personal update – Andrew Meredith

Hello world 世界の皆さんこんにちは I’m Anan

Welcome to my small corner of the internet.

In this blog, I hope to combine my experiences here in Japan, with my coming out as an Otaku (more on that later) and my more than a passing interest in photography in the hope of properly establishing myself on the interwebs.

A little about me:

Born in Canada in 1983, my family and I immigrated to Australia when I was just 3 years old. I remember next to nothing of Canada but my father tells me that the main reason that we escaped was so that he didn’t have to shovel snow out of the driveway every morning.

I became interested in Japan after I discovered Japanese Animation in the early 90s; I remember watching Ghost in the Shell and Neon Genesis Evangelion on SBS and being amazed at the themes and characters. I became somewhat infatuated, to the point of pausing the recorded VHS I had made and drawing (copying… badly) my favorite characters into a sketchpad. When I finally go the internet I joined an MIRC channel called yoU aRe Drawing, or URD (I can’t believe that the website is still up, last post was 2004 though, I’ll try and get in touch with people from there!), started listening to Japanese music, things were getting strange.

About that time, I discovered online gaming. In what might be considered by some as life ruining, I became addicted to Total Annihilation, Ragnarok Online, Counter Strike, and Lineage 2 (to name a few) and mostly dropped the (more constructive) love of drawing.

I still occasional watched anime and my love of Japan didn’t completely go away and in 2009 the opportunity came up to visit Japan when cheap flights became available. I jumped at the chance and spent two incredible weeks here in Tokyo. The experience was life changing and while I didn’t decide to live here (that remained a daunting prospect for many years) I did meet someone who would eventually coax me into moving here.

Since then a lot has happened, I was sick for many years, and I’ve only just started to get some energy and confidence to take on the world properly. So, here I am, in Tokyo on a hot summer day with two typhoons barreling towards Japan, writing the first few posts on my blog about living here, being a bit of an Otaku, and taking photos. I hope my efforts offer even a little bit of enjoyment or information to anyone who visits and hope that I can eventually build this into something more.

Thanks for reading.

Anan