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I miss the anime real-world communities of the '90s.

Metalhead

Metalhead

Video game and movie addict.
V.I.P Member
Meeting with friends several times a week to check out the latest VHS fansubs. Going to visit the friend who just got the latest hit OVA release on LD directly from Japan. Obsessing over our favorite characters openly.

The Internet and streaming video killed the anime communities I used to be a part of.

Of course, anime was also more of a niche fandom back in those days. We felt more elite about it, we were very much snobs.
 
On one hand, yeah, I can emphasize with that one.

On the other hand though, the one big issue back then was that it was drastically more difficult to find anything. It sorta depended on what your local stores bothered to carry. I dont know about your area, but around here, it was pretty much see something on the Sci-fi channel's late night anime block, or you dont get anything at all. I think I only ever saw one store actually carrying any and it was pretty much just DBZ and that's it.

It's always been a super boring area, you see. Very crowded but it's primarily a business sector. We knew about communities like that back then but had none of them even remotely close by.

We never found anything close to that until we started going to conventions in the 2000s.
 
Metalhead said:
Meeting with friends several times a week to check out the latest VHS fansubs. Going to visit the friend who just got the latest hit OVA release on LD directly from Japan. Obsessing over our favorite characters openly.

The Internet and streaming video killed the anime communities I used to be a part of.

Of course, anime was also more of a niche fandom back in those days. We felt more elite about it, we were very much snobs.
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Agree. I remember falling in love with anime when my wife and I watched "Vampire Hunter D" on 16 mm film at LosCon, back in the 80s.

But it is the way of the world. Streaming killed many other entertainment forms.
 
I'm not huge into anime (I do like a few series, though, some oddly-obscure ones) and I kind of think it's great to just be able to stream whatever. I was too young in the 90s to know what was going on in the world, but it definitely seems like it has exploded quite a lot since the early 2000s.

Was it mostly the thrill of the hunt, or IRL community that you miss the most?
 
Slime_Punk said:
I'm not huge into anime (I do like a few series, though, some oddly-obscure ones) and I kind of think it's great to just be able to stream whatever. I was too young in the 90s to know what was going on in the world, but it definitely seems like it has exploded quite a lot since the early 2000s.

Was it mostly the thrill of the hunt, or IRL community that you miss the most?
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It is both the thrill of the hunt and the IRL community that I miss very much. Now it seems like everything is being licensed for American release indiscriminately through streaming services. When one of my group got a new tape or laserdisc, it was a party night. I miss that.
 
For me, it is role-playing games during the 1980s instead of anime in the 1990s; but yes, the loss of my little 'community' of real, live players may be similar.

Of course, Dungeons & Dragons was also more of a niche fandom back in those days. We felt more elite about it, we were very much snobs.

;)
 
Seems a very hot topic in Hollywood. The eventual elimination of physical media altogether.

That blu-ray and even 4K formats will disappear, apart from DVD and past video formats like VHS, Beta and laser discs. Bad for artists who are entitled to their share of such media profits.

Yeah. Streaming video is out for blood. Along with proponents of renting rather than owning software. :mad:
 
Just wait until all sound stages are replaced with green-screen studios and motion-capture software.

Want John Wayne AND Theda Bara to star in your next Sci-Fi Epic? There'll be apps for that.
 
I remember the risk of sending a money order out to a fansub website with the promise of a few fansubbed tapes arriving in the mail a couple of weeks later. Of course, they always arrived because I was lucky. I had no access to the Internet until I was 16 and the school I went to had Internet access, so I visited the fansub pages and spent some dough supposedly on the blank VHS tapes since it was illegal to charge for the fansubs themselves. And every Friday night was a party with me and my otaku friends. Mountain Dew, Taco Bell and anime binge watching.
 
Metalhead said:
I remember the risk of sending a money order out to a fansub website with the promise of a few fansubbed tapes arriving in the mail a couple of weeks later. Of course, they always arrived because I was lucky. I had no access to the Internet until I was 16 and the school I went to had Internet access, so I visited the fansub pages and spent some dough supposedly on the blank VHS tapes since it was illegal to charge for the fansubs themselves. And every Friday night was a party with me and my otaku friends. Mountain Dew, Taco Bell and anime binge watching.
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Science fiction conventions in the 1980s are where I learned to love anime. There was always a "Japanimation" room with a 16mm projector somewhere.
 
I do miss the days when it was hard to obtain the latest releases and when one of us got something new, it was an excuse for a party with Mountain Dew and Taco Bell.

I do not miss being the closeted gay guy in a group of exaggerated homophobes, though.
 
Funny. I had to sneak into the college anime club soon after it started and sneak out because ... well, not many females there in the 90's.

I still watch it on Crunchyroll. Why do so many autistics like anime?
 
jsilver256 said:
Funny. I had to sneak into the college anime club soon after it started and sneak out because ... well, not many females there in the 90's.

I still watch it on Crunchyroll. Why do so many autistics like anime?
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I do too. I watch Crunchyroll, HiDive, RetroCrush, some Hulu, and some Netflix. Back in the day, I was a huge Adult Swim fan with my son.

I think that the tropes and plotlines of anime are ultimately friendlier to autistic people. They are extremely predictable. We live vicariously through the kid who was bullied, taken advantage of, and beaten but still becomes powerful and accepted in the end.

There's also the gamishness of it. Many anime are practically RPGs that have been put to the screen, down to character classes, experience points, and levels.

Anime protagonists are often very simple people with clear values. One is almost never confused about how a character feels. The conflict is usually crystal clear. Some anime include moral ambiguity, but they are a minority of shows. Often times the anime protagonist shows traits we associate with autism, such as cluelessness, special interests, and social disability. Some are so obviously autistic that you could make a diagnosis at the end of the series.
 
Anime has also changed a lot since the ‘90s when I was a huge fanboy. Most of it is no longer hand drawn. And the isekai trend has become way too popular for its own good. Wish fulfillment anime is now the big thing.
 
Metalhead said:
Anime has also changed a lot since the ‘90s when I was a huge fanboy. Most of it is no longer hand drawn. And the isekai trend has become way too popular for its own good. Wish fulfillment anime is now the big thing.
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That's so true! Anime, where you plug yourself into the role of the main character, who is whisked away into an alternate reality where they can be heroic. But that's what gets the most ratings. Fortunately, there are always a few every year that don't follow the current fashion and they are often gems. The clueless harem king is another genre of wish fulfillment.

You can do a good isekai. One where the past still matters and interacts with the present.
 
Au Naturel said:
That's so true! Anime, where you plug yourself into the role of the main character, who is whisked away into an alternate reality where they can be heroic. But that's what gets the most ratings. Fortunately, there are always a few every year that don't follow the current fashion and they are often gems. The clueless harem king is another genre of wish fulfillment.

You can do a good isekai. One where the past still matters and interacts with the present.
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Now, if there was only an isekai anime for guys like me who want men to fawn over them, I would appreciate that. Anime like that is more aimed towards teen girls, though.
 
What's weird is that the "isekai" part rarely ties into the past world. And if it does, it's because the new world is filled with idiots who haven't figured out basic scientific principles.

And it's usually the case that a character who was depicted as a loser introvert in a past life suddenly becomes the hardest-working protagonist and a social butterfly in the new world. No. That's not how it works.
 
You can consider Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" to be an isekai lol.

I wish I got to experience something like that. Best I could do was check out old Sailormoon VHS tapes from the library.
 
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