To those of us with kids...

[l33tmeatwad]

My kids will be forced to edit...trained from a young age... brought up as ookami... KEIKAKU DOORI.

Seriously though, I'd never force my kids to do stuff...trying to force your kid to be a nerd is just as bad as forcing them to play sports or whatever. Just let them do their own thing. If they want to get into anime, then I have the collection.

I agree, except with sports to some degree, I think it's very healthy to make your kids do some sports at a young age, but just don't force them to be good. I know when I was a kid I tended to not wanna do anything, and I'm healthier since my parents required me to play at least one sport (of my choice)...but yeah, lol, that's different I suppose since it's for health and not for "you must be good" type thing.

[Cyanna]

I honestly don't see anime entering the picture for a few years. The TV on our house is used for DVDs and video games only. No cable, satellite...not even the basic channels. So most of the stuff our daughter watches will probably be stuff on DVD that I would not mind watching with her.

Other than the rare Sailor Moon episode (which really didn't grab me at the time) I didn't really watch anime when I was a little kid and my parents are not nerdy at all. But I loved cartoons and I saw a lot of animated films (my earliest years were during a time when older Disney movies were still rotated through the theaters). As I grew older I still loved watching animated entertainment and anime eventually became a logical next step. But I'm still a Disney fan.

So we'll probably end up watching a lot of what I used to watch, some stuff that predates the both of us like classic Warner Brothers and Tom & Jerry, and whatever is current that sets off my radar as being good rather than brainless. I told Scint there is no avoiding MLP now.

We've got a crapton of DVDs lying around. She'll probably ask to watch something eventually.

[temaranight]

I started editing when my son was 6, and he's now 15 and wants to go into game design/storyboarding. As far as anime went, he cut his teeth (so to speak) on Trigun and Cowboy Bebop. If I didn't think it would cause a huge drop in his grades, he'd be editing right now, but his little video game addiction nixed that. He does write gaming fanfic, (not to shabby for a newbie to it, so I try to go easy on him with the criticism) and given the $$ and the chance could be (or will be) one heck of a cosplayer.

As far as anime now..there's just nothing out there that's caught our attention enough lately. Except the anime part of the Eureka christmas special...now that was pretty cool....

[Knowname]

My parents are just boring. I don't know if they were nerdy, but all us kids are nerdy... some (myself) more than others (everybody else) but I know we've all got our nerdy side. We'd all jump out of our shoes for a sequal to Cowboy Bebop . My parents didn't really care what we did after we reached 13... just as long as we were home by 7 or 8 in the summer.

[Fay-Sa]

No kids but I do have 6 younger cousins but only 1 is interested in anime. The others think it too geeky or are too young.

A few years ago I was babysitting him and his twin sisters (his brother wasn't born yet) for the night and I just brought the Angelic Layer boxset before heading to my uncle's house. Once the girls were asleep I pop the DVD in with him watching. At 1st he was like "Aww it all girly dolls I don't wanna watch this." By the end of one of the episodes he was like "She won she won she won!! That was awesome she won!"

He 11 now and starting to get into it with Pokemon and ATLA(even if that not actual anime it close enough) and loves the Kingdom Hearts game I got him. After he saw my Madoka video he really wanted to watch it so I plan to have him come over when my copy gets here. I also plan to show him and the little ones Summer Wars. He like action so animes like Fullmetal and Soul Eater are a given. He came with me to Across for a day and enjoyed it plus he watched the AMV contest and wants to learn how to edit so he can enter. I couldn't help but laugh when he picked the DearS video because it...well DearS and he 11...he didn't like the one using Shiki XD.

I do worry as his mom doesn't seem to thrilled he into this. After the con he told me he was upset that his parents didn't seem understand why he liked this stuff and I see why, at least with his mom. Once she said to me "Oh I'm so glad you know this stuff cause I don't understand it at all!" "Why don't you try to understand it?" "Oh it easier if he just talks to you." and once she told my other uncle in fount of myself and my cousin "Be glad none of your kids are into this stuff." I almost told her off, not because she insulted what I liked but because he heard her and I could tell it upset him. His dad on the other hand has asked me questions and he follows well because he wants to understand. When he came by the con he saw a Yoko from GL cosplayer...asked if she from an anime then told me Joshua wasn't allowed to watch it which is funny because that was one I plan to show him when he a bit older XD

Anyway don't ever force a kid to watch anime. Do what I did and just pop in the dvd of a anime you think is good for the kids age instead of those dumb down animated movies or Disney sequels. If it something their use to watching they'll most likely keep up with it, if they grow out of it they grow out of it. My mom thought I was gonna grow out of it haha.

[Arigatomina]

I've been raising my sister's daughter since she was a newborn, so I'm practically her mom even if she's technically not mine. She's seven now and I've turned her into an anime fan. She watched my amvs from the start, but now she's seen enough anime that I have her watching the ones I've downloaded as well. She likes the upbeat stuff, romance and dance, and fun comedy/pop type vids. She's only recently started watching me edit, so she doesn't understand why it takes so long to make such short vids. When we watched Fruits Basket (on Netflix) she was shocked to learn I never made an FB vid and after searching the org I could only find a few she liked for it. She's particular about her favorite characters, so general vids don't do the trick. She's bossy about scene choice and colors and makes faces when the vid features things that 'clash' to her. If she ever gets her own computer I think she'd do pretty well. I can see her as an aspiring crossover-vid-maker a few years from now because she doesn't accept "there are no scenes like that in this anime" as an answer. Her response is "then make them!" My older niece is eleven and I've gotten her into the shounen anime, action vids and comedy. She goes nuts over the amv-hell type collections of mini humor shorts (I edit them beforehand to cut out the raunchy stuff). If I ever get her over for an etire weekend, I'll let her put one together herself. I can't see her ever having the patience to put together a serious vid, but she'd have fun with multi-anime action and humor.

My brother and sister (the kids' parents) don't like anime or vids, but they tolerate them because it makes the kids want to use a computer voluntarily. Neither of my siblings ever learned to use computers, let alone complicated computer programs, so without me and my geeky hobbies the kids would have no exposure to computers at all. My siblings hate it when the kids start talking to me and dropping the names of anime characters (with perfect pronunciation, I might add). But they react the same way when I talk with the kids about books. They just resent feeling left out because the only thing they can share with their kids is SpongeBob and both girls have pretty much outgrown that show. ^^;