Welcome, weebs, to Animated Observations

Hello again, friends! For this months OWLS post, I’ll be talking on a bit more of a personal level, as the topic for this month is Happiness.

Happiness is subjective. We all have different definitions of what happiness means to us and we also feel happiness in varying degrees. This month we will be exploring several questions describing our happiness in our fandoms, communities, and hobbies. Why do we find enjoyment watching anime or reading manga? Why did we decide to join the anime or pop culture communities?  Why do we blog about our hobbies or cosplay as our favorite characters? This topic is all about the passions we have for our interests and why they are important to us.

As always, make sure to check out more of the OWLS by looking at some of our other members posts, such as Karandi whose post will be coming after mine.

With that being said, here is the post:

---

Anime

Most people get to a certain point in their lives where they all start asking each other the same two questions: how and why are we even here? This is no less true in the anime community, a group of people who have come together to bask in the glory of Japanese animation. It seems like most people in the anime community have a fairly interesting story to tell when it comes to these questions, so for anyone who cares, here is mine.

Before I found anime as a hobby, I pretty much did nothing. In middle school, I played games on my Nintendo DS and that was about it. Every day was me finishing my homework and chilling alone in my room. I also did not have many friends at the time, and it seems like the ones I did manage to find were constantly moving away. One day, however, the person who would become my best friend introduced me to two different shows: Bleach and Fullmetal Alchemist. This was around the time I got my first computer, so of course, I looked them up and started binging them. Bleach was technically the first show I watched, with FMA coming Immediately after.

After watching these two shows, I was hooked and I wanted more. For a while, I went on a quest to find new shows like Bleach and FMA, watching all manner of YouTube top ten videos and reviews for shows that looked interesting. Before I knew it, I stumbled upon what would be one of my favorite shows for a long time to come: Fairytail. After that, I met a friend in the seventh grade who was also an avid anime watcher and gave me even more great recommendations like Death Note, Fruits Basket (the original Deen adaptation), and Hetalia. With that, anime was a part of my life.

Writing

Writing as a passion for me came much later. It was not until I joined my school’s newspaper that I found out just how much I enjoyed writing. Every week I would find something new to report on and make an effort to deep dive into that topic. Sometimes I would even be opinionated enough to make an article talking about something I cared about.

Later on in high school during my sophomore year, I took a creative writing class, where I met a lot of similarly minded people like me, and we just took time enjoying and creating whatever we wanted. Creative writing is also where I discovered my love of poetry and short stories, so there is that.

It wasn’t until my Junior year of high school, where I was overwhelmed with the amount of work I had going on, that I decided to create a blog for fun. At the time I just needed something to get my mind of all my stress and just have control over something creatively. Quickly, though, it turned from something to do in my free time to a hobby to something I love doing (almost) all the time.

Where Do I Go from Here?

Honestly, I don’t know yet. I still want to try and make this something of a part-time or even full-time job if possible, but I also still have a lot to learn when it comes to being creative on the internet. I’m still not even fully sure if what I am doing with my blog now is what I will be doing in a few years from now. However, I do know one thing, that it is enjoyable for me, and right now that is a lot of what matters. Anime, Writing, and this blog are a lot of what brings me happiness.

---

What are your guy’s plans for the future? Let me know in comments below. Also, if you would like to support The Aniwriter or are just feeling generous, consider donating on ko-fi or using one of the affiliate links below:

If you can’t, or just don’t feel like it, no worries. Thank you all for reading, and goodbye, for now, friends!