Are you an Otaku?

Chances are, if you know what that means, you are one. And if you don't, well... let me attempt to enlighten you. *wink* I've been watching anime ever since I can remember. I suppose that comes partly from being half-Japanese. It kind of comes with the territory, if you know what I mean! I think my favorite anime are all from my youth: Uchuu Senkan Yamato (Space Battleship Yamato), Rupan Sansei (Rupan the Third), and of course the classics like Sazae-san and Doraemon. :-)

I suppose I have a pretty decent-sized collection of anime video tapes as well, including some OAVs. A few years ago I was buying them up like they were going out of style. It just frustrated me when I had a hard time finding subtitled anime, especially my now-favorite Studio Ghibli films. The companies who buy the license to release anime in the US (or elsewhere) are getting better about providing subtitled and dubbed tapes, but still leave a lot to be desired. Enter the fan-subtitling. My savior.

I was a member of the anime club at my university, even translated a few episodes for them, but since then, I've admittedly been out of the anime scene. It was only recently that I started getting back into the world of anime, and boy does it feel good to be back! I found out about a nonprofit group called Elite Fansubs who subtitles anime for fans. And, serendipitously enough, they were looking for people to help translate.

I finished up my first episode the other day, and started working on the second one yesterday. Have you ever done translation? It's alot tougher than it may look. It's one thing to be able to speak a language, it's another entirely to try to express the same thought from one language in another. The work is tough, but I'm having alot of fun doing it. And I get to watch really cool, new anime that I probably never would have heard of otherwise!

Okay, I can hear my friends asking me now. I'm working on a series called Argent Soma. It's really quite good! I'd recommend going to Elite's website and downloading a couple of episodes to watch. I'm responsible for episodes 15 through 20, and the first one, I'm told, is due to be released in mid-May. Watch my episodes! *grin*

And for those of you who need it spelled out (seeing as how I've gotten more than one complaint on this), an otaku is just someone who is crazy about anime, lives and breathes anime, has been a fan for a long time. No, this isn't the dictionary definition of the term, but that's it in a nutshell. If you're an otaku, you know it. If you're not, well, what can I say? You're seriously missing out! :-p

So here I am, reunited with my long lost love. Ahh, anime. How did I manage without you for so long?