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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