Who wants to be considered a weeaboo? Nobody wants to be that non-Japanese person who’s obsessed with Japanese culture, stereotyping Japanese people and denouncing their own culture.

When I was younger, my sister and I were really into Toonami’s program. We would stay up all hours of the night to watch “Bleach,” “Deathnote” and “Inuyasha.” I have a theory that this is where my insomnia stems from.

Before that, us and all of our cousins would geek out over “Pokémon,” “Dragon Ball Z,” “Digimon” and “Yu-Gi-Oh!” We made our parents buy us the cards and take us to the movies that made it to the big screen. We cried when we thought Ash was dead, we cheered when he lived. That stuff was our life.

Now, for about a decade, I have reformed myself to not openly watch or like anime except for “Attack on Titan” — “Attack on Titan” is terrifying, and I love being scared. Here’s the problem with that: “Naruto” is on Netflix, and I loved “Naruto” when I was little. I totally wanted to be a ninja from the Hidden Leaf Village.

So, innocently, I clicked on “Naruto.” I just wanted to play it as familiar background noise while I read and got ready for bed.

In hindsight, I’m now realizing that I secretly wanted to be consumed by this ninja sinkhole, but if you had asked me at that time, I would have insisted that was not the case. I’m now in the “Naruto” sinkhole.

The other night, I stayed up until 2 a.m. trying to figure out how Sasuke redeemed himself and married Sakura.

I could be doing homework that whole time — nay, I should be sleeping.

Anime is so time-consuming. It’s exactly like consuming a good sci-fi/fantasy story; it’s just in cartoon form.

If I start openly running around campus with my arms swung behind my back, claiming I want to be the next Hokage and that I’m looking for my buddy Sasuke, just put me out of my misery.

Megan Keane is a senior English and psychology major. She can be reached at mkkeane@eiu.edu.