four years from now.

A few years back I did an exercise where I wrote up a number of possibilities of where I saw my life leading. If you have the time and want to read that post I'll put a link here

But now I find myself at another point of decision. I've already been accepted to Tokyo Communication Art College, but I'm finding it harder than I thought to determine exactly what major I want to choose and exactly what it is I'm shooting for.

What is it I want to be doing three or four years from now?

I've been thinking about doing a Pro Manga and Game Character Design double major, thinking that I'd work in a Game company to secure a stable income and provide myself with a visa while working toward getting my manga published on the side.

But I've been coming to some doubts lately as to where it is my heart lies, and what I want to be ultimately aiming for. A part of me always wants to shoot for the sky while standing on some sort of solid ground, but the more I keep living double (more like quadruple or sextuple) lives the more I see this burning of all ends of the candles as being an ongoing condition, and can I be a balanced person, can I meet a wife and raise a stable family, if 10 or so hours of my day are spent in a company job and the time I'm at home is spent working on my own freelance endeavors?

I think it's time I look more at what paths are before me so I can come to some decision about where it is I want to go and what it is that I really want to do.

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GAME COMPANY
If your going to work for a company in Japan you have to be prepared to really eat drink and sleep your company work, because Japanese do not know the meaning of a 9 to 5 job.
I could be fine with that. That is if I'm doing something I enjoy. Ideally I'd like to work on fantasy based games and ideally I'd like to do the conceptual artwork and help establish the games image through 2D illustration.
But games are becoming more and more about 3D. And the most likely job I'd get would be that of a 3D modeler or animator. I really don't want to do animation.
I could do modeling, but I would still feel a need to pursue something more like illustration in my own free time.

Who I want to be like...
Yoshitaka Amano
Conceptual work for Final Fantasy, Vampire Hunter D, etc.




Ayami Kojima
Konami's Castevania, etc.

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MANGA
One thing that makes me less than eager to just spend my days doing 3D modeling is the wealth of stories I have to tell. I really want these stories to come to life. I want to draw them out as a manga. Yet there are some issues with this as well. I can't get a visa as a manga artist. I thought I could just do some translation or something on the side to get my visa, but apparently the government here isn't keen on allowing you to get a visa with a field unrelated to what you studied in school. (Particularly with 専門学校) There are ways around this. One thing that I would absolutely love, would be if I could get hired with a company translating manga to English, but I still need to look more into what that would entail.

Another challenge is the fact that I am not a native Japanese speaker. I can definitely write the comic in Japanese, but there may be places where I'm not able to grasp the write nuance of a word or phrase. A writer you'd imagine should be of above average language proficiency. I am above average as a foreigner but if I'm competing with native writers, than that's a different story. However you cut it, I'm below average compared to a native Japanese speaker.

But this could be remedied by employing a Japanese assistant, and I could always market my comic in English to America or another English speaking market.

I would still meet some challenges in manga since my style is rather unique and in opposition to the popular akiba-kei wide eyed, cutsy, moe girls that publishing companies know will sell. But if someone's willing to take a chance on my unique style than hopefully I'll be able to stand out fro the crowd and become something great. Plus I can rest assured in the fact that manga is and will probably always be... 2D.

But the big knife hanging over this is the question... what happens if I can't secure a visa?

Of course I could come to the States, but will I fit in to the American comic industry? I could do some other work like translation and teaching and what not, but honestly, I don't know if I can stay away from Japan for very long. There are a few circumstances that could possibly change my mind, but I'm not going to go into those here.

Who I want to be like...

Inoue Tekehiko
Vagabond, Slam Dunk, etc.


I actually saw this exhibit in person


Samura Hiroaki
Blade of the Immortal, etc.

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CONCLUSIONS
If I go for the Game world there's a small chance I can do exactly what I want, but odds are I'll have to compromise and there's also a chance I may end up doing something I didn't want to be doing.

If I go for manga there's a small chance I can create a successful series that I can live comfortably off of, but it's more likely that I'll be doing some other work to keep afloat. The other work may be something I enjoy, or it may not.

Financially the game world is more secure, but the comic illustration world gives more opportunity for 2D art.

Ultimately the determiner in whether I do what I want or conform is my skill.
It's fine to aspire to be like an Amano or Inoue, but the final challenge is this. I have to be good. I have to be really freakin good. Good enough to stand above everyone else.

And truth is....
I'm just not that good... ....yet.

Happy Halloween

I've always loved Halloween. Maybe it's partially due to it's close proximity to another fav Holiday, namely my birthday, but I've always looked forward to the later half of the month of October when I could see that Halloween spirit coming out. The wonderful joy of letting yourself enjoy the darker side of our ego's for a season, where ghosts and ghouls, and my personal favorite, vampires, can come to life in our imaginations.

So the traditional way to celebrate Halloween I suppose would be to go trick or treating. Yet, this generally doesn't last into adulthood, and I despite being an avid fan of the Holiday, never really cared much for trick or treating. Yes I went a few times as a child, but I didn't care too much for candy and probably around 8th grade I found a much better way to celebrate the Holiday. I volunteered to scare the crap out of people in the annual Haunted Labyrinth.

For years since I looked forward to hiding in the shadows of that dark maze and pop out at the expecting yet unsuspecting victims (guests) who stumbled their way into my room. I was often able to scare the same group of people five times, popping out or dropping down and finally playing the dummy, before they moved on to the next room.

Yes those were good times. I hope one day I'll be in Chicago again for Halloween and I'll be able to volunteer again.



But now in Japan I've had to come up with new ways to celebrate my beloved All Hollow's Even. Last year I had a party at my apartment and also went out to eat at Lock Up, a restaurant where they put you in a cell and have monsters break lose in the middle of your dinner, with a few friends.



I dressed up and went to Harajuku last year too, thinking that maybe there would be some Japanese dressed up for Halloween, but all I saw were a few foreigners dressed up in Shibuya. Oh keep in mind when I say that I "dressed up" I don't mean I wore a costume. I just downed my Goth clothes and breathed in a little night air.
Even though they don't seem to do anything special for Halloween the atmosphere in Harajuku is always welcoming to interesting clothing styles and it feels good to go down there from time to time decked out in clothes a little less like what you casually wear. Although now that I am becoming a student again and won't have the binds of having to wear suits to work everyday I imagine those lines of what I usually wear and what I wear when I feel a bit expressive may become a bit blurred.

Anyway I digress...

I have another tradition I have taken up for the Halloween season, and that is the Halloween movie. I think two years ago I watched my favorite Disney movie, A Nightmare Before Christmas with the church youth group and then last year I bought a copy of Queen of the Damned which I watched for the second time as I had seen it before, and this year I have watched it again.

I projected it in my apartment for the last time as tomorrow I'll be moving. I began the movie with my two other roommates but one disappeared halfway through and the other watched to the end but was kinda squimish about some of the scenes. I didn't see what the big deal was. I mean it's not a horror movie or anything. Just a little blood sucking here and there, oh and then that part with the ripping out of the heart and biting it (my roommate hurried out of the room at that scene).



But yeah I enjoyed the film. Although compared to the book the story is really simplified, so of course I recommend the book over the film, but it was nice seeing the scenes I imagined in my head performed in the flesh. Aliyah did a really good job and I like this Lestat better than Tom Cruise from "Interview with a Vampire".
Plus I love the music from the film.

If you don't know about Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles or any of these movies I may be boring you right now, but I would recommend you look into them if you get the chance. Lestat is such an intriguing character. And the sort of dark mythology Anne Rice builds around him is simply enthralling.

So Halloween is actually tomorrow, but I may not be able to go out at all since I'm moving. But we'll see. At least I got my movie in and I did go to Lock Up again the other day for my Birthday.

Next year I'll probably watch the Underworld Movies, and if possible I think I'd like to go to a Visual Kei Concert or something. I just need to find someone to go with me, cause it sucks going out alone and my current friends seem a bit to squimish to join me.

So anyway no real point to this post, accept maybe to encourage people to enjoy the Holiday.

So to all I'll just say...

"Happy Halloween"

Japanese/Admission Test

So the admission process is more or less complete.

Application for early admission... accepted
Interview... passed
Application for enrollment... accepted

Only thing left was a Japanese Language Test to show that I would be able to attend classes in Japanese, which I just took this Sunday.

I haven't spoken a lick of English any of the times I visited the schools, so the teacher's kept telling me that the test should be a breeze, but I still get a little nervous taking tests, especially when I don't know what they're going to test me on.

I wasn't really that worried, but I was a little worried that there might be a writing portion where I would have to write Kanji. See I can read most Kanji, but writing them is a different story. Since the computer pulls up Kanji for you when you're writing emails or what not it's easy (even for native Japanese speakers) to forget how to write kanji.

So anyway I came to the school in some comfortable jeans and casual clothes, and after arriving I was brought to a room filled with other applicants,
who were ALL WEARING SUITS!!!

I felt a little out of place, and I started to wonder if in Japan you're supposed to wear a suit to take a test, but then I realized (and later had it confirmed by a teacher) that all the other applicants hadn't done the early enrollment and still needed to have their interviews.
I already passed my interview so I was all right. But yeah was still a bit shocking at first.

So I received the test alone in a room with a teacher watching over me. The first part of the test was on proper use of Keigo (the super polite form that I don't use that often in my regular life).
Luckily I had read a copy of
"Chibi Maruko's Keigo Classroom"
about a year ago and new enough about keigo to work out the questions through a process of eliminating which answers I knew weren't right.

Next section was the kanji. This was what I knew would be on the test so I was ready to work out kanji backwards and forwards and even tried preparing just in case I had to write from scratch (no multiple choice), but actually this section was quite easy. None of the kanji were higher than the second level JLPT and it was just multiple choice "How do you read this kanji?" type of questions. Much more straight forward and less tricky than the 1st level JLPT kanji section.

Next I think it was reading comprehension. These weren't too hard but there were a few questions that were a little tricky. I really wonder what the answer for the last question was. It was this article on the Japanese dependency on foreign imports and the last question was asking what the author felt would happen if trends continued as they are. The first two choices were way off so I eliminating those and then had to choose between...

1. Japan will lose it's ability to farm it's own resources.
2. Japan's economy will collapse.

Now the author mentions both of these things but he doesn't say it in exactly those words. If I remember correctly it was something like...

"...this will effect Japan's ability to produce it's own resources, and the Japanese economy may be in danger of collapsing."

So they don't actually say the economy WILL collapse, or the ability to produce resources WILL be lost. It just says there will be an EFFECT, and there may be a DANGER. So neither one's really correct, so I have to try to guess which one's closest. This is what I don't like about some multiple choice tests.

Anyway, I went with the last one.

After the test I stayed around for the Open House and took part in a sample class for Maya 3D software. 3D feels so strange to me, but they say the more you do it the easier it gets.

After class my supervisor congratulated me on my test. He said, "I can't tell you what score you got, but you don't have to worry. Good job."

I guess that means I pass.

Now I just have to wait for the card in the mail, and keep working on my portfolio.

If I have a good enough portfolio they said I may be able to skip the first year and start as a second year student. That translates into me saving a lot of money and having a better chance to get into a company (they like hiring people under 30), so I think that's what I want to do.

Oh and in other news, I have to move by the end of the month.
If I renew the lease here it'll be for two years, and since I'm going to school next year it wouldn't make sense. I'll probably move in with a friend for the time being, so no big, but packing is taking more of my precious time that I need to be using working on my portfolio and stuff.

World's End Cafe

In case you haven't already heard, I went to Singapore to see Jingna's exhibition.



It was an amazing experience. The exhibition was simply beautiful.
Seeing her works fully realized and on display was really inspiring.

I had a lot of good conversations at the opening party. Jingna has a really good social circle, and I felt really honored by the way she enthusiastically introduced me to them.

In honesty I've been to a lot of parties where I enjoyed conversations with people that were basically just a means of keeping entertained during the duration of the party but not really people I'd feel particularly compelled to keep in contact with afterward.
But I think I can honestly say that the people I met in Singapore are people I'd love to hang out with again if I should ever get the chance.





I don't think Singapore was ever on my list of places to go before I die, but now having been there, I think I might be putting it on my places to go again before I die.

It was unexpectedly comfortable. I mean I really don't recall any particular culture shock.
The closest thing would have to be the surprise I felt when I came off the plane and went through customs, where I was greeted in very polite English.
It wasn't that I was surprised they spoke English. What surprised me was how pleasant they were. I mean I'm used to leaving the super polite atmosphere of Japan to step out of a plane in Chicago where I'm jerked into reality by the flippant attitudes of U.S. customs and security and what not, that basically treat you like a big herd of cattle.

Ok sorry for the rant. I still love America... Really.

Anyway back to Singapore. I think the best way to describe it would be to use the metaphore I heard while at Jingna's Opening.

Ren, one of the great people I met, said that Singapore is basically like "the World's End Cafe" from the "Sandman" comics.
Now I haven't read Sandman (although now I think I kinda want to), but I could more or less visualize what he was describing, because I remembered a similar place that came up in the old Chrono Trigger RPG.

It's like a place outside of time (at least in Chrono Trigger it was) where people from all sorts of worlds would stop in the midst of their travels and sit and share their stories before heading on to somewhere else.

You may be wondering what in the world that could have to do with Singapore, but in the short time I was there it felt to me like that was an adequate metaphore.

I felt like Singapore was a amalgamation of all the different places I'd been before.
It was like a wider more spacious Tokyo,
a safer more laid back Chicago,
a cleaner more organized Manila,
and probably numerous other places all rolled together into one neat package.

Maybe that's why it felt so homely (did I just say homely. There's probably a better word that could go there. meh whatever).

So yeah I think I'd be down with another visit sometime. Maybe when I need a break from all the busy-ness that is Tokyo.

The food was great. I wanted to take a picture of it, but I was too busy eating.
Here's a picture of the aftermath.



It was mostly spicy food. uberly delicious spicy food.

And then there were a lot of fruit drinks, shakes, sherberts, ice cream, and what not. Here's something called halu halu.


there wasn't any picture on the menue, but I figured, "it sounds like halo halo (the Filipino desert) so it's probably good."

...it was.

Oh I also had a gigantuan sized mug of sugar cane drink.



This is Zeng, posing as a size reference.




More photos...

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Gothic Loli in Singapore


A hecka large stairway we went up on our way to a movie screening


Night Safari


K well I'm getting tired of writing. I have a detailed account of my trip written in my Japanese journal. But for the time being that'll only be seen by myself and my Japanese tutor.

Sorry for the long post. I'll have to start writing regular bite sized posts instead of the occasional short novel.