|
How do you do, fellow weebs?
My name is Alex, but you can call me Drake. No, not like the rapper - like the World of Warcraft quest NPC, Dorian Drakestalker. I am Romanian. Before you ask, I will neither confirm, nor deny the rumors that I am a vampire.
My first encounter with anime was as a young lad. An older friend introduced me to Digimon on a German TV channel. I thought them monsters were the coolest shit ever. I'm Team Digimon to this day. That said, at the time, I had no idea that what I was watching was anime.
Some years later, still very young, I mistakenly stumbled upon a late night animation channel called Animax. It was very similar to Cartoon Network's Toonami. There I happened to witness the final episode of Blue Gender. In case you're unfamiliar, it was one of the most bloody and gory anime at the time of its airing. I was so innocent, it never even occurred to me that a cartoon would ever portray blood. Seeing those giant bugs crush, impale, and shred them Gundam-like mechs in the most brutal ways imaginable left me traumatized in an awesome way. Safe to say my young ass brains were blown to shit.
That same evening, I also saw an episode of Captain Tsubasa - not nearly as shocking an experience. Alas, at the time, I still did not know that what I was watching was anime. It did, however, become apparent to me that this was a different kind of cartoon and I was very much keen on it. I knew I wanted more.
When I was in my teens, I passively watched the entirety of Shaman King and Duel Masters on TV, but Naruto was the turning point for me. Unfortunately, Romanian TV only dubbed it up to episode 78, so as soon as Naruto, together with Gamabunta, transformed into the Nine Tails in his fight with Gaara, the broadcast would start all over again. I must've watched the Romanian dub of the first 78 episodes some 3 or 4 times over.
That was when the brilliant kid idea dawned on me. Why don't I look up the following episodes on YouTube? Modern problems require modern solutions! Remember back when 480p was considered high quality? Remember how, way back in the day, YouTube had a "Videos currently being watched" tab? Remember how you could watch pirated anime on YouTube, but because YT did not allow videos longer than 10 min at the time, all of the episodes would be broken up into parts? Remember how one uploader would have part 1 & 2 of your episode, but not part 3, so you would have to look for a different uploader's part 3, but the new guy cut the episode in a different spot, so now you've got a chunk missing, and you have to go back and find this guy's part 2 to get up to speed? Yeah, I did that up to about episode 140 of Naruto, at which point the YT supply dried up.
I then discovered streaming and the rest is history. I have about 700 shows and movies under my belt at this point. Perhaps some day in the distant future, I will bother adding them all to MAL.
I enjoy watching anime, watching pre-Epstein & Weinstein scandal Hollywood movies, playing video games, reading, bodybuilding, powerlifting, and writing down my chaotic thoughts for posterity.
If you would like to have a conversation, debate, or just shoot the shit, by all means, send me a friend request!
|
All Comments (43) Comments
<3 one of underestimated Isekai ~
The Gurren Laggon thing gave me a chuckle. I managed to almost make it an entire year here without anyone mentioning that part of my profile! I guess I can only say that I might have liked it more if I had grown up with it at an impressionable age. Sometimes while getting older you occasionally get smacked in the face with the realization that you are no longer the target demographic audience for things that everyone else seems to love. I went in fully expecting to enjoy it, so don't think that I'm just being some contrarian troll who wants to down vote something so well liked.
But I do see that we felt the same way about Beasts of no Nation, so there's that. I don't know if I ever recovered from it. It was the single most soul crushing piece of media that I've ever watched. I think Grave of the Fireflies comes in somewhere on that list, for an anime comparison, but Beasts left me absolutely gutted and changed my entire outlook on life. It's pretty rare to find someone who has even heard of it, so it's cool to know that I'm not the only person in the world that was deeply affected by it.
- Yeah, I looked through a couple on your tab, I'll check out the few you mentioned. Say, you ever gotten hate for a review? Dumbass question, I know, but I remember having a mate who got absolutely hounded on everytime he wrote a bad review. Hah. I know "touch grass" aint the best comeback anymore, but god if it ain't real. I get pissy too but some of yall on here are actually five years old - get off forum games and get laid, it might fix ya.
The Descent ain't too bad. Watched it wayy back though, haha. Unfortunately my taste in movies isn't much better from anime, all I watch is plain bootleg splatter and slashers with ketchup blood and hot chicks ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯ Now, a movie's never scared me, but you know what did? Good 'ol creepypastas. And by creepypasta I mean Jeff the Killer and Jeff the Killer alone. Holy fucking shit I didn't sleep for a week as a kid then passed out at school just to wake up in a hospital bed pissing myself. I was **so** scared of that fucking thing ruined ages 7-8 for me. Same time I tried to explain to everyone what Slenderman was and just ended up with my teacher having to get an autism test.......it came back negative.
Anyway, keep it up mate ;-) always look forward to your reviews. xx
You seem like a cool person. I admire the way you write for your own pleasure, whether or not you post it publicly. It's too easy to burn through media these days without it leaving much of an impression. I am guilty of forgetting characters, even huge chunks of plot, across movies, anime, and games. I like your idea of writing to better etch the memory of a show into your mind. Do you find that it's working?