I'm an English Teach- No wait, I'm not

Despite what you may have read or heard about heading over seas to live in Japan, not EVERYONE who does it is an English teacher. OK, given, most of us are. And yes, when I first came I was too. What can I say, it's the easiest way to get into this country.

But I decided, somewhere between the "kancho's" and the gross junior high lunches that maybe teaching wasn't where its at. I've decided to embark upon a different path, a path that some have boldly claimed (and half ridiculed) to be the "Weeaboo Dream."

For those of you who don't know what a Weeaboo is, it's someone who likes Japanese culture; is into all the crazy, colorful and outrageous things this small island exports to the rest of the world. Me? I live near Akihabara and in April of last year I started attending a specialist school for Manga. So I guess, yeah, I probably qualify as a Weeaboo. As they say in Japanese, let's get along well.

The path to achieving the Weeaboo Dream wasn't easy. There were months of intense Japanese study, visiting schools, speaking with teachers (or at least attempting to) and trying my darnedest to figure out which school would be right for me, and which school would actually accept me! Yes, it's true that I received emails from a few schools after I visited saying (albeit politely) that they were not accepting foreigners at this time (or ever?). Most schools were willing to accept me, given I passed the JLPT 2, a super high level Japanese Language exam essentially proclaiming me fluent. That's where the grueling hours of study came in. If anybody ever tells you Japanese is easy, they are either a genius, or have no idea what they are talking about. Or maybe they are Korean.

Of course, when test time came around, I was nervous. I had studied my heart out, but was it enough? Prior to the 6 months of intense study before the JLPT in December of '08, I had almost no classroom Japanese. Maybe half a years worth. And this is the kind of test that native Japanese speakers don't breeze through. The odds were against me. And you know what? I failed! I failed by about 5%. Oh so close! My dreams dashed! My hopes crushed! Would I have to be an English Teacher forever? Should I go home? What to do!?

Tokyo Animator Institute, a famous school located near Tokyo Dome was willing to take me without having passed the test. I had sent them an application (which consisted of only drawing and no essay to my great relief) and I was accepted. And thus began my journey through the grand unknown, the mysterious and strange place called, Manga School!

---------

Quick note: When I'm not blogging about what it's like to be a foreigner in a Japanese Manga school, I'll be posting up some character sketches and concept work I'm doing for the upcoming web-comic. Of course, once I've settled everything and start drawing the actual pages I will be posting those.