Anime has always been a major part of my life. Before I even knew what anime was (like many people), I watched it without a second thought. Everyone has that one memorable anime that started the ever bumpy road of being an otaku; however, picking just one anime is rather difficult for me. The reason for this is, even though I have been watching anime since I was a child, I didn’t know what anime was until I was 13 when I was going through a particular phase as a teen which I will explain later on.
Now, as a child, I rarely would go out and talk to people. I basically spent most of my childhood watching TV for hours on end. Probably more than people should allow their kids to watch TV, since I would watch it before going to school, and then after coming home until I would go to sleep. Back then, Cartoon Network would show anime such as Pokemon in the morning, and later on show other anime such as One Piece and Zach Bell. The one anime I remember being my first anime as a child was shown in the morning- Hamtaro.
Every morning, I would turn on the TV (at around 6 or 7 AM where I used to live) and watch the show with much excitement and wonder. The thought of an adorable little hamster having adventures with many other adorable little hamsters, always made my day. I would sing along with the theme song despite not understanding the lyrics due to me being around 5 or 6 years old at the time (I grew up in a bilingual household so both languages seemed like gibberish to me until I was about in second or third grade). However, that didn’t really sit well with people in my preschool group. Despite the show being a hit back in the day, the kids in my preschool group didn’t think that it was great and made fun of me for liking that rather than Pokemon and Digimon; however, that still didn’t stop my love for the anime and I was sad when it ended in Cartoon Network.
Fast forward to when I was 13 with my first laptop. I had just recently moved to where my parents and most of my family are from, and I needed a way to cope with the major changes in my life at that time. I was also going through a certain literature phase which affected what was my first known anime. Back then, I hated reading, but I was starting to have a love for it due to vampire novels (yes, I was a Twilighter back in the day). I was so obsessed with vampires that I would look up everything that had to do with vampires every hour of the day. It didn’t take long for me to find on a certain website: Vampire Knight. I soon became so obsessed with Vampire Knight that I would post pictures of it every day on Facebook. My cousin soon saw that I was a fan of Vampire Knight and asked me if I was a fan of anime, and I had asked him what anime was. After explaining to me what it was, he recommended me an assortment of them which started the ever bumpy road of my love for anime.
And there you have it. Both of these anime helped me into the ever bumpy path that is anime. Afterwards, anime -along with literature itself- helped me understand other people’s feelings while also having a way to escape reality and fall in love with countless characters along the way. Anime helped me a lot to become the person I am today as I know it has helped many others become the person they are as well. Anyways, that’s my story behind my path within anime, I hope you all enjoyed it.
Until next time, keep your paws and bowls of ramen up, everyone. Nya! 🐾
The Kitten Who Eats Ramen 