[ 1 ☽ 24 ☼ 2015 年 ]
I think I read my first manga in 2006.
I fell in love almost immediately.
I won’t go into the details of how we shared our first kiss and everything. But that was my first romance. It was a very impatient and rushed sort of romance, as many first loves are prone to be, yet fundamentally speaking it was one of my most memorable childhood memories.
Manga and I shared a love-hate relationship, you see?
I crushed hard over Bleach and Fruits Basket. Every day, I couldn’t stop fantasizing about the smexy scent of used-and-returned library tankōbons and mail-order shounen jump.[1] I snuck Rurouni Kenshin to school. When I got home, I’d infinitely blast Pandora stations while exploring the tender places of my precious b&w pictures. I’d hide it from my tiger mom and little brother, pretending to do “work” as I obsessed and swooned over my digital ink fetish.
Yea, most of you already know my stalker-ish tendencies. I knew I was in love with manga (and not somethin’ platonic or cheap) cuz some super duper reliable sources gave me great advice:
After some gentle urging from my friends[2], I eventually made my love confession to manga.
It wasn’t anything particularly exciting (no love letters or anything fancy like that), but we maybe dated for a couple years. I was very faithful. I never cheated or anything. I was so dedicated to our relationship that I systematically worked down the list of the top 100 manga as ranked on onemanga.com regardless of the genre or content. At some point I stopped remembering the names of the titles and characters; I was so deeply infatuated that everything that I read might as well have blurred.
Manga ruined me.
Despite the best efforts of my spartan mother, despite the tears, the fights, the occasional smiles, the deep embarrassment, the anger—I couldn’t break up with manga. Even if I tried dumping it for good, manga would always come knocking on my door a couple months later.
“Baby I’m sorry, let’s get back together again?”
My terrible sense of humor aside, I actually did start seriously wondering about this question a couple hours ago. It seemed of such upmost dire importance that I actually started my first wordpress blog because of it. lol.
What quality of anime and manga makes it so addicting? What makes it so attractive? What makes it so flexible and alluring that my twenty-year-old self can obsess over it just as much as my twelve-year-old self?
Why did I “fall in love?”
To be honest, I think my answer changes with every year, but that’s largely to be expected since I’m a different person every year and I like different things every year. But for the sake of my first ever wordpress post, I might as well record what’s on my mind right now.
At this present moment, I’m listening to “God Knows” the Haruhi Suzumiya Episode 12 insert song.
As someone who does not speak Japanese[3], I have no clue what the lyrics mean.
However, I’ve always imagined that song to be about Haruhi singing her throat out about what it means to be in one’s youth. What it means to live your life to your fullest—that outright audacity to dare to want everything.
“I want to be a bassist and play in a rock band.”
“I want to be a starter on the tennis team and compete at Inter-High.”
“I want to be a poet and publish a book.”
“I want to fly a plane.”
“I want to write a love song so I can serenade the person I like.”
“I want to climb a mountain and stand on top of the world.”
“I want to fall in love a million times and once over again.”
“I want…”
I’m twenty years old and nearly twenty-one. Haruhi Suzumiya gives me chills because I admire her so much. I’m envious of her.
Only after going to college did I realize that part of growing up meant learning how to give up some of your wishes. Those million wishes and desires that are for the most part, will remain unfulfilled. That sinking feeling that with every passing year, the number of possibilities open to me are shrinking.
I’ve become complacent, because I’ve forgotten that I used to want everything.
Is it okay to want everything?
Am I allowed to want everything?
Anime and manga are my dreams. They hold my dreams and fantasies, because there’s so many things I still want to feel.
Notes:
- Disclaimer: Actually, it probably smelled more like my computer monitor since I actually didn’t own any print manga, but details! Who cares about details? ;D
- Disclaimer: Friends that may or may not have existed…….
- Also as someone also too lazy to look up the English lyrics on the Internet~ orz
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【 anonymousmatcha - written 1501 days ago 】
