THOUSAND OAKS, CA — To many, anime presents a casual escape from their mundane daily lives and an opportunity to forget about the world and enjoy pantyshots and sexualized servals. But to Christian Green, a local 24-year-old graduate student, it is quite the opposite. Despite being an avid fan of anime, Green suffers from an unwarranted fear that has lately prevented him from enjoying his hobby.
“To me, starting a new series or season is a really big deal”, Green tells Anime Maru. “Anime is a time-consuming hobby, so I want to make sure that I’m investing my free hours wisely. If I waste precious hours on a binge and feel nothing but regret afterwards, I think about the homework that I haven’t touched and feel like killing myself.”
This very premonition is what has caused Green to develop a paranoia when watching anime.
Green shows us his Crunchyroll queue. It is filled with over a hundred titles, with a majority still stuck at the first episode. He then explains how he judges a show as watch-worthy.
“One of the first things I look at is hype. If a show is unusually popular, then it must be liked by a lot of people, which is a big no-no since other people have absolute garbage taste. I had to learn that lesson again with Re:Zero, and was relieved I didn’t repeat that mistake with Yaoi on Ice – …did I say something wrong?”
“Visual quality is another big point to address. Obviously, if everyone tried as hard as Kyoto Animation this wouldn’t be a issue. I don’t care if so-and-so anime is supposed to be ‘good’. If it looks like shit then I refuse to defile my eyes with it”, continues Green while pointing to shows like Konosuba and RWBY.
“Lastly, I’m just really hard to please. I’m always looking for shows that are respectably unique. I’m tired of all the cringey ecchi, infurating harems, edgy seinen, retarded moeblobs, and the done-to-death ‘hero is stuck in alternate universe’ bullshit. I’m talking Monogatari levels of unique, even though that show had me asleep most of the time.”
Green insists, however, that he is not elitist.
Despite his efforts to find a suitable anime to watch, at the end of the day, Green realizes that he has wasted his time again and decides to play some Steam games instead.