#why are anime fandoms so freakin' chill compared to american cartoon fandoms?

[littleapocalypsekitten]

I think I know who you are talking about, since we shared a fandom once.  If it is the fandom I am thinking about, my hindsight after the fandom has died down a great deal is this:  Most of the fans were crap.  They talked a big game about their personal compassion because of the characters they related to or because of some of the social themes / progressiveness, but kind of forgot that just because you’re a progressive and like progressive things, it doesn’t mean that you are kind, or even just because you might share a condition with a character doesn’t mean that you’re going to understand OTHER real people with that and similar conditions.  It also doesn’t mean that you aren’t going to fight about your ship-preferences and character-preferences to the point of absolute insanity. 

It was the worst fandom I have ever been in.  It literally lead me to a stay in psychatric at one point.  (Losing friends and having a gang-up on me over some misunderstandings).    I’m still in it, though, have a sideblog and still do fic and art because I am  A STUBBORN CUSS and respond to things with “I’m not letting the bastards win.”  But, yeah...the...culture...surrounding that particular fandom left much to be desired.   I guess I’m calming down and being reminded of how great other fandoms can be by getting hyperfixated on an old anime obsession again because said anime has a reboot and the reboot is awesome, and people who are new to the series from the reboot are backtracking and discovering the old old original series and the manga and... it’s like... chill there? SO CHILL.  My anime-obsession is a PG13 to HARD Mature series, depending on which part of the franchise you are looking at, so maybe some of the more adult fanbase makes it more chill.  

Now, this anime fandom is... WEIRD in terms of fanfiction and some of the fanart.  I mean... I look for good genfics to read or some nice emotional character-interaction stuff, and I get that, but I get it buried under some of the weirdest erotica and AU tags I’ve ever seen.  (Protip: Branch off to write original fiction if that’s what you’re writing and just slapping a coat of fandom-paint on it).  Buuuut... for the most part.... unlike the fandom mention above, we all seem to get along and be chill there?  Or at least avoid each other if we aren’t chill with each other’s likes? (Okay, so I’m not active on the discords, so I don’t know how that goes, I only know how the tumblr and Ao3 fandom-branches are going on now), but there is a live and let live mentality on people’s preferences that just doesn’t seem to exist in American cartoon fandoms.   And it just accentuates how crazy and awful the other fandom was.  No one, and I mean no one that I’ve seen, harasses each other or accuses each other of bad attitudes or bigotries in real life because they have opinions on the characters in this anime series!  It’s amazing!  (And I’m talking about a series that does a deep dive into philosophy and ethics, no less). 

I once got someone accusing me of wanting a character I related to who was the target of mean spirited humor and complained about this as wanting them to have a bigger role over POC characters

But honestly I’m not really interested in seeing characters like me in more prominent roles

I’m equally if maybe more interested in characters that offer different perspectives than my own

I do get excited however when a hero has a similar sense of morality to my own while not portrayed as naive or childish for it.