Every Sunday morning, I got on my bike. Twenty minutes, there and back, to a convenience store that, for reasons I never understood, sold Shonen Jump a day early. Most stores got it Monday. Mine got it Sunday morning. So while other kids were still waiting, I was already pedaling.
I’d buy it, ride to the park near my house, and read right there before I even got home. Dragon Ball first. Then Yu Yu Hakusho. Whatever I was obsessed with that particular year. I’d save the rest for later; half the fun was rationing it, making it last until the walk home.
I did this almost every week for years.
This wasn’t a hobby I picked up. It wasn’t a phase. In Japan, manga isn’t something you “get into,” it’s just part of how you grow up. It’s what you talked about at school on Monday. It’s what your whole class was reading at the same time. It’s culture, in the most literal sense: something shared, something everyone around you was doing too.
I eventually left Japan for New York, where I lived and worked for years. I’m back now, living and working in Japan again. And through all of it, I never really stopped reading. I don’t buy every issue anymore, but manga has stayed part of my daily life since I was in elementary school. Not as a hobby I maintain. Just as something I do, the way some people read the news.
That’s the person writing this blog.
I grew up watching these shows as they aired, in the culture that made them. I want to share what I love, the way I actually see it, not filtered, not softened for clicks, and hopefully find people who get just as excited about this stuff as I still do.
Welcome to OtakuVerdict.