I consider myself not to be an otaku. But even though I think I still can post here due to the fact I share some things with the part of the community who is considering themselves otaku.
So, to make a long story short for all of you who do not like to read such a wall of text:
In my childhood I used to watch anime and play games. Then, a few years after my interest in anime faded and my interest in games became stronger. After that, again a few years, I decided I really hated anime stuff. Again a few years later I developed acceptance to it again, then I was recommended to watch Hellsing Ultimate and then I ended up by watching dozens of anime. Or, merely, have to watch dozens of them. If you want to read the whole story, here you go:
What to begin with? Hmm... back in my childhood it was. I was really little, maybe aged five or six. I think this is where it started. As most kids did I watched TV at home or played on my old PlayStation one (which I still have). Rarely I read books or such. And through the TV I got introduced to a special kind of series on TV. I didn't know how it was called but now I know it's called "Anime". Well, I enjoyed to watch that stuff. I begun with Pokémon, Dragonball (and Dragonball Z of course) as well as Digimon. Not to forget Sailor Moon (of which I still think it's a good one... the good old times back then...). I even remember to have seen a teenage mutant ninja turtles like type... but this doesn't really matter does it? So this are the anime I saw first. As I grew older my interests became a bit different.
But still, I watched some of those anime back then. One day, on MTV if I remember correctly, I saw the preview of an anime called "Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex". As I live in germany it wasn't japanese with english subs (like I do watch currently as I mentioned yesterday), it was german dubbed (like any other anime here is on TV). I always had to fool my parents to watch that anime because when it was on TV it usually was sleeping time for me. But even though it was, I watched it. I have to admit that I understood the least out of it. The story and all. For a reason I cannot really remember I quit watching anime but still kept on liking the stuff and I kept on gaming.
As the months and years passed by I developed more interest in gaming rather than watching anime. To be honest I developed an "anti-interest" to everything which could be related to anime stuff like the style of drawings, the voices and the series, movies and such. I really started to dislike this. But still I don't know why I did so. That's what I consider as weird. Anyway, I kept on gaming and as some people refer people to be otaku if they have a certain interest into something (like gaming) and do this not only from time to time but more excessively (like I did). Some people may call me an otaku even if I quit watching japanese relatied things. I still do not consider myself being an otaku either.
The years passed by and I went to another school where I met some boy who actually was watching anime (Naruto Shipuuden. I know, it's a shame but don't harass me, I never liked that one, dunno why) and who read manga (Hunter x Hunter if my memories are correct). Well, he and I got to know each other better and watched a bit at his home. But as I mentioned before, I never liked Naruto Shipuuden and so my... I call it "hate"... for anime developed even more. I bet you guys can understand that. But I felt myself having some kind of weak affinity to this style of drawing again. Again, I dunno why. To tell the truth I never did really pay attention to it. This feeling.
Now those years have passed. It's just one or two years ago where I said "I don't like anime stuff" the last time. Then there was a brief time where it was of totally zero interest whether it exists or not. And then there was a guy, a friend of mine, who told me about osu!. At first I really didn't want to hear about that kind of thing. The game didn't really look fun to me and since I saw those anime-like figures everywhere my interest faded even more. But then the media... sort of "interfered" with that. I got to know this leekspin. I bet you all know that. Hm. It's more of interest who doesn't know it. It's the most popular looped video I know. Anyhow, this was the point where my mind changed. It changed a step back to the old days where I was watching Sailor Moon, Dragonball and stuff. This was before I met that osu!guy, if i remember correctly. I even watched Yu-Gi-Oh!. But not really seriously and only a few episodes since I descovered myself to dislike it.
After this leekspin video, with the influence from the friend from school I told you before, I finally got my acceptance for those kind of things back. Oh and I liked the music too (I still like it). In a german forum they always talk about anime and manga and I read something of the posts they made. Those people there know me quite better than some people in reallife do and so one was asking "Hey, you are that gorefreak aren't you? When does the new Hellsing OVA come out?" and I didn't even knew there was an anime called "Hellsing" neither did I knew it had an "OVA" or what this even was. So I developed interest in that and asked my way through the people and ended up by watching Hellsing Ultimate. And then, two years past this...
My other friend told me about him playing osu! every once in a while. In this time I developed more interest to the way of drawing things anime-style (and I did some works myself. Pretty awful back then and still I'm working on my skills). Then, I downloaded a mod for a game which had an armor involved which referred to be used in a manga called "Whately Academy". Somebody told me about it. I still should have the bookmark. I never read it but I thought keeping this in mind couldn't be too bad. And one day, my friend asked me if I would play some osu! with him. I had nothing better to do and since it was free to play I thought I should give it a try. So I agreed.
Then he and I were talking about the music and about anime. I started to get the feeling I should restart watching anime. I didn't do that for a really long time. But I never did it. I had to play osu!, Skyrim and other games. It took a long time I finally decided to watch an anime. The first one I watched in this "new era" of watching things like this was Lucky Star. I watched it and played some games still. So it took some time til I started watching Elfen Lied which I recently finished watching. And now I am watching Ghost In The Shell again. I have to smile everytime when I think about it. Back then, I watched Ghost In The Shell without my parents knowing because they'd probably forbidden me to watch TV. I didn't understand anything regarding the story but I thought it was awesome to watch. And know I recently decided that I just HAVE to rewatch it since know I'm capable of understanding things I didn't back then.
Excuse me If my english wasn't 100% correct. If there's something horrbily wrong, tell me. I sure will learn from it