I am an otaku. I think most of us are.
When I was in junior high school, I had a good friend named Marcell Daye who had this pirated bootleg tape he had gotten from House of Video Games (now internationally known as House of Anime). On that tape was a copy of a laserdisc movie called Urotsukidoji.
Now, I have to comment that the tape was not bootlegged to avoid paying for the original work, but because of two reasons: 1) It was of a laserdisc. At that time it was not a dead technology like now, but it was an extremely expensive one that NO ONE really had. 2) Urotsukidoji was anime, and back then, we first otaku's couldn't get anime at Best Buy or Walmart like you guys can.
And true to that time, this tape wasn't dubbed. It wasn't even subtitled. Back then, amateur anime lovers would listen to these tapes and make our own subtitles to anime (which is why there were different versions of bootlegs with different interpretted translations). It was completely in Japanese...and it was the most intense video I had ever seen. To this day I don't know if I have had the same kind of feeling watching anything at my age.
I have watched anime grow in the past 20 years. I have seen it pique interest in Japanese gaming, which fueled the importing of Japanese games, and fueled the anime/manga to ports into games. I watched people hash out arguements over a game of Street Fighter II Champion Edition, and I've even seen people killed for taking it too far in arcades. I watched safe anime and Japanese shows like Sailor Moon and Power Rangers start showing up on American airwaves I watched people start getting immersed in anime. I watched specialty stores start popping up and the better anime beginning to be sold. Yes, America was embracing anime and gaming, and a lot of people have made money off of it...except the ones that should have the most.
I'm 33 years old now. I made and joined clubs dedicated to the love of anime/manga and Japanese culture. I had friends that lived together and ate, slept, and breathed fighting games; some of them did manage to make something out of their hobbies.
For the most part, I think the true promoters of the movies and games were left in the cold. We were dismissed when we first came to love these artforms. We were told we were wasting our time. We let people see our bootlegged tapes and spread the word. When the anime did become available here, we went out and bought it for ourselves and as gifts for friends to spread the love.
Now beautiful people that merely dabbled in the culture that we lived are on G4 hosting shows about our culture, when they were the ones calling us geeks, dweebs, and nerds. Do you really think Olivia Munn ever dated any REAL gamer or otaku? Do you really think she dates them now?
"Video Game Championships" are on Spike TV and G4 with people that are obviously not gamers, but are photogenic and pick up a controller or keyboard every now and then. We are being left behind, but this time, it is by the ones we lifted up into prosperity.
[as] is perhaps the only outlet for our talent and dedication, but it is only on late at night, and the anime is only on Saturday.
How many true otaku have jobs with Capcom, SNK, or Konami? How many of us work for Viz or Manga Video? They have people that went to school to learn what we know better than they could ever know. We know what sells. We know what a game should have in it. We know a good storyline, or how our favourite characters should be written. Sure, these "professionals" will pic our brains for free, but who gets the credit for it? ...yeah
I would like to see some of those people that had those first bootleg and modded out Mega Drives, and Saturns to start advancing in the places they helped make. I want to see the people that learned Japanese from unsubtitled anime to be able to start voice acting instead of the crappy people that have been doing it for the last 10-15 years. I want the true Street Fighters that realized that the random fireballs and hurricane kicks that came out of Ken and Ryu were not so random, and that YES, there WAS a method to the madness, start working at Capcom.
When will the fans get thier due?
