If you’re here and reading this, chances are good that you’re already an anime or manga fan. You may be a crusty old geek who cut your teeth on recorded VHS tapes of Robotech or even Astro Boy. You may be a newly-minted otaku (whether young or a new convert) who wants to dig deeper into this new interest.
In either case, five bucks says you have missed some great series without realizing it. Here’s the deal: there are some smash hits everyone is aware of and some perennial anime favorites every fan worth their salt knows. Still, the amount of material out there is incredibly vast. Some series that were once prominent have sunk into obscurity, others never made it onto the pop-culture radar at all, and still others were niche material by design. The bottom line is that no one has seen it all.
That’s where I hope this blog will be a fun and useful resource for you. I’m no more a perfect encyclopedia of otaku-dom than any other anime/manga fan, but I do have a predilection for seeking out more obscure titles… the stuff that’s out of print, published by companies that no longer exist, perhaps that never made the jump from VHS to DVD or Blu-Ray. I also have a thing for anime series with premises that are downright weird, for lack of a more sophisticated term. If you’re a fan who wants to venture away from the titles promoted on Netflix and Cartoon Network to venture into series that are lesser-known but still fun, you’re in the right place. Not every title we discuss here will be obscure, but hidden gems and oddball series will be our main stock in trade.
So sit back and enjoy, fellow geek. And remember, when we pool our arcane knowledge of anime, manga, and visual novels…
Anime Obscura 