MeowsePad

I don't blame you. She's a cutie.

Fair enough. I guess I was referring to when people talk about it internationally.

By popular demand, I am making an introduction thread. Hello, everybody! I am MeowsePad. I have been interested in forums for well over a decade, and I have decided to join this fair community. :3 I hope to get to know many of you very well.

Is there an anime character whom you'd marry if he/she were real? If so, who is it? I don't know that I've ever been enamored with an anime character enough to marry him/her, but I have heard several fans of anime claim that they would love to marry some anime characters. I just wondered if anybody here had felt that way about a character.

To my understanding, "shipping" anime is creating fictitious matches between anime characters based mainly on personal preference. Is that correct? Is anybody here involved in the shipping community? I have heard that the shipping community is notorious for having many people who are extremely aggressive and push their views on everyone. Is that true?

I think that semantics are somewhat important in this case. While "anime" is a Japanese word meaning "animation," I think that it's best not to refer to anime as cartoons because anime has distinct features (as well as in-depth plots) that are not present in cartoons from other cultures. Imagine Spongebob being considered an anime from the United States.

I feel that any show is best watched in the original language with subtitles rather than dubbing, and anime is no exception. While reading subtitles is sometimes less than optimal, I feel that some of the content and emotion can be lost in the process of dubbing.

I feel that the only problem with anime is the community. Like others have said, people think that if they watch anime, they know about Japanese culture. I think that many anime fans think that they'll be living in anime if they travel to Japan. Anime does about as well at representing Japanese culture as cartoons in the United States do at representing the culture of the U.S. Thus, you are getting just a tiny little snippet of the culture, not an in-depth lesson on it. People who are legitimately interested in Japanese culture are okay, but those who pretend to have a keen understanding of Japan based solely on watching anime are misguided.