This post was prompted by a story on animenewsnetwork, but it really leads into something I feel as well.

I'm 26 years old, married, and a massive Otaku. My wife and I have amassed quite a collection of anime together, and we enjoy meeting & talking with other fans and watching anime with friends. Unfortunately, it seems like once you graduate High School, the amount of opportunities to meet other Otaku dwindles down to nothing. I still talk to alot of my friends from High School who are still into anime, but they all live at least a county a way, and many of them are now in other states. I've attended local anime conventions, but it seems like more and more, they have become less inclusive of older fans.

In fact, I must admit that whilst I initially came to this site for the wallpapers, now I mostly use it as a social outlet to talk about anime with others.

So, my question is this: Adult anime fans - do you meet and hang out with other anime fans, and if you do, how do you go about doing it? Have you met other anime fans since you've graduated high school? How did you meet? By accident? Attending an event?

I'm 18, it's been almost a year since I left high school, and to be honest, almost everyone in my high school would laugh at me for bringing anime, even so I did (on my laptop) and watched it during lunch; no one noticed except for a few teachers. One of my friends began hanging out with me watching anime with me in the hallways and the first anime I showed him was Initial D, and since he loved cars and had a mild interest in anime it was something he could dive right into right away, and after that he watched The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and immediately began collecting anime. He eventually became a pretty big otaku, although I still recommend he do stuff out of the ordinary to consolidate that. He's probably the first guy I met in person that actually had the love for anime to become an otaku, a few other friends at my high school watched anime, played anime video games, but were never hardcore, the guy I showed Initial D to become more hardcore than any of them.

Now I'm in university ad I actually find it more people there watch anime and talk about manga in class than when I was in high school. Maybe the more mature environment let's us talk more freely than before because we're not so afraid of people laughing at us unlike in high school where most 14-year olds do that. Many anime fans I've met aren't as into it as I am, at least the ones I've talked to in my university, sometimes going as far as calling me crazy for doing some of the stuff I do.

People usually start talking about anime to me when I watch anime on my laptop at university during breaks, and they start asking me stuff like what animes I've watched, which are your favorites, "oh have you watch this anime" etc. and the whole thing begins. I was grouped together with some anime fans in one of my classes for a group project as well and start in a similar way.

I'm not the most sociable person on earth, but like anyone else, if you start talking to them with stuff they're actually interested in, you can be sure to keep a conversation going pretty well, which pretty much happens to me, although it's usually someone else that starts this conversation as I'm more of a reserved person.

I'm 20 and I run the university's anime club with my fellow officers with whom we just chill out over dinner like every night.

My college has an anime club, and our president is like 30, I believe. Some of the faculty in school (who are also part of the club) watch anime as well, since some of them teach video and animation.

But yeah, I've met a lot of people since high school, some about the same age or younger than me, who are into anime. Most have started getting into it though, and only a few know the classics like I do.

Most of the people that I've met who are into anime usually enjoy playing video games, since a majority of the video games are from Japan. Others I met because they were artists. One of my friends (who I hadn't talked to in a LONG time), I met in high school 'cuz I saw one of her fan comic of Sailor Moon, and she was really good. She inspired me to start drawing. Another friend, I met on a bus stop going to college (and we were going to the same school coincidently as well), 'cuz she saw me reading the Trinity Blood manga.

I think a lot of the younger group age for anime are more huge than the older group is 'cuz anime has become really big, compared to back then. Not saying that anime was unheard of back then; it was there, but it was a small collection. I remember when anime in video stores and manga in book stores were just a shelf, now it's like a whole wall of them. O_O

Honestly I havent' really done much with others. I hope to do so.
I have so much to do with school and work.
My main link with anime communications is the internet

^ ^;
Kind of sad.
I just havent' hanged out with anyone for at least 3 months.

I met anime fans in random places usually either I notice someone who
is reading anime or I will be reading n/or watching it and someone will
say "Oh, I like that anime. Have you seen ____?"

So, randomness is my finding for people.

My otakuness is only fulfilled (besides internet) is convention.

Nope i knew one other friend that like anime but we dont talk a lot now. it would be pretty cool to meet people that like anime. the only place i talk and socialize about anime is on forums.

Sometimes I wonder what it would take to get a non-university related adult or all-ages community anime club going. Would people even go for it? who knows. Maybe just a local fanlisting.....

Haven't really meet a fulltime anime fans like me or my brother,where I live only a few peoples watch anime,and even if they did,they aren't really into it and just watch it to fill times when they got nothing other to do.

I met more fans in college than I thought I would. One even became a good friend. I remember seeing people with anime related clothing on a daily basis.

I do hang-out with them, well, you can't get lucky enough to actually find people who have the same interest, why not hang-out with them for a while? But unfortunately, from my experience, I have never met any otaku with good personality. I'm not really an Otaku, I just enjoy watching animes, and going to these anime-expo stuff. But still, depends on the otaku themselves, if they got the look, why not! hahAha who knows you can get them to cosplay as your fav character and do whatever you wanna do =p.

Not in my town though. I think of a handful of people who likes anime.

I have a few friends I hang with and discuss anime. and my university has an anime club, though I find I'm not as "fanatic" about anime as they are ^_^;;

Hmm I'm a Jr. in college.

When I first started going to college, I didn't think I would really meet anyone who had the same interest in mean especially in anime and manga. But as soon as I had joined the marching band I ran into another girl who loved anime and found out that there was a club on campus that showed anime ever week.

Since then I've been a member for 3 years, and I have to say I'm fairly surprised with all the other otaku's I've met, some worse than I.

In all honesty, I find that there isn't alot of people willing to admit to it, but I have found quite a few.

I dislike the anime club in my uni, they show only the animes in english which I don't find interesting. I can be called an otaku at a super light-weighted scale =D. The japanese voice is one of the things that make animes worth to watch

Not with a bunch of other ppl, but me and my friend sometimes gather and watch anime together. I hook up my PC to the 60" Sony out in the living room through HDMI, and we go buy some junk food before then. Its better than watchin anime alone and I think its best to watch comedies with other people.