The real story is this.
Last year I started watching Japanese Animation. Now this in itself is not much of a declaration. However in my case, it kind of set the course for the entire year. If you know me personally, best to stop reading now - since you have already gone through what I now know was no short of an obsession.
It all started with a coincidence. Like most things in my life do. Back in late 2016, I watched this Hindi cinema - 'Befikre' and there was a song from it, which was stuck in my head. Towards the start of 2017, google randomly informed me that this particular song that was stuck in my head for a while now, was actually copied from a Japanese animation called Junjou Romantica. And there was a youtube link to this music.
I was probably bored that day, because I clicked that link. And yes, I can confirm that part of the tune was pretty much exactly lifted from there. But apart from that, I was also very curious about the youtube video of the music clip from the anime - seemed like a story about two guys (well, it's a lot more than that - but I won't say any more now :). After a bit of internet search I found a link to the entire series - and it became the first anime that I watched in Japanese language (with English subtitles).
The content, and not just from this one series, but from next few consequent series that I watched, was so unique, the format, the art, the storytelling and the characters ( I will write about some of my favourite ones later on - I just have to!) were so very different to any Disney/Pixar/Hollywood/Hindi movie I had seen before, that I had to stop consuming any other form of media.
Now, for those who know wtp and me, will know that movies and cinema have always been a big part of our lives - so when I declared that I will not watch anything apart Japanese Anime for at least year - I am not quite sure what he felt. Perhaps he didn't think I could keep this obsession with the 2D world going for that long.
But I did. And in a few months, I realised that I was able to understand a bit of the language as well. And therein started a new obsession to learn the language. By August, I realised that I will need to start learning how to write, in order to make any progress. And so with the help of a few different language learning mobile apps, I started on an even bigger journey - learn to read, write, understand and speak Japanese language so that one day I can watch anime without subtitles.
Another thing that happened as a result of my regular TV watching was that I got scared of turning into this huge couch potato. But, one big and probably the only common theme in pretty much every anime story that I had seen was to 'work hard, and believe in yourself'. Working hard was never my top strength as a kid. In fact, I was one of those brats who believed, I can do everything in the last minute and get by. But all through last year, somewhere deep down I think my attitude has been changing, bit by bit.
As such, for me this will always be a memorable year. This is the year that I worked the hardest, managed two amazingly crazy projects (which I absolutely loved), played the most badminton, went from not being able to survive more than half an hour on the court, to be able to play two hours without being breathless, and started on this long, sometimes frustrating but mostly fun journey of learning a new language.
In fact there were a few more personal highs, but this post is not about accounting - instead I simply wanted to make an entry in my diary about the year - so that I never forget the thrill that I felt while learning, discovering, struggling, achieving, losing, winning, reuniting and remembering.
じゃ、またね！
