Why I Blog About Anime, Japan, and Tokyo
Life takes funny turns. Way back in 2003 I really wasn't terribly interested in Japan or anime or manga. This is even though I had grown up on Mazinger, Gatchaman, Simba, Marine Boy, Ultraman, and Super Robot Red Baron. My adult travels took me to Hong Kong, through Europe, and I even lived in Greece, but I had never considered visiting Japan. At one point I said I'd like to climb to the top of a volcano, and I considered ones in Hawaii and Mount Fuji. It is seventeen years later and I haven't climbed Mount Fuji, but I've been to Japan a bunch of times now. I regularly watch anime and read manga as there are sub-genres that I enjoy and focus on. Manga and anime are not genres, they are communication mediums, much like movies and comics, with a great breadth of subjects and topics.
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| Anime swag from Japan. Pokemon and Totoro! |
So what happened back in 2003? A cousin introduced me to a few anime, something I hadn't watched in years. I mainly played video games, even built level sets for the Half-life gaming community, and read science fiction. There wasn't a lot of good sci-fi on TV or even in the theatres, so when I started watching the anime Full-Metal Panic!, which is about real robot mecha, I was pretty much hooked because it was better than what was on TV. I also watched Love Hina, Gasaraki, and a few other shows. I was intrigued by the Japanese culture and perspective in the stories. I had played some Japanese role-playing games on the Game Boy like Final Fantasy and Pokemon, but this was a new thing. Many culture or genre specific references went over my head at the time and it was fascinating. Reading Newtype USA, manga, and watching more anime shows like Gundam Seed, Full Metal Alchemist, Naruto, etc., set my direction firmly down the path I'm on now.
Since then it has been a learning experience about Japan, understanding the references in the various shows better, and I eventually decided I had to visit Japan in 2009. I had the best time of my life in Tokyo for eight days as it was a wonder to see everything I had read and watched for real (just no anime characters walking around in overly bright coloured backdrops). I then started my blog in 2010 and it has been running for 10 years! I've also written a series of stories and a novel in my Exocrisis Blue universe that has humans battling alien invaders in realistic mecha.
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| Cool Kit Kats from Japan. Make sure you read my souvenir list if you visit. |
This year, I did a big series of posts on the top 50 things to see and do in Tokyo, enhanced versions of articles from my guidebook, Tokyo Intro: Stories, Pop Culture, and Places for Visitors. If you're an anime fan and want to visit Tokyo, these articles and the guidebook would be valuable resources, but the information is good for all visitors.
In retrospect, having anime and manga in my life has been great and it has been a medium that I enjoy and it is a creative outlet for me too! I look forward to the next ten years or seventeen years. I've found plenty of new stuff that interests me and my current writing is definitely influenced by this in a good way. I originally watched for action and mecha, but have found I like the storytelling in more slice of life and drama anime over time. This is probably a good thing as good mecha anime are few and far between these days. Some of the shows I really enjoy now are things like Laid Back Camp, Restaurant to Another World, Fire Force, March Comes in Like a Lion, Re:Zero, Konosuba, Saga of Tanya the Evil, A Place Further Than The Universe, Hinamatsuri, Erased, Full Metal Panic! Invisible Victory, Golden Kamuy, Schwarzes Marken, Legend of Galactic Heroes, GATE, Sword Art Online, Chihayafuru, and many more.
Stay tuned for more posts about instant noodles (Japanese ramen!), anime, gaming, and my stories. Leave a comment. Let me know what you like about anime, Japan, and instant noodles!
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