[EuricaeriS kicks off the latest Monthly Musing with his envious lifestyle: living with a bunch of otaku. All of whom are awesome. It's what many envision college life to be like, and sadly it doesn't always come true. But for this man? Why, he's living the dream, even if the UK does allow for that many anime cons. Got your own story to share? Post it in our community blogs section, and you might wind up on the front page too! -- Brad]
Back in 2007/08 I had a pretty tough choice to make concerning my future. This was picking out a good looking university and also deciding whether I wanted to carry on studying in the first place. Given some debate and a few visits, I picked Staffordshire University up here in the West Midlands, UK. This may seem like a trivial matter to some people, but I also had two friends pick the same uni.
Through one of those student orientated social websites I was lucky enough to meet the guy who would eventually become housemate number four in our new place. So, what are the common interests? How does anime, manga, figurines and the glorious Nippon sound?
Admittedly we were all in halls for the first year, which was all well and good. Being on your own makes you test your own boundaries. My manga collection jumped from about 25 volumes to around 100 in the span of six months. Figurines began appearing ever since we spent a trip to Spain sat in a bar with a Naruto/Dragon Ball Z gashapon machine. We watched anime for 5 hours, two days a week plus 3 hours on Fridays at the anime society in the university. Suffice to say we really let ourselves go. Come the end of it all, we decided to rent a house together for the upcoming year. Nine months in a house with three other otaku seemed like a great idea. Believe me, it was.
We have been living here for about 9 weeks now, and so far we have had a manga-spree in London, attended the recent MCM Expo and also attended a smaller convention called Alcon over in Leicester. We have a one week trip to Japan planned for early January and I’m sure there will be lots more we can waste/spend our money in the coming months. All four of us have been interested in this stuff for a good while, but it’s only when there are a bunch of you in one area that you notice things getting a bit out of hand.
The mac wasn't part of the deal
Packages and signed deliveries are commonplace here. I’m sure we are driving the postman insane, but all in the name of otakudom I say. I got a package myself today containing some long awaited Unlimited Cruise One Piece figurines. I can tell you off hand that a whole lot of Final Fantasy figures, a wall scroll, more One Piece figures and about 14 volumes of Great Teacher Onizuka are on their way here. Hell, take a look at our living room:
The guy from Tesco's did give us some funny looks
If you think that is bad, there’s a Lucky Star wall scroll on the other wall. And yes, we have totally had home delivery people in here. Hell, the guy fitting our internet got an eyeful of one guys figure collection (bondage Misa Amane anyone?). Unfortunately manga collections have been left at home for the most of us. One guys collection is on the fireplace downstairs, but I left behind about 130 volumes. One of us left about 200 volumes at home! We are a bit mad to say the least.
Do I have any regrets? Not at all. I consider myself to have some awesome housemates and I wouldn’t change a thing! As silly as it sounds I’m ending this here for a co-op session of Borderlands so I’ll bid you adieu!
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