I was in the seventh grade the first time I saw InuYasha.
It was New Years Eve 2003 and I was staying up in hopes of watching the Dragonball Z movie marathon I usually watched on YTV on New Years Eve (which is what YTV showed when the year before that, and probably the year before that as well. I very clearly remember that I first saw The History of Trunks and was almost traumatized by it, but that's a story for another day).
I don't remember if there were actually any Dragonball Z movies playing that night, but what I do remember is seeing the new anime line-up that YTV was starting with. I'm pretty sure it was the Friday night Bionix line-up, but I can't really remember. That night, I remember seeing Gundam Seed, Witch Hunter Robin, InuYasha, and probably some others. But InuYasha was the first one in the line-up and I was immediately hooked.
I was 12 at the time, and the only anime I had seen before that was pretty much directed at kids. Things like Sailor Moon, Dragonball Z, Escaflowne (which isn't really a kids show, but was dubbed as one, and it played in the afternoon with the other kids shows), Digimon, Pokémon, Shaman King, and so on. So this was really the first anime I'd seen that had cursing, bloody violence, and mature themes, it even has a viewer's discretion warning before the show started. And it was anime! Awesome!
So I got really into the show. So did a few friends of mine. We talked about it constantly, and were always looking at pictures of it online and listening to the music. We discovered the manga near the end of seventh grade, but we didn't get into that as much as we did the show.
And now here's where I ruin the reminiscing: I was not/am not/will never be obsessed with InuYasha.
When I think about what went on when I first got into the show, I can't really remember anything I did that could lead other people to believe that I was obsessed with the show. I watched the TV show (but it was far from the only show I watched), I saved pictures of it off the Internet (as I did with other pictures non-InuYasha related), I downloaded and listened to the music (as I did with a lot of other music, mostly country), and I talked about it with my other friends who watched the show (it wasn't the only thing we talked about). All this is normal behaviour, we had just discovered something brand-new and exciting and that was how we were going about it.
Now, I have a habit of going through these 'phases' where I get really into things for a period of time. It could be anything from Harry Potter, to Artemis Fowl, to scanning old pictures, to With the Light, to Tyrant, to drawing, to writing, to watching old movies, anything. I even get into these moods where I just want to organize and classify things. I suppose I'm a bit odd like that. And I suspect that this is what went on with InuYasha: I got really into it and then my interest died down a bit and I focused on other things.
And people implying that I was/am obsessed with InuYasha has become a sore spot for me now, just because it doesn't even make sense. The only person whose actually accused be of being obsessed with it is my 'cousin' (surprise, surprise), but other people must be thinking it because I remember it always coming up. Or maybe I'm just paranoid, who knows.
Not a lot of people I knew were interested in anime when I was growing up, and when InuYasha came out it was on the heels of Pokémon and Digimon and all those kinds of anime that were directed at kids. So to the people I grew up with, anime was probably the same as a kid's cartoon (even though anyone whose watched different kinds of anime will tell you that that's not always the case). So I guess everyone thought that InuYasha was just a stupid kid show. Either way, it seemed to me that almost everyone greatly disliked InuYasha.
I really don't know why. I know that anime is not for everyone, and I know that not everyone has to like the same things I do, but I just felt really personally attacked by the people (usually my peers) who didn't like InuYasha... probably because they just seemed to use it to insult me.
And I'm not saying that InuYasha is an awesome series and that everyone should like it. I'm a fan of it and I can list off many flaws about the series (like Kagome's dub voice actress... it almost hurts to listen to). What I am saying is that it's not right to look down on people for liking it.
I don't even know why people chose this series to start in on me for. I've been way into things both before and after InuYasha, and some probably closer to 'obsession'. Seriously, I grew up with Pokémon and owned a toy Pokédex, two of the guidebooks, the trading cards, some videos, the chapter books, the games, random toys, and I watched it nearly every time it was on. But no one says 'boo' about that. And that was just one major section of my childhood.
InuYasha has almost become like an insult to me now, or a source of embarrassment. And that sucks because I do like the series, I enjoy watching the show/movies and reading the manga. Do I think it's the best thing in the world ever? Of course not, but I do like it... and I'm almost afraid to admit it. I'm afraid to even mention it in the presence of other people. It's ridiculous.
It's like I can feel people starting to look down on me at my mention of it.
I can't even say that I watched an episode of it without following it right up with 'you know, since I haven't watched it in a long time'. And that makes me ashamed because it's like the bullies won.
I'm less 'obsessed' with the actual series, and more obsessed with proving that I'm not obsessed.
No comments:
Post a Comment