Thursday, July 22, 2010

Internships, etc.

Yesterday, I had an interview for an internship at TokyoPop. I got along well with one of the CEOs. He even knew where Kichijoji was. We also (probably couldn't avoid it but) had a conversation about ninjas. I need to be enrolled in a school to be eligible to even do the internship so they said they might pass along some translation work to me or something.

Today, I have another internship interview provided for me by a friend here who is also actually from Georgia. This one seems more promising too just judging from the way the e-mails are written. The woman that will interview me apparently is in dire need of an assistant. It seem to be more able to become some kind of paid position more quickly than TokyoPop. It's a post-production house that does animation work, voices, subtitling, and localization. I think they did the voice-over recordings for Halo even.

Other than that, still trying to get into Square-Enix and some of my friends are passing along my resumé for at least some kind of PA work.

I wish I could go to Comic-Con (going on right now) but I don't need to spend the money.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

L.A. and the Future

It's been a while.

I have never moved to a place that was so comfortable so quickly. The more I am here the more it becomes apparent to me that this was the right move. I know so many people here. I like the weather and the laid-back lifestyle and the culture. California and NYC are probably the most important areas in the U.S. and it's just really nice to be living in one of them.

I've been going to bars, surfing, house parties, watching movies at Grauman's Chinese Theatre (which I have seen on TV when watching the Oscars, etc. since I was a little kid), eating all kinds of great food. 


Speaking of being a kid, I've always been the guy that wanted to live out his dreams of adventure. I used to watch Street Fighter (the animé) and thought it was so cool that Ryu was a traveling vagabond warrior. I don't want to be a vagabond but I do like the idea of traveling the globe. Also, later in my life, I saw Randy Pausch's "Last Lecture" which is basically the most inspirational speech ever recorded and that helped me in prying me out of a non-nomadic lifestyle. 


After Japan, ever since I was a kid, I was always fascinated with California. It was sunny, always on TV, and movies were made there. If California was its own economy, it would have the fourth largest GDP in the world. The state just seems to have a lot to offer. 


I feel like I did what I wanted. I feel like now I've basically accomplished all of my childhood dreams. I really do. I'm 25 and I've done it. I know more dreams will pop up but basically everything that I wanted to do and was dreaming of doing as a kid ...I've done it. I haven't even done much since I've been here and I've done it. Just moving here was enough. 


I kind of wish I could figure out my job situation but overall things are great. When people ask me what do I want to do here, I am sometimes at a loss. I think working on movies or game localization would be cool. I still don't have just one thing I'd want to do. I love to watch movies and talk about movies so working in movies would be great and I've always loved video games and where they might be going in the future as well as the ability to use Japanese at a company like Square-Enix here in L.A. Maybe things are just too good to decide on just one. I really don't know. I'm kind of waiting for some kind of natural conclusion to just happen ...not just around me ...but internally...a kind of inner-conclusion that will bring about some closure to this mystery in my mind of "what should I be doing with my life?" 


If I work at Square, I feel like I will have successfully linked two dreams, Japan and California, into one. Living in L.A. and working for a Japanese company in a media-related field sounds like it would suit me just fine. The execution on this one will be a little tricky though.