We will stop watching anime, when we stop dreaming?

[Dr. Casey]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

I'll stop consuming any form of entertainment media when it ceases to entertain me. Anime is not immune--in fact, I've barely watched any new anime within the past year. If I'm watching something, it's typically an older series.

You should watch yourself some Shinsekai Yori. I have a hard time imagining you won't like it, it's a wonderful series with a very gripping storyline. You also might appreciate the fact that homosexual relationships, both boy-boy and girl-girl, are depicted in a very straightforward and tasteful fashion without the slightest implication that there's anything wrong with such relationships (I get aggravated with the way that gay people in anime are so often creepy or outright psychotic).

As for the topic, I think my anime viewing habits will be influenced more by amount of free time than any sort of changes to my mindset or personality. I doubt I'll watch anime as much whenever I'm a husband or a father than I do today as a single guy, but I also doubt that I will distance myself from anime as a result of changing as a person. I hope to mature with time and become a better person over the years, but at the age of 25 I think that certain basic things such as my personal tastes and overall worldview aren't going to change much (ie my personal views on friendship, family, loyalty, the fundamental nature of life, and things like that aren't growing to budge much save some huge catastrophe).

[GabrieliosP]

Recently I haven't watched many anime, mainly because I only want to watch the ones who really get my attention regarding their plots. In fact, I started watching them because when I was small I needed something to watch that had a plot, not just random episodes without connection to each other (mind you, there were western cartoons like that when I was small, and I'm not saying that the ones about random episodes without connection to each other are bad, but I needed something that I could say "Now, that's a story in the truest sense").

It helps that japanese animation in its majority tends to draw humans more realistically then western animation (of course this is changing and even back then there were western cartoons with more realistic animation, but I'm generalizing things). I can't explain the feeling, but watching (good) anime leaves me in such an awe that most things can't.

Even if some people mock me from it, I'll never stop loving anime (at least I hope I won't. I seriously don't want this to be another "thing I was interested when I was younger and I don't care anymore"). It can bring any kind of emotion from me, from joy to hate and even sadness. I admit that I cried more than once when watching anime, and people like my father mock me from it because "it is animated, therefore childish and for kids, so you should be ashamed that it made you feel anything but a distraction to pass the time". And I answer with "How is it any different from crying when watching a sad movie or reading a book? There's no superior form of entertainment, no matter how much you try to fool yourself to believe).

And like some people from this thread, I love the feeling of nostalgia when re-watching things that I watched when I was younger. The song Brave Heart from Digimon Adventure sends chiver down my spine even to this day, and I'm not even a bit ashamed to admit it. Even if it is escapism, to feel myself like a child again when I didn't have any responsabilities and life was endlessly easier: screw the world, I wanna do things I like!

[Haikea]

Anime is a nice gateway to stream visions to people who are more sensitive to this method. While reality has its limits with current knowledge, brains can produce experiences beyond all that. That is probably one thing which inspire me to watch anime because it indeed have some methods which tickle my mind and produce good feeling. While in that state, I can absorb the content easier, if there is anything else than for example moe just for the sake of moe. Still, it is a nice digital drug, if nothing else.

[Akito Kinomoto]

I watch anime for its versatility and volume. There's always something to placate your tastes no matter how they change. Anime being one of the easier entertainment thingies to find helps a bit too.

I've stopped calling myself an anime fan a long time ago and now it's just something I watch out of habit. I don't like anime for its own sake more than I do like and dislike individual series. But to what I said before, even if my life outlook or tastes or turn-ons change, the amount of anime out there and the range of content I can find will satisfy me all the same.

Peace, Love, Abercrombie~

[risingstar3110]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

I feel very similarly to you, including the rest of what you wrote in your post. I suspect that there are a few reasons why anime evoked those feelings whereas other forms of entertainment didn't. The storytelling, the types of stories told, and the emphasis on certain aspects of life and humanity were big factors that made anime different, and that made it connect with us. If you're like me and strongly prefer subs to dubs, it probably helps that anime is in another language. It's a form of escapism, in a way, and having something outside of your native language aids in the escape from reality.

Again, I feel similarly. I can't tell you that you'll be able to return to the passions of your youth, though. When we're younger we don't know as much in general, and so everything seems simpler and limitless. As you know more you come to understand the limits. Granted, some of the limits are artificial (we perceive them to be there but they're not), but many are not. You lose some of your enthusiasm with that knowledge.

It exactly what i feel/fear.

But instead of pure escapism, i remember how anime was such great inspiration for me from time to time. Maybe it was the naivety that helps me to think less and believe more.

The point about Japanese is interesting through. As while i do appreciate the Japanese language more now (after learn a bit of it). However my view on Japan has getting much mroe realistic during that time. Maybe knowing more about the source of anime, making it less magical, and more unrealistic...

I don't know, still trying to figure it out

Originally Posted by MarkS00N

I guess I do understand your feeling...

About one or two years ago a can't feel attachment to anime I watch...
Maybe as a guilty pleasure where I can laugh and ridicule, but not the same way it attracted me back then...
So I decide to trace back, what I watch back then? What part of it that make me keep anime a special place in my 'heart'?
And once I find that it was a specific genre, the magic comes back and the rest is history, at least for me...

What can I say in the but for you to keep searching and exploring...
Then when you can't find what you want even if you already search the whole world, maybe the answer actually lies in first place your start it all...

Actually it is an interesting suggestion, because surely nowadays, the genre has been changing quite a bit. I really enjoy slice-of-life, but maybe (just maybe) it was fantasy genre which produced those moments for me. Can't say for sure now without a good fantasy anime to test it out