Anime Fan Guilt: The Case of the Rabid Anti-Weeaboo

Something I've come across quite frequently in anime fandom nowadays is what I consider "anime fan guilt", wherein a fan of anime, so insecure over the fact that he is a fan of foreign cartoons, completely overcompensates by condemning Japanese things. It's an interesting phenomenon that at first I was unable to grasp, as I thought at first that it was legitimate criticism of the Japanese culture given by people who were otherwise fans of their animation, reasonable people who liked anime, but weren't into all things Japanese. However, I soon discovered that this wasn't the case. This "criticism" became more and more pronounced as I dove deeper into the anime fandom. It became, in short, a parody of itself. Now, I'm sure that we've all run into people who take their anime fandom a little too seriously. I mean, more than I do. Peppering their vocabulary with Japanese words and phrases, trying to learn Japanese through anime viewing only, extolling the virtue of the Japanese way of life without ever having so much as visited the country. I've been guilty of some of that in my early days of anime fandom. I just wanted to soak up as much Japanese culture as possible, but doing it just because I liked their cartoons was a little silly. You can even still find remnants of that in the way I talk to certain old acquantinces (especially in my comic strips, where "-chan" and "-kun" are still exchanged between me and another character). These people can be embarrassing to share the anime fandom with. However, what I've experience more often than those people are the ones who go so far into the other direction, you can't help but feel a little sad for them. They're so paranoid that their interest in Japanese animation might cause them to be accused of being a "weeaboo" ("Wapanese", a white person who pretends to/aspires to be Japanese), that they condemn everything else in Japan that isn't anime, and sometimes, anime itself as well. These people become "anti-fans". They're like the living dead. On the one hand, they're anime fans. On the other hand, they detest and decry Japan and Japanese culture at every turn, as to prevent their identification with the silly people I spoke about earlier. This makes them worse than them, in my opinion. These are the people who comment in threads about Grave of the Fireflies that "The Japanese deserved what they got in WWII!" as if feeling bad for two war orphans would somehow mean they were a traitor to America. The same people can't decide whether you're more of a weeaboo for collecting legal anime DVDs because it shows too much love for Japanese things to buy them or if you dislike English dubs you're a weeaboo for wanting to watch anime in the language it was intended. The same group of people in the latter group will then call you a weeaboo for not making DBZ the exception, because as we all know, DBZ is the exception, we all grew up with that dub, so we have to prefer it to the Japanese version, right? These people can't make up their minds. They're conducting a witch hunt. They're seeing "weeaboo" everywhere. They're like McCarthy. Well, all I have to say is, you've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir(s), at long last? Have you left no sense of decency? This is like the Evangelion hype backlash. It's now just as easy, if not easier, to find people who rabidly hate Evangelion for little reason than it is to find people who love it. Because people went overboard in trying to even out the consensus on it. The show has become this hotbed of polarizing opinions. The Evangelion reaction in today's anime fandom can be called a microcosm of anime fandom itself. Even the people who are fans of it are quick to have to defend it. Why feel so insecure? Nobody's forcing you to put up a Japanese flag. Nobody's asking you to join the JSDF. Nobody expects of you, a fan of Japanese animation, to defend the practices and way of life of the Japanese people. At the same time, stop going into message board threads and on blogs and insisting that the Japanese are some super crazy racist, sexist, imperealistic maniacs that you're glad the U.S. bombed in World War II. Are there aspects of Japan that are worth criticizing? Sure. But many of this "criticism" comes across like you're trying way too hard to seperate yourself from the fandom. It's like when people insist DBZ is the worst anime ever, because liking DBZ makes you look like an anime "newbie". Trust me, if DBZ or Pokemon are the worst anime you ever see, you're lucky. There's nothing wrong with liking Japanese culture in addition to anime. Myself, I enjoy certain aspects. I wouldn't travel to Japan, because I don't speak the language, I have no interest in the food, and I don't like travelling very far. But at the same time, I'm not railing against the Japanese because I feel insecure about liking their cartoons. I admit that I'm a twenty-seven year old man who watches cartoons. That's a little silly, maybe, certainly not something an adult is commonly known for. But I'm not struggling to find some justification for it. It's just what I'm into. I'm into a lot of things. So please, stop it. Stop this ridiculous crusade to out "weeaboos", accusing them of enjoying anime in Japanese "because GLORIOUS NIPPON". And remember, anime is Japanese, guys, if you're so anti-Japan, maybe you shouldn't watch it at all.