Whoa! About 2 and half months since I joined up on this site and I'm only now getting around to introducing myself- I guess it took me a while to
give a fuck find the time I guess - what with, working for the man and all...
Anyhoo, I've been looking at a few other people's and WHAT!? I'm like one of the
oldest dudes here!?! I mean, most of the members here were born in the, the, the... NINETIES?
I mean, I'm like 2 and half years older than the dude who created this site?? WTF? Wouldn't that make me like his sempai
IN LIFE?? Geez where the hell did all the time go...?
Seriously though, if there is anyone out there who is of my wearied age and remembers the good 'ol anime classics of yore drop us a line sometime!
Anyway, firstly some history...
Born and raised on the mean streets of Adelaide, Australia (look out Compton!) I first acquired a taste for the animated artform back in the summer of '87 (I'm a little hazy on the dates- forgive me, it's just my amnesia creeping in...)
It was an anime (well technically a Japanese-French co-production) named The Mysterious Cities of Gold. Now kids.. we live in faster times nowadays where jigabytes of data travel along the information superhighway at around about 596432.432 miles per hour (give or take a bit) - BUT IT WASN'T ALWAYS THAT WAY!! Now sure, any teenage punk looking at this show for the first time is probably going to be a little underwhelmed BUT LET ME TELL YOU that for a wide-eyed 5 year old this show rocked like a proverbial GUITAR SOLO FROM HELL!!
Flash forward a couple of years and you would have seen me as a teenager - pimples, a voice that cracks at the most inopportune moments and most importantly... A BIGGER CROTCH!!
Now by this time I was into anything Asian in general and Japanese in particular. I loved (and still do I might add) pretty much any crass or tacky film that was coming out of Hong Kong (I OCCASIONALLY even watched films with artist merit - check out Wong Kar Wai if you're interested), I really got into martial arts - taking up kendo (funnily enough, I hate that anime Bamboo Blade though..), of course I was loving Japanese anime and manga more than ever before, AND I DIDN'T FIND ANY PARTICULAR AVERSION TO THE GIRLS EITHER!
With this overwhelming passion focussed on the Asian region and with the film medium in general I had found my goal in life, my guiding light, MY REASON FOR BEING!!
And I decided to follow it...
Graduating from high school I decided to major in both Film Studies and Japanese at university making for THE BEST GODDAMN FOUR YEARS OF MY LIFE!! After four long years toiling away studying at the university bar I had my degree.
YES KIDS! THE HOME BREW DID NOT TASTE ALL THAT GREAT! THE WEED HAD BEEN OF LOW GRADE AT BEST! MY FIRST SEXUAL EXPERIENCES ARE BETTER OFF LEFT UNMENTIONED! But I'd give anything to go back to uni, because you know what? Once you start workin-...(on second thought, I'll shut up about that - wouldn't want to squash any impressions of working in the real world that you might get from your career guidance counsellor)
With degree entow and with a vast wealth of knowledge in the Japanese language provided to me by the lovely teachers from both Adelaide Uni and Flinders Uni, I was now fully prepared to blow this chicken shit outfit and land myself my dream job in Japan...
NOT!!
After long and extensive studies carried out into the health of my bank account the results were very grim indeed - in plain English - I was broke, not a dollar, not a penny, not a lira, not a dutchmark, not a single Japanese yen...
Now, of course I COULD have asked my parents for money - but that would have made my A MOOCHING LOSER!, a douchbag, the scurge of society - NOTHING BUT A BLUDGER! (NOTE TO READER: The author tried asking his parents on numerous occasions, got down on his hands and knees begging them, when that didn't work he begged his friends, he BEGGED STRANGERS! - all to no avail...)
No! I COULD have asked, but I didn't! I found a job (insert part time job from hell) working in an electrical goods store that payed a
shithouse handsome wage of 17 Aussie bucks an hour. The Japanese would call this a...
非常にリーズナブル、良心的な時給でございます。
It was DAMN RIGHT REASONABLE BABY! MUHAHAHA! (Sorry...)
With after a year or so working I earned enough to come to Japan. During the same time I had passed the JLPT 2! NOT BAD FOR A WHITE BOY!!
I was off! You see.. Australia and Japan (and a number of other countries) have what's called a WORKING HOLIDAY PROGRAM. Where YOUNG aspiring people can exchange your culture, dreams etc. with each other IN THE HOPE OF THE WHOLE WORLD COMBINING TOGETHER FOR A BETTER TOMORROW!
But... WHAT THE FUCK WAS I TO CARE ABOUT THAT! - I WAS OFF TO JAPAN BABY!
It was a dream come true - I was even so much of an eighties reject that I listened to Van Halen's 'DREAMS' on the plane flight in!
And the rest as they say, is history... I'm still in Japan (I used to live in Matsudo, Chiba but I have recently moved to Saitama), I still love anime and manga to death. I got my JLPT 1 a year or so back and have been working at a translation company located in Tokyo. I don't translate anything relating to manga yet (my company does mostly camera manuals etc.) BUT THE DAY WILL COME MY FRIENDS!! MUHAHAHA!!! (stroking a stray alley cat IN A VERY DR.CLAW FASHION!! (Inspector Gadget - look that one up on your WIKIPEDIA when you get a chance kids!!)
