life, I came to the internet. I didn’t like that old forum that much so I searched for new ones and found a bunch of interesting fan boys, then through one way or another, I became friends with some of them and lot of dramas ensued. Anyway from that point on, I only made online friends and I’ve met most of them in real life.
I also started watching anime seriously and had fun with fandom activities.
Lol moment: Took a few months to finish telling my yaoi friend the whole story of Angel Sanctuary with the break time in class. I almost did the same thing with her closest friend, but we didn’t meet each other much so it was better for her to read the manga.
Family:
My dad was away most of the time so only mom and my younger brother count.
-Younger brother: He is a casual reader, if I buy manga he will read them but that is it. His interest is something else.
-Mom: Her view on manga changed as I grew up. She is pretty open-minded and supportive. She used to forbid manga and even teared some of my manga when I was in middle school because she wanted me to concentrate on studying but she is cool with it now.
Moment 1: I was in high school, my mom told me she wanted to talk about something, we sit seriously in the living room, then she asked about my porn (hentai) in my computer. She refused to say who used my computer and told her about that, I thought knowing who that person was may make things really awkward so I didn’t try to find out. I told her I was old enough to know what I was watching, and I just watched that stuffs because I want to know things. After that I processed to tell her about Japanese manga/anime industry, how a-m isn’t just stuff for kids, how they are serious business and for adults. We talked and the conversation ended with my mom telling me “Don’t let your younger brother know about your porn”.
Moment 2: My mom’s co-worker/good friend has a son who loves drawing manga, he is in college but he doesn’t care about studying and spends most of his time drawing. His dad (my mom’s friend) has an acquaintance and she offered him a job which was drawing picture books for her. After telling me that, my mom asked: “Since you like drawing so much, do you want to draw manga like him?”. I was really surprised, I didn’t expect her to ask me something like that at all. After a moment I explained to her that the kind of manga I want to draw isn’t what they want. That was last month.
Me:
I hate anyone who badmouth stuffs I like. I’ll use HunterxHunter key chain, Honey&Clover ringtone, post Angel Sanctuary stickers all over my pen when I want. Anyone who have problems with that can go to hell for all I care. I’m used to being an outsider for various reasons so being isolated because of my hobby wouldn’t bother me one bit.
May Haguin đã tiến hóa lên Prinplup, có đòn Peck nên mấy đứa ngoài rìa qua khá dễ, đến con Gym Leader mới có vấn đề. Đánh lần đầu thua vì bị con Roserade nó đập tan tác, mình lvl 28, nó lvl 22 mà nó đập 2 phát là faint :’( Load lại đi mua thêm super potion với bắt thêm mấy con Pokemon hoang dã lvl cao hơn 1 tí để vào phụ giúp. Team thành ra Haguin – lvl 28, Bronzor – lvl 16, Chingling – lvl 15, Meditite – lvl 14, Golbat – lvl 10, Silcoon – lvl 14. Vào đánh tiếp lần 2,3,4 toàn chết vì con Cherrim nó dùng Leech Seeds vào Haguin, bị tỉa hết sạch máu ;_; Cuối cùng phải chấp nhận để con Bronzor chia đôi exp, cho nó ra trước Hypnosis con Cherrim rồi đổi Haguin vào đập chết. Đến lượt Roserade, tiếp tục dùng Bronzor Hypnosis rồi tỉa bớt máu cho Haguin đánh sau, đang cực kì ngon lành, đến mức Roserade xuống đến máu đỏ, đang lo phải cho Haguin vào lẹ ko thì con Bronzor đánh xong con Roserade mất thì dcm thằng Gardenia nó dùng Super Potion lên Roserade làm nó lại đầy máu 
Bronzor đánh nó thêm được vài lượt thì…. tử vì đạo D: Xong là lôi hết toàn bộ các con còn lại ra đánh cho Roserade mất bớt máu đi nhưng bọn nó ngỏm sạch trong khi Roserade mất chưa đến 1/3 máu orz Đến khi Haguin ra trận, dù đã xài Quick Claw nhưng con Roserade vẫn đập trước, nó oánh phát còn 1/3 máu >__>’ Đang lo thua thì 1 đòn Peck của Haguin đã đập chết em Roserade 
Thật đau tim vãi hàng, con Roserade nó mà còn 1 máu thì coi như mình thua 
It’s a NDS game though, so I won’t play until it’s done, not to say I’m busy with Grand Bazaar. But damn it’s looks so cute x’3 so remind me of this GBA otome game I used to play, Gakuen something xD It was when I was in high school, I loved that game so much I played it all day even though I didn’t know any Japanese but Hiragana and Katakana. I just chose a random boy to hit on but because he was the first one I had an ending with, I liked him the most xD
Now if only I know someone with an Xbox….
Hopefully I’ll get to year 2 and get married in a few days since I’m in winter year 1 in Sunshine Islands now xD
