Recently, there has been false accusations that the wonderful P-Meister only posts on Hentai and Eroges. Perhaps it was true, hence I went into isolation to do some meditation. This led me to realise what kind of person I am. After a call from my mother, brother and old friends, I suddenly realised their importance has decreased so much that I have almost forgotten their existence.
This post might be quite long so do go get a drink.
The general concept of becoming distant away from others is also part of the definition of being an otaku. Is being an otaku bad then? Definitely not, but allowing an obsession to hurt others is definitely not in the book of the P-Meister. Lets start with a little example.
An example of selfishness displayed by the Sojourner
Imagine your brother who just broke his toy has none left to play. He’s crying and the only thing you can offer him is one of your Gundam models on your shelves. You’ve always known he liked the Akatsuki that you built and painted for 2 hours. The model’s old and is collecting dust.
P-Meister: Will you offer it to him?
Sojourner: Generosity is not based on obligations but out of free will.
P-Meister: So your Akatsuki is more important than 10 minutes of your brother’s happiness?
<5 minutes later>
Sojourner: I am not speechless, I’m just typing my stuff.
P-Meister: …
After I that, I started writing this post. I did a very very long post. Suddenly, it was deleted. He said oops… Inside the Sojourner hides a hideous ID Sojourner… who tends to take revenge for making him speechless. Oh well, as a forgiving person, I think I’ll forget about it.
So not giving a toy is selfishness? No. But caring about yourself more than others is selfish. Thats where the word self comes into play. As anime fans, we go around leaving impressions. We indirectly affect the number of anime fans there are out there. If we can put the lessons learnt in anime to good practice and show it in our own daily lives, I bet anime won’t be scrutinized as plain simple cartoon or violence causing programmes.
Anime hero-type characters would probably give their brother the golden figurine. If we are addicted however, our values for the people around us drop and anime value rises. There comes a point where anime values become higher than people. Everything however starts off with addiction.
The process of addiction, also the process to become an otaku!
Addiction undergoes many stages. Slowly and slowly, this anime we deemed as good and healthy for our learning starts to take over our lives. It may not have happened to you yet but it might anytime.
1) Experimentation
2) Habituation
3) Tolerance
4) Deterioration
5) Cessation
6) Relapse
The P-Meister will go thru these slowly.
Experimentation
The very first exposure! A beautiful wonderful anime leaves a deep impression in your minds. A common anime in this stage would be Naruto, Bleach, Slam Dunk and other anime with big names. There is always a longing for more. After which the person would enter the next stage, as he seeks for more anime. If he is lucky, he’ll find that there are even better anime out there!
Habituation
As anime becomes a part of his life, he realises that these are way more satisfying than ordinary cartoons. There are loads of things to pick up from these anime. This stage is considered healthy and will result in positive learning unless its eroge.
Tolerance
The more anime the person watch, the more he needs to satisfy himself. Crappy anime then start to piss him off. Covering more number of episodes of good anime tend to satisfy this craving. In order to further satisfy his needs, he starts anime blogs and finds more anime friends to talk to online. Figurines start to pile up in his room at a constant rate. Even sports he plays have correlation to the anime he watches, such as Slam Dunk and Eyeshield 21 in relation to basketball and rugby respectively. At this point, there is still nothing wrong, not till the person becomes a slave of anime.
Deterioration
After a while, things start to go wrong. At this point, the person becomes a victim of anime. He becomes broke from spending on anime merchandises. Also, as he ages, less of his real-life friends would be anime fans. He loses interests in everything except anime. The eyesight of the victim also becomes poorer and his soul is sucked. Watching episodes now becomes his main priority. There’s just so many animes out there and its impossible to cover all of them. Not being bothered by easter eggs and storyline complexity, the purpose of his life is only watching anime. This is the stage where he becomes a tard. The period he could stay here might be very long.
Cessation
One day, he loses interest as a light shine upon him from the heavens. None of his friends in real life really watches anime. Its not fun anymore. Maybe its time to watch some E-news and celebrity MVs.
Relapse
Thankfully, the addict always returns to his back habit and starts at point 1. There’s always hope he will return to healthy anime watching.
Considering you’re reading this blog, I assume you’re already at the tolerance stage. There is perfectly nothing wrong to this, but we should always remember that humans made anime. Lets not become slaves of anime.
OH MAN! WE ARE SINNERS, WHAT MUST WE DO!
Repent! Donate all your figurines to the Salvation Army.(did you know that BFA works with the salvation army? You can donate it to me us too!!)
Remember the scenes in particular shonen animes where the guy is all uber and sacrificing and gives out wonderful speech that makes your heart pump! Thats what I am talking about!! Remember the MORALS! Forget about yourself and be selfish. However, this is a little above the min reqs.
Min Reqs: Anyway, like i said before, hurting people because of obsession is not in the P-Meister’s book, so all you need to do is not to hurt people.
You know, despite the things I said about Sojourner, he still remains one of my greatest comrades. Why? Because humans err, so do I.
When this blog started, I was pretty obsessed with it and didn’t even know what date it was. As a result, I forgot my mum’s birthday. Med school was rather busy too. Luckily, I remembered 3 days later, after watching Clannad. Phew. She even called my phone on that very day and I didn’t remember. My brother was worse, he needed me to remind him to remember. I am in Scotland and my bro is in England, we see each other rarely (4 times a year?) and even less to our parents(prolly once a year).
Not Selfish
Although it is selfish to be insensitive to those around you, its actually not selfishness this phenomenon springs from. Its actually the love of anime. We love anime, but we can’t love them more than people. Anime is something that can be enjoyed alone, that doesn’t mean it must be enjoyed alone. Anime has never taught me to be an obsessed geek but teaches the opposite. ANIME’S VALUE MUST NEVER BE HIGHER THAN THE VALUE OF ANIME FANS! Normal people who don’t appreciate anime don’t matter but there is a chance they might become anime fans. We all wanna be the cool male protagonist, so whats stopping us? LETS BE COOL!
The Anime Everyone Should Enjoy
Ok, I’m serious about donation. Many times, we can offer our anime to friends. These are good ways to spread the culture. IMHO, a real life gundam-fan partner is WAY better than a dead Gundam Akatsuki. There are people around you who you can talk to about anime. Imagine giving a Gundam Akatsuki to a friend, wouldn’t that make him want to watch Gundam Seed for a change? Maybe drop in a few DVDs along with it as a birthday present, instead of a standard quick to get mug. Anime fans always have no time for others. I get a lot of complains that I do not know how to choose presents. I decided, as my flatmate is a Gundam Fan too, I would get him a HG 1/144 model for a start!! HOHOHO!
This is my resolution! I am changed!! Anyone need to give a gundam model too? I’m always here to receive! WAHAHAHA! Hentai and eroges are welcome! <—Highlight.
The Anime Pyramid
Like the food pyramid, I have also made a way to gauge what kind of anime we should watch in order to prevent brainlessness from entering our heads and become obsessed animetards.
I hope you like the anime I put as examples, there wasn’t enough space for everything.
Conclusion
Take your swords and spread the good word of anime by your actions!! Time to do what i always do after I blog. Hope you enjoyed this read.
After lesson questions
What about the P-Meister Eroges?
These are very dangerous materials that should be kept specially in my care. Should you see more of those, feel free to send it to me.
12 Comments
May 27, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Ah cool looking pyramid picture you have there!
I’ve experienced the “Tolerance” stage before and dropped many crappy anime, forcing myself in the process to watch more in the quest to satisfy myself. LOL guess otakus can be guilty of this. XD
May 27, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Damnit I forgot the drink …
May 27, 2008 at 11:37 pm
Hynavian –> tolerance is ok as long as you don’t reach the deterioration stage.
blissmo –> never neglect the great advice of the P-Meister.
May 28, 2008 at 12:02 am
I am a slave to anime. Help!
May 28, 2008 at 12:40 am
Holy. That was not the question that you had asked me. You asked me what would I do if a starving kid approaches me with a desire to have my Gundam model. My reply was to give the boy some money so he could fill his empty stomach up lol. Seriously that was the strangest kind of question you could have asked. You should have just dropped the ‘starving’ part. And what is with the ’10 mins of your brother’s happiness’? Is ‘My Brother’ gonna break it after 10 mins? >.<
But I seriously cannot fanthom why would you deem the reluctance to give away a precious Gundam model as an act of selfishness? Would it not be unfair for the ‘brother’ to play such a sympathy card to his own advantage? To be selfish is to act only for one’s own interest, hence that would suggest a lack of empathy or consideration for others. Do you not think that this ‘brother’ of mine is rather selfish to make such a request/demand since a Gundam model is made with sweat and effort?
Apart from that, I agree that the otaku culture can be propagated through good behaviour of otakus. But I do not think that is accomplished through ‘giving models’ or sharing anime. Your example reminded me of how you bribed people to join our online guild in Guild Wars with free items.
P.S I loled at ‘A beautiful wonderful anime leaves a deep impression in your minds. A common anime in this stage would be Naruto, Bleach, Slam Dunk and other anime with big names.’ and the fact that you classified Naruto as a Tarded anime in your pyramid.
DON’T YOU DARE EDIT YOUR POST AND COVER YOUR TRACKS. BECAUSE I WILL KNOW.
May 28, 2008 at 2:47 am
Shin–> burn in hell…
sojourner–> i bet you spend more money on your models than birthday presents on your brother. Counting each model being 50 bucks or so and the number you have. Also the number of books. Look at me! If i spend 100 on manga, i will spend 110 on mich.
Whenever people wanna read ur manga, you also watch them like a raven, making sure they don’t break the book’s spine even though you have finished it. Not like i can noticed any difference once you put them on the shelves! Whilst it may be good for collection’s sake, you may have tarded the growth of a potential future anime fan.
Sharing anime is definitely one of the best ways to spread the love. I gave my cousin some anime and she became a fan! Prolly watched more than 100 series by now. heh! Hurray evangelism! BOO Sojourner. It isn’t a bribe to share your anime with someone else, cuz you already watched it anyway.
For example I know some people such as I who like to keep a whole set of dragonball comics so they can see the long trail of the picture from book 1-42. In the long run, all it does it collect dust. It does bring pride when people look at it but i believe it serves better uses when donated to the orphanage or something.
As for the naruto part, naruto is tarded, but it isn’t all terrible. It just makes your brain degenerate at the later parts. A lot of anime fans were attracted to anime initially by the first few naruto episodes, when it was still good. It was poor development that made naruto bad. still, the first few episodes are enough to leave a deep impression in an anime fan, isn’t it? A lot of people started with naruto, but they didn’t end with naruto. Thats the difference.
sometimes, its really fun to argue with you.
May 28, 2008 at 9:29 am
@P-Meister
I think my notion of sharing is more passive than yours because I would surely loan my DVDs or manga to someone else if asked to but I will not approach another person and ask him whether he would like some ANIMU. It is just how we share our stuff. Wow your words kind of remind me of the countless of Christians who would ambush and accost me at the train stations in an attempt to bring to realise the greatness of the Lord Father. Not that it is wrong but it is not my cup of tea when it comes to sharing the love.
By the way, to ‘argue’ suggests that you replied to this comment with the intention of rebuking rather than to exchange insights.
Think of it this way, would it not be a generous act to loan my manga if I am so particular about the condition of its health. To actually take the risk of having it damaged because I am willing to loan to someone else, that should not be a display of selfishness. Not interested in praising myself but I would like to use it as an example. I assert that such a love for my belongings has no direct relationship with my generosity.
Oh and when you return to Singapore for the summer holidays, I am taking you to the Chinese Embassy. I be expecting the great and selfless P-Meister to donate some money to the Sichuan Earthquake Disaster Fund because I did. lol
May 28, 2008 at 9:59 am
Sojourner–> look at my ichigo 100% manga, i loaned it to the whole group like a prostitute, still the pages are intact and i’m happy with it. I don’t see anything wrong with its spine. to me, anime is more of a social activity rather than a hobby. Anime buddies are way better than little ol’ manga and figurines.
Anyway, i don’t think you should be bothered with christians ambushing you, perhaps you should tell them that you read and know about it thoroughly and decided it wasn’t for you. U think those christians like to approach others? they were told to do so. I won’t start a buddha vs jesus story here (though it would be fun to see what happens). So lets move to the next point.
We can love little dead things such as our manga set, but there’s no way these can be compared to the love of another fellow potential anime fan. By being over protective of ur manga, it shows your reluctance to share the love openly. Remember, when you die, you don’t get ur manga back, but at least u know u’ve read the manga before. Thats all i think that matters. Same as building and painting your akatsuki, at least you can remember that you shared it with someone before.
well, about the arguing part, I was hoping to create a couple arguing type of atmosphere, so u would gime buttsehx again. looks like it didn’t work. darn!
OO Chinese embassy, sorry, but i think i rather donate to yangon cyclone disaster. Jonathan’s my buddy after all… =) he donates to yangon, i donate to him. done…
May 28, 2008 at 10:05 am
@P-Meister
Whether your manga came back intact or not has nothing to do with the topic. There is just no relationship between treasuring your own belongings and being absolutely selfish. ARGH!
I can understand why would you think that having such attachments would create hindrance in one’s willingness to share but you have to understand that it does not equate completely to not wanting to share with others. There are people who have greater emotional investment in their collections than you do and you have to have the empathy to understand that. It is simply their choice to do so. This post should have advocated on how your notion of sharing can help ‘spread the love’ and should have left out the accusation of people like ME being SELFISH because we LOVE our stuff too much to want to share it.
Sheesh. I donated to both and I am broke.
P.S Have you found the Michelle Branch -Hotel Paper- CD that I had loaned to you 3 years ago?
May 28, 2008 at 10:54 am
LIES! oh well…
May 28, 2008 at 7:38 pm
I’m one heck of a selfish person. Like seriously. No one except me gets to touch my figurines, since I’m really paranoid of someone accidentally breaking them. Sometimes, one has to be selfish or suffer a loss.
May 29, 2008 at 12:59 am
double–> I understand… my cousin lost a sword on my akatsuki. WTF! #$#@#$! Lucky the sword was double bladed. What i normally do is i’ll charge it to my mother’s/her mother’s tab, if they refuse, i’ll announce it to the whole world.