Realization

In middle school, I began to take an interest in comic books. It only made sense, to me. I had grown up watching the cartoons based on the comics -- Batman: The Animated Series, Spider-Man, X-Men: The Animated Series, Batman Beyond, and X-Men: Evolution. In fact, by that point in time, X-Men: Evolution was at the height of it's popularity and my brother and I watched it every day after school. The problem was, I didn't know where to go to actually get comic books.
There was no comic book store in my hometown. At least, not by that point. The one that had been opened there closed down due to lack of business once people realized they could buy their kids' Pokemon cards at Walmart. The nearest Barnes & Noble was two towns away and my local library had an extremely small, condensed collection of graphic, which I avoided due to the T and T+ ratings. Yes, I really was that much of a goody two shoes.
So one day, my brother came home from school with this magazine type thing. It was called Shonen Jump and it was filled with comic-type drawings and stories. But I couldn't figure out how to read the damn thing. I asked my brother, "What's with that book you got at the book fair?"
He didn't know, either. He said he'd just bought it because it had Goku from DBZ on the front cover. At that age, I had already knew what anime was. Barely. A close friend I went to school with who, like me, was obsessed with Digimon had explained what it was and why all the cool Digimon and Pokemon toys only seemed to exist in Japan. I had never seen it in this format, though. The idea of it blew my freaking mind.
After examining the book more closely with my brother and some of his friends, I discovered that this book was actually what was known as manga -- a Japanese comic book. This one was for teenage and pre-teen boys. The reason we couldn't read it was because in Japan, they didn't read the same way we did. They read from right to left. Go figure.
Even the manga my brother had brought home was for teenage boys, I quickly asked him if I could read it -- he wasn't even old enough, anyway -- and tore through it. I skipped through the series I didn't like after a quick read of the first couple pages and read the ones I did like. The ones I had seen on Toonami like YuYu Hakusho or DBZ. I asked my mom if we could start having Shonen Jump sent to our house for my brother and I to read, and she said yes. The subscription was put in my name since I seemed to like it more, but usually whoever got home the fastest was the one to read it first. That was usually me since most of life revolved around re-reading Harry Potter and debating X-Men with my friends, who lived around the corner or next door.
After I found out about Shonen Jump, though, I realized I wanted to read different types of manga. Maybe something with more drama or romance. So I went to the library and began to search. And by that I mean, I took my copy of Shonen Jump to the library and asked the librarian, "Do you have anything like this -- it's called magma?"
If you think that's bad, I was 12 and my mom still can't pronounce it.
Anyway, the library did have some manga in the childrens' section, which my friends and I immediately requested be moved due to the T or T+ ratings that had been placed upon it. Most of it was moved, but for some reason, the librarians just did not seem to agree that Dragon Ball Z was inappropriate for small children. So Goku ripped a guy's head off -- look at the veins and the blood! Kids won't know what that is. They'll think it's awesome.
Either way, though, I had discovered shoujo manga.
The complete world of anime and manga was at my fingertips. I could read anything or watch anything. If I wanted action, I'd go for something Naruto or Yu-Gi-Oh! If I wanted something girlier, I would go for something like Cardcaptor Sakura or Sailor Moon. If I wanted something in the middle, I would go for Rurouni Kenshin, which to this day is my all-time favorite manga.
More importantly than that, I felt like I could pick up a volume of manga, read it for hours, and all of my problems would disappear. I felt like as long as I was wrapped up in my world of ninjutsu and Japanese magic, nothing could hurt me. Not the kids at school or my family or anything.
I even forgot about comic books for a while.

Today, I no longer feel the same way about manga or anime. It's not because anime and manga is bad. It's because I grew up and my standards are higher than they used to be.
I'm tired of reading about the same stereotypical characters that, somehow, seem to fit into every genre of manga because those are the stereotypes the manga-ka all conformed to. While it could be argued that even though I don't like, those stereotypes do work, I would like to argue that that may not be. The rise of anime and manga has finally ended. It's no longer as popular as it used to be. Last month, I walked into an F.Y.E.  at the mall and all the anime -- even the awesome, classic series like Death Note -- had been marked down to half-price. The anime and manga-related merchandise was gone. It had all been replaced by Marvel paraphernalia, Hunger Games backpacks, and Bat-signals. Why do you think that is?
The answer is simple: In the 1990s, there was a phenomenon known as Japanophilia that began with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Nintendo, the introduction of the pop culture classic Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, etc. and it inevitably led to an increased interest in other things from Japan -- IE anime and manga. The children of that generation, however, have grown up and I think a lot of them are facing the same struggles as I am when it comes to anime and manga.
I still read manga and watch anime. The problem is finding a series I actually like. That is a series where the Goku-esque character is not the central focus of the series or a love-triangle or harem never comes into play romantically. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely series like that out there and I've found a few of them. The problem is, even if I think the story is those series is better than all the stuff portrayed in the mainstream manga that doesn't mean it's popular. And if it's not popular, then the odds of it coming to America are less and if it's probably never coming to America, then the odds of the scanlators continuing to post it online are significantly less.
There's not much out there for readers like me, it seems and the otaku fandom, I think, is suffering.

I'm not, though.
As much as I love anime and manga, I've come to terms with the fact that I'm just not as enthusiastic about it as the rest of otaku fandom. Hell, I don't even consider myself an otaku.
I realized a long time ago that I prefer comic books to manga and I'm okay with that. I find they meet my high literary standards better than manga does, even if it means exploring parts of the Marvel multiverse I never thought to explore before. It's just part of who I am.
And that's what the point of this post is. It's about growing up as a nerd and realizing that just because you don't love something as much as you used to, you're not a bad person or a bad nerd or a bad otaku or whatever.
Like what you like. Love what you love and try to realize that just because as a nerd, you feel the need to conform to certain standards and fit into a certain fandom, you don't have to.
I'm sorry if this post comes off as corny, but I started this new section of my blog, so I could write about life as a nerd and as a nerd girl and this is part of that life.