In the recent wake of the Toonami explosion, there has been a dramatic rise in the number of people aware of anime. I'm sure you've seen them roaming message boards and posting such things as "I've never seen Grave of the Fireflies but it's not as good as DBZ." Being an educator I have delved into this curious condition to see if there might be salvation for these poor people's souls. Now the conclusion drawn from my studies is presented to you.

Stage One: "True Noob"
The state of only recently having learned of anime through DBZ. This stage is further broken down into the following subgroups:

• "The Damned" - Refuse to watch any other show. They are lost causes. Avoid conversation at all cost.
  
• "Cartoon Network's Bitch" - Will watch shows on CN but refuse to branch out into the vast amount of anime out there.
  
• "Receptive" - Easily find that there is a vast majority of anime out there and have enough interest to seek out more.

Stage Two: "Project Seed"
Interest has naturally led them to such popular semi-mainstream titles as Akira, Ninja Scroll, and Ghost in the Shell. At this point the individual will follow one of two paths.

• "Hentai Otaku" - The viewer's exposure to anime will become a vicious cycle of viewing blood and gore shows with no plot content at all, or pure hentai. While taken in a balanced diet neither of these in themselves are bad, however one cannot exist on them alone.
  
• "Mainstream Anime" - As a natural extension of watching mainstream anime, the viewer watches anime mainstream titles, ones very common within the anime community. Unless the person's spirit is broken by such horrors as M.D. Geist and Tekken, the subject will usually move on to the next phase in his anime life.

Stage Three: "Linguistic Competency"
Now the subject spontaneously realizes the true and utter horror that is present in almost all anime dubs. If the subject does not they are rejected by fellow anime fans and laughed out of the community. The subject also begins spending massive amounts of money on movies, as well as downloading/burning as much anime as they can get their hands on. Most subjects have already begun collecting the OSTs to accompany their anime drugs of choice.

Stage Four: "Otaku in Training"
The subject is so deep into anime that not even horrors such as the aforementioned Tekken could shake their resolve. Their anime knowledge should continue to grow undeterred.

Stage Five: "Kainesque"
At this point the subject has a vast knowledge of anime accompanied with a massively inflating ego and lightning bolts. These subjects have been known to hump anything not nailed down, and some stuff that is.

So in closing, students, you must remember that, yes the noobs are annoying and quite stupid, but with careful guidance they can be made into productive members of the student body. Of course, if it's still futile, Kei can always wack 'em a few times with his shoujo anime beat-stick.