There is this trend amongst self proclaimed hardcore fans that in order to be a ‘real’ fan you must learn the Japanese names for all the characters in an anime or video game and use only those names. If anyone asks who you are talking about, they can then sneer down at the person and declare that they aren’t a ‘real’ fan because they don’t know the Japanese name.
The most Jarring instance of this, to me at least, is the issue about Dr. Robotnik, AKA Dr. Eggman. While with most modern animes it’s almost reasonable to say that you could easily just look up the Japanese name on the internet, you could not do that way back when Sonic first came out.
When Sonic came out in the US the main antagonist was Dr. Robotnik. When he was on the game gear, it was still Dr. Robotnik. When he got on the computer with Sonic 3D Blast, his enemy was Dr. Robotnik. Hell in the several cartoons and the educational video game they made refer to him also as Dr. Robotnik.
When Sonic X came out, suddenly the villain was ‘Dr. Eggman’ which confused me. All my life he was Dr. Robotnik and now they suddenly change his name on me? I mention it to a friend of mine, who immediately took up the fanboy mantle and began a full tirade on how it was always Dr. Eggman and if I was a real fan I would have learned Japanese, and looked at Japanese websites about the game instead of English ones, then i would have known he was Dr. Eggman and not the ‘stupid americanized name’ Dr. Robotnik.
This sort of thing irritates the hell out of me. Being a fan should be about enjoying the work, not about how unhealthy a level of obsession you can build over every tiny detail of something. In my opinion this habit of using the Japanese names as a status symbol of fandom is just obnoxious. It takes 20 seconds to google a name, but it takes a fan to enjoy a series.