Came across these photos of a girl who took a cardboard cutout of Rin from Free! to prom and I have mad respect for her. Look at this beautiful girl! She could have taken anyone, but she wanted to show her nerdy side.
I would never have had the guts to do this.
I mean, the comments are pretty positive. But what if they weren’t?
A fujoshi, for the 5% of you reading this who are not fujoshi yourselves, literally means “rotten girl,” and is a self deprecating term for a girl who is not only an anime fan, but a fan with a preference for the boy’s love genre of romantic anime and manga.
I mean, that’s not all I watch. But I’m not watching Free! for the swimming.
So I like BL. A lot of girls do. Most of us are quiet about it. It’s bad enough that we have to constantly convince people that if we like anime that doesn’t mean we’re pedophiles, so I don’t get close enough to most people to have the “I find 2D men attractive” conversation.
I wasn’t very open about liking this kind of thing until I got married. I feel like now that I have a husband, nobody can say I’m some developmentally stunted cartoon freak. Even if I write tweets about buying doujinshi and wanting to see anime boys shirtless.
Most of the people reading this are anime fans who are like, “Yeah duh, of course anyone who gets emotionally invested in a show ends up having a crush on a few of the characters.” But have you tried talking to your normal friends about anime? It’s bad enough explaining the G-rated parts without getting into your crushes and ships and fanfiction.
Also this skirts into dangerously TMI territory. Nobody wants to know what you fangirl over, anyway! Except other fangirls. And those relationships with other fangirls take risk. You risk embarrassing yourself in order to achieve those rare “I ship that too” interactions. And so if you’re completely silent about it, like I was for years, you won’t be able to talk with anybody.
The title of this post is a little misleading because I’ve agonized over publishing this for a while. It’s one thing not to hide it; it’s another thing to declare it to the world.
But it’s certainly not as gutsy as bringing a cartoon Rin to prom.