▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Interview #178 - @Tensho ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬  The Background User "Who set my opacity to 10%?!" Interview conducted by: @Skittles Reviewed by: @Wary_Wolf Tell us more about yourself! Sooo, there’s actually not much to me online. My most defining trait on MAL can probably be captured in a snapshot with the character Akarin from Yuru Yuri or Kellam from Fire Emblem. No, it’s not that I’m a cute girl or a valiant knight, although being both of those at the same time would be pretty cool. Rather, it’s my shocking lack of presence. To the dear readers who recognise my nearly invisible self running around, waving within the receding background of MAL, hello again. For those of you who are like “who dis?”, it’s nice to meet you! In reality, I’m 172cm short. Short, but not super short. I’m also Asian and have a terrible haircut. Even though fringes went out of fashion in Australia since like 2011, I still have one. I wax it up to make it look acceptable in day-to-day life. If you want a wax recommendation, the matte wax by Gatsby (not sponsored) is pretty much equivalent to legendary rank equipment in your favourite RPG. When I’m overseas in parts of Asia like Hong Kong or Japan, I’ve noticed bangs are still a thing over there and I love it! I get super elated to wear my hair down and then my friends are immediately behind me in the mirror shouting, “DON’T DO IT!”. One day while I was in Japan, some of my students commented about my hair being “tsun tsun”. Yes, that’s the same “tsun” used to describe that prickly personality in tsundere. Anyway, while they were busy poking at my hair, I fired a glare at my friend and fellow teacher across the classroom. Who forcefully slapped a pound of wax on my hair that morning?! Let me improve your image of my personality. The occasional observant person might notice that I prefer to just shut up rather than prattle on about nothing. For the most part, I’m outgoing and like to talk, even though I am a bit deficient at keeping a conversation running above its stall speed. I get excited and emotionally moved easily much to my own chagrin. I want to extrude a cool, never-gets-fazed-by-anything aura! For example, I was parting with a family (not MY family) with the “we may never meet again” setting. I had wet eyes hugging the sobbing younger sister and her tearful mum. About one metre away, and one million emotional kilometres away, were the father and brother being perfectly composed… Okay, you can stop making fun of me behind your screen. As punishment, here’s the boring bit about my “professional” background. I’ve fully graduated from university having majored in Computer Science for my bachelors and Creative Writing for postgraduate studies. At the moment, I am a part-time coding teacher at several primary and secondary schools in Melbourne. I also run intensive classes during school holidays. Why "Tensho"? Any reason for choosing that name? As one could easily guess if they’ve seen Bleach, my name comes from Kurosaki Ichigo’s signature attack, “Getsuga Tenshou”. I dropped the “u” because I simply thought it didn’t look as good, but now I don’t think it makes a darn difference anyway. I don’t remember why I chose that name besides being a massive Bleach fanatic at the time. I might as well have called myself “Bankai” since that is probably the most screamed out word in the series aside from “Getsuga Tenshou”. If my distaste for my name isn’t obvious enough, I don’t really use “Tensho” anywhere else except on VNDB. I blame my lack of inspiration on the day I made my account. I enjoy it occasionally though, such as when someone makes a typo (thank the legend for whoever placed the “o” key next to the “i”!) and calls me “Tenshi,” which is a wonderful-sounding name. Also, as daft as it sounds in English, being called “Ten” makes me kinda happy. It sounds like Serizawa Ten, a recent favourite protagonist of mine from the series Short Cake Cake. And she, too, has a angelic name with "Ten" being written as heaven! Share with us your brief history on MAL. Why did you decide to become a moderator? I joined in 2010 which sounds like a long time ago. Like all good boys and girls back then, I didn’t really use the site outside of listing until I was older, about early 2015. During this time, someone requested me through PM to join a Skype group chat for Australian MAL users; the group would make it easier for people in the same time zone to connect with each other. Starting with five odd members, our group chat grew pretty quickly and sprouted various spin-off groups, such as the appropriately named MALbourne—after Victoria’s capital city and my hometown, Melbourne. We also learned first-hand the true saltiness and incomprehensibility of some people on the internet. A club sparked and grew up to 1.7k members. All the members turned into ghosts eventually though. While club activity was booming throughout all of 2015 and most of 2016, we were already pretty much on our way out. By 2017, the club and everything related to it was over. Wanting to join a fun community again, I found an invite from Castle On The Hill that had been gathering dust. I joined but never ended up being really active there. This club soon fell to hiatus as well, but the few users I did have the pleasure of chatting to once in a blue moon were lovely. I haven’t found a new club to call home since. 2018 on MAL was relatively quiet for me, and 2019 is aiming to be similar. MAL has wavered between being a part of my life I merely acknowledged and a part that I actively tried to live and breathe life into. But its semi-permanence is something I’m glad to have had around, such as the mere act of connecting to IRC every day despite nothing happening for the next twelve hours until I sign off for the night. Some of the experiences I’ve had on this site were genuinely enjoyable, which is why I haven’t cast MAL away unlike many of my other hobbies. About my ongoing journey as a Forum Moderator, I was nominated by... someone and invited to apply. Now that I think about it, I’m pretty curious as to who found me back then, citing my major lack of presence. Anyway, I still remember sitting at a uni computer completing the long mod test while a friend peeked over my shoulder saying, “How much does that pay?”. At that point of time, I was desensitized to the monotony associated with sending out a metric crap tonne of applications for part-time work. I figured one more wouldn’t hurt even though it wasn’t real work. Turns out, it was seriously time-consuming! When I was accepted, I was all like, “Oh, I got accepted for a change!”. I, along with @Ardanaz, @Shocked, and @shawnofthedeadz, joined the staff in Dec 2015 as a fresh kouhai quartet. Even though Shawn eventually retired, reducing us to a trio, the rest of us have safely entered our fourth year of forum modding together! What led you to become a fan of anime/manga? Around 2008 or 2009 was when it started. A friend and Bleach freak introduced me to the show as my first “real anime”. After being recommended K-ON! and Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood by my brother, these two series became the next seasonal anime that I followed week after week till the end. Bleach was never-ending and Full Metal Alchemist would stride long into 2010 before it finished, leaving K-ON! to conclude after only twelve weeks. It was heartwrenching for me. There was no way of knowing whether or not a second season would be announced back then. But my love for fluffy slice of life filled with moeblobs began then. Except what do people call it nowadays? CGDCT? Manga just kind of… started somewhere. I use it to continue a series where its anime left off. Before I realized, my taste in manga was starkly different from that in anime. I enjoy shoujo romance and also introspective thought-provoking tales, which can be rather dark at times. What I value a lot in manga are the smaller, less profitable, and more polarising stories that can be found. I enjoy romance in manga immensely because unlike many anime adaptations, the manga is the complete story. In other words, you can find closure for your favourite shipping, for goodness' sake. Any users you like/dislike? Why? I like most people whom I’ve had the pleasure of chatting with multiple times—which hasn’t ended with them or me getting irate. I’d love to name some of my absolute favourite users actually, but my profile comments is pretty much a goddamn time capsule. It’d be really creepy if I named someone whom I haven’t actually talked to in a while. Some users are simply gone by now as well. As for users I dislike, I steer clear of people who I think I wouldn’t get along with. I don’t go on MAL to have a bad time. Naturally, because forum modding means you can’t necessarily do that every time, experiences in the forums have also created negative opinions of me for some users. What are your hobbies outside of anime/manga and MAL? Creative writing as I’ve mentioned earlier in passing. It was a hobby upgraded into an academic endeavour and is now reverting back to being a hobby. This pastime still brings me the most joy. Speculative fiction is my specialty whether it's fudging history, crafting vivid ecocriticism, or architecting an entire world and lore steeped in futuristic science fiction. Strangely enough, I don’t read books much. Flipping through volumes of shoujo manga while squinting at the tiny furigana doesn’t count. Cars and—more recently—motorcycles are another big hobby of mine. I enjoy the technical marvel that they are and also the deep finesse needed to extract the true potential out of them. Anyone can drive fast in a straight line, but in the era of being distracted in increasingly simple vehicles to drive, people seem to have lost the sense of enjoying the drive. Such a shame since the automobile can be such a thrilling and engaging piece of engineering. Before I keep rambling on about cars and motorcycles—although I already have, there’s actually way more rambling that you don’t see, but I’ve sliced it all out (with tears in my eyes!)—let me talk shortly about my previous hobbies. I’ve dabbled in stargazing, breakdancing, and also playing volleyball. For one reason or another, I only do some of these occasionally nowadays or not at all. While I have a lot to say about these experiences up to this point, they’re not really a hobby any longer. I also still game a bit, but I’ve been doing so less and less over the years. How do you feel about how the site is run? Especially in regards to your fellow moderators and admins. I think our team of admins are amazingly competent in keeping the team together. They are able to offer advice on what to do in any given situation and are always approachable. I say approachable, but in all the years I’ve been on the staff, I’ve actually never spoken to a single mod let alone admin about non-mod stuff through DM. But that’s just me and I see great friendships in and between the different mod teams. I also believe the staff as a whole is competent in what they do. What users can see as incompetence can often just be slow progress, which is inherent in the variable number of hours we each put into MAL. Overall, I think the team works like a well-oiled machine that just needs the occasionally TLC which, of course, our admins give plenty of. Melbourne constantly ranks as one of the top 10 most beautiful cities in the world. Do you agree or disagree? What are some of the most worthwhile places to visit there? I live in one of the less-than-picturesque suburbs of Melbourne. So while I’m not submerged in the hipster suburban life that’s rampant on Instagram, Melbourne is still a vivid place that I’m proud to call home. This city is constantly alive, filled with cultural icons and contemporary buzz along with strong diversity pumping throughout its veins. Melbourne’s city centre in particular is home to a lot of international students and other visitors. I doubt readers are consulting this interview while planning a trip to Melbourne, so I will only be brief about what’s around. Nice beaches and great hiking are highlights here. The only theme park we have sucks. In my opinion, the further out of the city centre you go, the more genuine of an experience you’ll get. Whether that’s something you want is up to you. Skittles: Don't forget the awesome restaurants! Probably why I spend most of my time studying in the city center. What made you interested in coding? What programming languages are you versed at? I don’t really remember. To be honest, my degree has drained my passion for coding to the point where I don’t care much for it, but I still see programming as a pretty cool thing. Being able to make a computer follow your command is about as limitless as it sounds. Most of my experience has been centred around plain old C, but I’ve also worked with C#, C++, and Java for larger-scale projects. I know a couple of other languages that I shameless advertise on my CV; in reality, I haven’t used them extensively. I’ve done some uni projects on Unity, a popular game engine, and my final year project was an Android application written in Android Studio. There were a number of specific requirements for this project, but my group’s app was a game called Treasure Hunters, which was basically a rip-off of Pokemon Go while avoiding any copyright infringements. The only appeal was in the prototype R18+ version dubbed Horny Hunters, which got scrapped the moment the lecturer laid eyes on it because he wasn’t mature enough to take it seriously. I’ll let you fill in the gaps on what specific features that prototype had. I said I don’t like coding, but in case someone reading this is interested in writing the next Skynet, don’t let me discourage you. In fact, I have some healthy motivation fuel from my coding days: In all seriousness, pursue whatever you’re passionate about. It just wasn’t my cup of tea. Share with us some of the most memorable experience during your time teaching coding to primary and secondary school students. My most memorable experiences are probably when I genuinely inspire someone in class and their brightness compared to the usual “yeah, yeah". Naturally, it’s a rare occurrence, and while I try to make all classes an easygoing and fun place, that stark difference in response when I’ve captured the real interest of a student is fantastic. This is especially true since I no longer particularly enjoy coding anymore. Teaching in Japan was very memorable simply because it was in Japan and the culture is different. In Australian schools, classroom control is a skill that’s forged in fire, especially if you lack a teaching degree like me. In Japan, I never ran into an issue with a rowdy classroom, although I guess that’s generally speaking. I’m sure there’s a classroom over there that needs the Great Teacher Onizuka to kick their butts into shape. Since you enjoy the technical marvel of automobiles, have you ever thought of studying engineering? Maybe this is a chance to expand something from the coding question earlier: I am incredibly bad at mathematics. To complete my computer science degree, I completed the bare minimum requirements of two units of pure maths and stats, but not before failing one of them and having to return during summer and redo that piece of shit course. If you looked at my motivation fuel from before, you can see I never got away from mathematics till the bitter end. It appeared in my computing subjects again and again. That said, I’ve had the opportunity to try my hand at the mechanical, electrical, and chemical engineering disciplines. ALL FILLED WITH MATHS I MIGHT ADD. Mechanical appealed to me most, but the physics calculations were merciless for my primary school maths skills, so that path was just never going to work out. Maybe in another life. But yes, I have thought about it. Working in R&D at a famous car manufacturer is my dream job. Even further than that would be at Scuderia Ferrari, helping pioneer their next cutting-edge Formula One chassis. But hey, that’s what a dream is, right? By the way, my favourite Formula One team is actually the Renault F1 Team. You seem to have a knack for graphic design. What led you to that hobby? Did you learn it by yourself? Making graphics to use for MAL was what led me to mess around on Photoshop. I’ve only followed a video tutorial once and loathed every second of it. I learned very little. At that time, I was just desperate to try and get closer to the fantastic work demonstrated by many of MAL’s talented graphic artists, such as those from the Enchanted Pixels club. Through experimenting and googling what tool does what and following some written tutorials, I’ve learned how to tap into just the smallest fraction of Photoshop’s power. My current profile featuring P90 and Five-seveN from Girls’ Frontline is actually about my most technically advanced set yet, so that’s a good demonstration of where my skills are at. One day, I’d still like to learn how to do those cool fractal GFX that I don’t even know how to properly describe. Also, how the heck do you split an image so part of it is your profile picture and the other is your profile banner?! Skittles: Resize your image until its width is at least 1048px. Crop out 350px x 225px of the image for the profile pic, then crop out 798px x desired height from the remainder to make the banner :^) Show us some of your best GFX creations! Most of my work can still be seen on my blog. Let me talk about some work that isn’t on my blog, although I can’t vouch for their quality. This was my quiz card for the 2017 MALentine event where you had to guess the senders. The phone is taken from the frame of a manga, and the house is from the jacket of one of its volumes. All of this was done using the signature orange of this heartwarming manga. This event was also the first time I helped out behind the scenes; the absolute mountain of work pretty much buried both me and @Rawrberto, who was just a junior forum mod at the time. On the other hand, @Kineta, @Luna, and @Zelot clearly knew what was coming since they worked so coolly! That said, I had plenty of fun helping to prepare for that event. Currently, I have a LovePlus forum set. I also created a profile set about the same time, but the final result just felt a bit too plain. And yes, I’m still stumped on how to improve this design. The blue half-border reincarnated into the thick orange frame of my current Five-seveN profile. I also copied over the grid background, so I guess this work was still useful as a learning experience. My last GFX profile, if you can even call it that. My usual half-text-half-image profile temporarily gave way for this. Made in mid-2017, I used it only for a short while because it felt super edgy. There was no actual profile text, nor could I figure out the precise composition. All up, it was a pretty big fail as far as an "About Me" goes. The work featured this visual novel because I had just finished reading it back then and was still frothing from the twists. I still highly recommend it even until now. All ages, from the director of Ever17, another critically acclaimed VN. Skittles: Root Double is besto! Nice profile btw :) Lately, you have been basing your profile layouts on Girls' Frontline. Are you a big fan of gacha games? Have you ever experienced "gacha hell"? No, not really. Long before GFL, I played Valkyrie Crusade for about two years, which involved a sacrifice of probably around $50. Just last year, I saw an Instagram ad for GFL, and on half a whim, I started playing it not long after the launch of its English-language server. I’ve enjoyed it enough to still be playing now, about 10 months since the server was created. I don’t like how time-consuming these style of games are and also how quickly you’re left in the dust if you don’t bother to regularly log in. I’ve kept my gameplay routine in GFL fairly casual, but starting early has helped me build up everything in spite of that. The mobages (mobile games) of the past like Valkyrie Crusade were pretty extreme in that to get limited SR (Super Rare) cards, you had to bash a boss about 300 times on average, which frankly is a load of bull. So no, I don’t have much experience with mobages. However, if Girls’ Frontline is anything to go by, they’ve moved forward these years in a very good way by ditching pay-to-win models and raising disgusting drop rates. Now for the most important question. Who is your waifu? Fujibayashi Kyou from Clannad. I’ve never featured her on my profile or forum set before though because I haven’t put any thought into the "waifu" thing until you asked. Anyway, Kyou came to mind straight away and that’s what matters, right? Watching the Kyou Chapter of Clannad: After Story was one of the greatest bits of wish fulfillment in anime for me. An ending based solely on her! Usually, all my favourite characters lose the couple wars (and Kyou was no exception in the canon), so I was basically squealing uncontrollably throughout the episode even though I respect the canon story as a magnificent tale in itself. Somewhere deep down, I still lament the fact that there’s a Tomoyo After spin-off story, but not one for Kyou... Why are you such a pervert? from @Ardanaz Um, you mean why am I so pure and innocent? Can I remind you, @Ardanaz, of that time you defiled me? I should also blame @Maffy for setting me up that time... Being a Forum Moderator is a stressful job. What advice can you give to future candidates? What is the most critical attribute one should have when applying for this demanding position? Apply for it only if you actually want to do it. It is tedious work and not all rainbows and sunshine, so consider it carefully before donating your limited free time. Patience is probably an obvious one, so here’s another—communication. Not just between you and users, but also between the other mods you’re working with. What are some of the most noteworthy moments during your time moderating the forums? Nothing really worth sharing actually. When I banned myself? Oh wait, no, that was @Ardanaz, wasn’t it? There has been talk among MAL users of how the forums are slowly dying. Would you say so? I hear this year in, year out. When the forum mods are renamed to community mods or retired altogether, I’ll concede. Otherwise, no, I don’t think so. Any feedback on the interview format? It looks tried and true, but with the batches of questions, it can feel more like a questionnaire than an interview at times. Is there anything unasked you would like to talk about? A few words to the reader. If you’ve read a section or God forbid, all of it, I hope I was able to entertain you a bit and I thank you for reading! Can I talk about the current HoneyWorks layout on the club page? I’m a huge fan of their stuff—especially the Confession Executive Committee Love Series! I would totally read an interview of Koyuki-kun. I would ask about whether he’s gotten over his heartbreak… about his precious kouhai, Hina-chan… and also maybe it’s time he told us who that girl from Tokyo Winter Session was?! Skittles: LOL I found those two dudes randomly on DeviantArt, but nice to know you recognize them! Alright, that’s all from me. Seeya later. Could you recommend us three users from which we can choose to interview in the future? And why? Oh, there’s one more question. For exactly the same reason why I haven’t named any specific users I like, I have no users to name for this question too. I leave it to your capable judgment. This marks the end of the interview. Thank you for your participation! |
SkittlesMar 22, 2019 8:19 PM
 |
| Good times messing with you for being a pervert ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) |
| Where's my mention of the people you like? *shakes fist* Only blaming me! FOR SHAME! Not MY fault you're a pervert and that happened with Ardy! It wasn't I that made you have semi naked girls on your profile :'( Also, great interview @Skittles! Unlike you! You suck <: |
   |
| @Tensho Your opening quote is hilarious. Gave me a good chuckle as a Photoshop nerd :P I'm intrigued that you pursued computer science despite being terrible at mathematics. I've been interested in coding for quite a while now, but never had the motivation to sift through advanced calculus and all that jazz. Learning a computer language by itself is pretty fun though, which is what I'm doing right now with Python through self-teaching. No u lamb souvlaki ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) |
SkittlesMar 19, 2019 6:08 PM
|
Ardanaz said: Good times messing with you for being a pervert ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) no it was mean >.< Maffy said: Where's my mention of the people you like? *shakes fist* Only blaming me! FOR SHAME! Not MY fault you're a pervert and that happened with Ardy! It wasn't I that made you have semi naked girls on your profile :'( Also, great interview @Skittles! Unlike you! You suck <: ahaha me liking you should go without saying! :D Skittles said: @Tensho Your opening quote is hilarious. Gave me a good chuckle as a Photoshop nerd :P I'm intrigued that you pursued computer science despite being terrible at mathematics. I've been interested in coding for quite a while now, but never had the motivation to sift through advanced calculus and all that jazz. Learning a computer language by itself is pretty fun though, which is what I'm doing right now with Python through self-teaching. No u lamb souvlaki ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) oh wow you code too nicee python is a great one to start with--real easy to get into and start doing cool stuff with. |
 |
Tensho said: ahaha me liking you should go without saying! :D Psh, you did shout out the people you met! PSH! *pouts* Glad to know more about you though <3 |
SkittlesMar 20, 2019 6:23 AM
|
| >Tensho's interview >thinking who is dis >oh >the one who banned me twice uwu Anyway aside from that. Goo read, I don't play mobages that much but seeing Azur Lane gets anime adaptation, you have to think that it does indeed heavily attracts anime fans too. >Um, you mean why am I so pure and innocent? Can I remind you, @Ardanaz, of that time you defiled me? I should also blame @Maffy for setting me up that time... very very wholesome... Where's the the anime adaptation of this? |
_Ako_ said: >Tensho's interview >thinking who is dis >oh >the one who banned me twice uwu Anyway aside from that. Goo read, I don't play mobages that much but seeing Azur Lane gets anime adaptation, you have to think that it does indeed heavily attracts anime fans too. >Um, you mean why am I so pure and innocent? Can I remind you, @Ardanaz, of that time you defiled me? I should also blame @Maffy for setting me up that time... very very wholesome... Where's the the anime adaptation of this? too wholesome for you, ako ;) |
|
Tensho said: _Ako_ said: >Tensho's interview >thinking who is dis >oh >the one who banned me twice uwu Anyway aside from that. Goo read, I don't play mobages that much but seeing Azur Lane gets anime adaptation, you have to think that it does indeed heavily attracts anime fans too. >Um, you mean why am I so pure and innocent? Can I remind you, @Ardanaz, of that time you defiled me? I should also blame @Maffy for setting me up that time... very very wholesome... Where's the the anime adaptation of this? too wholesome for you, ako ;) It lacks the identity to be so-called "pure", the tone is nonexistence, it is too force to and the setting is irrelevant to the relevancy it wants to be portrayed. Too vanilla for my taste, thus in conclusion too wholesome for me. In short, I was disappointed seeing Ardy deliver, in overall; a bad display of """""roleplaying""""" |
More topics from this board
Sticky: » Nominations V2 ( 1 2 )Skittles - Nov 21, 2021 |
64 |
by Dapper_Dhampir14
»»
Sep 2, 2023 6:01 PM |
|
» Interview 24 - KinetaDaconator - Jun 10, 2015 |
15 |
by cornonacob
»»
Aug 5, 2023 3:36 PM |
|
» Interview #267 - lpfspaceslut - Mar 28, 2023 |
1 |
by Disapeared_Ghost
»»
Mar 29, 2023 9:30 AM |
|
» Interview #254 - IrrelevantGuyNextUniverse - Apr 9, 2022 |
8 |
by IrrelevantGuy
»»
Mar 22, 2023 4:30 AM |
|
» Interview #200 - ShinahMimurona - Oct 13, 2019 |
10 |
by Shinah
»»
Mar 9, 2023 10:19 AM |