Japanese Games, Anime and Manga

Ever since I was young, I loved reading manga and watching anime. My obsession at the time started with Pokémon, Dragonball Z, and vaguely Sailor Moon. I use to wake up every Saturday morning to be completely excited to hear the introduction to the Pokémon theme song. The feeling of Nostalgia was unlike any other. I spent a lot of my time collecting Pokémon cards by begging my parents, although it was a complete and extremely difficult struggle because I had a tyrannical religious mother, I would often find ways to make money or make deals to purchase them. When the Pokémon games (red version and blue version) for Gameboy Color came out, my mind screamed that I had to do whatever it takes to buy a Gameboy Color and those games. It was my destiny. I worked, made deals, and begged my parents to get it. After I gave up begging my mom, I could only turn to my father. The only response was I will think about it. One the final day, the day we were going to the airport, to go to Brasil because my mother wanted to live with her relatives, I remember passing the local game store. As soon as we past it, I had felt like my life was going to end. It felt I was a prisoner walking to death row or an innocent man to the gallows. I begged, screamed, pleaded, cried to get that game. After I felt it was no use, I felt betrayed and that all hope was lost. The game of my dreams was far beyond my reach and there was nothing I could do to get it. I knew if I didn’t get that game, I would never be the same again. But then, as if nothing short of a miracle, we stopped at a game store and my dad walked in and out of the store with three packages. He gave me both packages and my mom fought with him all the way to the airport. I’m sure it was because of me, but I didn’t care. I held both games in my hand. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Was it a dream? Did we crash the flip over? I was trembling with excitement, yet terrified to even open the box. We said our goodbyes to dad and I suppose he bought the games for me as a parting gift. I didn’t open it until I got on board the plane. Once I tore through the Gameboy color box, like a raccoon through a restaurant garbage can, I pulled out the Gameboy color and turned it on. The sounds was magnificent. The beeping sounds that brought me the feeling of a thousand Christmas presents in one single device. I popped in blue version and began playing the Pokémon game that would change my life. It was a new world and I was on an epic adventure.

Brasil was filled with Japanese culture and pop culture, I couldn’t help but to be fascinated by it. I use to spend my time watching weekly morning anime and an anime channel called Locomotion. With this I grew with more fascination with the art style.

In middle school, Pokémon cards became popular a few years later after I use to collect them in the United States. The entire school played with pokemon cards. I would spend all lunch period battling with my English cards against their Portuguese cards. We had a rule that the winner had to give up a decent card to their opponent. It was a challenge to buy Pokémon cards because you had to drive to another city to buy them. To my friends, this made losing cards very terrifying. Nonetheless, after losing and winning a few time, my deck became a mix of both English and Portuguese cards. I only smile and laugh when I nostalgically reflect upon those days, some of the best days of my life.

After I trained my Pokémon to be level 100, which was the maximum level, in my Pokémon red version on the Gameboy Color, I began battling friends at school because my dad sent us a Gameboy link cable in the mail. I battled my friends and beat them all. I even battle Tachiani, one of my closest Japanese friends. Then one day after school I went to battle my friend Andre Perreira. He had trained his Pokémon to be as high as a level like mine. We spent almost two hours battling. Many other students and grade school watched as we battled on. It was an epic battle, in our minds it was an epic battle unlike any other. Eventually it was only my Charizard and Mewtwo against his Blastoise and Mewtwo. I defeated his Blastoise by using fly and he killed my Charizard with his Mewtwo. It was Mewtwo against Mewtwo. We use every single attack and gobbled down our max potions. Eventually we both ran out of potions and he ran out of Pokémon power in which to perform attacks and all he could use was struggle. This slightly damages his Pokémon when they attacked. I had also used up all my Pokémon power and had only one attack left. However, this attack was risky. It was called metronome which allowed me to use any random Pokémon attack in the game. However, there was a dark and scary side to this attack. Not so often when using this move, one could wind up with an attack called explosion or self-destruct. If I were to get this attack, I would surely lose. Nevertheless, I was out of options, it was up to fait to decide the winner. Nonetheless, the strategy in my mind was to survive long enough to have his Pokémon faint from using struggle. I repeatedly smashed the A button and my Pokémon were getting random metronome attack, most were not doing anything to knock down his health points. I was becoming frustrated and sweat streamed down my face. After a few minutes, my Mewtwo’s health points were nearing the red. I began to pray in my mind. Then my Mewtwo got a solar beam and lit his Mewtwo up like the fourth of July. I yelled in excitement; however, his Mewtwo was not finished yet, somehow it was still alive with a hair of an inch away from fainting. Terrifyingly, my Pokémon was forced to recover which allowed him to hit me one more time causing the dreadful low Health points sound. I had to rely on one more hit to finish it off. I used metronome and realized I was running out of Pokémon power. If I didn’t get an attack that does physical damage now, I would surely lose. The next couple of terns, as our health points were nearing evenly low, I grew desperate for an attack. All of a sudden, having only two more metronomes, my Mewtwo used explosion. I was terrified, the attack I hoped never to get was being executed. I closed my eyes. I was certain this was it. I had lost. All of a sudden the crowd around us cheered and I got patted on the back. My Mewtwo had finished his Mewtwo off and fainted in the process. I had become the winner. Andre began to cry because of his defeat. I had won and I laid back upon the school’s front steps. It was the most exciting and most terrifying battle I had ever done.

A few years later, I lost that Pokémon data. Everything I had worked hard and grew up with all ended in a matter of seconds after I gave it to someone else to play. I cried all day when it happened. The Pokémon game was never the same after that. Later I came to find out the battery in the cartridge of old Gameboy games eventually give out. With the amount of time I played that game, it didn’t surprise me nowadays. I reflect upon those times as lines of data being some of the most memorable digital friends I had ever had and an entire world inside a near 2-3 inch cartage.

I didn’t get much involved in anime and manga until I went to high school in America. I got involved with the anime and manga club, although it started with 10 people, it easily grew to 30 in my junior year.  In this club I would receive manga to read, issue by issue, whether I liked it or not. We read and talked about it almost every day. I grew a passion for reading manga as I would put myself in the character’s role or what I would have done if I was the character. In essence I was part of the story as the story unfolded. I must have read more than 1000 issue of everything that existed at the time. From Chobits, Cowboy Bebop and Negima to Battle Royal, .hack, and Tsubasa. My mind had become obsessed with reading manga at the time. I enjoyed anime, but I felt manga had a lot more depth. I remember watching AMV Hell3 when it came out. I’m sure everyone stayed away from me as I smiled and laughed looked a mad man while I went from classroom to classroom throughout different periods of the day.

After I went to college, my obsession with anime and manga faded as things became repetitive, unoriginal, too long or simply unattractive. It was also because utakus were being referred as weeaboos which seemed as if being stereotype as some sort of a nerd or basement dweller. Nevertheless, from time to time, I would find something interesting and would read it online. In addition, I never stopped going to conventions and I feel the passion still remains dormant. Perhaps one day the same passion will come back.

Now I believe it’s worth discussing the details about anime compared to reality. Over the longest period of time, I observed how the anime world is different from reality. This suck I’m sure. I observed that anime is based on a fantasy world like most entertainment mediums. Not-to-often, I see dedicated fans take on a role as if loving the fantasy. I think it’s wise to know what is fantasy and what is reality and to respect and share this form of entertainment. Perhaps one day they may have the ability to create their own anime or manga and desire it to be respected. Moving on, the characters seen in anime are part of a sub culture and fantasy world. Their personalities, characteristics, and story events are very far from being realistic. I’m sure not all anime are this way, for example Miyazaki’s vision of anime takes on very realistic personalities of how one could possibly act in the real world to a fantasy world. Nonetheless, as anime is part of a sub culture, it is a genre of entertainment that shares imagination and creativity that I believe the world should enjoy.