Considering that you have found your way to my blog, it might be pertinent to share with you the story of my interests, how they developed and what you can expect when you read one of my blog posts.
Video Games
My history with video games can be traced back to a visit to my uncle. He had been given a PlayStation (the original) as a gift but had no interest in it so he decided to give it to me. I would casually use the console, purely viewing it as disposable entertainment. However, I can distinctly remember flipping through a magazine and seeing a page that listed out the bosses of Final Fantasy IV as well as a guide on how to beat them. I was instantly taken with the art style and eventually picked up the Final Fantasy Anthology (which in Europe contained Final Fantasy IV and V).
As I played through Final Fantasy IV, I was immediately presented with themes that I had never come across before such as self-sacrifice, redemption and discrimination. This experience made me realise, even as a child, that the medium of video games had plenty of depth to offer and was not merely something to pass the time.
As I grew older, I continued to focus on the PlayStation brand while dipping my toes into other consoles such as the Nintendo GameCube and Wii and Microsoft’s Xbox. My tastes were firmly entrenched in Japanese games although I occasionally played some Western games. Eventually (I’m still not quite sure how) I shifted from playing games primarily on consoles to playing games primarily on PC. With the relative lack of Japanese games on PC at the time, my interests grew to include a wide variety of genres from various countries. Even so, I retain a special interest in Japanese games, particularly JRPGs, and you will find me often discussing these types of games in particular.
Animation, Anime and Manga
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been entranced with the world of animation. I would spend hours watching animated movies (primarily from Disney but also from Don Bluth and Dreamworks), animated TV series and other forms of animation. For me, these worlds were gripping and enjoyable in a way that was difficult for live-action to emulate. However, as I grew up, I found that there was a strong societal pressure to stop watching animation. As you might imagine, I found this very difficult to deal with and I set up a project where I began to watch adult animated series with a notebook, writing down my thoughts on each episode and holding discussions with my friends and family. However, the fact that adult animation seemed to be restricted to comedies troubled me as I believed that the medium of animation should not be restrained to a single genre.
Eventually, midway through secondary school, I happened to hear some of my friends discuss something called “anime”. Unfamiliar with the word, I began to carry out some research and discovered that many of the shows that I had watched as a kid were anime series, albeit often censored from their original version. I soon began picking up anime films and tv series such as the Studio Ghibli movies, Satoshi Kon films and Manga Entertainment releases such as Naruto, Ghost in the Shell and Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. I instantly fell in love with the art style and storytelling, realising that this is what I had been searching for. Since then, I have rekindled my love for Western animation (The Legend of Korra is one of the best animated series I have ever seen) and continue to enjoy anime series such as Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Mobile Suit Gundam and Lupin the Third.
As my interest in anime developed, I gradually began to learn that many of the films and series that I was watching were adaptations of manga. This led me to seek out manga series that had been the source of many of my favourite anime. Of course, I soon realised that there were plenty of manga series that had never been adapted into an anime (or let alone any medium) and I then made the decision that I should prioritise series that I had never seen before. This led me to discover many amazing manga titles such as Girl Friends, With the Light: Raising an Autistic Child and Ayako.
Thank you for reading about the history of my interests and I hope you enjoy reading my blog!