Random question: I know you like Yugioh and Sailor Moon... do you like any other anime? What fandoms would you consider yourself active in now? Have you had any fandoms that you were really into a few years ago, and have slowly drifted out of?
(N.B.: This got way out of hand and I apologize in advance for the length of this reply. Also, holy parenthetical statements, Batman.)
Oh man, do I ever! There’s the entire rest of the Yugioh franchise, for starters, and while the original (DM) still has the strongest hold on my heart and the characters I hold dearest, I’ve yet to really dislike any of the sequel series. (I’m slowly working my way through the franchise; at the moment I’ve watched roughly half of the six existing series - all of GX, most of Zexal when it was airing, and I’m partway through 5Ds.) I also adore Fullmetal Alchemist (both the 2003 series and Brotherhood), Revolutionary Girl Utena, and Escaflowne. And of course literally everything from Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli is a winner from my perspective. I have an ever-growing list of shows that I want to watch at some point; I got through the first season of Haikyuu! and loved it (volleyball feeeeels) but haven’t finished it yet, and I keep meaning to watch Yuri on Ice but just can’t find or make the time to devote to watching it. Also I should probably finish Gundam SEED one of these days.
There’s also some anime that I personally like but I generally don’t recommend to people for one reason or another. (Utena is actually one of these, just because the way the themes are addressed gets fairly intense in places; it’s a deconstruction of fairytales and gender roles and it gets rather heavy and dark at several points.) I personally really enjoyed Kill la Kill even in all its over-the-top absurdity, and I thought Puella Magi Madoka Magica was a fascinating examination and deconstruction of the magical girl genre, but I would absolutely not recommend them to people blindly, albeit for different reasons. And if we’re being perfectly honest, an enormous part of my enjoyment of those two series is due to the absolute killer soundtracks. I will put up with a lot from any given movie or show, anime or otherwise, if it has a good soundtrack, and both KLK and Madoka are top-notch in that regard. Hit me up if you want song examples, I will happily talk about the soundtracks without reservation.
(Unpopular opinion: while I understand how influential Evangelion was to anime in general and shonen/mecha anime in particular, I think it’s incredibly overhyped and not nearly as ~deep~ as some people seem to think, and the series getting rehashed every few years is kind of obnoxious. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )
Fandom is... kind of a weird bird for me, in terms of how I approach it and feel about it. I get overwhelmed in large groups even online, so even if I’m “active” in a fandom I tend to just stick to a small group of people I’m friends with. (This is not helped by the fact that I tend to lurk on social media rather than put myself out there, so getting into a fandom in the first place can be a struggle for me.) I also had a rather sheltered upbringing in a lot of ways, especially when it came to the internet, so there were a lot of things I absolutely loved but never even knew that fandom was a possibility. Like, I practically grew up on the Star Wars Legends EU books, but it never even occurred to me that there might be other fans out there to talk about it with. And some things like Harry Potter that were a cornerstone of so many people’s childhoods, I was never allowed to read, so I came to those fandoms very late and I still feel like I’m playing catch-up in a lot of ways.
(It... didn’t help that I was bullied heavily for my interests when I was young, so I tend to keep them to myself even now.)
There are also some series that I know there has to be a fandom of, but I’ve never felt the need to seek them out for some reason. The Temeraire series was one of these - I adore the books but I just never felt the drive to seek out fic or fandom for it, for whatever reason, even though I love seeing the occasional artwork that I run across now and again. I’m just mostly content with the source material; I don’t begrudge the fandom at all, but I’ve never felt a pull to find or create material to fill in the gaps in that series.
Also, especially in “younger” fandoms, there’s the fact that some people are dicks about things like spoilers and letting people have their own ideas and headcanons, and the fact that every so often a fandom will latch on en masse to an idea or interpretation of a character that drives me absolutely bonkers. (Meaning either the character or the interpretation of them.) I’m not going to try and play fandom police or tell people what they can and can’t like, I’ll just disengage and lurk and keep to my own circles, but if it’s particularly widespread it can really sour me on talking about the series/material with other people.
And when it’s a fandom for a “live”/ongoing thing like, say, Star Wars Rebels, I’ve found that participating in discussions about upcoming material actually really sets off my anxiety for some reason. Not that I think speculating will get anyone in legal trouble or anything, I just... especially in a series where I get really attached to the characters, I almost want to let it end before I watch it, so I can burn through it at my own pace and don’t have the ongoing pressure of trying to figure out what will happen next, or I don’t get attached to a potential plot idea that doesn’t happen in canon. (The last few episodes leading up to the Rebels season 3 finale were really, really bad for me in this regard. There was at least one character that the writers could quite easily have killed off without it being a poor narrative decision, and being on tenterhooks over the course of about a month and literally up until the last few minutes of the final episode was extremely stressful for me. And if I’m being honest I’m really not looking forward to going through that again with the final season.)
ANYWAY. *casually shoves neuroses under the rug*
Right now I’d say I’m most active in the YGO and Star Wars fandoms. (Funnily enough, they’re both massive and ever-expanding franchises, which makes it easy to find a niche that suits you well.) Even in those it’s still the same kind of thing - I tend to lurk and just appreciate what others put out there until I work up the courage to make a friend or two (hi Skuun, hi Kinta, hi Evie, hi Caz, love y’all <3) that I feel okay chatting with, and until I feel comfortable putting myself and/or any material I create out there for others to see. I’d like to be more active in the Welcome to Night Vale fandom but I haven’t taken the time to actually seek that one out as much. I’m really hyped for the Good Omens adaptation that’s coming up, because I'm hoping it’ll lead to more stuff and more people in that fandom.
I was really into the Hetalia fandom back in its heyday on LiveJournal - the fandom was honestly more of a draw for me than the series proper. The source material is... rather silly, and a little cringey at times especially in the early days, but it’s a fertile playground, and the fandom was crammed to the gills with some of the most talented and brilliant people I’ve ever “met”. So it was really fun, in the long stretches of time between strips being uploaded/translated, to poke at the Hetalia ‘verse with other people and discuss interpretations and what-ifs. We had all of history to play with, after all, so there was a lot of untouched material up for grabs. It was also the only fandom I’ve ever put actual fic(s) for online, other than my rambling tag novels. That one I drifted away from for a combination of reasons - college and then my job eating up my time, the slow death of LiveJournal, plus I seem to recall there was some fandom wank that made me stay away from it for a while (unsurprising given the average age and maturity level of the fandom, but I don’t remember specifics at this point). I also fell away from Shingeki no Kyojin/Attack on Titan a while ago, but that was more due to the source material pissing me off than anything else.
Wow, this ended up being a really thought-provoking ask! Thank you for dropping it in my inbox, and for letting me ramble for a while. =)
