Well, I did hint on this post coming…

(The title of this post must’ve been looked misleading from AnimeNano :P )

So it should be about time I start chronicling my 5 day Japan-hopping escapade (or rather my cheap-ass journey to Animelo and back, with all the random places in between I chose to visit). Started on a Wednesday morning (last week of my summer vacation T.T) when I left campus armed with my backpack hastily packed the night before and a Seishun 18 ticket which basically allowed me free access to every JR station all over Japan for a 5 day period (Though they only offer it on specific periods, the current one ending next week).

Though my plan for the first day was to reach Nagoya and spend whatever was left of the day after a potentially loooong train ride (downside of the seishun 18 ticket is that I’m not allowed on any train that’s remotely high speed) But there was one stop ‘along the way’ that I knew I ‘had to’ drop by.

So after doing some research beforehand (i.e. I just stole directions from this blog, credit goes there :P ), I decided to take a ‘longer’ route to Nagoya (only later did I realize how much later it would ‘cost’ me, but not that I was in a rush anyways) by stopping at Kyoto, switching to the Nara line, and arriving at Kohata (木幡) station. Exit station, turn left and…

Seriously the place is just directly diagonally across the station

So there you have it, Kyoto Animation, home (or at least the workplace) to the minds that brought you big budgeted money milking franchises such as Haruhi, Lucky Star, and every non-TOEI Key adaptation you can think of (oh, and Munto). And, uh… that’s about it. Moving on, nothing to see here.

Okay, there’s a bit more to the story, which I probably wouldn’t have wanted to blab about had I not read saimaisama’s post about ‘regreting being an anime fan‘ later that day.

I really just expected to get to the place, snap a few pictures, and leave as inconspicuously as possible. Only there was already a bunch of people doing about the same thing I was intending to standing in front of the premises already. At first I wasn’t sure, but yea, it didn’t take too long for me to establish (visually) that they were fellow worshippers otaku brethren from the ‘genuine joy and excitement of just being there’ (at any rate, they seemed to be more keen KyoAni fans than I’ll ever want to be -_-”) And then my social ineptitude kicked in and I started feeling ridiculously awkward just to take the ‘one’ picture just because there was other people around and I didn’t want to be perceive as a generic tourist/otaku/in this instance both -_-”

Which was utterly ridiculous since I’ve spent most of my life in fandom so far really not caring about how I’m perceived as an anime fan at all… Till that moment. So I just took the picture, and hastily retreated back to the station… only there was 15 minutes to wait till the next train (Kohata being a small station)…

In the end, I realized that, heck, wherever I go/plan to go from that point onward, I’m going to look like a bloody camera toting tourist anyways, and I AM a bloody anime otaku (yea, get over the fact, I have) so there’s honestly no reason to pettily fret over well… nothing.

So I thick-facedly walked back (took 5 seconds), snapped even more pictures, even went as far as entering the front door… But I ducked out quickly and didn’t take any pictures there since it immediately leads into an office space where there was actual people actually working and ignoring my presence with a kind of “Oh, not another one” air (The sign outside said there was a ‘KyoAni Store‘ inside. All I saw was a small basket of art goods with price labels on them). And I realized that, way to go, I’m every bit the stereotypically scially unconscious being that otakus have been labelled with all this while! ORZ

As for the other guys hanging around, we didn’t pay each other much attention in the end (*phew*?), and at one point someone came out from the balcony of the studio building and said something to them (us?) that I didn’t hear because I had music purposely pumping loudly in my ears. All I know was that she had the face of someone trying to say something not so pleasant in the most pleasant way possible. I kinda took that as  a sign to leave…

Ah well, I wasn’t really contemplating about the merits/demerits of how much I wear my fandom on my sleeve at the moment, nor am I now. I just knew then that it was just the start of the next few days of thick-skinned endeavours…

(Regret being an anime fan? Pfft -If I did, I’d have just cancelled the trip and stayed home to study for my upcoming exams… Or watch more anime :P )