Are ya ready kids?!
Kids are going to be weird and use their imagination. They'll pretend to be an NFL player breaking tackles as they run through a crowded school hallway. They'll pretend to be Optimus Prime and pretend to transform into a truck. Or they'll pretend to be iron man blasting bad guys with their lazer palms.
The issue is when your friends have aged out of that behavior and you think it's still cool to Naruto run up to them all the time.
I remember when I was a kid I used to pretend the weirdest stuff. Once I was sitting on a picnic table behind the school and I pretended I was loved and safe.
I did stop pretending like that pretty early though because I was afraid of being seen as weird.
Tangentially related but your comment made me remember that I had the most random daydreams of slaying dragons and shit when I was a kid. And that it's been such a long time since I had any real imaginative thoughts.
There were definitely kids naruto running and doing kamehamehas at recess, but by high school, if it was ever known you watch even some mainstream ass anime, kiss that social life goodbye. Other anime nerds went way too weeb with it, so the only option is to hide your enjoyment and never make any references to anime in order to have some kind of normal experience. These days it's super normal to watch anime because it was our parents generation that didn't grow up with it. Now everyone is familiar with it.
That's what tends to happen when something you like is ostracized. Either you double down and get even more into it, or you hide it in shame.
You make fun of me now.... Wait till I'm able to turn Super Saiyan. We'll see who is laughing then!
That's it, you really done it now.
(Screams for 47 minutes until hair glows)
Ha! I'll let you know that this isn't even my final form!
If you've never tried to go super saiyan, you're not a real anime fan.
Oh good, as long as I don't watch Dragon Ball Z I'm not a loser... Whelp, back to Rent-A-Girlfriend!
Also, "everybody"? No, it's just a slightly larger percentage of nerds
And there's also a difference between liking Akira and Studio Ghibli movies, and wanting to watch a billion episodes of Naruto.
or half of One Piece
We got the boomer at work to watch some anime, and he is pretty far from being a nerd. It's becoming slightly more mainstream.
And look at what's happening now. Entire cosplays at school when it's not even Halloween.
I laugh at the ones that have anime girls pasted all over their cars.
Funny thing is, the whole subculture is called “Itasha”, which literally translates to “Pain Car”/“Cringe Car”. They’re cringe, they know it, and they’re proud.
this guy in college would masturbate to sailor moon
Plot twist, this was the US Naval War College, and “Sailor Moon” was the nickname for the obese cadet that liked anime and had plumber-crack.
I didn't like anime for so long because the fans of it in the 00's had some very eccentric behavior.
I've been into Anime since the 90s, always had friends and wasn't ostracized for it. Some people asked questions about tentacle hentai and Akira, but since was I never found any intereet in either all I could talk about was stuff I'd seen and I'd just tell em that.
I guess the closest thing to a real negative reaction was my mom walking in on the opening scene of Ranma 1/2 Movie 2, where Ranma, having been at the beach as a guy, was now running around topless as a woman. She didn't accept "that's really a guy who just got splashed with water."
Anime kinda polarized itself by the time I stopped watching like 5-7ish years ago. Idk if it's changed now.
But back when I stopped watching your options were:
Nice subculture you got there, would be a shame if it was commodomified for mass appeal.
I still dont get anime. There are like 2 or 3 that I've watched, but I can't really get into it.
That's like saying you don't get movies, or cartoons. You're just not watching the genres you'd like.
Kage no bunshin Jitsu