Recently a friend asked me: “Are you completely leaving the anime fandom behind?”

I was surprised by this question. But at the same time I could clearly see where he came from – for a long time now, he has often tried making conversation with me about anime and the new shows and seasons that have come and passed. But more and more often my answers have been a plain: “Sorry, I’m not watching any of the new shows these days.”

I think the last new show I watched (while it was still new, that is) is Code Geass R2. And I even waited a while with that, because I wanted to be able to marathon the last episodes. Since then I have watched a little here and there, but mostly things that I have lying around on DVD (Yay for Emma and Ouran!). To some people it doesn’t seem like I’m involved with anime at all any more.

But! No, I’m not out of the anime fandom! Really! I’m there just as much as I’ve always been.

I feel like I see a lot of people around me writing about this – how the excitement has left them, that they don’t feel like watching new episodes any more, and that they’re ultimately leaving the fandom behind. But although I can relate to much of what they write, this is not the case for me.

I have been terribly busy with work lately, and besides that my hobbies tend to go through many different phases. For example, one of the things that got me into anime in the first place is videogames. I used to play a lot of videogames. But after a couple of years I shifted over to watching a lot of anime instead. Not enough time for everything after all. After that, it was manga. A couple of years more have passed, and guess what – now I’m into videogames again.

In general I’m still in the same fandom – many of the games I’m playing are somehow related to the anime/mange world, I’m just involving myself with another side of the matter. It’s been ages since I last really had fun with games, so it’s nice to try and catch up again. Besides, I also have the whole “Visual Novel” genre added in this time. Unfortunately my increasing lack of time also means that I’m not actually clearing a lot of games <_<. I takes me forever to finish one, so I’m jumping between a lot of titles… sigh.

The bottom line is that I am very much into this whole fandom still. And although I don’t feel like it right now, I know that I, at some point, am going to increase my anime watching again on account of something else.

And I’m sure that those reading this blog already knew this, since I don’t talk about much else here. But I doubt the beforementioned friend knows this place even exists 😛