京まふ - Kyoto International Manga Anime Fair 2013

On Friday my shoujo class met for the first time. It's an anime class, so I should have expected it to be full of hardcore anime fans. I already know that most exchange students here love anime. Still, as we all went around introducing ourselves, I became overwhelmed because there were so many otaku. Our teacher is a Japanese woman who also seems to be an otaku, though I doubt she would refer herself as such (it has a negative connotation in Japanese). We all introduced ourselves by stating our names and where we're from, and our teacher was also interested in what kind of Japanese pop culture we like. Video games, anime, manga, rock, and so on. Most people listed their favorite anime. I felt lost.

Let me tell you about myself. I am not an otaku. I never was. I never watch anime on my own time. I was never really into any anime fandom. I am familiar with anime and have heard of numerous popular series, but I most likely never watched them. Years ago, I read manga once in a while. I'm a big fan of Fruits Basket and Vampire Knight. When I did occupy myself with either anime or manga, it was almost always manga. But I've hardly read anything in the last couple of years.
When I was in high school I was an active member of the anime club for four years. I've seen the first few episodes of numerous anime. But I've only ever completed a few series. Because I was never really into anime. I've gone to an anime convention every year since 2008. I usually cosplay. Anime conventions are awesome. They're so much fun. Every time I go I wish I were familiar with more series, and I have made endless lists of anime I'd like to watch or manga I want to read. But I never get to it.
I'm not an anime fan. I used to read manga. I don't play video games. I don't watch dramas. I like some Japanese music (such as Koda Kumi and Schwarz Stein), but I don't listen to it often. Several years ago I fell in love with Japanese street fashion, mainly Lolita.
The fandoms I've been involved in are Avatar: The Last Airbender and K-Pop (specifically Big Bang and then TVXQ/DBSK/Tohoshinki and JYJ). I've never been totally in love with some pop culture thing from Japan for an extended period of time. (I do like Fruits Basket and Lolita fashion but they didn't take over my life)
At times I kind of wish I were an anime fan because it seems like a fun thing to be into, conventions are a blast, and I'd be thrilled seeing all the anime stuff here in Japan. But it's not my thing. My passion lies with Korean music.


Anyway, in each lecture class in the Asian Studies Program, there are a handful of Japanese students (around three). Most exchange students here know a hell of a lot more about anime than most Japanese people. So I was surprised when one of the Japanese students in the shoujo class introduced herself as an otaku and went on about how much anime she watches. She also mentioned an anime convention that is taking place in Kyoto this weekend. Which is how I ended up going there with some people yesterday to check it out.

It wasn't really like a convention... It was more of an exhibition. It was small.

...I'm getting really pissed off at technology. My Internet with this dumb proxy thing sucks, my camera doesn't work sometimes so that pictures I take are corrupted files, my computer sometimes doesn't recognize pictures on my camera so I can't upload them, Blogspot doesn't work half the time, and something is wrong with my email so I can look at my inbox but I can't do anything else. Why does nothing work!!!!!