INSIGHT Magazine April 2015 | Page 40

>>CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE SCHEDULE by Benjamin Nunnally T here was a time, not so long ago, when an anime addiction was a carefully kept secret. Sure, the concept wasn’t completely unfamiliar, with Pokemon becoming a trend and making parents more familiar with the concept of Japanese animation, but fanhood, especially as an adult, was seldom revealed, often shared with mini-hives of other otaku and on internet forums, occasionally swimming to the surface to grab a Dragon Ball DVD set from Best Buy’s tiny Anime section before disappearing back into the nether. There was only one place an anime fan in the late 90s and early 2000s could truly be at home: the convention scene — almost always a faraway haven, a packed car-ride to Huntsville or Atlanta for a chance to get rare merch, see cool costumes and meet other