Name: Ashley
"Nickname"/Screename: Sombra (the "Malamutt" is really optional)
Age: 22 (Birthday- 4/22/1989)
Occupation: Student (Major- Traditional Animation)
Currently I'm a senior at Columbia College Chicago majoring in Film and Video (Concentration: Traditional Animation). And while I might not pursue animation as a full career path, art, animation, stories, and cartooning are and important part of my life. I probably couldn't live a day without creating something. A sketch, a story, a journal entry, a review, or a costume. Creating is something that has been deeply ingrained in me from my interest in art at a young age.
It's really not surprising that I latched onto the furry fandom like I did. Animals have always been my favorite subjects to draw. I remember (and I think I still have it) drawing a picture of leopards on the savanna hunting giraffes when I was in first or second grade. And spending most of my time drawing dragons and dinosaurs. Not to mention I grew up with a strong interest in werewolves and animal transformation in movies/TV shows/books. Granted I had no idea what a "furry" was until I was 18 and denied the label until I realized that denying it was an incredibly stupid thing to do for something so trivial, but despite that I'm rather happy to have found the fandom. While I dislike some aspects of it (mostly the way many people in the fandom behave online), that's not going to make me forcefully separate myself from it. I have a fursona. I draw animals. I have an interest in making fursuits (more than wearing them). Honestly if that doesn't constitute being a furry, I don't know what does.
For me the anime and furry fandoms are rather closely tied together. While "My Neighbor Totoro" was technically one of the first anime films I was introduced to, the realization of what "anime" was really didn't set in until seeing the token introductory series for anime fans: Pokemon, Dragonball Z, Sailor Moon, and Digimon. I'm sure I watched Pokemon and Digimon more than the other two though (as I remember more about Pokemon and Digimon and my sense of nostalgia over them are much stronger than with DBZ or Sailor Moon). Thus why I say that these two fandoms are closely tied together for me. As most of the fan art I draw is usually of pokemon or other non-human creatures. Of course as I grew up, I was introduce to more animes. Mostly via whatever 4Kids put out or whatever was on Cartoon Network's Toonami. And now what ever is on Adult Swim. Though the anime club at my college has introduced me to plenty more series that I've gone on to watch and/or complete. I don't view anime as that different than any other type of animation. It's just Japan's output of animated work. Some is going to be great. Some is going to be mediocre.
Speaking of my school's anime club, this is where my interest in tokusatsu (or to be more specific, Super Sentai and Kamen Rider) comes in. Now I did grow up watching Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. But I really don't remember that much about the series. I remembered the spandex outfits and the helmets. The colors, the team, and the fighting style which in my memory was very...corny. But I didn't remember anything else. In passing I'd seen a few of the other Power Ranger series but never closely followed any of them. And I knew that Power Rangers was derived from some series in Japan, but I'd never bothered to look it up. This is where my school's lovely anime club comes in. There's a few members, including our vice president, who are large toku fans. And upon finding out about the 35th anniversary series for the sentai franchise (Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger), he showed it to the club as a bit of a surprise. Needless to say after seeing a pirate named Captain Marvelous and a football turn into a garbage truck...I was hooked. Trivial reasons for liking something but hey...it got me interested. So I've been keeping up with that and have finished up a few other sentai series (Gaoranger, Gekiranger, Go-Onger, Shinkenger, Jetman, and one or two others). My newfound interest in Super Sentai even re-sparked an interest in Power Rangers and I've been keeping up with Samurai as best as I can.
As for Kamen Rider, the same vice president introduced me to the first episode of Kamen Rider OOO and after a battle set to a eerie version of Happy Birthday as well as seeing a disembodied hand (that is very expressive for just being a hand), how could I not keep watching? Truthfully, the thing that kept me interested in both series were the characters, the story, and especially the costuming. While I didn't appreciate those sort of detailed creature costumes when I was younger, the artist in me marvels at how people can make something so detailed. Even if it is very grotesque.
When reviewing anything, my focus will always be on the story and the characters. How well the characters are written, if the story has plot holes or not. I've had so many classes analyzing characters and stories (as is customary for any sort of film, animation, fiction or screenwriting student), that looking for these things in series has started to become second nature. I try to look for the good in anything I watch regardless of how good it really is. Even the worst of things has something interesting or redeeming about and I try to keep a balanced opinion on whatever I review. Of course I'm going to be biased though because my opinion is mine and mine alone. If people agree with me, that's great. If not, that's equally as fine.
In advance, thanks for reading and/or commenting on anything I write! I hope you have as much fun reading my opinions as I have writing them.
