Discussion → Behind the Scenes: Foreward

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  H-M Brown

  May 28, 10:42am

  
  

  The Japanese culture had enthralled my feelings unlike any I had ever experienced. Particularly Japanese animation. There was something to their storytelling I liked, that would get me into their shows, as opposed to here in America with some of our animation today. Now, back in the 1980’s, as a kid, we had American animation that was action pack. Shows like M.A.S.K., Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, and Thundercats, they were very popular and told stories. During the 1980’s I discovered Japanese animation from Voltron (aka Go-Lion) and Robotech (aka Macross), they were the two that I watched the most.

  One day in the late 80’s, when I went with my parents to the mall, there was a video store and I stumbled upon the section called ‘Japanimation’. I picked up a tape called Ranma1/2. Those of you who know, I can hear you chuckling. The strange thing about it was that when I read the premise of the show, I put it right back on the shelf. I knew my parents would not accept me watching that show, especially after I had saw the animated movie, Wizards, which members of my family did not expect when they got it for me as a treat. I hear some of you laughing on that one as well. Unfortunately, I couldn’t go into die-hard mode over Anime, because 1) Anime went underground after Voltron ended its syndication and 2) I was in die-hard mode over video games.

  When the 1990’s came, there was this Long Island PBS station called WLIW that my family would get on cable. It was from this station that I actually had my first taste of the Japanese language. Galaxy Express 999 the TV series aired in the late afternoon on Saturdays and it was there that I heard Japanese for the first time. I would make every effort to watch this on Saturdays and yet today in hindsight, I wished I had used that VCR of mine to record those episodes. That’s childhood memories right there. Once they stopped airing the series, I never saw another Anime since. On top of that, after The Ren and Stimpy Show got PC’d and lost its first season flavor, I never cared for American Animation anymore. But I still love my video games.

  That was until the mid 1990’s came, and Dragonball came out on syndication. I watched a few episodes; the premise was there, find the Dragon Balls and make a wish. It wasn’t that difficult, they mentioned that plot every episode. Here’s the kicker, it was on at the crack of dawn, on a weekend, and as a teen, I evolved into the ‘Wake up late’ syndrome. Even Dragonball Z could not get me going. I realized that there were obvious hiccups that didn’t make sense. I saw a helicopter obviously get blown up with reporters inside and one of the characters says the people jumped out in time. What the…? I just watched people physically die and you’re gonna tell me they survived. I know, I know. Dragonball Z in Japan targeted children also, but here in America, we have a bit of a different standard with animation and have toned it down a little. This was the first time I saw the culture gap.

  Now mind you that Voltron also had editing but being a little kid I didn’t get the memo. I was happy about seeing giant robots blowing each other up and I never got to see the Robotech episode that actually allowed a death scene on American television. Here in the mid 90’s and in my teen years, I saw death from Japanese Animation and saw American editing first hand. So now, one day before going to school, I discovered a very peculiar show in syndication. There was a teenage girl, talking to a cat and received a strange locket. I said to myself, oooo Anime. Watching on, when she made her famous phrase, ‘Moon Prism Power’, that’s when I said to myself, ooooooooo… Anime. That show was Sailor Moon and I officially became an Anime fan. Of course, I was turned off by the end of the show when DIC decided to a ‘Knowing is Half the Battle’ sequence at the end of each episode revealing the scenes they cut out of the series, sometimes spoiling the next three episodes. So I felt cheated out of what should have been a good consistent storytelling series. Then they changed ALL the names and food to be more American. At least in Dragonball they maintained some of the original names like Goku and Bulma.

  During this period, I found Anime shows like Teknoman (Tekkaman Blade) airing on syndication and Anime movies like Vampire Hunter D and Tenchi Muyo in Love on Sci-Fi Channel. Anime though didn’t get everyone’s attention at that point, until a peculiar show from a very popular video game company came to our shores. It started airing in syndication then disappeared. It reappeared on Saturday mornings, which was national television. That series, no matter how much we Anime fans want to deny it, was Pokemon. It had competition with Digimon and soon, slowly but surely, parents were introduced to Japanese Animation. More Anime aired on television and I watched whatever came off the assembly line, courtesy of Cartoon Network’s Toonami and Adult Swim. Tenchi Muyo, Mobile Suit Gundam, Card Captors (Cardcaptor Sakura), so on.

  Now I know you’re all saying ‘what is the point to all of this?’ Well this is where The Impossible Man came from. American edited Anime in the late 90’s and early 2000’s was the reason why I wrote The Impossible Man. In 1999, during my ‘Search for the Path to my Future’ Phase in my life, I became so immersed into Anime, that I started writing first drafts for novels. I was completely inexperienced as a writer, I just wrote whatever came to mind with very insane syntax and writing styles. Because Anime and video games had become such an integral part of my life, that it was where the influence of my writings came from. Now here’s the clincher, that influence came from edited Anime airing on American TV and video games. That means that my writings had names that were not Japanese, scenarios that were Americanized and cultural references that were not understood.

  At that moment, I thought it over, and realized that as a Puerto Rican any attempt to publish any of my earlier writings would make me look ignorant and outright racist. Using Japanese Animation, video games and artwork as my source material, which had its own nation’s culture sacrificed for the sake of American marketing and “shielding” children, would have been a disservice on my part as a writer. In addition, given the prejudices my people faced, I would not like it if a writer from Japan wrote about us and knew nothing about our culture and history.

  So, one day I picked up a Japanese dictionary and began researching about the country. Its history, language, culture and in 2002, I wrote the first draft to The Impossible Man novel. During this eight-year period of drafting The Impossible Man, I had joined The Japan Society to study Japanese language and visited some of their exhibits. I traveled to Japan to get a hands on feel of the nation and its cities. I visited festivals like the Sakura Matsuri in Brooklyn to see how they celebrate their culture. In time, I branched out to listening to albums from Asian Kung-Fu Generation and Every Little Thing to watching Akira Kurosawa films. To go beyond Anime and Manga itself.

  My intention with The Impossible Man is to promote multi-culturalism. I chose to make it a comedy because, 1) was that some of the comedy they wrote was universal in nature. I didn’t have to be Japanese to get some of their jokes. Especially the slapstick. 2) Laughter is the one part of our verbal capacity that every one of us humans on earth could understand. Despite our language barriers, we know what laughter is.

  So what to expect from The Impossible Man? Hopefully, a well written story with well executed jokes, hopefully satirical in nature. I’m hoping that translating my experiences of the Japanese culture will translate well in my writings. I also included my Puerto Rican and our American cultures into the novel with the hopes that I could accomplish a cultural exchange amongst us all. That what I learned about the Japanese culture and sharing that info in my novel does bring all of us together and create a sense of inclusiveness and not exclusiveness. It does sound naïve in this insane world, but anything that helps better us as human beings is better than sitting in front of the TV news and complain about how wrong the world is, and do nothing.

  It’s kind of strange though, for me to talk about this personal aspect of my life to complete strangers. My fear is that given the nature of The Impossible Man being a comedy, and maybe all of my writings regardless of genre, some of you would not understand the content and try to paint me as something I am not. I guess I just wanted all of you to know a little bit more about me and my writings, and understand who I am before jumping to conclusions about me you know nothing about.

  All I just want to do in my stories is just share my experiences of a culture I both love and embraced. That’s all.

  H-M Brown
  April 22, 2010

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