Why I first became interested in Japan

Why I first became interested in Japan (and it wasn't just for the pretty temples)

The history of my fascination with Japan

I've been intrigued and entranced by the mysteriously beautiful country of Japan for nearly three years now. I've been studying the language (it's slow and painstaking so far, what with my off and on academic and business careers), I've been studying the history, the culture, the geography, pretty much anything I can get my hands on. And I feel like everything I learn about Japan just makes me want to go there more. But tracing back the beginning of this obsession turned out to be a little harder than I thought it would be.

The anime and manga of Japan; a foot in the door

My first real introduction to Japan in any depth (I mean, come on, we all know what and where Japan is) was thanks to my wonderful fiance and his affinity for Japanese manga and anime. It was primarily anime, however, that began to draw my interest, since I couldn't really read manga in Japanese, but I could watch anime in Japanese with subtitles (which is the way a lot of hardcore anime and manga fans in America prefer to indulge, including my wonderful fiance). While I liked and enjoyed the anime series that I first watched, I think it was some of the later series and movies that really hooked me, specifically a series called Onegai Shimasu (don't watch, it's corny, cheesy, gushy, chick-flick romance garbage; a guilty pleasure) and the wonderful, amazing, brilliant, award-winning work of Miyazaki Hayao (which I wrote the Japanese way, family name first).

Where it went from there

It snowballed from there. I began seeing bits of Japan here in there, began listening more to the sound of the language in the anime series, began to pick up on small pieces of the Japanese culture in everything I watched and saw. I began researching, reading, looking up history and culture of Japan, insatiably curious about it. I started listening to Japanese radio online and bought J-pop and J-rock CD's. I felt this draw to the Japanese culture unlike any draw I've had before. And we all have several of those, don't we, when we just feel a connection to a place or thing or idea. I've had my fair share of those, but this one was, is, different. This one soon became a desire to learn the Japanese language, to go travel to Japan, and eventually a wish to go live in Japan, to move there for at least a few years. This was only fueled by my fiance (then boyfriend) who had a similar wish to go live there for a while, and had an ambition to go there as a teacher (he's a math grad student as of this fall).

Where am I now?

Now I am learning Japanese. Although I feel like it's going slow, I do, in fact, know all of the hiragana now, and can form a few basic sentences! My next target is katakana, then a speaking fluency and basic kanji, and then I'd like to become as nuanced and fluent as a native someday, both in kanji and in speech. Now I am educating myself as best I can about Japan's current political, economic, and cultural climate. Now am researching Japan's major cities, geography, climate, and sights of note. Now I am still madly in love with Japan.