It’s been a difficult year for me and my family, for many reasons I won’t say here. But there is much to be thankful for, especially the health of our precious daughter. Today my wife and I have been married for four years. We’re past our long honeymoon and are now at the time when living well means hard work. There are things about us that probably won’t change – but are revealed to each other as if they were surprises, traps even. Our love is stronger than ever though waves of melancholy wash over me, and I’ll explain why.
We don’t get to watch anime together as much, by far. We never really do now. We used to be able to follow shows as they air, but these things aren’t as important or interesting to her. There’s nothing wrong about this at all. I just miss her company. I dearly wish we watched K-ON!! together. If I could undergo the procedure in The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for all of K-ON! to be new again, I just might – so my wife and I can watch together.
Here I share with you my favorite shows we watched together. Most of them are marathons, which is cool in that I love it when she’s the one telling me to play the next episode, and the episode after that: a spark of validation and mutual interest in shared culture.
Yack, Deculture! Here are the shows:
The Vision of Escaflowne
“Wow, you like anime too?” It sounds silly, but I truly truly felt I hit the jackpot with this lovely lady. I mean, come on, I knew she was a rarest of rare finds. I knew I wasn’t going to find a lovelier, smarter, more successful, ojou-sama (complete with laugh) who also liked anime. I knew from our common friends that she played RPGs (Mechwarrior LOL) back in uni, but I didn’t expect anime.
And now she’s the one actually introducing me to stuff. Aaaand, I was duly impressed to learn after the important (to me) names involved in the production: Kawamori Shoji, Sakamoto Maaya, Kanno Yoko. Flying Dragon eventually made it to our wedding reception.
Kare Kano
We also watched this when we were dating. In early 2005 I worked the night shift and I’d sneak into this house we live now at dawn during weekends (with her help) carefully avoiding waking up her folks. I’d catch a snooze in the unoccupied servants’ quarters and wake up when her folks have left for their various projects.
After breakfast we’d watch anime before leaving in the afternoon to wherever we wanted. She introduced me to Kare Kano which we played on bootlegged VCDs in her living room. I was floored, and I didn’t know anime love stories set in high school can be so freaking intelligent. Too bad it ended the way it infamously did. Nonetheless, it was the show we watched when we were falling in love. Yukino I (concerto) also made it to our wedding reception.
This was the time we were watching all sorts of silliness (School Rumble, Yakitate! Japan), and in the spirit of that silliness, less than half a year into our marriage we marathoned ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY EIGHT (178) episodes of this show. I haven’t learned to play tennis yet, and I took this show SERIOUSLY. I mean I took the sports action as serious as fuck, despite the absurd shonen power levels going ridiculously out of hand.
But you don’t need me to tell you that you don’t get to burn through ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY EIGHT EPISODES (and a movie, and a bunch of OVAs) without seriously enjoying yourselves. We certainly did, though it’s all so incredibly stupid now. She however, continued reading all of the manga and follow The New Prince of Tennis. I love my wife. I didn’t say she’s absolutely perfect.
We raged. We d’awwed. We laughed. WE RAGED AGAIN. We chuckled. WE RAGED SOME MORE. And before we knew it we’ve fallen for these characters – often despicable for either being retarded or for being complete assholes. But just as Naoki found himself eroded into a heart open enough to love an idiot like Kotoko, we found ourselves in-love with both of them and their family, and this incredibly irritating and heart-warming show.
Code Geass
I’m not sure about this one, given the proliferation of gay-looking Lelouch figurines in our room as a result of her watching this show with me. Well, I suppose I have pretty nice Kallen ones thanks to her. But man, marathoning the first season, then watching R2 every week with her was probably the most fun we had following a show as it aired. That and Toradora!
EVERYTHING IS BRIGHT
But sorry honey, XXXXXX is DEAD. Deal with it.
Macross 7
The only Macross show she actually really enjoyed. My wife is a total Minmay hater, but for whatever damn reason she actually liked Sivil . Yeah, her (but she adored Mylene and especially Millya Fallnya Jenius). In any case, part of my indestructible love for Macross 7 is due to how much fun we had watching, even when she’d make fun of me when I fall apart in tears when Gigil sings Power to the Dream.
For all the reasons (that seem strange to Macross fans) I love Macross 7, how we watched it together she and I shines brightly among them.
This is pretty damn special. This is the show we marathoned that I had to play catch-up. Sometimes I’d be so tired from work that I’d pass out while watching and my wife would watch the next 10 episodes while I was out cold. Well, there was a lot of episodes (110) so I could catch up (had to do so many times LOL).
Seriously though, this was an incredible experience for me… because she ate it all up. I loved how we’d discuss the principles of politics and governance that occur in the show, because her perspective is amazing, being a public servant all her career (I am for stretches), and a member of the military as well.
Also, it’s absolutely brilliant to have someone to hold me after the Battle of Mar-Ardetta.
Aria, all of it
My wife’s nickname starts with an “A,” our daughter’s name starts with an “A,” not entirely devoid of coincidence with this show we’ve come to love so much. We leisurely watched Aria the Animation, finding Neo Venezia quite interesting and rather wonderful. Aria the Natural didn’t make us any more fascinated with Aqua though it explored so much of it. Rather, we really fell in love with the girls.
It’s like we wanted to be their friends too, but kind of wanting to just watch because we like their chemistry the way it is. In a perfect fantasy, we’d have tours with each of them in their own gondolas in another honeymoon.
Aria the Origination rushed at us with unexpected power. Gone was the quiet reflection afforded by an illusory perpetuity in Natural. I mean, it’s still quiet, but there were inevitable changes, big changes, and what was at stake the whole time is now in play. Then it ends.
But not really, we’ve gone on to collect the manga when we can, and find our things, our desktops, colored by the blues and whites of what used to be but a harsh red planet in our imaginations.
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Other Notables: Macross Frontier, Gundam 00, Lucky Star, Xam’d: Lost Memories, Moyashimon, Skip Beat
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Thank you, dear reader, for remembering love with me and my wife here. May you find someone you can enjoy these and other shows in a way that’s special to both of you. I you have that person in your life, fill your time with wonderful shows to watch, and find these shows made more wonderful by each other’s company.
We Remember Love 
… I think my mind broke, AGAIN, at the sight of the genderbent LoGH cast.
Reverse-gender Oberstein is THE BEST
I don’t think it was Oberstein as much as it was seeing Reinhard in twin-tails.
Oskarina von Reuenthal…
LULZ at the Eureka 7 pic end. Can’t really relate because I’ve always watched my beloved anime alone but just dropping by to say may your marriage may last forever and strong, kind sir.
Make of this as you will: I met my wife 7 years and two days ago, just over a month before I turned 27. It isn’t like my life was filled with anime loving babes. There were certainly no one like her throughout high school or university, or graduate school. She’s one of a kind (an anime loving babe of awesomeness who happened to like me too).
Some people just get the good things in life, they say.
Mechwarrior? Duuude.
I hope you have a happy wedding anniversary!
We’ll have a happy one given the circumstances… but it’s Saturday tomorrow so we can have a more proper date, and maybe celebrate it with our daughter. Thank you very much.
I’m a Dungeons & Dragons veteran with his best memories were playing the 2nd Ed. of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons as a Dungeon Master. I would’ve enjoyed Battletech and Mechwarrior more (due to the robots obviously) if not for how ridiculously looooong each round of combat took to resolve with dice, pen, and paper. It wasn’t so much a proper role playing game since every character was in a hurry to get to the fight because a small skirmish lasted all day… and the longest ones (still small unit actions) can take a whole week (with an average gaming session lasting 3 hours).
Sybilant and her friends give the impression that they got a lot more role-playing done… which I suppose is what you get having more sophisticated (top flight) university students as players. In my case it was my two younger brothers and two neighbors with me being the oldest at… 15 years old. Ah, that’s the early 90s for you.
Wow, Macross 7! Wow, LotGH!
I only have my brother to watch anime with, and he’s a rather difficult customer. Still, it always beats watching Code Geass R2 alone.
Hehe… don’t think I have it easy. Alecon is very difficult to please, especially these days when I’m lucky enough to get her to watch 2 episodes of Kuragehime. But when we were in our first two years we sure did watch a whole lot of shows.
Now write a post about anime you particularly enjoyed watching alone.
There’s a lot of anime I’m forced to watch alone… because she isn’t interested at all. I watched a lot of Gundam that way. But if I were to think of a show I would rather watch by myself… it would probably be Urotsukidoji: The Legend of the Overfiend. I don’t think I want anyone else around when I’m watching that.
And yet, they screen it in a huge room at Otakon every year (I think). Funeral watched it this year lol.
Nearly every time I watched it was in a room full of people. it’s alternately uncomfortable and hilarious. No insight can be drawn from this kind of viewing though, I’m afraid.
Awww, that’s sweet. Watching movies and stuff is one thing, but 170 episodes of PoT and 110 of LotGH is something else.
As much as I watch anime alone, watching them with others makes the anime itself an entirely different kind of experience. It depends on their personalities, like my sister and I are mostly quiet when watching, my friends here make the occasional non-sequiturs, and then the Skype live group chatters endlessly lol.
That’s a lot of episodes indeed and I’m still taken aback by it all even now. When she gets into a groove she will rip through 7-10 episodes in one sitting like it was nothing… skipping OPs and EDs like a boss.
I sometimes turn down the volume of Skype while watching… part of me prefers the text chat function during live viewings which is strange since I can’t understand what the characters are saying by listening alone. If anything people talking over the show should be far less of a problem.
Happy Anniversary even if times are rough at least you made it to the point few of us have reached and probably will reach you old coot.
Must have been a an EPIC wedding reception now post pics of that HUEG Macross pineapple cake… I know you must have made the attempt… otherwise, well I would be disappoint.
Making a pineapple salad cake at your wedding sounds like a fast way to damn that marriage into oblivion lol.
Thanks comrade. Mind yourself not to dump on my age too much in the presence of my lady, who is older than I am!
Dude, the cake is the biggest waste of money in a wedding (and they’re ridiculously expensive too). At least over here nobody really wants to eat it and instead goes for the food coma via the buffet table. Spent a fortune on our wedding which would have easily been more than twice as expensive if we didn’t hold it in the St. Ignatius Cathedral within Camp Aguinaldo (where the GHQ of the AFP is) and the reception was in the Officers’ Club. Had it not rained we would’ve had a pictorial by the outdoor museum of tanks, APCs, and howitzers. Oh well.
Many bloggers don’t share much about their love life, it’s really sweet that you used to watch anime with your wife ❤
I only know 2 of the shows out of your list, watched Escaflowne when I was a kid (which I loved)~ and Code Geass which was super awesome ^_^ I don't like watching anime with anyone else~ it just feels really awkward xD
The difference in the Philippines is that our generation spent their childhood watching anime and for the boys, super robot anime. Even if many of us never become hardcore fans (and it really takes something to become one), anime is no stranger and it isn’t too weird to have liked it. Thus it’s not too frightening in my case to be a bit more open about how I like it. Thank you fro your kind words :3
I never thought I’d see a Touhou image on WRL! So happy! (esp since it’s my favorite characters~~~~)
I know I’ve said it many times before, but my undying eternal dream is to marry a woman who would watch Hidamari Sketch with me all day while sitting together under a blanket. It’s my ultimate romantic fantasy.
Happy anniversary, guys!
Oh, I had no idea that was a Tohou reference LOL
Hehe, it needn’t be a woman if there’s real romance. Think about it LOL
Thanks bro, may we get to watch more shows with people we love.
If it didn’t need to be a woman I’d already be buttfucking No Name. Seriously, there’s a reason everyone calls him my ‘waifu’. We were just watching HidaSketch together this past weekend.
To echo IKnight, Mechwarrior!? That’s for a special sort of grognard (and I do mean that in the most positive way possible). In this day and age D&D, or World Of Darkness wouldn’t be too far out for a female player, but Mechwarrior certainly has a very specific niche. Happy anniversary!
Thanks man.
Sybilant is one of those singular girls among a herd of geek boys (not that she wasn’t a glasses and braces debate society nerd herself). Since she never was into video games, the RPGs were a great way to play along with the group. Those guys are my friends too by now, and I know they were deeply nerdotic enough to have played some Shadowrun at some point. I think Sybilant stuck to piloting her MAD-Marauder.
As for me, House Kurita forever!!!
You got the description for Itazura na Kiss right. It was probably the hardest shoujo I’ve watch since it was so hard to watch the lead couple hook up until the final episode, which I think was worth it despite all the pain I endured watching.
Sometimes I get a mad urge to rewatch it, as I do for many shows.
13 minutes in I RAEGQUIT the rewatch,
Itakiss is a show you can RAEGQUIT even after you’re finished with it.
Kids have a way of eating up time and intrest in other things. I’m thinking when your tyke is a bit older anime will come back in :3
That’s what I’m counting on. In the meantime it’s a little bit (or a lot) lonely watching ‘toons.
your wife sounds awesome and I wish I could meet the both of you in real life lol
Congratulations on your anniversary 🙂
I hope I get to enjoy anime with my significant other. Our tastes don’t always mesh so well, haha. We’ve had endless debates about multiple series that I loathe and she loves, and the other way around. Always fun. Frequently disappointing.
Thank you!
I watch way more anime than my wife does and indeed our tastes rarely mesh. These are all exceptions. I like rewatching shows a lot, but she’s a one and done kind of lady. Perhaps more importantly she can’t stand any kind of sad story, while tragedies fulfill me. Lastly, she can’t make me watch Bleach, and those godawful dubs of shows she casually watches on Animax.
Happy anniversary!!
I have to say I’m enormously jealous of you. Sharing your love of anime with your life partner most be incredible and very rewarding. Alas for me, my dear and beloved waifu does NOT share my anime addiction. She just can’t stop seeing them as “cartoons”. Other than the odd Miyazaki movie, all attempts to have her watch anime have failed miserably. I’ve tried films, OVA, series in all genres; from Ghost in the Shell to Monster, through Kare Kano and Paradise Kiss. Nada!
So we’ve finally given up on sharing this aspect of our lives and most nights after she’s fallen asleep, I get to cure my anime addiction.
So the person I’ve shared anime the most with is my brother. Whenever we get to see each other we’ll watch some stuff together. We both love and worship Cowboy Bebop, Patlabor and LOGH while disagree about Macross ( I love, he doesn’t, particularly Macross 7) and Rurouni Kenshin (I find it boring while he loves it).
Our latest shared experience was watching Code Geass together over a weekend I had already seen it and encouraged him to watch it as well. At first he hated it and couldn’t get past the character designs. But then he really got into it and kept on putting episodes in the early morning. I finally had a big laugh when I saw him shed the man tears during the Zero Requiem. To this day Code Geass is one of his favourite anime.
Tragic on two levels:
That your wife can’t share your enjoyment from anime, and that your brother hates Macross 7.
Well, I’d be a fool to say that our relationship (or any) should be founded on shared hobbies. This is but a bonus to what my wife and I are about … but you know this already. I’m sure your wife is into a few things you aren’t interested in as well.
Kenshin the TV series was enjoyable for a while (up to the end of the Shishio arc), after which the terrible production values and the silly super powers become too much for the flimsy subsequent stories to make up for.
I feel jealous that she watched LoGH with you. I marathoned that alone when my bf went out of town cause I knew he wouldn’t watch it with me. He ended up coming back early (around ep 82…) and was just like ohhh another one of your space shows. 110 eps are you crazy? lol… He unfortunately saw me explode into tears from a certain scene in the show too and he didn’t understand in the slightest. lol….
I love that she watched your beloved Macross 7 with you. My bf watched some and would wail out one of their songs that got repeated over and over again. Eventually he wandered off to the studio and left me to my own.
Although I do have better luck getting him to watch really really long series like *sigh* Naruto, One Piece, Bleach… He’s in no way a shounen nut… But from this list I can see why some would think that… Maybe I’ll give The Prince of Tennis a try with him. (even though we both have no interest in tennis) 😛 We have indeed watched countless series together and I’m glad he tolerates as much as I put him through viewing wise. (I have NO idea how or why he watched Suzuka with me….)
Congrats though! It’s always great to share what you love with the person you love the most. It’ll be super fun when your child grows up and you can watch anime with her too!
I can’t possibly recommend PoT… it’s… terrible.
Read the linked post, it’s the best way I can thank you for your kind words. I’m at least glad how your boyfriend would wail out Planet Dance. Dude is a keeper (LOL).
I just skimmed that post and I gotta say if anything that makes me want to watch it. I think I love anime punishment!!!
I’m watching Gundam SEED Destiny so… yeah.
This made me realized how incredibly stupid I am for kinda rejecting someone who enjoys the same shit as I am. I guess I should give him a call now XD
Tell me how that works out~
It works out surprisingly well. I guess he really does like me a lot
Congratulations! Have a lot of great times watching anime and sharing other moments :3
Many congratulations. As someone whose relationship grew during the early stages through marathons of Evangelion,, Love Hina, Cardcaptor Sakura, not to mention Saturday morning Pokemon, I not only appreciate this, I identify with it. We watched all those on a tiny TV when we had no money and our landlady was trying to steal our stuff, so anime was there for some of our rough times. She’s busy as hell these days, which means I watch more cartoons but also more cartoons alone, and that’s a shame (we do Star Driver together though).
It’s not as fun, although I do get to indulge in series she probably wouldn’t touch. I suppose if I only watched the things she would enjoy, it’d keep me honest, or at least less kimoi.
Thanks man. I appreciate it from someone who’s been at it longer than we have. Oh yeah, totally spot on regarding not having my wife watching with me lends to a more kimoi experience.
I’ve been trying to get her to watch Star Driver with me, and maybe today is that day.
…Is it weird that I find Moeberstein quite sexy?
…not really given the kind of people I read online.
Man, I really envy you that you actually got to watch so many awesome shows with the one you love! Thanks for sharing such initimate memories. It was a pretty cool read.
I love it that you had an anime theme at your wedding:) Did anyone pick up on that? Kare kano is definitely a very appropriate one to watch while falling in love!
While we have many friends who watch anime, and our generation grew up watching super robot shows, if anybody noticed they didn’t make much of it… except maybe my weaboo cousin who now works for a Japanese company lols.
We played anime music in our slideshow during our reception, but otherwise our wedding was very, very conservative Catholic!
First, a belated contests to you and your wife.
Second, Star Driver?! Think carefully about that one. My significant other has already fallen for the ginga bishounen. I’m challenging that bastard tomorrow to win the heart of my love back. Tomorrow… before midnight she shall see Tauburn crushed between my fingers. KIRABOSHI~!
Thanks bro.
Oh btw, I would prefer anyone from Star Driver to supplant the fugly gay dolls she has all over the house.
hot damn it! Glad you realized contests was supposed to be congrats. The combination of typing late at night AND on a software keyboard can lead to dangerous miscommunications.
Great list 😀
So cool you have a wife that likes anime! it is always fun to watch anime with someone.
You and your wife look so happy together… Congrats on your anniversary! =D
And I commend you – I think you must be the first person of the male persuasion to actually watch all of The Prince of Tennis! I, too, marathoned the entire series plus movie plus OVAs. I read your post on PoT (very funny)… I think you have to be a BL-loving kind of female to really appreciate PoT and all the (BL-pairing) possibilities. 😉
LOL I had no real concept of BL during the time we were watching PoT and I enjoyed it without irony… but by the time we were watching the OVAs I was already dead inside LOL
Thank you for all the kind words.
D’awwwwwww…
Too bad I don’t have a girlfriend who likes anime anymore, and I think I won’t find one again for years.
And lol yeah, you’re right about the ojou-sama laugh. I feel like you’ll be sharing with us a family moment of you guys watching anime together soon, all three of you. Congratulations, man!
Thank you very much. We’ll watch something together soon, though I have no idea what would really work as of now.
Ghost, I think you will wonder why there is a comment to a 2010 article in Sept. 2011 but I am backtracking your articles and this is the one I stopoed to write on. I am also married for 7 years and love my wife (we are both 35 by the way). I am also one of the luckiest guys in the world cause my wife loves action/sci-fi/fantasy movies and serials. Ok, she occasionally watches some silly things if I let her alone from but most of the time, we watch SF/fantasy movies and TV shows. Example: We are just at the end of a 2-month Stargate SG-1/Atlantis marathon. We don’t watch much TV, only when we want something ‘normal’ (as in what ‘normal’ people watch ^_^;). Oh and she is the only woman I know who watched 2001: A Space Odyssey till the end. Oh how I love her! 🙂
Anyway, we watched anime together too, and she read some manga (Maison Ikkoku was her first) but she is not into reading much. She is more of an action gal. We watched GITS first movie and Death Note together, but not much anime for the last couple of years. I am planning to introduce her to Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann (I actually wept when Kamina… oh I can’t even talk about it without making my eyes wet…) one of these days. What say you? ^_~
That’s pretty cool. My wife and I did watch TTGL together but she isn’t into it. As for myself, I love TTGL very much and hold it in high esteem as one of the works that “remember love” very well.
Our respective wives are our treasures indeed.
Dude, I envy you. =P