When I first watched Neon Genesis Evangelion, I was 21 years old. I had moved out of home for the first time to attend my first year of film school. I started smoking weed, which led to me playing the intro of an NGE episode over 40 times (instead of watching an actual episode) because I thought the OP slapped, which it does. I was also at the peak of my anime bingeing.
I also began to suffer mental breakdowns.…
Similar to Dong-Hyun, growing up in Canada, my dad could not go by his birth name. He was bullied for it to the point that a job recruiter told him to change it if he ever wanted to get a job here. My dad would later concede and legally change his name, he went as far as to have his college diploma updated with his new Western name. To this day my dad refuses to talk about it.
Not wanting…
When I was a kid, I had an irrational fear of dying—also known as thanatophobia. Any possible cause of death terrified me: flying, tornado warnings, being home alone and possibly becoming the victim of a home invasion gone wrong. The fear was so overwhelming that I think it made me afraid of living. I was too scared to do anything. It haunted me throughout my childhood and into my teen years.
I eventually got over it near the end of…
I wasn’t raised as what most considered traditionally Asian despite being Filipino. I remember confronting my parents about that recently and my dad retorted that I was wrong. That he and mom taught my brother and me family morals. At first, I thought that response was stupid, family morals aren’t culture.
Yet after watching Turning Red, I realized that I was wrong. While I do not think that family morals are exclusive to Asian culture, having a strong relationship is…
