If you have gotten to known me on a personal level, you wouldn't be surprised of the starting points towards my writer's journey. However, many assumed that I was always an avid reader and that reading truly sparked my interest to create the worlds I've come to build in writing. But guess what, reading didn't do that till much later in life. What actually sparked my love for writing was Japanese anime. You here it folks, I watch anime. Throughout the years, it helped me grow as a writer and to learn about the steps of creating a compelling story. In fact, here are some points on how anime molded me into a writer.
1. The Stories
At nine years old, I watched shows like Wolf's Rain and Inuyasha. I fell in love with the way the Japanese wrote and told their stories. They were unique, original, and contained powerful messages that both the protagonist and the viewer needed to learn and maybe adapt to their lifestyles. When I started writing my own stories, I dreamt of achieving their level of greatness for my readers to enjoy and embrace to the fullest. I wanted to share various stories that were amazingly vivid to my potential readers, but unlike them, I was always afraid to do it and I still am to this day.
2. The Art Style
Every artist is different and it's always a surprise to see the difference within their art styles. Many artists of popular animes such as Tegami Bachi and Dragon Ball develop their art after years of experience. As a writer, I found it to be quite similar whenever I edited pieces of my novels time and time again. In the end, the years of hard work showed it in both ways with time and heart. The art the manga-kas (Japanese artists) hand-drawn and computer animated shows the artist's true colors and dedication. For writers, it was quite the same. When a reader loves the story; it showed that they were able to vividly picture their stories without the need for actual pictures. It's truly all about dedication and hard work to make something a true success like a book or an television show.
3. The Characters
Big shocker, everyone loves a character to relate too either visually or in paragraphs. Both manga-kas and writers strive to create people that are diverse, different, but also similar to the reader and viewer of the show. We want to see the fictional people be realistic and relate to us so we can embrace the emotional connections towards the fictional people. As a writer, I wanted to have characters that are actual real to the reader's eyes. Even if they were paranormal creatures in most situations of my books. Yet, they're still capable of having emotions and goals to achieve just like humans characters in contemporary books. Not only that, many of the characters were diverse. While I do agree that doesn't always show it as much in terms of skin color, but the Japanese animation brought it out in personality for characters. They took pride in their heritage and roles before coming to an understanding in other people's well being. As a writer, it brought an idea to me to become more aware when seeing people and to not judge right away.
And finally:
4. The Music
This was where I've gotten the weird glazes from people when they discovered that I have always blasted Japanese music in my ears. But, when I first listened to one of the endings to Inuyasha, I fell in love. Soon enough, I was searching for J-Rock songs like Redemption by Gackt, The Beginning by One Ok Rock, and so on. It taught me that all music was beautiful with its poetic lyrics and compelling voices and instrumental sounds. Japanese, American, German, Russian, it was infinite just like art and story telling. It was someone telling me a story through sound. It also taught me how different everyone will always be, but always the same when sharing their passions.
