Chapter 3: Chapter 2: Anime Otaku

Dark, bleak and with so much blood, this was not the whimsical, fantasy adventure I was expecting to go on tonight but for some reason I continued on, only with my blanket and dim table light to accompany me. The character, while holding her dying friend, decides to press the self-destruct button as an attempt to stall the enemies and let her friends escape. The movie’s epilogue showed the characters, or characters that looked like them living happily thousands of years later, reincarnations perhaps. Much different from the stories I’m used to but they still carried the same tones, this raw emotional experience. Was this why I loved anime, this emotional depth to save me from the tedium of everyday bland highschool life.

“Uuuuuggghhhhhh!” A frustrated moan comes from Isabel as she plops down on her bed after finishing up the movie.

“HEY GO TO BED!” A loud yell comes from her bedroom door.

Isabel perks up to see her younger brother with a smirk on his face. She immediately responds by tossing a pillow in his direction, causing him to run off laughing.

“Brat!” She says out loud and immediately lays back down on her bed. Her mind drifts back to the anime and then she turns and looks out the window to the night sky. “Tomorrow, tomorrow will just be another day, right.” Her final thought slowly slips away as her eyelids get heavier and she slowly falls asleep.

***

Snowflakes fall from the sky at an exponential rate. What was once hundreds became thousands and thousands became millions, millions of flakes rapidly falling from the sky covering everything in sight. People, places and animals all froze in their place. The only thing that moved was a dark haired Witch dressed in black robes. She slowly raised her hands letting the snow fall on it, watching each and every flake that touched her melt instantly.

“How funny, I who once was considered alone because I was frozen, can now look down on you who are all together, united in your suffering.” The Witch Isabel says.

“No way!!!!” Isabel exclaims as she suddenly jolts out of her bed knocking her pillows and cover to the ground. “Uh..wait, what happened.” Turning to notice that she’s up an hour before her alarm goes off, she sighs knowing it’s pointless to try to get back to sleep. “Well, nothing I can do about it now, if I’m up I’m up.”

She goes through her morning routine to prepare for school with enough extra time to fit in a chapter of reading from the latest volume of manga she picked up. Unable to focus, she finishes up the chapter and places the manga into her backpack and begins her walk to school.

“What was that dream anyway?” She says to herself trying to shake off her lingering drowsiness. “It doesn’t matter, I guess, a dream is just a dream. Time to once again begin my standard school day.” She looks around taking in the typical sights. “The school buses arriving, the other students heading towards the entrance while horsing around and the blaring sound of JPop blasting from the speakers of an old, small, blue sedan.” Isabel immediately pauses, “...wait what was that last part!?”

The music was at a volume so high that it could clearly be heard throughout the front of the school where the students entered and parents dropped them off, causing quite the stir. Strange looks and mocking voices could be heard as the foreign music, unapologetically roared as loud as it could.

“Wait, I know this song, this is the singer who made the song at the end of “SpiritFox”. I love…” Isabel quickly stops herself from speaking out loud. The sheer display of deviating from the norm was being clearly met with annoyance from her peers and the last thing she really wanted to do was stand out.

“Hey!!!” someone shouted out from the car.

Isabel immediately shudders. “This is surely just someone yelling in a random direction right..ha ha ha…”

“Hey, you, the nerdy looking tan girl with the glasses!”

“W..w..what!? How is that a way to describe someone!” As she turns around in a huff, she suddenly loses the words she was going to say as she recognizes the person leaning out of the car. “You’re that guy from the bookstore, Anthony.”

Anthony hops out of his brother’s car and turns and waves goodbye. His long haired, sunglasses, thin brother, merely nods in response as he continues to vibe to his Jpop track and takes. As he drives off, Anthony turns his attention back to Isabel and greets her with a smile, “You know, you never did give me your name.”

“It’s Isabel and still, there’s no reason to refer to me in such a manner.”

“You’re right, you’re right. I should’ve been more specific, nerdy isn’t exactly the right word. Hmm” Anthony stops and crosses his arm in deep thought. Then as if arriving at some deep and profound idea, he unfolds his arms, suddenly points at her while winking and says, “It’s Otaku right!”

Flashing before her eyes were all the recent moments in her life that meant so much to her. Staying up to 3am creating a Meocities website as a Shrine to her favorite character. Working an entire summer and saving up money only to spend it all on a collection of volumes of manga from her favorite manga creator. Her anime related merch including her oversized plush she hugs every night.

“Ack!” The reality of how fitting the term is for her didn’t sit well.

“Don’t worry I’m an Otaku too!!” He yells out.

Noticing that all eyes are on them thanks to the earlier commotion, she does her best to take off and become out of sight.

“Hey wait up! What’s the rush? We still have time before first period.”

“You’re making a scene. They all think we’re crazy, well you and now me.” She briskly makes her way through the hallway with lockers as Anthony follows.

“Ah, who cares, they all wish they were like us!”

In response to Anthony’s comment she slightly frowns and says in a low tone, “Is there really any difference between people who want everyone to be like them and people who pretend everyone wants to be like them.”

“Huh?” Anthony barely hears her comment but can see that she is annoyed now, so decides to change the topic. “Oh, did you like that anime I lent you.”

Isabel suddenly comes to a stop almost causing Anthony to walk into her.

“Hm?” Anthony looks at her with a curious expression.

“I liked it. I liked it a lot. Like a lot of things in anime and manga, actions and events have a lot of weight to them. People cry, get inspired and change, it wasn’t an attempt to infuse a sense of duty or morals but a pure raw emotional story. They told it in their own way, with their own inspirations and style…more violent than what I’m used to but it was still good.”

“Right?! Good, huh? Plus did you see those battle scenes??” Anthony begins to spin around as if he has a sword in his hand, “The animation was amazing! I will avenge you!”

Isabel watches his antics for a bit and then continues to start walking toward her class again prompting Anthony to follow.

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With a big smile on his face Anthony, without delay still continues on as he matches his pace with hers, “It's nice though isn’t it, talking about a shared hobby with someone.”

Admittingly it was enjoyable to share the experience and what you’re passionate about. Not only that but different perspectives and opinions would allow me to grow and find more things I can appreciate or at least understand. Who knew I could find other people that enjoyed it so much, wasn’t everyone that I communicated with online thousands a miles away and they were more fake personas than actual people. Maybe meeting other people would be nice, it seemed like everytime anime did start to make an impression on the public the media would hammer it back down. I wish they had more important things to cover. Still, how would I meet other people?

“Hm, maybe a club or something.” Isabel continues her thought out loud.

“Club?! Anthony excitingly repeats.

“What?”

“That’s a great idea! You mean like the AV Club or something?”

“I was just thinking out loud, there is no way that’d work. Most people don’t even join clubs, it's like sports, theater, some minor clubs and that's it.”

“That’s perfect, that would mean that there are plenty of people to recruit. Besides, I can tell you would make a great leader. The way you think and how well you form your thoughts on things are great, you can bring a lot of people together.”

“Wait a minute.” Her eyes widen and a look of shock comes across her face at the thought of her being the leader but as if to punctuate Anthony's thought on the matter, the first bell goes off signaling that all students must be seated in class.

“Well time to head off.” He starts to ramble to himself, “Maybe we should call it the Otakus United or perhaps, School is hard so I decided to join an Anime club.” He laughs at his own joke and then turns around towards the still bewildered Isabel and waves to her, “Ja ne!”

“What did I get myself into? I’m not sure if I’m excited, terrified or indifferent.” Isabel takes a seat at her desk and looks around the room. “Honestly with the way things are, I’d rather not interact with a lot of different people. Despite how nice some people act, usually when they can get away with it they can be very mean spirited and rude. Lessons learned thanks to good ol’ internet” She sighs as she continues to think to herself, “Maybe I’m just being a bit too pessimistic, maybe this will be fun and I can get some people to join.”

“Hey, you see that loser outside blasting that strange music! Ha ha ha!” A student says to another student sitting next to him.

“Yeah.” The other student says with a more serious tone, “That guy is kind of creepy.”

Overhearing this, Isabel drops her head into her desk and sighs.

After class, Anthony joins up with Isabel.

“So we have to do what?” Anthony replies with impatience clearly showing in his tone and body language.

“Wasn’t this whole club thing your idea..”

“Actually it was yours.” Anthony mildly interrupts.

“...how can you not know the process? Listen if you want to be able to have our club announced and advertised within the school, we have to make it an official school approved club by filling out these forms and getting it approved by the administrators.”

Isabel looks over the papers one more time as they approach the circular office in the middle of the building where a bunch of administrators sat either talking amongst themselves, printing out schedules and or other documents.

“Excuse me, we’d like to register our club.” Isabel politely says as she hands over the paperwork.

The administrator starts reading over it, “A club to explore and discuss different cultural techniques, storytelling methods and artistic value of works originating from Japan.”

“Wow! That’s a fancy way to say “geek out” and watch Japanese cartoons! You really are good at this Isabel.” Anthony says.

In response, Isabel turns and glares at him. Realizing he may be giving the wrong impression or actual one to the administrator in charge of approving the club, he immediately quiets up and stands straight.

The Administrator continues, “The title of the club is the Anime Otaku Club? What’s this word, what does this mean?”

Anthony immediately responds, “Otaku is a Japanese term for a fan that obsesses over his hobby.”

“Hm, I’m not sure if you should keep that in the title. No one is going to know what that is and obsession isn’t good.” The Administrator says

Isabel replies back, “We can change it to just Anime Club if you like?”

“It’s ok,” The Administrator responds indifferently. “You can call yourself The Anime Otaku Club.” She reaches into her desk and pulls out a stamp and proceeds to approve the club.

Isabel smiles, “The club is official!”

Anthony jumps up and yells in excitement, “YATTA!!!”

Isabel can’t help but to laugh.

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