Ugh, so I spent the last couple of days moping around in the evenings feeling crappy, thus no updating. Well, whatever; I can't be on top of things every day.
So I was thinking today about how much my taste in entertainment has changed dramatically between about the time I entered college (9 years ago!) to the present time. I used to be an avid gamer, but now you'd have to pay me to pick up the JRPGs that I once drooled over (honestly I don't have 60 hours to spend watching some spikey-haired hero angst about his village burning down or being made into a glorified science experiment or whatever the vogue storyline is nowadays). I don't watch much domestic TV anymore, either. Sometimes I'll catch online re-runs of really good stuff like "The Office," but other than that I rarely watch much beyond the Food Network and HGTV, which is more like background noise. This change has extended to my entertainment medium of choice, anime, as well. As in, I used to watch anything and everything animated in Japan and loved it for the simple reason that it was Japanese, but now I've become just as picky about anime as I would be about films or television if my entertainment interests had skewed more in that direction.
Looking back on some of the things that we watched and that I enjoyed early on in anime club, I can say without a doubt that there are plenty of things that I would definitely not enjoy a second time. Stuff like Fushigi Yuugi, which was funny at the time in a sort of "let's make the same jokes over and over again and not progress the story in any meaningful way" kind of way, or Jungle wa Itsumo Hare Nochi Guu which suffered from the same problem. I even have so much baggage about CLAMP's more recent stuff that watching X would be a chore for me. Yes, I am very picky and not shy about it, your point being?
Of course, there are some things that I saw years ago and still have a fondness for. I think I could watch Azumanga Daioh many times over and still enjoy it, because even though the characters fit very cleanly into your average slice-of-life character archetypes, there was something about them that really made the show fun, and sometimes even kind of heartwarming. Revolutionary Girl Utena grabbed me by the collar and smacked my brain around the first time I ever attended MAS, and it hasn't let go since. I could watch that show 50 times and probably still get something new from it. Haibane Renmei has also been a perennial favorite of mine. I want to stick my neck out and make a comment regarding the difference between "flash-in-the-pan" and "enduring quality," but I'm afraid of getting reamed-out by any overly-passionate fans rolling through.
What I will say is that all the series that have remained amongst my favorites have connected with me in some way. Whether it's because they portray an experience that I wish I had been through or because they touch on themes that ring true for me in my life, it's interesting how enduring certain series can be even when the audience grows up and moves on in so many other areas of their lives. Sometimes nostalgia isn't about looking back towards better times; it might be just about re-living fond memories in addition to creating new ones.
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