kenkamishiro:

Please feel to correct me if there are any mistakes. (source of the afterword)

Edit 1: Proofread for grammar and wording.

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My Dream Back in Elementary School

I remember writing “gymnast” for this prompt in the school anthology.

From when I was born up until the first year of junior high, I was very thick and so overweight that I looked like a pig, but I had fairly good motor skills.

Mat competition and horizontal bar were my forte, and I also did backflips.

Though in reality I had no desire to become a gymnast. For some reason I thought that I’d feel guilty if I wrote that my dream was to be a mangaka.

My Junior High School Days

These were at most memories from my junior high school days, but I found it easier to study back then. My parents kept nagging at me to study and study, so I was studious so I wouldn’t have to hear the nagging.

I liked English, so when I was in my second year of junior high I took the grade 2 English proficiency exam, which was the highlight of those days. (Apart from that I don’t really understand English that well.)

My parents scolded me as my grades dropped. I didn’t want to be reprimanded again and so I kept studying.When I got the highest grade in the school, I happily announced it to my father and he said, “Keep it up for next time.”

Looking back on that, that might’ve been his way of telling me that I did a good job, but back then I thought, “There’s no point even if I do my best,” and so I lost all meaning in studying.

Secondary Education Moratorium Period

I wanted to get away from my parents, so I applied for schools that had dormitories.I enjoyed the dorm life and I mainly spent my time just playing games.

My grades were beyond horrible, and I was at the bottom of my class. The content I studied in school just didn’t hold my interest.I also began drawing via the Internet. Although I started out by drawing with a mouse, I bought a pen tablet and began drawing colour illustrations on my PC.

Finding a Job

I began going around looking for jobs, but I ended up not doing anything because there wasn’t any job that I wanted to do.

The only jobs I could apply for required expertise that you could only learn in school, but because I hadn’t been interested in the content in school back then, it was impossible for me to apply.

Left all alone, I fretted over what I should do.

I fought a lot with my parents.In the end, after being screamed at by my father, I gave up and agreed to go job hunting. My memory is a bit hazy, but on that occasion I seem to have told him, “I’m dead.”

I wonder if it was those words that broke me, because it eventually allowed me to choose a path other than finding employment.

The path that came to mind at the time was becoming a mangaka.

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