Stressed-Out

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Name: Jay, Jay-chan, Marj

Age: Newly graduated working girl. 'Nuff said.

Course: B.S. in Computer Studies - Major in Software
Technology

Alma Mater:
De La Salle University

Address: Somewhere in an urban jungle

Birthday: If you're as old as I am, you'll forget you even had one

Favorite Color: Blue (if the page isn't obvious enough...)

Webpages:
Jay-chan's Sailormoon
Cottage
Bokuto PS Archive
Keishichou Network

Favorite Animes:
     Sailormoon
     Taiho Shichauzo
     Ah! Megami-sama
     Sakura Taisen OVAs

Favorite Manga Artist:
Kosuke Fujishima

Favorite Games/RPGs:
     Chrono Trigger
     Final Fantasy VII
     Sakura Taisen

Wednesday, October 29, 2003 06:06 p.m.
The Girl That Had Started It All

I can still remember... way back when I was in 1st year high school. Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon was slowly gaining popularity. Small street stands were selling small cardboard paper versions of cards, 3 pieces for 1 peso, compared to the hundred bucks paid for around 5 to 7 pieces of the original.

I was once oblivious to all of this. I hardly cared for anime back then. The Lion King had just been shown on cinemas, and all my drawing books contained pictures of Simba, the young and the adult. What was so interesting about girls who put on make up just to fight enemies, as my older sister had described to me? For someone like me who doesn't like make-ups, the description was something that had utterly repulsed me.

Then I saw her picture in one of those 1 peso cards. She was just standing there, staring at the person in front of her with a passive look on her face. I turned to my best friend and asked, "Who is she?"

She hasn't appeared on television yet. So my friend didn't know who she was. Her best bet? "She must be Bunny's(Usagi) sister or something". Her guess had been highly based on how she looked, as apparently the girl looked almost exactly like the main character of this show.

Who cares? The picture intrigued me. I bought it, and tried to draw it at home. Needless to say, my drawing had been very, very bad back then.

It was summer vacation between first year and second year. We haven't heard of the internet yet. I received a snail mail from my best friend, who was raving about a couple of episodes of this "cartoon" on the Indonesian cable channel, of a girl named "Minaku" and her sorrowful past in England, and of several girls dying on a snow field. I couldn't understand a word she wrote. That letter was dropped somewhere in my cabinet and was promptly forgotten.

I had already been recording shows on television by then. I had several episodes of Robotech on tape, and my latest obsession had been Picket Fences and Saber Rider (which I hadn't known was actually anime...). Finally, one day, during my second year in high school, my big sister asked me to record Sailormoon for her. "The fifth warrior had just arrived!" she said. Okaaaay.

After that, I finally understood what my sister had meant about "make-up".

It was recorded at the remaining space at the very back of my Picket Fences tape. The episode when Sailormoon was revealed to be Princess Serenity. When an extremely serious, no-nonsense Sailor Venus had introduced herself to the Sailor Senshi. The girl in my first Sailormoon card. The girl who had intrigued me so much.

Aino Minako.

Over the next few weeks as I recorded the show, I gradually learned to like it, and actually hated Tuxedo Kamen as my sister always strangled me whenever he appeared on screen and saved Sailormoon even though he was supposed to be a baddie. But I watched mostly because of the girl who had that gentle smile who strived to make Usagi happy.

Then the episode about her past was shown. My heart totally went out to her. That was the clincher. I love this show. I wanted to see more of it. And then maybe I can find out even more about her.

Then I remembered. The letter!

It was still there in the cabinet. My sister and I read it, and didn't know that we were already actually reading the ending of the first season. The spelling was wrong here and there ("Minaku"), and the story wasn't exact, but it was close enough (my friend couldn't speak Indonesian, and her story is based only on what she could make out of the pictures).

The rest of the story is history. After seeing the ending of the first season, I was hooked on this series for years and years.

What exactly had I liked about Minako? Yes, she was serious at first, and her passive face was what had intrigued me in the first place. But as the series moved along, she loosened up (drastically), and she lost all the composure she once had. But I loved her even more. Why?

Maybe it's because she knows how to smile and laugh despite all the hardships she had faced. Maybe it's because she tries to make others happy even at her own expense. She knows how to express her feelings of joy, knowing that the happiness she radiated could be shared with the people around her. All the while keeping her sadness to herself, as she doesn't want others to be sad as well. This complexity in her personality makes her more human, something anybody can relate to, something more than the characters of the children's cartoons that I had grown with for the first few years of my life.

Right now I still can't imagine how I would be like in the present if it were not for her. It was through the obsession with anime that Minako had indirectly brought along with her which had allowed me to meet so many friends even outside my own country.

Sailormoon's popularity may be long gone. But I will always look back to this one show, and that one character, which had started it all for me. A memory that I would not easily forget, and would always remember despite the passage of time.

You may wonder - what happened to the cardboard paper card that I had bought? It is now inside a box full of Sailormoon paraphernalia, laminated and lovingly kept in a smaller plastic container, where an original Sailormoon card with the same picture is also hidden. A small shrine in the midst of all the other animes that I have treasured over the years.

Wednesday, October 29, 2003 05:45 p.m.
Now what...?

Since I've had my LJ, and since it's so much more easier to do updates there (although I have to admit, Pitas is much more flexible...), what shall I do with this page now...?

LINKS TO OTHER PLACES

Fushigi Kismet's Realm
Heero and Duo's Domain
Nadia's Little Webspot

MY FRIENDS' PITAS

Uncommon
Mafty
Wing Bound

MY OTHER JOURNALS

Yuna's Bench

OLD ARCHIVES

Archive Page