Anime

here’s a suitably weird one

The content of the frame was already a bit unusual. However, the real icing on the weird cake in this frame is the subtitle. I don't know if I want to know why a girl is doing Lamaze breathing while looking at an enormous frog in front of her face. It is just one of those weird mysteries of life.

It is impressive that you can go through and document your collection like that. I have watched anime in different forms over enough years now that I could not even begin to put together a list of what I have or haven't watched. I don't keep any kind of list of shows/ratings on any of the index sites because each time I thought I should sit down and do it, it is just incredibly overwhelming to try to search through so many years of memories. I no longer have a lot of the discs/tapes I watched some stuff on because it was borrowed from others, disposed of during a move, etc. There are also series that I only ever saw on broadcast television and never actually owned any media for.

Being an anime fan these days is easier than it has ever been with things like simulcasts, official streaming licenses, digital distribution. No longer do you need to have a friend that is able to convince their parents to go across state lines to the only anime convention in the region only happening once each year, find a bootleg dvd or (gasp!) vhs of a show/movie you are interested in while at the con, and then have a sleepover to watch it together. You know...as a hypothetical example.

Writing this out it also strikes me how much things like box art used to matter. Before high speed internet and places to get high quality information about anime, I would often find myself looking at a whole store shelf full of series that I knew nothing about. So, it was often up to the box art to catch my eye in order for me to pick it up and maybe read the blurb on the back. Alternatively I relied a lot on word of mouth, either from friends or store employees, for series recommendations and went in pretty blind.