Playground Magazine March 2008 and Mii as Ancient Geek

PLUG!

I have an article in March’s issue of Playground magazine!

I reviewed Persona: Trinity Soul the anime. For my thoughts on that, read the article on page 90!

MII AS ANCIENT GEEK

This is actually part of an answer to the ‘5 things you associate with me’ meme that’s been going around. This is from Ren‘s list where he remembers me as a ‘geek’.

Geekiness is a pretty big part of my life, though I’m admittedly not big a geek as I’m made out to be. I button mash, I don’t torrent like crazy, and my days of spending money on those must-have toys and trinkets are over. I’ve had to re-prioritize. I’m still geeky by enjoying dorky para-para dance moves, listening and singing to music I can barely understand, and resolving difficult decisions in life by “rolling for it”.

Star Wars should have been my first fandom, if I understood what was going on when I watched at age 4. I watched Episode 4 every weekend at my grandmother’s house, back-to-back with E.T. My Mom swore that the betamax tape that held it got scratchy from innumerable viewings.

I got initiated into the anime fandom by way of Sailormoon while I was in Grade 4. From Sailormoon, it escalated from there. I had a my TV diet heavily consisted of Japanese animation on weekends and Wednesday nights with Sailormoon, Yu Yu Hakusho, Time Quest, Sarah: Ang Munting Princessa, which led me to the Pinoy Otaku Mailing List, then to IRC where I found like-minded fans to chat with. In between chats I also found fanfiction, and started experimenting with the medium to further hone my writing skills. It was also my IRC friends that got me into East Asian pop and rock.

This all happened between 1998-2000. We were rather ahead of the times – this was a whole year or two before GMA7 launched their We Are Anime campaign. I was an awkward teenager, my interests were way off base with most of my classmates at the time. The friends I made online eventually became my closests confidants offline.