…*bounces along*. This has to be my favourite Japanese/Anime/Megumi Hayashibara song that I have heard. I guess you could say there’s a kind of anecdote behind this song for myself and Dave (satoshii)…

I believe it was late 2001 or early 2002 when I had come to sleep around Dave’s house at the weekend. This was shortly after I really began getting into the whole Anime/Manga thing: Dave had introduced me to the stuff as early as year 9, back in the days of the pocket-munchers (a.k.a pokemon) and the nation’s obsession with the cards. I didn’t really click with the larger genre of Anime until around Autumn 2001, when I became hooked to the late-night showing of Anime on the Sci-Fi channel. And it wasn’t long before I was drawing the stuff, as well as indulging in the mountain of goodies Dave had collected over the couple of years he had seriously been into it.

So anyway, we were surfing the internet as I recall, downloading ‘Slayers’ (an Anime series) movie clips and the like. He was showing me one the numerous websites he had ‘under construction’ and we were flicking through the Winamp playlist at the time. ‘Give A Reason (Remix)’ from the ‘Slayers Next’ Anime began bouncing it’s way through the speakers at some point, and that was it…

It quickly became a favourite track of ours, and I even remember it playing from Dave’s Anime CD compilation in his car as we drove home to his house after school one day ^_^. I’m not exactly sure what his mum and brother thought at that moment, maybe nothing at all…I – being relatively new to Japanese music – still found it a little alien to be listening to such a song in the presence of his mum. It was almost opening a door to this esoteric hobby parents generally seem to know very little about.

So that’s the truncated history behind this song, and as I mentioned recently, it has sorta become landmark for our friendship. Whenever I hear the song, I always think back to his house in Frindsbury, sitting at the computer, tapping my foot along to it. I would even go as far to say it was roughly about that point that Japanese culture really started to appeal to me. We downloaded the lyrics to the song just so we could sing along to it ^_^.

I owe a lot of my personal development to Dave. It would be very difficult to imagine where I’d be if he hadn’t thrust Anime and Japan upon me. I wouldn’t have even been studying GCSE Japanese if he hadn’t persuaded me to sign the petition with him! And that says a lot considering I’m applying to do Japanese and Philosophy at University…

So I guess I’d like to finish by announcing my sincere gratitude to Dave. Be it all the way through the lower years of Chatham Grammar – where we usually had very little to do with one another, until the end of year 9 – right up until the present, for which I am perpetually grateful for his help and support during my ‘episode’ in the Summer.

Whether or not our paths diverge in the future, these past few years (and I hope a good deal more) are a golden memory emblazoned in the title of a song; ‘Give A Reason’.