All the cool effects, honorifics, translator notes that explain references that you might miss as non-japanese viewer… Whoever put this much effort for free more than 10 years ago, thank you! It was so refreshing seeing this in the era of corporate sloppy subtitles!
My MAL profile says I joined the community in 2019 but I did watch a few shows before that. I did a little time travel to the 2000s when I only watched shows from those years and I honestly felt back then like I was in 2006. I couldn’t yet appreciate everything though. There were so many things I missed. When I go back now to watch some of those older shows I have this warm feeling of nostalgia. I dream about waking up to those days with all the appreciation and understanding I have now… But still I think I can’t say all the passion went away. Sure subs are terrible, but scanlations are awesome, sure there are a lot of trash shows but there are also shows like Frieren that are products of passion. Akihabara is still alive and well. Comiket also is as big as ever.
What I want to say is that I don’t think there’s no passion anymore, just that certain parts of industry become soulless husks of themselves.
Some of the people I follow have been complaining in the past as well about changes in Akihabara. Granted, they were complaining about electronic stores dying out there and not anime-related stuff, so I’m not sure how that translates. I think I also read or heard complaints about Comiket being just a big corporate event instead of the place where people go to sell their doujins. I remember something about winter Comiket now being the new main event for those non-corporate exhibitions.
You are right, the passion is not lost entirely, but looking at the fandom as a whole, I feel like it has become so large and commercialized that the passionate people are just small individual clusters in an ocean of indifferent people and ads. I base this only on my own views and how it feels to me, and I certainly have changed as well over the years.
You’re definitely right that so many things become too large and commercialized but I’d disagree that passionate people become insignificant drop in the ocean. I might be wrong since I always follow and interact with fans of the medium and try to distance myself from anyone that brings nothing but negativity but I feel like passion still has a very strong presence and it won’t fall this easily!
Akiba is constantly changing but it’s still a heart of otaku culture. If you ever have a chance to visit please do so. It’s a truly magical place for both electronics and anime.
Comiket story is funny because it was created to give the middle finger to corporations. Now that corporate came back crawling and started to feel too comfortable fans pushed back. We’ll see how it goes but if Comiket becomes what is swore to destroy then I guess a new challenger will appear.