I'm definetly not embarassed of anime, like others have mentioned, I don't go out and try and make it obvious, but I'm definetly not going to hide it from my friends and family either.
Most of my past bfs haven't really liked the idea of me liking anime because all they see it as is cartoons that kids watch and they tell me to grow up. I tell them that it's not for kids and besides growing up is mandatory, acting your age isn't! Doesn't bother me though, as long as it doesn't interfere with the relationship.
As far as my family goes I'm lucky enough to have a younger sister (two yrs apart), who i showed anime to, and now loves anime as much as i do and her friends also like it so we do a lot of borrowing between all of us which makes it easy to see and read a lot of things that way. My mom doesn't care at all, infact she will buy us manga and crap from time to time which is cool. My dad will come in the room and just make fun of the japanese just to be a dork cause he's the big kid of the family. (Emilie you are familar with this, hehe)! Than over christmas I found my older cousin (29) loves anime too and we started talking about it the rest of the nite. We swap ideas about what's good and whats not, so that is really cool (funny, we both played quake and started talking about that and some how it led to anime =\ )!
As far as school goes, I went to an all girl catholic hs (yes, that's right all girl)! where there was a girl who was obsessed with anime, drew it and made her own manga and such, she was cool though and we would both drew anime characters in study hall or read manga. There were some of my friends who thought it was weird that I liked anime and most people that I encountered just didn't know what it was, but they still enjoyed my drawings.
Besides if you don't say anything to your friends you will never know if they would like it too. I mean I recently found a friend in college and she had an idea about anime, but i showed her some more stuff and she ended up liking it just as much as I do so now we share this intrest, but if i hadn't of said anything than we wouldn't of. She's my closest friend who likes anime now too! Same goes with my sister, she wouldn't of gotten into it if I hadn't of said anything. So the way I see it is you can take the crap and take the chance of finding a new friend who didn't know they liked anime or you can hide it and not find anyone else who could have shared this intrest if you would have showed it to them..
If someone thinks I'm a geek cause I like anime than they are judging me without even knowing me and I don't want to be with those type of people anyway. If they wanted to be my friend they wouldn't care if I liked anime or not.. it's just anime (it's not like its drugs or something) and if they have to stereo type anime lovers than they are not friends for me!
I guess that I have liked anime for so long now that it has almost become a part of my life. Like it's always been there so it's nothing odd to me.
Wow, sorrie so long, I just think its wrong you have to be embarassed about something that isn't even bad.. in fact, people who have to drink obbsesivly(sp) and get high should be embarassed cause they think thats the only thing to do and they waste their money on a couple hours worth of entertainment (these are the types that are usually closed minded people who make fun of you for liking anime, not all, but i find most).. at least anime is there forever
my apologies!
) a few of them are rather conservitive. Not that's a bad thing, but some of them would be offended by some of the things I watch. But myself and a friend have gotten a few people into amv's. But that's it.
. I think she should really get to know it better, but.... she doesn't. I am a TOTAL fan of DBZ so I have a wall full of posters. I love drawing anime and she says it's a waste of time 
) But we're friends. No-one uses it to directly insult me or anything :¬ \