doo78

(Copy and pasted from MyAnimeList, which is what I mainly use)

Hi, I'm Ricky and I like anime (shocker, I know). Read a decent amount of manga, too. I guess I enjoy just about any genre but recently I gravitate more towards drama/slice of life/romance/fantasy/whatever the catches my eye. I started watching anime when I was 11/12 so for 6/7 years now (holy shit that's long, I never really thought about it) and have never really stopped since. However, I definitely slowed down the more I watched. As of now, MAL says I have 180 days watched of anime but about 120 of that came in the first 3 years probably. Recently, I mostly only watch anime when eating food. I watch one anime at a time now (excluding seasonals) so that's likely a big reason for my low watching output. Also, I've simply seen a lot of it so there are less shows that interest me. Don't get me wrong, I still love anime and enjoy it just as much. It's just that finding a good anime is harder than it was before, for me. Especially since before I had a higher tolerance for bad shows. Nowadays, if I'm not hooked by the first episode I'll drop it without hesitation.

I suppose you could say that I grew up on anime, in a way. Not in the sense of "it was my entire childhood" kind of way but I've been watching it all throughout adolescence so it has sort of shaped my personality. And by that, I don't mean that I go around saying uwu and adding desu to the end of my sentences, but I do mean that around 14 years old I would put on the mysterious and cool persona (which just came across as creepy and school-shootery) and would daydream about anime fight-scenes. Even on a deeper level, I think watching so many anime with unreasonably kind protagonists who get pussy by just being nice subconsciously made me a kinder person. Also, watching so many stories of people and learning how much depth there is to them really taught me empathy, whether I liked it or not (I'm not a psychopath, I swear). Actually, the older I get, the more sensitive and emotional I become over media, including anime, and it's probably largely because of anime.

But I would say that anime did strip me of a few things as well. On the surface, I lost simple things like music taste and diverse interests. For the longest time all the music I listened to was anime music and not even straight up J-pop but exclusively songs from anime. I've been trying to change that recently but it'll take a while before I find what my music taste really is. As I've grown up, anime has been my main past-time so I don't have many other hobbies. Most of my interests centered around "otaku" things like anime, manga and so on. Once again, I've been trying to branch out recently but I should have done that sooner. On a deeper level, having anime as my main interest made me completely out of touch with the world and how it really works. I'm mostly ignorant in nature but regardless of my stubborn attitude, I lack really basic knowledge in many areas. I doubt that watching anime made me into an introvert but perhaps if I didn't watch so much then I would have been more proactive in socialising and wouldn't be so shy, but I'm likely being too hard on myself when it comes to that criticism. Anyway, I know this sounds super negative but anime is really important to me and I love it to bits so it's important for me to address that it's not all rainbows and butterflies. Instead, it's like a dog that has bitten you badly a few times but you still love to death and would never abandon them (which is totally not the same for me and my actual dog).

Due to this, I've been trying out other things and slowly broadening my horizons. I've been playing a lot more games and have been discovering my taste in that aspect. Before watching anime all I did was play Roblox for 7 years straight and even whilst watching anime I was addicted to Fortnite (yes I know, I'm a loser), so I needed to try out a greater variety of games. I grew out of my tribalistic attitude of the UFC being better than boxing and decided to give boxing a chance. Still not as great as MMA but pretty good nonetheless. Kind of got more seriously into working out; I'm still a twig and too much of a lazy shit to go to a gym but I built a decent amount of muscle. On top of that, I'm attempting a transition into being the cool version of a nerd. Namely, going from the loser virgin archetype to a sexy bookworm scholar type. In other words, I'm trying to read books. Maybe I'll buy fake glasses to embrace it even more. But I haven't abandoned being an otaku as some of those books will include light novels and I've been playing a few visual novels recently too. I also do not use character ai...at all... Moreover, I have this issue where I forget all the anime I watch so I've been writing reviews on them to fully digest them into my memory (please don't read them). I also started watching a lot more movies. Youtube kind of combines all those interests into one place, so there's that too. However, there is one interest that has taken over my life that you will undoubtedly judge me for. I beg you to withhold your pitchforks and let me live but its... Vtubers. Specifically Hololive. I won't try to convince you to watch them but I will gush about them for a moment (they're pseudo-anime girls so it should be relevant, right?). I started in 2020 with Myth's debut and I have no doubt that I have watched more than 10 times more of them than I have watched anime ever since. And I'm not exaggerating. I have to muster up all the energy and motivation in my body to binge a 12 episode anime (spanning around 4 hours) but will sit down for a 6 hour long stream in a heartbeat and without a second thought. Now I know what you're thinking, "isn't this just as much a waste of time as anime?". The answer is... maybe? Honestly, I enjoy it more. It's not replacing anime or anything but recently nothing has given me more fulfillment. It feels like a sanctuary and haven within the sad and fucked up world (yeah, I'm not completely out of my chuuni phase, there's still a hint of cynicism). Seeing these girls on screen just talking for hours has genuinely changed my perspective on humans as a whole and given me a whole new and optimistic view on other people. I've never known people so inspiring, loving and compassionate and I'm sure some of that has rubbed off on me. I'm not parasocial. Not one bit. Not even a little. Nuh uh. Okay, maybe a little... I guess I would lay down my life for them but I'm not parasocial at all... But seriously, they have given me so much and are definitely my number one hobby at the moment. And if you have to ask my oshi is Kiara (by far).

Anyway, that seemed like a tangent, and it mostly was, but I felt like putting into perspective my attitude to anime and how it has changed over time. I'm sorry that this is less of a bio and more of a biography. It's probably because I've been journalling and I was in the mood to ramble. So maybe this was more than you asked for in the sense of "I didn't ask" or "I couldn't ask for more" or even "I aint reading all that". In summary, anime may have deprived me of certain things but has given me so much and shaped who I am so I am eternally grateful to it. I know this was less about me and more about how I feel about anime but this whole account is for me anyway so I prefer it this way. Also, maybe this is too long and irrelevant and too big for my profile but... you can't stop me. Hehe.