Curry Zawa Kaoru's Creative Counseling - “I’m an otaku in my 30s. Do I need to change?” Focus on tackling the enemies on your level.

“Are there any other total losers watching gore in 9th grade like me? Nah, right? Haha.”

This line was posted on an anonymous internet forum over 15 years ago now, but its enduring legacy as a meme among Japanese netizens shows that it still speaks to a kind of sense of self-importance typical of middle schoolers of any time or place. Once you hit your thirties, however, you start to struggle with the exact opposite. “Are there any other 30-year-old fujoshis who spend their whole day drowning in happy fantasies about their OTPs like me? No??? Haha...” 

Back in middle school, I used to feel a sense of superiority because I was doing things that seemed more mature than my peers, but as an adult, I started to panic, feeling like I was the only childish one left.

However, both situations share the commonality that we convince ourselves we’re unique. Just as it’s hard to be truly special for doing something, it’s actually pretty rare to be truly left behind. Even if you are crawling along at a snail’s pace, there’s always someone who’ll match your pace.

There are plenty of people your age who are in the same situation and struggling with the same worries. In fact, you could even say they’re the majority. At the very least, the second you say there are no creators in their 30s or older, a string of creators dyed in crimson will show up, asking why you can’t see them.

Jaywalking as a group won’t stop you from getting hurt if you are hit by a truck. In fact, these days I think you’re more likely to be reincarnated into another world if you get hit alone than as a group, so it’s not as if having a bunch of people in the same boat as you will make anything better.

So why are you so anxious about your situation in the first place? If you’d spent your twenties without paying a single yen in income tax, doing nothing but fantasizing about your OTPs, I could understand feeling a bit panicked. But you’ve probably been working diligently up until now.

If you were thinking about getting married or having children, I suppose it wouldn’t be unnatural to be worried about your age. But you’ve already concluded through self-analysis that you don’t yearn for romance or marriage.

It’s the kind of situation where I feel like banging my fist on the desk and shouting, "Your problems aren't even that bad! Maybe I should go look for someone else to give advice to!"

But the fact remains. You feel anxious about this, so I'm going to do my best to help you.

You’ve probably spent the last decade or so living a life centered around work and fan fiction. Compared to your student days, which were punctuated by regular milestones like moving up a grade, advancing to the next level of education, or starting a job, adult life tends to feel much more monotonous.

Perhaps you’ve mistaken this repetitive daily routine for stagnation and fallen into the illusion that you’re not growing as a person.

If you were celebrating your 10-year anniversary of doing nothing but staring into space, it’d be true to say you might not have grown at all. But in reality, you’ve been working all this time, so your skills have likely improved and you’ve surely gained experience as a working professional.

When people your age start embarking on exciting new high-stakes ventures like marriage and raising children, you might feel like you’re lacking in XP because you’re still repeating the same days over and over. It’s true that once you get used to a life focused solely on work and hobbies, it can start to feel like endlessly slaying slimes day after day, leaving you with no sense of actually leveling up.

In contrast, those who are attacking the Baramos’s Lair of family life seem to be leveling up in leaps and bounds, making you feel like you're the only one stuck circling around Aliahan forever. However, people with families might not have confidence in themselves, feeling anxious that they haven’t built a sufficient career due to marriage, childbirth, or raising children. Alternatively, they might lament that they don’t have time for their hobbies.

Honestly, I feel that in today’s world, there are simply too many roles expected of a single person. This inevitably leads to some major gaps in XP. As a result, I suspect that almost everyone in their 30s and 40s experiences a moment of doubt, asking themselves if it’s really okay for them to continue like this.

If you only focus on the XP you haven’t earned, you’ll fall into the illusion that your level is abnormally low compared to those around you. This leads you to dismiss your hobbies first, thinking, “My own real life should be more important than some made-up romance between fictional men.”

Instead, you should focus on the XP you’ve actually gained so far. Even if you’ve accumulated less experience than others your age, everyone has their own areas of expertise. If you try to rush into dating or marriage out of anxiety, you might end up taking on an opponent that’s beyond your capacity, or one with whom you’re simply incompatible. Rather than gaining experience, you might just end up hurting yourself. If that happens, you won’t have the energy left for work or hobbies.

Facing powerful enemies is what heroes do. For ordinary people, it’s more important to choose opponents you won’t die fighting and accumulate XP in your own way.

In that vein, you’re defeating work—an opponent you can handle—day by day, you’ve found a hobby that suits you well in fan fiction, and you’re avoiding marriage and romance, which are opponents that could kill you. So, your strategy isn’t bad at all.

What’s more, it seems you’ve already accumulated XP points in filial piety (something even I, in my 40s, haven’t yet mastered), so you might even be on track for a high score. Please continue to confidently accumulate XP from here on out.