My name is Jax and I was born in the 1980s which was an incredible era for kids growing up. There were numerous things from my childhood that have eventually developed into hobbies for me as a working adult.
Firstly, we actually played with toys back then. Transformers, Masters of the Universe, Transformers, Masks, G.I. Joe, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the list goes on. It is no surprise that I still collect toys to this day, especially improved versions of the retro 80s toys.
Secondly, the rise of video games. The first video game I ever played in my life was Chopper Command on the Atari 2600 system. I was totally fascinated by the fact that I could control the movement of a character on the television. It felt like magic.
Finally, manga and anime. When I was fortunate enough to get upgraded from the Atari 2600 to the Nintendo, my first game was Mega Man 2.
Mega Man 2 made a lot of sense for me. I control the character and kill all enemies around me and beat the Bosses to gain control of their powers.
Simple and straight forward.
So, when my cousin introduced Dragon Ball Z II – Gekishin Freeza to me, I had no idea what the purpose of the game was. It was also in Japanese, which we could not understand.
Basically, fights were determined by choosing cards with different Chinese Characters on them.
You do not control the actual fight, other than helping to choose appropriate cards for the various characters which trigger different pre-determined attacks.
What was the point? I thought the fun was in controlling the characters in the fight?
Soon, I complained to my cousin that this game was no fun at all because I has no idea who these people were.
My cousin was totally surprised. “You mean to say that you do not know these characters from Dragon Ball Z?”
That was when my cousin brought his entire collection of the Dragon Ball Z manga to share with me. He wanted me to know the story and enjoy the game as much as him.
And once I knew the story and the characters, Dragon Ball Z II – Gekishin Freeza became extremely addictive.
Not only did my cousin introduce me to Manga, he also introduced me to my first Japanese Anime, a very obscure anime with a small following called Guyver- The Bio-Boosted Armor.
Back then, it was dubbed in Cantonese, which had very professional voice acting.
Even til today, the Manga is not completed. I can literally say that I grew up with this Manga.
As a working adult, I often find myself turning to these hobbies to de-stress and take my mind off work.
Hence the birth of this website to share the fun things I come across and any interesting thoughts I have.
I hope you will enjoy this blog.