The 6-Years Late "Introduce Yourself" Thread

[Geckoey Lurker]

Hey all, so, something I realized just a few minutes ago while I was doing my daily runs of other forums is that we don't have any threads for people to introduce themselves if they want, even after the 6 years of longevity the forum has! It's usually used as a ice-breaker for people, so to speak, so I figured I might as well make a thread even after all this time. Could induce some new members (or even older) to participate. No idea if anybody will actually post or not, but worth trying I'd say.

Now, obviously, this ain't mandatory—I couldn't make it so, even if I wanted—so if you don't want to introduce yourself, then don't feel forced to! And if you simply want to say hi and introduce yourself without getting too personal, then don't be afraid to be vague about things like your age, name, and things like that. I'm not too afraid of giving out details about my life personally, probably a bit too careless even.

Well, I guess I have to start this since I'm the topic starter so here we go—I'll try to keep it short (edit: I lied):

Hi! (Again) I'm sure I don't need to tell you my username, as you can clearly see it, but if you want to address me differently, then feel free to call me by Eli as my friends nicknamed me, or just find me nickname yourself if you so desire. I'm a Canadian by birth, and French is my mother-tongue, and probably like many of you I learned English mostly through to the internet and video games. I turned 20 just a few weeks ago.

I'm jobless at the moment, but the government is giving me a very small monthly stipend so I scrape-by alongside random jobs that I do here and there. However, as an attempt to solve that, I'm trying to go back to school and complete a DVS aiming specifically to do maintenance/installation for telecommunications equipment (Think Okazaki's job in Clannad, and I swear that's a bloody coincidence. The job isn't just going up poles and working magic, though. ;p) AAaand if that doesn't work-out, well, a back-up plan has yet to be thought of.

Other than that, I've been 'learning' Japanese for the past 3? I think it's been 3 years. Currently, my studies have been going at a snail pace due to life events and stuff, but it's still progressing. I feel like every one and an half year I go through this six months period where I just can't be bothered to find the time to study things in details, to my disdain. Point is, an entire year of those 3 years has just been me loafing around and just reading Visual Novels without studying things in-depth and not learning new things at a good pace, thus... I am waaay far off my initial goal, which was to be high Advanced level within 3 years. If I had to say, I'm probably low-middle intermediate level right now? I still have NOT worked on speaking the language itself, and barely writing it. But I do decently when it comes to listening or reading.

I should note that I have NOT watch any anime in nearly half a year now. Nevermind that I have not read any manga in longer than that. I started a few light novels, but I haven't finished any this year yet, I don't think I even finished a single volume! Even my progression rate for Visual Novels as been going really slow this year... and it's definitely not because I've lost interest, there's just so much content and visual novels take so long to read through even at a good rate. Probably important to mention that I never really get tired of doing the same thing over and over...

Well, I don't think there's anything else noteworthy at the moment... Oh! I've been thinking of maybe starting to play FFXIV around next month, so if any of you guys play and are on the Jenova server, let me know. Just know I probably won't be a hardcore raiding machine. Also if you want to add me on Skype or Steam then shoot me a PM and I just might add ya!

[Kureha]

Congrats, you've just got yourself a new job.

[Geckoey Lurker]

Well shit!

[CFreak]

I live in Scandinavia, which is kind of like Canada but with less French, which is good because I was terrible at it in High School. I enjoy VNs but haven't really watched anime in years.

I don't know how long I've been plugging away at Japanese. I learned Hiragana and Katakana around... 10 years ago? Then looked at the Kanji and went "well fuck that" and dropped it until about 3 years ago or so. Resumed the studying in a fit of boredom, and have been going at it on and off since then. It's slow since studying isn't the first thing I want to do after work, but it's kind of enjoyable once I can motivate myself into getting started. ETA until fluency is achieved: 25 years. Give or take. Should be just around the time when Japan revolutionises SOA-like VR MMOs and perfect universal translators are a reality.

[Dusk]

I noticed this thread in my daily visit to the forum and quickly ignored it, because I'm rubbish at making friends. Coincidentally, I was reading a manga yesterday, and one of the chapters was about making the first step in making friends and how hard it was. So after a few minutes of hesitation, I thought what was the worst that could happen, and so here I am.

Since the TC has already been so open in his introduction, I might as well follow suit. I'm Asian, from Singapore. I'm jobless like the TC. Hasn't worked a day in my life, although every year, I get called back to the military for about 1-2 weeks. I studied a bit of Japanese by myself a few years ago. Managed to memorize both Hiragana and Katakana by working on it for 30 mins everyday in a single month. Since I'm fluent in the Chinese language, I ignored working on the Japanese Kanji characters, which are pretty familiar in their definitions on each characters. And then I gave up.

Around that time, I took up drawing too. Learned some techniques from a professional artist in Japan who post how-to videos on youtube every week. Bought some tools (pencils and sketchbooks), and drew a few pictures that I thought looked pretty good for a novice. And then I gave up.

A long time ago, I tried my hand at translating manga for about 6 months, but since I was rubbish at making friends back then too (especially online friends), I ended up working with whoever the group leader paired with me without talking about anything outside of work at all. So I gave up.

I've been watching anime every week since 2004. Never did join any discussion forums for the purpose of discussion. If I join any forums (such as this forum, though that is no longer the case), it would be because there was something else beside talking that I wanted. I tried joining discussion on youtube comments, since it was convenient, but those discussion usually are about proving that someone's statements are wrong, and ultimately became a chore, deprived of the enjoyment one might find from engaging in conversation with like-minded individuals. 

Actually, I think I'm starting to dampen the mood, so let me liven up the party with a few things I'm interested in recently and end this. So, lately I watched this video of the Milky Holmes playing a game, and became interested in Kitta Izumi, who plays Cordelia on the show. She's into yuri manga, card games and gyoza/dumplings. I love the fact that she's so open about the things she loves, and visually, she appeals to me a lot more than the other three members. I've been listening to past episodes of Cardfight Vanguard radio, which she has been co-hosting since 2011, and I just can't get enough of her jokes.

On the 2-D side, I'm currently into Kato Megumi from Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata/How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend. I've been reading this light novel series for a year now, and have been holding back until the anime ended so as not to spoil the story for myself. I'm now caught up with the events in the most recent volume, and I now realized that this girl is everything I've ever wanted from a main heroine in any visual novel or dating sim.

Now to hide my embarrassment and end it aruptly. Thanks for reading, but now I can never show my face again in this forum after clicking the "post" button. At least this thread is now one post longer. Bye.

[Green_Tea]

So to jump right into it, I got into Japanese pop culture when I started reading Bleach in high school. I'm 25 now, and I was 17 then, so it would have been 2007. That was the first step of my journey into H, which has consumed far too many of my hours. My first anime was Toradora, a year or more after I started reading manga. I still love it and I own all the novels of the series, not that I can read them. Currently I enjoy reading One Piece, Shokugeki no Souma, Toriko, and One-Punch Man. There are others, but these manga I enjoy most. As for the anime side of things, I've missed out of last season and I can't particularly be bothered watching things in general, but I've got some backlog to clear through, most notably Aldnoah.Zero, Amagi Brilliant Park, and Hellsing Ultimate. Currently watching some with friends: Yuki-chan, Shokugeki, BorN, Oregairu S2.

I don't think I can say I've ever been a complete NEET, but I'm a helluva slacker. I procrastinate by reading and re-reading things. I've read Hajime no Ippo about four times, and One Piece three times. These days I spend my time reading translations of webnovels. It started with the RE:Monster manga. I then looked at the comments and saw there was a light novel so I went and looked at that. A long slippery slope began...from Tate Yuusha no Nariagari and Legendary Moonlight Sculptor, to Mushoku Tensei and Stellar Transformations. These days I'm following the translations of Ark, Zhan Long, Coiling Dragon, Douluo Dalu, and Battle Through the Heavens.

For VN's I can't say I've been keeping up to date. The past years have seen me move on largely from enjoying many kinds of Japanese plots due to the communities that form around them. I can't stand people who have no idea what they're talking about. Also they think their lives are an anime plot and act accordingly which irritates me when I see it. Honestly 3D is not ever going to be as cute as 2D so just fuck off. I can see this paragraph will just rant on so moving on....

I enjoy violence and cute things in my plot. Or maybe not violence per say, but cool fights I guess? Also funny jokes. Recommendations are always welcome.

[Geckoey Lurker]

Should be just around the time when Japan revolutionises SOA-like VR MMOs and perfect universal translators are a reality.

Hopefully, I'll still be healthily kicking at the time and I'll be able to enjoy full-blown VRMMOs, I'm just worried that I would get TOO immersed. Also, I can't imagine being a professional translator once PERFECT Universal Translators comes around, your entire skillset is suddenly rendered useless, heh, still might be useful if it break down or something, though. I kinda wanna see a Universal Translator that just translate everything you say into the most vulgar slang of the target language while still being accurate somehow.

I noticed this thread in my daily visit to the forum and quickly ignored it, because I'm rubbish at making friends. Coincidentally, I was reading a manga yesterday, and one of the chapters was about making the first step in making friends and how hard it was. So after a few minutes of hesitation, I thought what was the worst that could happen, and so here I am.

I might not give that vibe right now, but I can be pretty damn shy myself! But then, that's my fear of strangers and my general shyness playing in, I'm not a super-introvert like some. A few years back, I used to make friends left and right, but now the last time I made any new friend that I regularly hang-out with was years back. Slowly trying to break through my shell, however, if only to survive better through society, at least until I'm set with a job in hands.

Since the TC has already been so open in his introduction, I might as well follow suit. I'm Asian, from Singapore. I'm jobless like the TC. Hasn't worked a day in my life, although every year, I get called back to the military for about 1-2 weeks.

If it makes you feel better, know that I haven't held any jobs at long term thus far! I'd argue I've never really had a job proper yet, even though I've been trying to find one for a while now. I wish I had any excuses, but I really don't. And whether you consider that a good thing or not, I sure can't say I've been part of the military in one way or another, although I've considered joining the army but didn't go through with it.

Around that time, I took up drawing too. Learned some techniques from a professional artist in Japan who post how-to videos on youtube every week. Bought some tools (pencils and sketchbooks), and drew a few pictures that I thought looked pretty good for a novice. And then I gave up.

I actually try to pick-up drawing every 2 year or so, but it just never stick. Techniques doesn't even stick with me even if I study one for hours. I'm convinced I just can't do it, yet I still try every year or so.

A long time ago, I tried my hand at translating manga for about 6 months, but since I was rubbish at making friends back then too (especially online friends), I ended up working with whoever the group leader paired with me without talking about anything outside of work at all. So I gave up.

Oh man, you have NO idea how many translation projects I've tried joining. I did end up joining one to polish my Japanese around the middle of last year, but shit out of my control happened and the team quickly crumbled, it really sucked and kinda made me want to never touch translation ever again, but the negative feelings passed. I've thought about making my own team, but I've come to realize that none of my friends cares for it, and theeeeen I never bothered trying to recruit at all.

I've been watching anime every week since 2004. Never did join any discussion forums for the purpose of discussion. If I join any forums (such as this forum, though that is no longer the case), it would be because there was something else beside talking that I wanted. I tried joining discussion on youtube comments, since it was convenient, but those discussion usually are about proving that someone's statements are wrong, and ultimately became a chore, deprived of the enjoyment one might find from engaging in conversation with like-minded individuals.

I think I started around 2006-2007 for me? Although, if you count my watching Cardcaptor Sakura or Sailor Moon on TV when I was a kid, then it was earlier than that. I actually lurk a lot of discussion forums but don't post on any of them... Kureha One is basically the only forum I post on, heh. I don't know why, honestly.

Actually, I think I'm starting to dampen the mood, so let me liven up the party with a few things I'm interested in recently and end this.

Hey, letting things out one way or another can help a lot, so don't worry about it.

So, lately I watched this video of the Milky Holmes playing a game, and became interested in Kitta Izumi, who plays Cordelia on the show. She's into yuri manga, card games and gyoza/dumplings. I love the fact that she's so open about the things she loves, and visually, she appeals to me a lot more than the other three members. I've been listening to past episodes of Cardfight Vanguard radio, which she has been co-hosting since 2011, and I just can't get enough of her jokes.

Oh man, I've been looking for a Japanese podcast for years but never found any good one. I'm gonna have to check that one out. I mean, I'm assuming it's Japanese, and kinda hoping really hard it is.

On the 2-D side, I'm currently into Kato Megumi from Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata/How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend. I've been reading this light novel series for a year now, and have been holding back until the anime ended so as not to spoil the story for myself. I'm now caught up with the events in the most recent volume, and I now realized that this girl is everything I've ever wanted from a main heroine in any visual novel or dating sim.

Aaand now I have to read this.

Now to hide my embarrassment and end it aruptly. Thanks for reading, but now I can never show my face again in this forum after clicking the "post" button. At least this thread is now one post longer. Bye.

Heh, don't worry. I can assure you that most people have things they consider pretty embarrassing to themselves, but they really are not, I know I do myself. And if anything, that you'd get out of your bubble and type out things you consider yourself embarrassing out in public like that? Well, I'd give you pretty big kudos to outdoing yourself!

Placeholder

I'm tired. I'll edit this later.

*waits patiently*

[CFreak]

Now to hide my embarrassment and end it aruptly. Thanks for reading, but now I can never show my face again in this forum after clicking the "post" button. At least this thread is now one post longer. Bye.

I wouldn't worry too much. I think people who frequent a VN message board should be (and probably are) the last people to judge others on their personalities and likes & dislikes, considering all the stuff you can find and do in them.

I spent close to 5 years as a NEET playing MMOs obsessively and got to know a crapload of people, each with their own circumstances in life, from single mothers who did too much weed to suicidal/depressed teenagers who e-stalked female guild members. Nothing really surprises me any more and nowadays I find that "if it's not harming anyone, it's ok" is a good way to treat others regardless of how different their tastes are to mine. Life's too short to spend fussing over the little things.

[Geckoey Lurker]

This is actually how I've made most of my current, closest friends. MMOs are a hell of a help. Honestly, I treat people the same way as you said nowadays. But I still can't bring myself to just go up to somebody and start talking. I don't start things, I just take part in them once somebody invites me or push me into it... usually, anyway. I can't even really play MMOs by myself anymore because of that, even though I might met my next best friend on it. Trying to fix that whole thing.

Edit: The amount of drama I've witnessed, and sadly, was part of sometimes, reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally pisses me off, though. Oh god. But that's really the only bad part I can think of.

[Green_Tea]

I kinda wanna see a Universal Translator that just translate everything you say into the most vulgar slang of the target language while still being accurate somehow.

Mmmmm. I miss the scanlators of Yamada and the Seven Witches. Those scanlations were a riot.

[Kureha]

I've been keeping tabs on VNR "Visual Novel Reader" it has some potential because of the user contributed translation database, but there is just so many hoops to jump through and having to mash together your own build and settings from like a dozen different guides...

One can hope that some day it'll build up a database large and well enough to have decent machine translations.

[Geckoey Lurker]

So to jump right into it, I got into Japanese pop culture when I started reading Bleach in high school. I'm 25 now, and I was 17 then, so it would have been 2007.

The math doesn't seem to check out, but I'm not a mathematician so I can't say for sure!
I actually DID derp. For some reason I thought we were in 2017?? :[ I am not good with time.

That was the first step of my journey into H, which has consumed far too many of my hours.

I never really got into Hentai, now that I think about it.

My first anime was Toradora, a year or more after I started reading manga. I still love it and I own all the novels of the series, not that I can read them.

Putting aside my watching reruns of Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura when I was young, like 6? Not knowing what anime was, much less being aware that Japan even existed. So, my first actual anime was probably Love Hina, and I have no idea how I stumbled onto it, but it remains one of my all-time favourites. A more knowledgeable friend at the time told me about manga and said I should give the manga version a shot, and so I did aand I loved it immediately. After that ended, the mangaka made Negima and I got hooked to that, too bad Negima's animes turned terrible compared to the manga and Love Hina's adaptation. Aand the addiction started from there. He also told me about visual novels but I didn't really start with them for a while since my English was horrid and French translations were reaaaallly far and between. That was back in 2007 or so for me too, so I was 10. Don't think I started on visual novels proper until 2009 or so.

Currently I enjoy reading One Piece, Shokugeki no Souma, Toriko, and One-Punch Man. There are others, but these manga I enjoy most. As for the anime side of things, I've missed out of last season and I can't particularly be bothered watching things in general, but I've got some backlog to clear through, most notably Aldnoah.Zero, Amagi Brilliant Park, and Hellsing Ultimate. Currently watching some with friends: Yuki-chan, Shokugeki, BorN, Oregairu S2.

The amount of manga and anime I have in my backlog is insane and I don't even wanna think about it. You just gave me an idea, though, I should try setting-up some kind of anime night with friends, would help me burn through part of it slowly.

For VN's I can't say I've been keeping up to date. The past years have seen me move on largely from enjoying many kinds of Japanese plots due to the communities that form around them. I can't stand people who have no idea what they're talking about. Also they think their lives are an anime plot and act accordingly which irritates me when I see it. Honestly 3D is not ever going to be as cute as 2D so just fuck off. I can see this paragraph will just rant on so moving on....

VNs are basically the only thing I'm sorta up-to-date on nowadays... and I think you basically explained one of the reasons why I don't hang-out on anime forums anymore, but thankfully it hasn't stopped me from enjoying anything.

I enjoy violence and cute things in my plot. Or maybe not violence per say, but cool fights I guess? Also funny jokes. Recommendations are always welcome.

I actually feel like I read way too many fluffy visual novels compared to the amount of drama, action-heavy VNs that I read. Ratio is probably something like 5-1, still can't help from enjoying cute shit even if I've seen similar things hundreds of times by now... Hell, the thing I've been most excited about for this entire month is Pretty X Cation 2 coming out tomorrow..... even though there are better, more interesting releases coming-up.

Mmmmm. I miss the scanlators of Yamada and the Seven Witches. Those scanlations were a riot.

Oh shit, I completely forgot about that manga, I loved the first few chapters when they came out but forgot about it. Thanks for reminding me of that one! Also, what's up? Did they disband or something? );

I've been keeping tabs on VNR "Visual Novel Reader" it has some potential because of the user contributed translation database, but there is just so many hoops to jump through and having to mash together your own build and settings from like a dozen different guides...

One can hope that some day it'll build up a database large and well enough to have decent machine translations.

I'd rather we don't have machine translations at all until they're precise to a dot, personally. Heh...

But anyway, I actually tried using VNR for translating without having to worry about hacking and it's not bad at all, but the interface is just a cluster-fuck on a single monitor. Reminds me I need to buy a second monitor sometime this year...

[SaintLelouch]

Well, I don't think there's anything else noteworthy at the moment... Oh! I've been thinking of maybe starting to play FFXIV around next month, so if any of you guys play and are on the Jenova server, let me know. Just know I probably won't be a hardcore raiding machine. Also if you want to add me on Skype or Steam then shoot me a PM and I just might add ya!

Xbox does not allow cross-platform game(FFXIV).... damn frustrating..
and my laptop doesn't seem to be able to handle it.. It sucks... I want to buy new PC...

[Kureha]

FF XIV eh? I'd probably have to get an upgrade to my GPU if I wanted to play that.
Currently have a 650TI with only 1GB vram, it's very limited.

[saithan]

Hi everyone,

I discovered the scanlation community back in 2005-2006 while studying at the university, and since I was already buying from tokyopop and some other I was thrilled to be able to read manga without paying for it. Mostly because only a select few titles got translated and such. So joining the community meant that I was exposed to a lot of talented people who were good with editing, translating and what not I was baptized in Shannaro where I did proofing and moved on to Illuminati Manga (since Naruto was pretty much being released by 5-10 ppl every week) so I could contribute more to our community.

Around that time I-M was also just recently created, so I started editing/cleaning there, and at some point discovered that pretty good shounen mangas weren't being scanlated due to either inactivity or not enough, so I picked up HSDK, and think it pretty much kicked the other scanlation groups doing it in the balls, because they started to release it as if competing with me. I knew that like with all releases we'd need to get to a critical point where the story got so interesting that it'd spread like a wildfire and I stopped at around chapter 37-38 (it was tough competing against a whole group ). And I'm just glad to see that it was picked up and carried by so many others that we have finished scanlating it. From I-M I moved on to Genesis, and contributed to scanlating Samurai Deeper Kyo (SDK) and at some point I started translating once in a while. When I started working full time back in 2007 I faded away from the community and focused on working, but I never stopped reading or following the community.

So I'm looking for interesting manga, looking for different communities and trying to reconnect to the "old" times.

~Saithan