whicker

Wooooo,

I'm more of a video gamer 80's kid that liked late 80's to early 90's Japanese made console games, but at the same time have always liked to watch the occasional anime series. Lately I've been in kind of a rut as far as motivation to watch anything, but things could turn around given the right kind of prodding.

I am gainfully employed with a Bachelor of Science "COLLIGE" degree now. Have my own apartment and some solitude with windows that point into a field of pine trees. Yet I do enjoy an anime convention now and again. You'll probably find me in the console gaming room or raving or at a room party (with free food and/or libations!).

So yeah, if you wanna talk about something, or live in the general area and thus run the same sort of convention circuit, drop me a line. Shared experience and all that. It's fun to meet with people about these kinds of things.

You still want more? Alright, where do I start...

I probably blame Nintendo and 80's Disney (back when it was good) for the start of the whole Japanese Anime thing, if "blame" is what you could call it. Aw shucks, with Wreck it Ralph, Disney is good again.

I died on the first goomba. No really, I was staying overnight at a sleepover party in first grade, and when it was my turn, I just took off at high speed and didn't even jump. Oh man, this Nintendo controller has TWO buttons? Run and Jump?

Super Mario Bros., Excite Bike, etc. Say no more. And then I come to realize that all of the awesomely animated Disney stuff like Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers and DuckTales is skillfully animated by Japanese animation gurus. And oh look, they have NES games... Ugh, getting ahead of myself here. Oh wait, one more thing. There are two kinds of people: those that think Mario 3 is the best NES game ever, and those that just don't understand (maybe they haven't played it enough?)

Finally, my parents got cable television instead of broadcast channel 7, 9, and sometimes 13 (RIP WEAU 13 Tower 1966-2011). A year or two later (Christmas 1991), my older brother and I begged for and received the then new Super Nintendo Entertainment System. More Japanese culture exposure, especially during the credits of Super Mario World... wow, what are all these strangely spelled names in all these SNES games? Koji Kondo and Soyo Oka were behind so many catchy tunes. Oh wow, so many associations... Gradius = Konami, Final Fight = Capcom, Final Fantasy = SquareSoft.

I started getting Nintendo Power magazine in 1992 after over-borrowing from my 4th grade best friend. There was just so much going on back then with the relentless improvements of hardware and software. The early 90's was truly the Golden Era of gaming (and hollywood movies).

Going back to the animu side of things, my fate was sealed when SciFi channel started showing things like Akira, Venus Wars, Roujin Z, Project A-ko, and Iria (1995-ish). I was drawn to the more mature storylines and art; to actual plot arcs instead of the sitcom format.

Later after that, I had Japanese class in high school and was racing back to catch the tail end of Sailor Moon (i see what u did thar). I had just started in 1993 wanting to know what all those overly complicated glyphs were in Japanese RPG screenshots and in Mario Paint. Now I was basically trapped in this culture by 1998 or so, playing Nintendo stuff like Ocarina of Time, F-Zero X., and of course between there all of the Squaresoft and Enix JRPG classics.

Then there was the dark period with GameCube. meh. Skipped over that for the most part because of Amped and HALO on Xbox and because of the PS2 in general. But yeah, things are better now. Mario Galaxy 1 & 2. Exciting possibilities, and the 3DS-XL is looking good like I thought it would.

Fun stuff:

Golden Era Nintendo Power cover quiz

Angry Video Game Nerd