Anime MEETS STUPIDITY
What you are about to read is totally real. Its the story of how I tried to introduce Anime/Pokemon to my stupid friend, and how she rejected it. (Or how I failed miserably) Enjoy!
Meilin
---------------------------------------------------
Spring of '99
When you discover something good, its only natural to tell the world about it. Hence the appearance of soliciting and Jehovah's Witnesses. This is the story about me and my 'something good.' This is the story about the greatest thing I ever tried to do: make someone a better and smarter person (by giving them a good, much-needed dose of Anime)
I was very, VERY recently submerged in the fantastic world of Anime. Fox had this little show on called "Pokemon," and I had become a religious watcher of this seemingly harmless cartoon. When you don't have cable, there are few options: Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Pepper Ann, or those ha-ha funny sitcoms on NBC. So, Pokemon it was. Otherwise, total abstinence from television would have been preferable, when taking in mind my choices were limited. Lack of better things to watch. That's how I started watching Pokemon.
In a few weeks, Pokemon had me hooked. There was no denying it. I saw it every day, ran home to the comfort of the television, and popped in a tape to record it. (Needless to say, I have like like 15 tapes lying around at home, all with one thing on it: Pokemon.) There was a need to tape it, which I can't explain. But, those tapes saved my life during that boring summer, lemme tell you.
So...we've established I was a Pokemaniac. I don't know exactly when it happened, but it happened. For once, I was having fun in life. I found a purpose in it, which was to watch every Pokemon episode, learn the Pokerap, and learn every single version of the Team Rocket motto. (Later, when my Poke-madness got worse, it was to learn the words of all those japanese Team Rocket songs.) I learned the Pokerap. And I also learned the motto(s). Me and my friend (a Pokemaniac herself) would amaze everyone at the lunch table by talking nonstop about our favorite TV show. We were unstoppable...
Our talks at the lunch table went something like this:
"I learned the whole script from the episode "Ghost of Maidens Peak!"
"Oh REALLY? Me TOO!"
insert five minutes time of reciting script from said episode, delivered by yours truly, and friend
"Didn't Brock look so CUTE?"
"Yeah, but James was cuter..."
"Didn't you just love the part where Jessie saves James from the mean old ghost?"
"That was adorable!"
We could go on, and on, and on, and we DID. But...not all our friends were as happy as us. Particulary my 'best' friend (thats what she called herself, anyway. Not that she was.) She would rudely interrupt our conversations. It went EXACTLY like this:
"But I think Nurse Joy is better than Officer Jenny."
"Yes, of course, but I still think Brock deserves someone better--me!"
"Nooo......ME!"
She would choose this delicate moment to put in her two cents--
"Jigglypuff is sooooooo CUTE! I watch Pokymahn too, you know. And oh, Pikachu is funny!"
Then we would just look at her, and go on arguing about who was going to get Brock. We knew, of course, that the only CUTE things in Pokemon worth talking about were the guys. As for funny Pikachu, we wanted him dead. Funny is Team Rocket, not Pikachu. And then later, we would comment on her hideous pronunciation of "Pokemon". My stupid, mal-pronouncing friend was not happy about me ignoring her. At all. Lets call this friend....Sally. Sally did not understand why I watched a kiddie show. Sally was trying to get it, because she was my friend, but she didn't. Sally wanted me to stop talking about Pokemon.
Sally was just plain stupid. Not because she didn't like Pokemon. She was just stupid. Y'know, she was in the stupid kid classes, she couldn't spell my name right after 2 years of knowing me, and she would send me notes about how all the guys would stare at her because she was just so beautiful. (Her opinion, not mine. And certainly not the guys opinions.) So of course her stupidity prevented her from knowing that Pokemon was the point of no return for me. Pokemon was the start of my Anime addiction, which would eventually become more important to me than her idle chatter about how great her body was. So I just ignored her when she begged me to "stop talking about Pokymahn!!"
Sally grew increasingly frustrated as I became increasingly addicted to Pokemon. She tried to pull me out of the vortex, but that just made me sink in deeper. I wasn't trying to sever my friendship with her at all, but I was trying to make her see things my way. You see, I had recently discovered bishounen. Since she liked cute guys, I figured she would like bishounen. And so I showed her pictures of Brock, James, and Link (hey, Zelda was new at the time, and Link is cute) in hopes that she would understand my recent plight into the world of Pokemon and Anime. She did not. She admitted Link and Brock were cute "in a cartoony sort of way" but she dissed James.
James was my most prized bishounen. Everyone had to love James. So I just decided that maybe bishounen weren't for everyone. And started to think of more ways to get Sally into Pokemon.
My reasoning was that anyone could learn to like Pokemon. Sally was like a little kid in some ways. A stupid little kid. Plenty of stupid little kids (believe me!) love Pokemon. So there was no apparent reason she couldn't at least like it, if not become totally addicted to it. I became more determined. Sally was my friend, after all. Stupidity included. I wanted her to experience the joy of Pokemania. It would be good for her.
So I stopped talking about Pokemon around her. "no pressure" I decided. I planned to let her discover the wonders of Anime on her own. Surely she would.
No luck. Sally, unlike me, had cable. And she was much more interested in watching a cat undergo surgery on "Animal Planet," than the exciting adventures of Team Rocket.
"OK" I thought. "OK, maybe she needs a more direct approach."
I bicycled my way over to her house (because it was fairly near) with a tape of the best Pokemon episodes in hand. After inviting me in, Sally asked me what was on the tape.
"oh, just some episodes of Pokemon. I know you'd like them, and you mentioned you were bored."
"More Pokymahn? I told you to stooooooooop with those Pokymahns."
"Just promise me you'll watch them. It doesn't matter when. You'll thank me later."
"Ok, I'll watch them when I have time."
Now, let me take a moment to explain why I was putting up with someone stupid on a daily basis. Sally was my first friend at school. I came to this country in the middle of the year. Unless you're an idiot, you know what position that put me in. Virtually no one starts going to a new school in the middle of the year. I had 0 acquaintances, and -1 friends at first. A sad thing, indeed. I made a lot of friends, eventually, but for a few weeks I just had one: Sally.
Sally was extremely nice to me. Maybe its because most stupid people are very nice, but anyway. I was grateful. She was my friend when I was alone. So I was now returning the favor. I was trying to make her smarter and more interesting. Pokemon can do that to you. If it doesn't make you stupider, it makes you smarter. And Sally had reached the limit on stupid, or so I thought.
Back to the story. Weeks passed. I heard from my so-called friend on a daily basis. I would occasionally ask her "hey, did you see that tape I took to your house the other day?"
She would respond invariably: "No..."
Before I knew it, a month passed, the tape was still lying on her mess of a drawer, gathering dust. And I started to lose my patience. I gave up on Sally, at least for a time. I figured that eventually, she'd come around.
We went to different high schools. Our talks on the phone were mostly one-sided. She prattled on about her newest boyfriend. I made noises between every pause to let her know I was still alive. I would have talked, but reading fanfiction takes EFFORT, people. Besides, it was a lot more interesting than listening to her talk.
By then my Pokemania had calmed down somewhat. I still liked it, but was starting to pay more attention to other Anime. Like Ranma1/2, Utena, Tenchi Muyo, Sailor Moon... and playing Anime influenced games, when movies or manga weren't available. Anime is funny like that. Rarely does anyone ever stick to just one series. Its always part of a bigger picture. This just made me more obsessed, of course.
I had succesfully shown others the light (Pokemon and Anime) since I started going to high school. People knew me as the "Pikachu Girl," even though I declared how much I hated Pikachu, which goes to show how retarded some people are. I was the daily source for Pokemon manga and if anyone wanted to know anything about Pokemon, I was the one people turned to. This new acceptance of Pokemon filled me with confidence, and I set out once again to make an otaku out of Sally.
This time, I thought, it would be different. I would give her...CHOICES. I had bought many Anime tapes since then, most of them Ranma and Utena. Surely she would find...SOMETHING to like. What Sally wasn't aware of was of the wide array of possibilities Anime offered. There's something for everyone. Undoubtably, I would succeed.
I invited her over, along with another Pokemon-crazed friend. Well, there we were, watching MTV like most brain-dead people do when there is nothing else to do, when I realized it was Sailor Moon time! Not only Sailor Moon time, but Zoi time! So I gladly said goodbye to DMX and said hello to the Sailor Moon theme song.
Sally protested, of course. But we ignored her and went into full "Anime mode," which consists of I-am-deaf-to-all-but-the-TV behavior. Then, not knowing how to handle the situation, Sally did the unthinkable: she turned the TV off.
When we finally got her to stop turning to TV off, and quit her ridiculous and childish behavior, Sailor Moon was Over. Sally had done the unforgivable, which was come between me and Zoisite. I decided it was time for her to leave, and pronto. I never tried to introduce Anime to her again.
Well, Sally and I continued our so-called "friendship," but it was never really the same. She never grew out of her rejection of all cartoons, so I never bought up the issue of Anime.
One day, though, Sally came to spend the night at my house. It was all very last minute, so there was nothing to do. She had called me, complaining about how her friend had cancelled a sleepover or something. In desesperation for her to just shut up, I invited her to my place.
So she came, we ate, we talked, we ate, we slept, and we woke up. When we woke up we didn't feel like eating OR talking, so Sally suggested a movie.
"Do you have a movie, Mel? Like, something we could watch?"
"weeeell...I dont think we have anything that would interest you, but you can dig around and see what you find."
(at this point I was desperately trying to drown out the voice that said "Anime! watch Anime!")
Other than a bunch of Disney movies, and home videos, Sally found nothing. We did have a few movies, but none that she liked. For a girl who can watch a cat having surgery, she sure was picky.
Finally, we (or rather, she) found a dusty old movie box, hidden under "The Little Mermaid" and "George of the Jungle." The box read: "Benji" and showed a picture of a mangy old mutt.
She squealed with joy. "Ooooooh, we can watch THIS!"
I looked at the tattered old cover. The colors gave away the decade in which the movie was made: the 70's. I looked at Sally. I looked at the dog on the cover. I looked at Sally again. "Are you sure?"
"Yes! Lets watch this movie!" She shoved it rather violently into the VCR and hummed along with the opening song.
I watched in amazement. Not at the TV screen, which was showing the dog running around on the streets (sooo interesting,) but at Sally. She was staring up fixatedly at the television, a faint smile on her face, giving the movie her undivided attention.
If this could interest her...
"You know...we don't have to watch this. I have a lot of other movies. Some of them I bet you'd like."
"what? Oooh...not more Pokymahn!"
"it doesnt have to be. Just Anime in general."
"Anime? Who needs Anime if we can watch Benji?"
Who needs Anime if we can watch Benji? After practically a year of trying to make Sally open up her mind to something new, she comes up with this. I feel really sorry for her. She's missing out on something really good, and for no reason at all. But we should all take her words to heart:
Who needs Anime if we can watch Benji?"
Be careful. Don't end up like Sally.
_____________________________________________________
well, wasn't THAT interesting? I have no idea what got into me... this is all true, though. Sad, innit?
send comments my way @ KiryuuGirl@aol.com.
What you are about to read is totally real. Its the story of how I tried to introduce Anime/Pokemon to my stupid friend, and how she rejected it. (Or how I failed miserably) Enjoy!
Meilin
---------------------------------------------------
Spring of '99
When you discover something good, its only natural to tell the world about it. Hence the appearance of soliciting and Jehovah's Witnesses. This is the story about me and my 'something good.' This is the story about the greatest thing I ever tried to do: make someone a better and smarter person (by giving them a good, much-needed dose of Anime)
I was very, VERY recently submerged in the fantastic world of Anime. Fox had this little show on called "Pokemon," and I had become a religious watcher of this seemingly harmless cartoon. When you don't have cable, there are few options: Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Pepper Ann, or those ha-ha funny sitcoms on NBC. So, Pokemon it was. Otherwise, total abstinence from television would have been preferable, when taking in mind my choices were limited. Lack of better things to watch. That's how I started watching Pokemon.
In a few weeks, Pokemon had me hooked. There was no denying it. I saw it every day, ran home to the comfort of the television, and popped in a tape to record it. (Needless to say, I have like like 15 tapes lying around at home, all with one thing on it: Pokemon.) There was a need to tape it, which I can't explain. But, those tapes saved my life during that boring summer, lemme tell you.
So...we've established I was a Pokemaniac. I don't know exactly when it happened, but it happened. For once, I was having fun in life. I found a purpose in it, which was to watch every Pokemon episode, learn the Pokerap, and learn every single version of the Team Rocket motto. (Later, when my Poke-madness got worse, it was to learn the words of all those japanese Team Rocket songs.) I learned the Pokerap. And I also learned the motto(s). Me and my friend (a Pokemaniac herself) would amaze everyone at the lunch table by talking nonstop about our favorite TV show. We were unstoppable...
Our talks at the lunch table went something like this:
"I learned the whole script from the episode "Ghost of Maidens Peak!"
"Oh REALLY? Me TOO!"
insert five minutes time of reciting script from said episode, delivered by yours truly, and friend
"Didn't Brock look so CUTE?"
"Yeah, but James was cuter..."
"Didn't you just love the part where Jessie saves James from the mean old ghost?"
"That was adorable!"
We could go on, and on, and on, and we DID. But...not all our friends were as happy as us. Particulary my 'best' friend (thats what she called herself, anyway. Not that she was.) She would rudely interrupt our conversations. It went EXACTLY like this:
"But I think Nurse Joy is better than Officer Jenny."
"Yes, of course, but I still think Brock deserves someone better--me!"
"Nooo......ME!"
She would choose this delicate moment to put in her two cents--
"Jigglypuff is sooooooo CUTE! I watch Pokymahn too, you know. And oh, Pikachu is funny!"
Then we would just look at her, and go on arguing about who was going to get Brock. We knew, of course, that the only CUTE things in Pokemon worth talking about were the guys. As for funny Pikachu, we wanted him dead. Funny is Team Rocket, not Pikachu. And then later, we would comment on her hideous pronunciation of "Pokemon". My stupid, mal-pronouncing friend was not happy about me ignoring her. At all. Lets call this friend....Sally. Sally did not understand why I watched a kiddie show. Sally was trying to get it, because she was my friend, but she didn't. Sally wanted me to stop talking about Pokemon.
Sally was just plain stupid. Not because she didn't like Pokemon. She was just stupid. Y'know, she was in the stupid kid classes, she couldn't spell my name right after 2 years of knowing me, and she would send me notes about how all the guys would stare at her because she was just so beautiful. (Her opinion, not mine. And certainly not the guys opinions.) So of course her stupidity prevented her from knowing that Pokemon was the point of no return for me. Pokemon was the start of my Anime addiction, which would eventually become more important to me than her idle chatter about how great her body was. So I just ignored her when she begged me to "stop talking about Pokymahn!!"
Sally grew increasingly frustrated as I became increasingly addicted to Pokemon. She tried to pull me out of the vortex, but that just made me sink in deeper. I wasn't trying to sever my friendship with her at all, but I was trying to make her see things my way. You see, I had recently discovered bishounen. Since she liked cute guys, I figured she would like bishounen. And so I showed her pictures of Brock, James, and Link (hey, Zelda was new at the time, and Link is cute) in hopes that she would understand my recent plight into the world of Pokemon and Anime. She did not. She admitted Link and Brock were cute "in a cartoony sort of way" but she dissed James.
James was my most prized bishounen. Everyone had to love James. So I just decided that maybe bishounen weren't for everyone. And started to think of more ways to get Sally into Pokemon.
My reasoning was that anyone could learn to like Pokemon. Sally was like a little kid in some ways. A stupid little kid. Plenty of stupid little kids (believe me!) love Pokemon. So there was no apparent reason she couldn't at least like it, if not become totally addicted to it. I became more determined. Sally was my friend, after all. Stupidity included. I wanted her to experience the joy of Pokemania. It would be good for her.
So I stopped talking about Pokemon around her. "no pressure" I decided. I planned to let her discover the wonders of Anime on her own. Surely she would.
No luck. Sally, unlike me, had cable. And she was much more interested in watching a cat undergo surgery on "Animal Planet," than the exciting adventures of Team Rocket.
"OK" I thought. "OK, maybe she needs a more direct approach."
I bicycled my way over to her house (because it was fairly near) with a tape of the best Pokemon episodes in hand. After inviting me in, Sally asked me what was on the tape.
"oh, just some episodes of Pokemon. I know you'd like them, and you mentioned you were bored."
"More Pokymahn? I told you to stooooooooop with those Pokymahns."
"Just promise me you'll watch them. It doesn't matter when. You'll thank me later."
"Ok, I'll watch them when I have time."
Now, let me take a moment to explain why I was putting up with someone stupid on a daily basis. Sally was my first friend at school. I came to this country in the middle of the year. Unless you're an idiot, you know what position that put me in. Virtually no one starts going to a new school in the middle of the year. I had 0 acquaintances, and -1 friends at first. A sad thing, indeed. I made a lot of friends, eventually, but for a few weeks I just had one: Sally.
Sally was extremely nice to me. Maybe its because most stupid people are very nice, but anyway. I was grateful. She was my friend when I was alone. So I was now returning the favor. I was trying to make her smarter and more interesting. Pokemon can do that to you. If it doesn't make you stupider, it makes you smarter. And Sally had reached the limit on stupid, or so I thought.
Back to the story. Weeks passed. I heard from my so-called friend on a daily basis. I would occasionally ask her "hey, did you see that tape I took to your house the other day?"
She would respond invariably: "No..."
Before I knew it, a month passed, the tape was still lying on her mess of a drawer, gathering dust. And I started to lose my patience. I gave up on Sally, at least for a time. I figured that eventually, she'd come around.
We went to different high schools. Our talks on the phone were mostly one-sided. She prattled on about her newest boyfriend. I made noises between every pause to let her know I was still alive. I would have talked, but reading fanfiction takes EFFORT, people. Besides, it was a lot more interesting than listening to her talk.
By then my Pokemania had calmed down somewhat. I still liked it, but was starting to pay more attention to other Anime. Like Ranma1/2, Utena, Tenchi Muyo, Sailor Moon... and playing Anime influenced games, when movies or manga weren't available. Anime is funny like that. Rarely does anyone ever stick to just one series. Its always part of a bigger picture. This just made me more obsessed, of course.
I had succesfully shown others the light (Pokemon and Anime) since I started going to high school. People knew me as the "Pikachu Girl," even though I declared how much I hated Pikachu, which goes to show how retarded some people are. I was the daily source for Pokemon manga and if anyone wanted to know anything about Pokemon, I was the one people turned to. This new acceptance of Pokemon filled me with confidence, and I set out once again to make an otaku out of Sally.
This time, I thought, it would be different. I would give her...CHOICES. I had bought many Anime tapes since then, most of them Ranma and Utena. Surely she would find...SOMETHING to like. What Sally wasn't aware of was of the wide array of possibilities Anime offered. There's something for everyone. Undoubtably, I would succeed.
I invited her over, along with another Pokemon-crazed friend. Well, there we were, watching MTV like most brain-dead people do when there is nothing else to do, when I realized it was Sailor Moon time! Not only Sailor Moon time, but Zoi time! So I gladly said goodbye to DMX and said hello to the Sailor Moon theme song.
Sally protested, of course. But we ignored her and went into full "Anime mode," which consists of I-am-deaf-to-all-but-the-TV behavior. Then, not knowing how to handle the situation, Sally did the unthinkable: she turned the TV off.
When we finally got her to stop turning to TV off, and quit her ridiculous and childish behavior, Sailor Moon was Over. Sally had done the unforgivable, which was come between me and Zoisite. I decided it was time for her to leave, and pronto. I never tried to introduce Anime to her again.
Well, Sally and I continued our so-called "friendship," but it was never really the same. She never grew out of her rejection of all cartoons, so I never bought up the issue of Anime.
One day, though, Sally came to spend the night at my house. It was all very last minute, so there was nothing to do. She had called me, complaining about how her friend had cancelled a sleepover or something. In desesperation for her to just shut up, I invited her to my place.
So she came, we ate, we talked, we ate, we slept, and we woke up. When we woke up we didn't feel like eating OR talking, so Sally suggested a movie.
"Do you have a movie, Mel? Like, something we could watch?"
"weeeell...I dont think we have anything that would interest you, but you can dig around and see what you find."
(at this point I was desperately trying to drown out the voice that said "Anime! watch Anime!")
Other than a bunch of Disney movies, and home videos, Sally found nothing. We did have a few movies, but none that she liked. For a girl who can watch a cat having surgery, she sure was picky.
Finally, we (or rather, she) found a dusty old movie box, hidden under "The Little Mermaid" and "George of the Jungle." The box read: "Benji" and showed a picture of a mangy old mutt.
She squealed with joy. "Ooooooh, we can watch THIS!"
I looked at the tattered old cover. The colors gave away the decade in which the movie was made: the 70's. I looked at Sally. I looked at the dog on the cover. I looked at Sally again. "Are you sure?"
"Yes! Lets watch this movie!" She shoved it rather violently into the VCR and hummed along with the opening song.
I watched in amazement. Not at the TV screen, which was showing the dog running around on the streets (sooo interesting,) but at Sally. She was staring up fixatedly at the television, a faint smile on her face, giving the movie her undivided attention.
If this could interest her...
"You know...we don't have to watch this. I have a lot of other movies. Some of them I bet you'd like."
"what? Oooh...not more Pokymahn!"
"it doesnt have to be. Just Anime in general."
"Anime? Who needs Anime if we can watch Benji?"
Who needs Anime if we can watch Benji? After practically a year of trying to make Sally open up her mind to something new, she comes up with this. I feel really sorry for her. She's missing out on something really good, and for no reason at all. But we should all take her words to heart:
Who needs Anime if we can watch Benji?"
Be careful. Don't end up like Sally.
_____________________________________________________
well, wasn't THAT interesting? I have no idea what got into me... this is all true, though. Sad, innit?
send comments my way @ KiryuuGirl@aol.com.