Hi, my name is Dennis; a guy who hails from the realm of New and just recently, I decided to pay up to join Textfugu after going through season 1. It’s a source that clicked with me, and manage to stick by instead of flaking out like many other attempts. I stumbled upon the site when I curiously was goggling up any self-study Japanese guides, since I admit to be VERY shy, and awkward for classrooms or seek personal guidance etc. Besides, I kind of like the idea of surprising several people I know about knowing Japanese, even if it is a tiny bit.

As for learning the language, it’s a shallow reason, but it relates to gaming. I live it, breathe it and love it, and am a fanatic of Japanese RPGs in particular (Final Fantasy, Shin Megami Tensei, etc..) There is a lot of stuff there that I have great interest in, but due to lack of demand, license issues or dumb marketing, they don’t come out in North America. I always did want to learn the language for a while, but never felt strongly motivated and I’m a guy whose confidence in about anything, ESPECIALLY other languages is zilch. Language courses (mainly spanish) are always the ones I do bad at, and my family’s native country is Russian, but was born in the US, and somehow, I don’t speak Russian at all, and feel I bring shame to my own kind.

What finally did made me feel like stepping forward came from one particular game I’ve played on March, last year. The game was called Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky (known as Sora no Kiseki in Japan) I’ve been feeling like a jaded gamer for a while with the JRPG genre waning this generation, and have little interest in all the shooters, sport titles, action games, and tend to find myself just played older games from yesteryear. You know, the good times *has rose-tinted nostalgia glasses one* Having played Trails at the time, it does nothing innovative, but was extremely charming and just clicked with me really well. I got emotionally invested, and was then left in a major cliffhanger in the end, where I STILL did not get over it to much lesser extent. After that, due to sales, technical problems with digital distribution and major decline of the gaming platform it plays on in the West, there was increased concern that the sequel won’t be localized at all. On top of that, there are currently 5 games in that series (with a sixth game in development). The games are very text driven, with the 2nd game alone seems to have a 800 page script, there seems to be little incentive for a small publisher to translate such a daunting game to a niche audience. From there, I felt it is time to take some action in my own hands, and not miss out on things. There’s still a whole lot of other games from back than and now I can still try to get into, on top of some other stuff. We shall see if my heart won’t waver, and will actually stick to it.

As for other hobbies, not much else from me. Typical anime and manga fan, though I mostly meet manga. I like board games and card games, but sadly lack any opponents at my end, and listen to music. Gaming music of course. I got 140GB worth of gaming music MP3s so you probably get the idea of my obsession.

Anyways, I know I am being ranty at this point, but felt like sharing my crazy story. Nice to meet you all! :)