Introducing Family and Friends to Anime/Visual Novels

[Caveat Lector]

How many of you have tried introducing family and friends to anime or Visual Novels? To what varying degrees of success have you had, if any at all?

This summer, I managed to get my dad to dip his toes into otaku-dom very, very lightly. I had occasionally told him a few things about some anime series here and there, but he hadn't really seen anything. When we went up to the lake this year, I brought up some anime series and movies. I took them out and showed the DVD's to dad and see which ones he was interested in. His choices were (in the following order, but not all in one day) Spirited Away, Hetalia, and Grave of the Fireflies. He was very impressed by Spirited Away and GotF, and called them masterpieces. He tends to be hard to please with animation, so I think we can take that as a success!

(On a separate topic, this was also my first viewing of GotF--I had seen some snippets of it at an anime con before moving on, but hadn't actually SEEN it, and I'm glad I did--it's not a fun movie to sit through, and it didn't quite leave me bawling buckets but it was very heartwrenching in a good way, and I might be willing to sit through it again some day)

One of my friends from university hasn't seen a lot of anime, so I made a few recommendations. So far, she's seen Higurashi and is enjoying it (but hasn't finished it yet).

VN-wise, I introduced the friend and my dad to VN's by getting them to play through Jisei (in my friend's case, I linked her to the demo; in my dad's case, I had him sit down at the computer and try it out). They both enjoyed it, but my dad could not play through it in one sitting. He went "This goes on for another hour!?" and I went "Yeah, basically". Jisei is relatively short--theoretically, you can clear it in just under an hour or two--but dad basically called it quits and saved a game (which he has yet to go back to, I should remind him of it) after playing through it for roughly half an hour. He's not the kind of person who can marathon a game for hours and hours...and, okay, neither am I. At most, I can go two or three hours if it's a game or VN I really, really like, but I am not one of those hardcore gamers/VN readers who marathons an entire game or series of games and only stops for bathroom breaks.

[Googaboga]

That sounds like fun. I wish my dad would try playing a VN XD.

I've never introduced anyone to anime. Pretty much everyone I've known didn't need to be introduced to it.

But have tried to get people I knew to try VNs. My older brother is an avid reader and I play video games. He doesn't really have anyone to talk to about most of the books he reads and the same goes for me with most of my video games. So we made a deal, I'd read a book of his choosing and he'd play a game I picked. Since he liked reading I decided this would be a good chance to introduce him to VNs. I picked Hakuoki because he wasn't able to use a computer very often and Hakuoki was the only pure VN I had for a game console. I read his book and he was a good sport and played to the end of Hakuoki. Unfortunately it turns out it'd be better for him to stick to regular books. I remember watching him read through the final the battle and then it suddenly dawned on me that the dialog was different and I realized his relationship with Saito (who was the guy he got) was too low and that this wasn't going to end well. He got the bad ending and he was just like "I died. What do I do now?". I then had to tell him that since he saved there was nothing he could do but start over. He was so angry . The funniest part is that my older brother is a very good guy. He generally never gets upset so it was really surprising to see him get so genuinely mad at the fact that you could lose and not have any way to fix it. Eventually I was able to get him to calm down and he said he did like the story regardless but I don't think I'll ever get him to play another VN.

I had a few other cases where I tried to get a family member to play a VN. My cousin started Yo-Jin-Bo cause she liked the look of Bo. So we were going to go through it together but we kept having to stop because we were interrupted with something else to do. She wasn't able to get very far. Also one night my brother was bored so I let him play one of my games. I had him play 999 but it was a pretty futile effort because my little younger is painfully indecisive. He didn't get passed the first door because he couldn't choose where to go and he didn't want to have to replay the game over to make new choices >.>.

[Sapphi]

I didn't have to introduce my dad to anime... he was a huge 8th Man fan as a kid.
(And one of my uncles - his brother - watched Kimba on Saturday mornings.)

Sadly, my dad doesn't have enough time to watch much TV, so we've never really watched anything together, but he showed a bit of interest in Space Battleship Yamato when I was watching it and really seemed to like Spirited Away.

I doubt I'll ever attempt to introduce anyone to visual novels for their own sake, but I have at least one family member who has been waiting all my life to read something I wrote, so she'll probably find out what they are.

[Fenrir34]

When I started making VN's I showed my sister and she really started to enjoy them. She's not the biggest fan but I'd think she'd play the real good ones. It's hard to please her though. She has high expectations. As for the anime part my sister got me into that. She first saw Zenki and Dragon Ball Z. Loved Dragon Ball Z when she was a kid. Was quite a tomboy

[RobertSilvermyst]

I would never be able to get either of my parents into Video Games of any sort, including visual novels. They're too old school and set in their ways about technology. They view games as a waste of time and a distraction from real life.

My friends, on the other hand, are another story. I've already gotten one of my best friends addicted to RPGs and Pokemon, and I've yet to introduce any of them to VNs for the moment, but once I finish my own, it'll be the first one they are exposed to (mostly to use them for proofreading and glitch discovery), and I'm sure the story and visuals, music, sounds and interactiveness will hook them. Or I could introduce them first to Katawa Shoujo.

[Viobli]

I didn't introduce anime/VNs to my family members. They think that my hobbies are weird ._. I did tell some of my friends about anime and VNs, some were like "Whatever let's talk about something else" (Okay they didn't say that but their attitude showed so...) When I brought up the topic of anime/VNs to another friend, she was like a super hardcore anime fan and our whole conversation was all about anime