I got into the anime hobby way back in 1992. There was a comic book store at the local mall and they had boxes and boxes of liquidated comics for something like 50 cents each or whatever. I looked though them all but not much really caught my interest. But I did see some that did. I saw cute drawings with themes similar to the Archie comics which I so loved as a child and teen. I bought three series and they were Lum, Ninja High School and I forgot the third one, but it was no turning back. I got hooked and became an obsessive hikikomori otaku!
At the time there was a magazine called MANGAzine and they had a pen pal section. I took to that as I had wanted to meet others who was into the hobby. Mind you that this was about 5 years before anime really took off as well as the internet. It was a very cult underground thing. So I wrote to a lot of people and then eventually made friends and went to anime cons with them. I sort of found anime cons boring, but I loved the buying and selling of anime stuff. So I went to various Japanese stores to buy untranslated manga, as well as comic book stores all across several states to buy old back issues for reselling. Ultimately I’ve sold at a few dozen anime cons over a 10 year period.
Then Ebay hit. I started to sell on there and it was so much easier and higher profited than doing conventions. Eventually I started buying anime stuff off of Japanese auctions to resell. That became very profitable for a few years. But then the hobby sort of died as the bootlegs from China flooded the market and every one else became Ebay sellers as well. So now days I have two selling accounts. One for anime stuffs and one for garage sale stuffs, where I mostly sell old toys, video games, books, DVD and electronics that I pick up cheap.
And that’s about it really. I love going out and buying old collectors stuff and I still love anime stuffs as well, although to be honest with you, I tend to like the classics more than the modern stuff. If you want to talk to me, I’m more than happy to make a friend with you and talk hobby stuff or Ebay selling in general.
