I’m not entirely sure where it began, to be honest, but from a young age, I preferred to watch more anime-style shows than cartoons (Tom & Jerry being the exception, as always). I have memories of watching anime on Cartoon Network when I was about seven or eight, and some scenes from these shows stayed with me for years, because they were just so fascinating.
This was the foundation that drew me to Japan, which led to an all-out scandalous love affair with the culture – shows, music, food, celebrities…the list goes on. I say ‘scandalous’ because a lot of people did think so at the time (and I’m sure many still do).
Sometimes I wonder if it would have remained a passing fancy had nothing happened in middle school, but I doubt it, since even before that I was keen on going to Japanese restaurants for dinner, and still caught some episodes of an anime or two on TV. When I was eleven, I started finding time to watch those shows more and more: these dubs kept the original Japanese theme songs in place, dubbing only the dialogue. I was fascinated by the way the characters felt so real (they were nearly eleven too), and how different the music sounded from the songs I had grown up with. These songs were full of passion and promised freedom, and as an eleven-year-old girl wondering what life was like beyond the gates of a strict school, I loved them. I wanted to sing them too.
But as far as I knew, nobody was interested in anime. At the time, I was in an all-girls school, and watched shows that were conventionally considered suitable for boys. It was only a couple of years later that I made friends with a senior (we were in the same carpool) and it turned out that she liked anime too. This friend was the one who introduced me to new anime shows as well as manga – Japanese graphic novels. We would talk about them nearly every day until she left school in Class 10 (graduation), when I began to gain more confidence in expressing my liking for Japanese entertainment.
Unfortunately, that didn’t end well. People in my school found these interests weird and I somehow became a social outcast until I graduated from high school. Things didn’t change when I began to attend a different institution for my final two high school years, and there were many times when I tried to change my behaviour and interests (in both schools) to become accepted by my peers, temporarily choosing popularity and social inclusion rather than what I knew brought me happiness. But there were moments when I remembered the way my heart soared on listening to Japanese music, and how I would feel as though I were in another world when watching anime. Eventually, I reminded myself of what really mattered, and that’s when an interest became a passion. Things got easier once I entered university, and had much better things to deal with than annoying kids who thought being different was a bad thing.
I’d also come across a Japanese news channel in middle school – NHK. Not only did it contain news stories, but it would also air culture, science, and entertainment shows on a regular basis (with no commercial breaks – especially appealing to me). I’ve seen shows on the history of curry in Japan, mobile medical care, and genres of Japanese music. That last segment introduced me to new musicians, and one particular band stayed with me from the very first time I watched the segment on Japanese music.
Discovering this band – the GazettE – is one of the best things I’ve ever done. They introduced me to entire subgenres of Japanese musical and visual styles, which were weird and different…just like I was. But this band (and others) never shied away from what made them weird. Instead, they embraced it, and didn’t give a hoot about negative comments coming their way. They focused on their music and their fans, and remained focused on a single goal: to go further with their music and break boundaries.
This was the first time I was conscious of having role models. The five-member band became my teachers in navigating through an unforgiving world while I was at one of my lowest points. I learned to own who I was, and love it; I learned to overcome prejudice and stereotyping in my mind; I learned that I may be weird and alone, but it wasn’t such a bad thing anymore.
That’s when I began to look up more on Japanese culture. I gradually picked up the language, and did my own research into Japan’s education system, festivals, people, cities, and history. I took the initiative in a history class to present on a small chapter about Japan, and my research came in handy when I developed my passion for writing too.
In the last three years, I’ve been learning the language on my own, and sat for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) in summer 2017. Although it was only the beginner-level exam that I cleared, to come from a teenager who tried abandoning Japanese music to ‘fit in’ to this…it was beyond my wildest dreams.
I’ve been to Japan too! Spring 2015 was the best time of my life; it was the season I found my home for the first time in my life. The photos my parents and I took show me jumping around in sun, rain, and snow. But they won’t show you the bliss I felt on landing, the peace I felt under the cherry blossoms, and the joy of finding a CD shop (an initiative my dad always praises me for) that stocked CDs and DVDs of the GazettE (and buying them, of course).
Recently, I’ve found myself looking up voice actors who’ve been in anime I know and love. I’ve watched shows where they were just starting out, and shows where they’ve reached the peak of their career and had major breakthroughs. One or two voice actors often remind me of a time when I was a child, looking at a screen and wondering if I could be friends with the characters my (now) idols voiced back then. When I watch those shows today, I’m eleven, twelve, thirteen years old again, but now I know that I can sing a Japanese song at the top of my voice while standing on the rooftops…and this time, I won’t give this freedom up. Ever.
Edited by Priyanka Shankar
Photographic content curated by Sabah Merchant and Sanjna Mishra