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Why am I learning Japanese? Well, it goes back to high school, when I guess a few wires got crossed…

I was 16 and it was Robotech. Man. There were two stations in the Atlanta area that played Robotech right when I got home, spaced consecutively so that I could see today’s episode and review yesterday’s, or see today’s and tomorrow’s…however you figure it, it was awesome. I was addicted. I even set them up to tape for some reason, even though I was going to be there. I had to be there.

It was Clay’s fault, really. No, not really, I’m just being funny. Clay was a new friend I met as a sophomore in high school who connected all the dots for me. He explained that Robotech was bastardized by an evil, evil man named Carl Macek from three different anime series, and that Macross was better.

Well, Macross was better, except it still had Lynn Minmay, which was really unfortunate because she was really annoying in any language. And Carl Macek wasn’t really evil–I do have to thank the man for reintroducing me to anime after Voltron and Transformers so many years before. He is, however, almost singlehandedly responsible for my utter abhorrence of dubbed anime. After watching a few minutes of the original Streamline Pictures dub of Akira, I was permanently turned off of dubbed anime forever. To this day I go to great lengths to avoid dubbed anime. Did I see Ponyo in theaters earlier this year? Nope, because it was dubbed. Hey, have you seen the latest Naruto episode on TV? Nope, because it was dubbed. I try to keep subtitles off these days as much as possible, too. But that’s just me.

I was hooked, and Clay was my anime buddy for our high school years. We joined a group of fellow otaku in Atlanta, probably the first of its kind, which would later call itself Anime-X. During the meetings, people would bring their VCRs, chain them all together, and record anime. They had a tape swapping system, wherein I first saw My Neighbor Totoro the way it was meant to be seen: widescreen. In Japanese. With good subtitles (actually early fansubs).

Oh. My. Gosh.

I was in love. Totoro is still my favorite film of all.

What else was there? Ranma 1/2. Urusei Yatsura. Ah! My Goddess. Devil Hunter Yohko. Bubblegum Crisis. Battle Angel Alita. Akira (duh). Even the original Macross episodes.

All on VHS.

I am seriously dating myself here.

Clay and I only went to a couple of Anime-X meetings. At the second meeting they were taking volunteers for and planning for what would become Anime Weekend Atlanta. I didn’t get to be part of that history-making event, though. :(

So I was into anime. For good. And definitely into Japanese culture.

There was a store near the mall called Seaport Japan that Clay and I used to go to. It was a very small Japanese grocery store that had a respectably-sized section of books, manga, and magazines. In our senior year of high school, now that we were finally licensed to drive, we had a running battle to see who would get the copy of Newtype and Shonen Jump magazines. The store owner only ordered 2-3 of them a month, and if you didn’t get it the same day, you were out of luck. One time Clay and an evil fiend another friend of his got both copies. Another time I picked up the last copy and Clay was out in the cold. I had a whole stack of Shonen Jump. Couldn’t read a word of it, but I was really proud of that collection.

Then…well, there was life. I had a new girlfriend, same for Clay, we were graduating soon and going to schools in different parts of the state…well, sayonara, buddy. (I did find Clay on Facebook last year, but he never responded to my friend invite. :P) I gave him my Newtype and Shonen Jump magazines as a parting present, for some strange reason. I don’t know why.

And then? Well, life got in the way. I’ll explain later.