Screen capture from the original Pokemon show by Kaori

I had an interesting talk with one of my seminar classmates about watching Americanized anime growing up like Dragonball Z, Pokémon, Sailor Moon, etc, on networks like Toonami. I’ve noticed for many American children, this is pretty normal and that those anime shows really opened the door into the world of Japanese cartoons.

As a kid, I watched a lot of those shows listed above with my dad or my sister or our neighbor from up the road. That same neighbor ended up introducing me and my sister to other Japanese related pop culture things like playing Super Mario on the Nintendo, or watching anime like Rurouni Kenshin or listening to Japanese music. As we grew older, my sister grew out of her Japanese and anime phase and I did too, but then in middle school I got back into it and began reading manga and watching the anime based off that manga like Vampire Knight and Tokyo Mew Mew.

Screen capture of the anime Your Lie in April from Youtube user Mother’s Basement

It really seems like there is a stigma surrounding white Americans watching anime, that it makes your a weaboo or some sort of wannabe for liking things in a different culture from your own. Growing up I definitely felt these stigmas and usually didn’t tell people about the anime shows I would watch or the manga I would read, instead talking about the American shows I watched that were part of the mainstream narrative in pop culture.

But as i’ve gotten older, I have started branching out more with anime and not caring so much about other people’s opinions on what I watch. I’ve found more friends through this and it’s been really nice and even freeing to talk about some of the various shows I watch.