From Cradle to Crunchyroll, My Journey as an Anime Fan for Life
03–21–2016 | Victoria Holden
I was born into fandom- second generation. Both of my parents are insane anime fans and it’s part of what brought them together. Before anime had such a global presence and long before Crunchyroll ever started streaming, my Father would trade anime with other fans via snail mail and later decorate our home in anime memorabilia. Luckily, from day one I was entranced and found myself pouring over Sailor Moon episodes syndicated on UPN. My parents totally supported (and enabled) my fandom. When I turned 13 I asked my dad permission to get a Chibi-Usa (Sailor Mini Moon) anime tattoo and without hesitation he agreed. It might sound crazy, but we knew that our family’s love of anime was a bond and not a passing phase.
My obsession with anime soon introduced me to the world of cosplay, and at 15 I started creating intricate costumes (Griffith fromBerserk as one of my favorites), and attending conventions to gather with likeminded fans I never had the chance to meet in person before. Cosplay quickly became my thing and once I started posting my cosplay online, the attention started rolling in. I learned to cultivate a cosplay presence online, which was when I first realized that a hobby could be much more than just that. I knew from then that I wanted to make my passion into my career.
Halloween night is the one night a year when the rest of the country catches on to what us cosplayers already know: trying on a new persona is fun. One Halloween in 2013 I attended a Halloween party and stroke up a conversation with a Crunchyroll employee. It wasn’t until he added me as a friend online that he noticed that I cosplayed. One thing lead to another and once I proved my anime trivia chops, I was invited to Crunchyroll’s offices to take part in a live video series. I was so nervous I stayed up all night before show and completely remade a costume I had so that I could wear it onto the show, but the show went off without a hitch and pretty soon I was back to the offices to host the show two nights a week.
Crunchyroll is a community like no other and working here has provided me with the unparalleled opportunity to turn my hobbies into a viable career. I was a fan of the service prior to ever having set foot in the offices, but once I had I knew there was nowhere else I wanted to work. I started looking for opportunities to help Crunchyroll communicate with fans in a more authentic way — I was a fan afterall. Eventually I took over Crunchyroll’s Twitter and Facebook pages, and from there was offered a fulltime position.
There’s no such thing as needing work-life balance when you do what you love. As Brand Manager of Crunchyroll, my job is all about community engagement and interacting with people who share the same interests. When the work day is done, I still go home, log on, and do the same thing as a fan. I’d still be doing it even if I didn’t work here. When I was a teenager I knew I wanted to be involved in the anime industry, and the stars aligned when this opportunity fell into my lap. Despite countless years of hard work, I still like to think that maybe it was just meant to be. I was born an anime fan, after all.
