Anime Anonymous

My name is TerriAnn and I used to watch anime (Japanese animation). Yes, I spent hours and hours of my teenage life following the adventures of Sailor Moon which began airing on tv. At that time it was just beginning to get popular and was badly dubbed into english. Good quality subtitled versions were only made available by other fans called fansubs.

I would send self-addressed envelopes and blank VHS tapes to get the translated series. As my collection grew, I did the same for other fans through my pastel Tripod site filled with big-eyed characters referred to as ‘kawai’ (cute) and mini-versions of them called ‘chibi’ (small).

Later the series began to go digital. The internet was so slow then that there was no way to send big files. Programs like winrar popped up and I had to download 20+ parts to watch one episode. Still, I really enjoyed the various series with the beautiful art and interesting storylines. Oh, yeah, I knew all the popular series and had all the contacts in getting the latest releases. Through ftp transfers, IRC ‘gets’, and re-seeding torrents I was set. That is until I discovered fan-translated manga (Japanese comics).

Well, I realized the huge amount of time my hobby was taking up and decided to stop cold turkey after many years. Plus, with the onslaught of new types of online file sharing I would have never escaped the grips those high-pitched voice actresses.

I’ve been anime and manga free for almost two years now. I feel free and, well, grown up.