Fuckin' [adult swim]/Anime (breathe and stop)

...The people at Adult Swim can thank themselves for my fucked-up persona more than anyone else. Sleepless nights of Wolf's Rain, Cowboy Bebop and Inuyasha have morphed me into a permanent insomniac during the summer, and God knows what those in-between bumps did to my brain. Above all the things that matter in my mini-verse...the progressive "hip-ness" of the shiny, new Adult Swim signified that shit was changing, for the better or worse and whether I liked it or not.

In place of the classic line-up of Outlaw Star, Trigun and Case Closed...in moved in Xavier: The Renegade Angel, Saul of the Molemen, and Lucy, the Daughter of the Devil. And what seemed a mere millisecond later, Samurai Champloo and Wolf's Rain were replaced by Tom Goes to the Mayor and fuckin' Assy McGee.

Wolf's Rain lost out to THIS.


You ever walk out of the cafeteria line in elementary, middle or high school and feel as if there is nowhere for you to sit or be welcomed? Yeah, well. Adult Swim made me feel just like that. It was the end of an era.

I loved that late night program with a passion. Since I was virtually a loser inside and outside of school, that notorious black screen with the white words which read 'This program is specifically designed to be viewed by adults and therefore may be unsuitable for children under 17' kind of was a homie in my eyes.
That was probably half the reason kids thought I was weird. My dialogue was half-anime and half-effed-up shows that even adults find crude and indecent.

"The new Christina Aguilera CD came out and OMIGOSH, 'Dirrty' is the best track ever—"
"FUCK that bitch; why are we talking about this—anyone see the new uhh, Venture Bros.?"
"..."
"Anyone?"

It went on like this until around sophomore year, when in Gamer's Club there became a battle for the ages: hardcore gamers vs. semi-sane anime fans who didn't give a damn about video games and kept the TV loud as could be. To their credit I have a few friends that liked to have volume control, but for the most part those kids killed the importance of anime to me. And at that point I didn't so much care about Naruto or Faeries' Landing or Rurouni Kenshin, or any anime I had ever seen. For a long time I was done with all of it, even Adult Swim because they were pissing me off too.

It took a lesser-known director, Isao Takahata, to revive my interest in both of those again. Sensei didn't know what else to do with us one class and put on Grave of the Fireflies: one movie fangirls could never ruin for me due to its melancholy nature. And I slowly came around to the idea that anime hadn't changed, but I was under the illusion that it had with my insecurity of seeming un-cool and jaded outlook overall. The same with Adult Swim. True, most high-school girls had interests far away from a late-night program primarily geared toward dudes and hardcore otakus, but it made me happy in its previous years.

And I made some friends because of both—valuable ones that I needed to feel no uncertainty or fear of embarrassment around.

So now here I am, typing away on a computer when I could be outside celebrating the 4th of July and doing my mini-documentary on diversity. Thanks, Adult Swim. You've moved on, and six years later I still won't forgive you for fucking up my shit. Just joking. A little.

[nas]