In Soviet Russia, Anime Finds You

Newer anime is pretty easy to find these days, but for older shows you sometimes have to get creative and look in unlikely places.

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Being a Weekend Otaku, I find the weekend to be when I have the most opportunity to get some writing done for this blog or catch up on anime, with the weekdays either being too busy or too draining to get much done otherwise. Of course, even the best laid plans are easily foiled. As luck would have it, there was a large yard (rummage) sale event on Sunday that drew my wife’s interest, and I was easily recruited to join her hunt for hidden treasure among other people’s unwanted things.

A yard sale is sort of activity that combines several things I prefer to avoid: spending money, leaving my home on the weekend, and searching for something with an undefined goal. The point of a yard sale, after all, is just to browse and spend your time looking through mostly junk for something that interests you or you can use. Being a borderline hoarder I can appreciate the spirit of getting a deal on used goods, but this is usually overridden by my inner miser who absolutely hates buying anything I don’t really need.

A typical American yard sale

Nevertheless, my motivation behind going was just to give Kimmie some company. Several of her friends would be attending as well, but I thought it would be nice to share some time doing something other than forcing her to watch anime for a change. On top of that her friends are fun to hang out with as well so I wasn’t too disappointed to go either way.

But imagine my surprise when the first stand we came to (run by a gardening shop, no less) actually had something I was interested in. Among the collection of CDs and bargain bin DVDs that you often find people trying to get rid of, I spotted something that looked suspiciously like anime. That was, of course, because it was anime: the full 12 episode series Virus: Virus Buster Serge on three DVDs. Also nestled in the middle of a box of Yu-Gi-Oh DVDs was the first disc of ADV’s 2005 release of Guyver: The Bio-boosted Armor.

Now, these aren’t really popular titles by any means. Virus was a 1997 series made by J.C. Staff that was adapted from a game. It may not be any good, but it was directed by Masami Oobari, who had previously done the Fatal Fury movie, so there’s that. I had at least heard of Guyver before, and given that the OVAs from 1989 and 1991 were received well enough to get a series made, I feel a little more confident about this one. The best part is that I got them both for just $2, letting me sample some anime that I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to find easily for less than the cost of a cup of coffee.

I ended up getting a few more non-anime things from other stands and easily outspent Kimmie who only walked away with some free books, but being able to actually find some anime when I had chalked up the outing to being lost time for other activities was a great feeling that kept me in a good mood throughout the event. I find that keeping your expectations low can prevent disappointment in whatever you set out to do. But when it comes to finding anime, not knowing what to expect can result in a nice surprise.

At least they’ll entertain someone?

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Have you seen these titles or found any interesting anime in an unusual place? Let me know in the comments .