Video games/ anime: Why the obsession?

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I know a lot of people like both those, but it seems a lot of people on the spectrum have an extreme interest in those two things? What's up?

PS: I just have a hunch I'm gonna get attacked for this. Lets ask anyway.

I feel a little old coming here, because of it.

I liked anime when I was younger. Not sure why. Teens fought aliens in robotic things. Seems pretty cool.
I tthink what I love about anime is the mythology behind it, in some cases. Bleach was a really enjoyable anime.
I pretty much suck at videogames except for Harry Potter ones. Still, I keep buying them in hope that I can get better.
Videogames don't require too much thinking and you could play the same game for hours if you were any good at it.

I'm bored and distractable a lot. Playing games is a good cure for boredom and you really need to concentrate to be good at them. I just play a bunch of games on my phone. I'm easily bored and will download another one to play for 2 minutes though.

I guess that it's a bit of a generation gap.

I used to be obsessed with anime because I loved the wild character designs and the way the artwork looked. I spent years trying to learn to draw so I could emulate the style. I also had a strong interest in everything having to do with Japanese culture and language. However, around the age of 18 and a half to 19 is when I started getting tired of watching anime because I had seen so much of it that all of the storylines and character types started to bore me.

I have since moved on to obsessing over live-action TV shows and movies. My drawings still have somewhat of an anime influence to them, but they've also become more cartoonish over time. I sometimes experience nostalgia over anime and things related to Japan because it was such a big part of my childhood.

I noticed a lot of Aspies are into Sci Fi and Anime, neither of which I liked. Personally I like video games because it allows me to connect with people.

I was somewhat into anime as a teenager. For me the appeal was largely that it has a lot of lonely characters. Even the more upbeat anime often have this going on in the background and will be peppered with very poignant moments. I liked being able to identify with that.

I like video games, but I've never really been seriously into them*, unless you count computer games. The appeal of computer games, for me, is being able to play them with friends who live far away (so they serve as a way to connect with other people). Single-player games are also an easy means of indulging in escapism--they help to fill a void (at least superficially). Of course, it is also possible to enjoy single-player games in a healthy way. I'm only talking about taking them to excess.

*"Retro" games aside. Those I enjoy because I like to collect things and for the social aspects, with the exception of Dr. Mario. I can't explain my love of Dr. Mario. It's been suggested that it might be a sort of stim for me, and it may well be.

I just got interested in anime about a year and a half or so ago, and really, I guess I like it because of the stylization- the character designs, the colors, stuff like that. Also, it tends to get away with more outrageous things that, I have a feeling, western media would handle comparatively badly.

As for video and computer games, I've been into those since I've had a computer to play them on. Again, it's about going fantastic places and getting to be the hero and doing fantastic things.

It's all escapist, really, for me, like I imagine it is for pretty much everybody.

CockneyRebel is five years younger than I am and Bee33 is five years older, and somehow my interests are more akin to the next generation. I don't think it's entirely generational. (sorry I repeated myself here, I wanted to add the following that I left out of my first post)

When I was growing up, my family had the Coleco Telstar, the Atari 2600, the Odyssey II, I got a Commodore 64 at one point. We went to a local video game arcade filled with those big machine, all lights, colors, and electronic noise? I played the Pac-Man, the Asteroids, the Berserk, Defender, Dragon Slayer, Space Ace, Missile Command, Gauntlet, and on and on and on.

I stopped playing them at some point until the mid-90s, when I got into computer games. All kinds. I had so many...and still have some of those.

Anime was an outgrowth of my SF and fantasy fixation, and anime often plays with the genres and their conventions in interesting ways.

it might be generational, older aspies gravitated to science fiction and (western styled) comic book conventions more often and apparently those were more popular and vibrant than they are today (the two comic cons ive been to tended to have mainly older white and black guys there.....well, wizard world but that one sucked. C2E2 had more girls there & the gaming and star wars panels brought younger people there....still the design of C2E2 made it feel like it was for old people, most stuff stopped after 7pm (we dont do that @ animu cons its 24 hours babby )

EDIT: as others posted there's older people who transitioned from western animation and science fiction to anime cons, either from people @ the cons, or from their children or something else like that. Or people who got into anime from younger members of their family/students/etc.