Two days ago was my birthday. Nothing much has been going on. I've been trying to decide what I'm gonna put out. I'm working on the first chapter review for One Piece and it's kind of interesting, but it's taken me over a week to write it, and I'm still not sure when it's coming out. So, yeah, sorry to the people who actually want to read the weird tidbits that I write.
So yeah, this isn't gonna be about anything, but I feel like I owe some sort of content, so I'm gonna put it out there. I don't really want this post being shared, if you don't mind. I think only one person will understand what I'm talking about right now and that's fine.
So I guess, let's tell the story of how I got into anime and why I made a transition to manga.
So readers, let me create the setting. The year is 2006, maybe? A short and skinny, mixed-race, mostly Asian boy is first shown a really old animated series called Star Blazers. Only later will he learn that this 1979 English dubbed show was actually called Space Battleship Yamato. After his amazement at an opening unlike any American cartoons he has ever seen, and getting pulled into a sci-fi story about saving Earth by traveling 148,000 lightyears away (his love of the story started with not knowing anything about lightyears). After his first experience, a new English dubbed show is brought into his home. This one is called Fruits Basket. It's his first taste of a comedic story that keeps eating away at you, poking the characters over and over until they are forced to reveal their grief, pain, or regrets. He both cares for the characters and is shocked by the sadness that lies in their intimate connections.
A couple years pass, and this boy, still pretty small but now a little more mischievous, has a laptop. I swear, he never did anything he wasn't supposed to on the laptop, especially since he was only around 9 or 10. But he did stay up at night, watching free Naruto episodes on Hulu. Looking back on it, that boy really made some poor choices, which would later affect his sleep habits.
Uh... anyway. This boy now feels like anime is a part of him. Since he's always thought ninjas and robots and stories about space are cool, its only natural that as he grows up, he watches more and more Naruto and Voltron. During one particular time when he had contracted strep throat and a fever, he laid in bed watching Voltron! Defender of the Universe!
Then this child moved to a new town. He didn't feel as though he'd fit in so he tried to see what other people were interested in and be similar to them. He found that Disney was a common factor in nearly every student's life in middle school. He found that a lot of kids still played little league. He found people that were the same ethnicity as he was. Not that he realized how big of a role that would play in how he identified himself.
And this was how he progressed through middle school. Straight-laced, goody-two-shoes, a little bit of a perfectionist, no anime. And then he went to high school. You might think, ok, stop talking, we get that he stopped liking anime, the story is over right? Wrong. 1. I write the story. 2. I am the story. 3. The story is not over.
In freshman year of biology, this young man (you can tell that he is maturing), got bored and began doodling (ok, never mind). He would swear to you if you asked him that it was an idea like special moves for monsters like Pokemon. That the squiggles were actually a language and that the circles were like spells for the "Pokemon". And there was another young man in that Biology class who asked him what it was.
Robert Steele, sorry to call you out like this, but I'm thanking you for talking to me in Biology. We still haven't written that cross-country manga, but because we talked about it, I started reading manga.
You see, what happened in freshman year was that upon trying to figure out how to write a manga, I needed to read manga. Reading manga is a really interesting activity. If you try to read manga after only watching anime all your life, you'll be dissatisfied because the characters don't move. In fact, I was discouraged. All the great manga were already hundreds of chapters ahead. How was I supposed to catch up?
Take Naruto for example. If you weren't reading it consistently from the time Naruto Shippuden started, you would be so lost. Who is the leader of the Akatsuki? Did Naruto bring Sasuke back? Does Hinata confess her love to Naruto? (No, seriously, I don't know. Please someone tell me.)
And that's what wikis were made for...(cheating)...
I started reading wikis as a way to quickly understand the systems that each manga involved. I had to learn how the different types of chakra and jutsu worked together in Naruto. I had to learn the different types of devil fruits and the relationships between allies and enemies in One Piece. I also had to find the important plot points of each story arc.
Reading wikis is really too convenient. It takes away from the anticipation that readers get when they wait for the next chapter, it takes away from every little detail in the panels that could lead to the next conflict or power.
So the only thing to do is to get better at reading manga.
And that's the end of the story.
Thanks for reading. Hopefully something will be posted soon.
A couple years pass, and this boy, still pretty small but now a little more mischievous, has a laptop. I swear, he never did anything he wasn't supposed to on the laptop, especially since he was only around 9 or 10. But he did stay up at night, watching free Naruto episodes on Hulu. Looking back on it, that boy really made some poor choices, which would later affect his sleep habits.
Uh... anyway. This boy now feels like anime is a part of him. Since he's always thought ninjas and robots and stories about space are cool, its only natural that as he grows up, he watches more and more Naruto and Voltron. During one particular time when he had contracted strep throat and a fever, he laid in bed watching Voltron! Defender of the Universe!
Then this child moved to a new town. He didn't feel as though he'd fit in so he tried to see what other people were interested in and be similar to them. He found that Disney was a common factor in nearly every student's life in middle school. He found that a lot of kids still played little league. He found people that were the same ethnicity as he was. Not that he realized how big of a role that would play in how he identified himself.
And this was how he progressed through middle school. Straight-laced, goody-two-shoes, a little bit of a perfectionist, no anime. And then he went to high school. You might think, ok, stop talking, we get that he stopped liking anime, the story is over right? Wrong. 1. I write the story. 2. I am the story. 3. The story is not over.
In freshman year of biology, this young man (you can tell that he is maturing), got bored and began doodling (ok, never mind). He would swear to you if you asked him that it was an idea like special moves for monsters like Pokemon. That the squiggles were actually a language and that the circles were like spells for the "Pokemon". And there was another young man in that Biology class who asked him what it was.
Robert Steele, sorry to call you out like this, but I'm thanking you for talking to me in Biology. We still haven't written that cross-country manga, but because we talked about it, I started reading manga.
You see, what happened in freshman year was that upon trying to figure out how to write a manga, I needed to read manga. Reading manga is a really interesting activity. If you try to read manga after only watching anime all your life, you'll be dissatisfied because the characters don't move. In fact, I was discouraged. All the great manga were already hundreds of chapters ahead. How was I supposed to catch up?
Take Naruto for example. If you weren't reading it consistently from the time Naruto Shippuden started, you would be so lost. Who is the leader of the Akatsuki? Did Naruto bring Sasuke back? Does Hinata confess her love to Naruto? (No, seriously, I don't know. Please someone tell me.)
And that's what wikis were made for...(cheating)...
I started reading wikis as a way to quickly understand the systems that each manga involved. I had to learn how the different types of chakra and jutsu worked together in Naruto. I had to learn the different types of devil fruits and the relationships between allies and enemies in One Piece. I also had to find the important plot points of each story arc.
Reading wikis is really too convenient. It takes away from the anticipation that readers get when they wait for the next chapter, it takes away from every little detail in the panels that could lead to the next conflict or power.
So the only thing to do is to get better at reading manga.
And that's the end of the story.
Thanks for reading. Hopefully something will be posted soon.
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