[Ledgem]

I joined this forum when I was around 16 years old and near the end of high school, and I was into anime a few years before that. Back then, anime meant a lot to me: it was a source of inspiration, a nice escape from reality, and something that I generally really got into. I watched virtually every single series listed on AnimeSuki, no matter how generic and crummy, and always felt that I got something out of it. I lived and breathed the anime culture. It was my thing. Whenever I considered myself in the future, anime was a part of it: I'd decorate my house with wall scrolls and posters, and I'd still be watching series.

Now I'm 25. I've gone through college and graduate school (science!), dated and got married. While my "anime activity" peaked in college (I was a fansubber), on the whole anime meant less and less to me. I watched fewer shows, and for those shows that I did watch, I began to wait until I had a few episodes accumulated before watching. I was no longer hanging on to each show from week to week as I once did. By the end of college I was watching one or two series; by graduate school, I had stopped watching anime entirely.

Recently I felt nostalgic for anime and the culture that once played so heavily into my life. I've come back here and am trying to watch series again, but it's difficult. The plots, and artwork of the newer series largely feel generic and uninteresting. The science and fantasy worlds that I once thought were inspirational now seem ridiculous. The characters that I once found entertaining, inspirational, cool, and interesting now seem deeply flawed, as if they all need a healthy dose of psychiatric treatment.

I'm left wondering if this is what it's like to outgrow anime. Is it something that happens as you age and experience different things, or is it something that arises from being away from anime for too long?

I'm putting this out there because I'm interested in hearing others' thoughts on it (although I suppose that those who have truly outgrown anime won't be hanging around here to discuss it). Even if you're a young'un (or an old'un) who is heavily into anime, your thoughts are valuable to me, too.

What anime means to you; how its meaning has changed as you aged; what you think it will mean to you many years from now... I'm interested in all of it. Through your own thoughts and experiences, perhaps I'll be able to better make sense of my own, and where I'm headed.