🎭 Anime is normal lunch talk now, it wasn't a few years ago

Last week at lunch 3 people at my table were arguing about an anime. Out loud, in the office canteen. A few years ago nobody would have said that near other colleagues without getting a look. My cousin's kid turned up at a family dinner in a shirt from a series, and nobody blinked. I stood there holding my tray, thinking, when exactly did this happen to us? I got into it late. A friend pushed 1 series on me during a boring stretch 2 years back. I expected something for kids and nearly said no. I'm glad I didn't. By the fourth episode I was hooked. The story was serious and the artwork was lovely. I hadn't expected to care about a drawn character, and then I was properly upset. My parents are still confused. They think it's all cartoons for little ones. When I tried to explain that the stories get dark and grown up, my father said, but they're drawings. I gave up. Now I just say I'm watching a series and leave it there. My mother asked if it's the same as Tom and Jerry. I said sort of and left the room. I think streaming helped a lot, because it's all just there now with subtitles. It used to take effort to find anything. You needed a friend with a hard drive. Now it's 1 tap on the television, and that alone makes a lot more people curious. What got you into it, and did people around you react differently over the years?

In school I used to hunt for episodes on a friend's pen drive, with the subtitles all messed up. Now there's a neat list on any phone or television in the house. I think that's the real change. People got curious when it became easy to find. Nobody needs a friend with a hard drive anymore, which is a little sad.

For me it was a coworker's laptop screensaver. I kept asking what it was from. Finally I watched the series on a weekend just to get an answer, and no regrets. I get why your parents are lost. I'd have said the same thing a few years back. My father still asks if it's the one with the talking animals.