Two words: My uncle.

"So what's nre uncle?"
"O THIS MANGA THAT ETCTECETC"

Also Andrew my underclassman :D

I found Death Note out through my friend, and she found it out through her friend, who spends a large amount of time on manga forums. So, I guess that how that works?

Even then, I was a little late, because the English translation came out a few weeks after I "discovered" it.

Then the anime came, and everyone in their brother found out about it, making it feel less special. Bah.

I agree with you though, it feels great to be "active" while the series is in progress.

Actually, I'm like in the middle of Claymore. I found out though the anime, but the manga is still not done (me thinks there will be a whole new season sometime for the anime). I found that out just by browsing Veoh.

So I guess all you really need to be is lucky and browse a lot? I dunno, my friends are usually the ones who stumble upon the series that's not well known.

i think it is just luck.

i don't read manga at all, but i also consider the fandom of any given manga to be a fraction of the size it would be if the manga is made into an anime, so as long as i get in on the ground floor of the anime's release, i don't consider myself "late to the party." there are only a few VK comms right now, and the zero/yuuki comm is dead probably more because it's still EARLY in the fandom. i stumbled across VK entirely by chance: ponyboy was talking about manga series she was picking up, and VK was one of them. i noted how the art style reminded me of furuba, and determined that i would probably like an anime version of it, at which point she informed me that the first episode of the anime had aired in japan THAT DAY. when i got my hands on the fansub, i immediately liked it and have been rabidly obsessed with it ever since.

i also got into lucky star as soon as it aired in japan - my ex told me about it, though i don't know how he heard about it (we both watched haruhi and it was done by the same studio, so maybe that's how). we watched the first ep fansubbed as soon as it was out, and while he didn't like it, i was addicted and kept track of when new episodes aired so he could download fansubs for me.

i'm not part of the death note fandom, but i heard about it right around the time the manga was finishing up, simply because anyone on any anime forum ever was freaking out about the ending. i honestly thought they were talking about some kind of webcomic at first. XD the anime came around shortly after that, but i never felt compelled to check it out. it was a similar story with bleach, and while i started watching naruto as soon as it aired in japan, after 46 or so episodes of filler i got sick of that shit and gave up. i tried to come back to it later but it was the same DBZ bullshit so i gave up again. part of me is a little sad that i can't enjoy what would otherwise be a pretty good anime simply because they take so fucking long to tell a story or finish a fight.

part of me is also a little sad that the manga always comes before the anime, because i have such a hard time enjoying manga but waiting for the anime always means enduring spoilers from folks who read the manga (see: vampire knight). on the flipside, with anime you never have to worry about waiting TWENTY FUCKING MONTHS for one season to finish. if we could have a show like avatar, aired on a schedule like vampire knight, i would die of happiness.

Edited at 2008-05-17 06:07 pm (UTC)

And while I am so annoyed by the never-ending fights in DBZ and Bleach, I admit I'll watch it if it's on. DBZ is on sporadically from time to time

Ages ago I wrote up the phases of DBZ fandom, and it's held true even with time.

I always get late to the fandom parties as well! :'D I only got early for the Vampire Knight one, but I arrived late for Naruto, Bleach and even Avatar: I knew abot the series through a rec and I got around to see it just when Book 3 had started airing.

Regarding discovering new titles, I get my new fix through friend's recs and reviews, mostly. Or maybe some icons in a random icon journal that seemed nice enough to ask for the title... my last resort always is 4chan's /w/. XD

I noticed that before I got into the Avatar fandom too (besides Harry Potter). Like One Piece. I was just on the, like, 40th episode, and when I look at the fan communities, everyone knows about things 200+ episodes away! Really, it can make you feel lonesome.

I think it's just luck when you find a manga right at it's popularity point. That, or as you said above, relying on a friend, who may be a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend in Japan who loves whatever series.

Hmmm, come to think about it, ATLA is the first fandom I actively participated in. Usually I was either unaware of the fanbase, never entered them, or was way ahead of their time.

In most cases I used to read the mangas I like when they either were first time published, or running in the early chapters, because I used to get the Japanese Shounen Jump or other magazines. It's only been with Atla that I went and looked for the fans and interacted with fellow fans.

With Naruto, Bleach, Death Note, Eyeshield21, and other relatively famous manga, I didn't WANT to meet the fans, because I felt that the manga lost something of its' charm as soon as it became overly famous. But recently I don't mind that much anymore. Nowadays I either find them randomly, get them recommended by friends or my sister.

Death Note and Ouran: heard about through my flist. Watched, but did not enter fandom.

Haruhi Suzumiya: heard about from fandomsecrets. LOL. >.>

Evangelion and FMA: from Australian TV (hahahaha fail. NGE especially. It aired ten years after the original airing in Japan. Now THAT is late to the party)

Deltora Quest: Other online friends

Utena: tvtropes.org. Haven't actually watched it yet, so again, late. But tvtropes is what's convinced me to watch it.

I guess it really doesn't bother me if I'm obscenely late to the party on something? Possibly because I'm more used to book fandoms, many of which go on for decades, so if you're a couple years late, nobody sweats it.

I find new fandoms through three things, friends, in-store browsing and piracy.

I'll go through my friends interests and if they have a lot of other similar stuff to mine on their profiles or rec-lists in their memories, I pillage them.

Or I go to a manga scanlation site like One Manga and pick the most promising-looking titles by the basic description and read the first five issues. If I can't get through the first few I drop it and move on. I found my love for Gokusen this way and my dislike for Fairy Tail. I hope the Gokusen manga is picked up in the US so I can buy it.

Also, I work in a bookstore, so whenever new manga series are released in the US I can read them immediately, usually over my lunch break. I only buy the ones I really love, like Blade of the Immortal and Fullmetal Alchemist, Fruits Basket, etc I've read all of Vampire Knight and I have come to realize I can't really tell any of the characters apart and I don't really like or sympathize with any of them, WTF. I've bought/am buying all of the Avatar Boxed sets, even though I watch everything online first.

I tend to like manga/comic/books more than anime/tv/movies because I can get through them much faster than having to sit and wait and have the story measured out over months.

I've heard that Love*Com is supposed to be a good manga and is one that I'm interested in reading myself very soon also :)

Although pretty short in volumes, it still looks cool all the same, being the huge fan of Shojo/Shojo Beat mangas that I am :)

I tend to get anime recs through a variety of sources: personal recommendations from other fans, interesting fanworks (art, AMVs, etc), from seeing them in clubs or conventions where people bring unreleased material, from what my flist is watching/reading, to general anime news websites or anime watching blogs.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/ - news & updates on new series. Every quarter or every 6 months they have summaries and "previews" for news shows that are starting; usually the reviewer has only seen the first one or two episodes, and writes up a paragraph on what it's about and whether they liked the beginning of it.

http://www.animeacademy.com/ - an excellent, comprehensive anime review website. Although they don't review anything until its finished, they still sometimes review shows before the show is released in America. They are thorough with their scoring system (percentage-based) and often have more than one reviewer look at a show or movie. They don't spoil you, but they are honest about the good and bad. Also, hey have The Vision of Escaflowne as one of the best anime series EVER (at 95.5% it's second only to Grave of the Fireflies) and honestly, I can't fault that logic at all.

http://www.sleepisfortheweak.org/ has great sarcastic reviews that also go into detail about the various mediums (manga, anime, other), and the kind of fandom you'd be getting yourself into. I tend to agree with their philosophy that some anime can be great, but in general "anime is not sacred."

Anime blogs, I have discovered, are really a treat. You can get general reviews for a series AND individual episode reviews... consistent, usually well-thought-out, and useful. These are especially good for looking at new shows, since they are usually very up-to-date with new releases and some are written by people who live in Japan and see stuff immediately.

The three I lurk:
http://www.designchronicle.com/memento/
http://psgels.blogsome.com/
http://randomc.animeblogger.net/

This website can also be useful, though it's confusing and I don't visit it as often as I would others: http://www.anime-planet.com/anirec/

I've never heard of Love*Com. I've been watching the dub version of Death Note and don't know if I want to finish it or not, because the misogyny's really bothering me. I tried to watch Honey & Clover but only made it through a few episodes.

Right now I'm watching Seirei no Moribito, which I'm loving, and plan to move later to Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto.