Review: Mari Okada’s “From Truant to Anime Screenwriter”

I had time to read in full a memoir I purchased three years ago. It’s Mari Okada’s From Truant to Anime Screenwriter: My Path to “Anohana” and “The Anthem of the Heart”, set in rural Chichibu in Saitama Prefecture.

I’m glad that I am able to read this in full, as it talks about her experience growing up. On this book, she opens up about her truancy in her high school days, her mother, and her work experience.

I’m here to talk about my view on the story, so I don’t think this can be referred to as a proper “review.”

If there are few things I can relate well as I read through the whole memoir, it’s the fact that we don’t have happy experiences in high school. In my case, it can go as far as late elementary. The way I see it, I’m an outcast.

It’s just in college where I felt I can be respected as I am, and I can respect myself. College has been good to me overall.

I recall the time where I go to the nearby internet cafe after school to browse the internet, kill time, watch some anime, post blogs or even upload my podcast episodes on Archive.org. I’ve been doing it for quite a long time; I started creating stuff online around Grade 6.

Actually, I’ve been making stuff even before I went online – it’s just that most of the stuff aren’t laid out to the public.

Like Mari Okada, you get to meet people who have given you their trust – whether you met them online or in person. We all have people like that – I do.

Aside from inspirations like Geek Nights, Anime Pulse and Leo Laporte, Al got me to develop my skills during our time in Deremoe, most of which I use for my day job nowadays.

Among all of Mari Okada’s works, Her Blue Sky, Koufuku Graffiti, Sakurasou, Black Rock Shooter, and the WIXOSS TV series are the ones that I’ve finished in full. It may be a few but these are all memorable.

Upon her prime time as a playwright for anime series, she still experience problems and the anxiety that’s carried along with it, but she still had the balls to open up about it. I don’t feel I can open up about my anxieties in public.

You got to read the memoir form the start until the epilogue, keep reading until you finish it, and have a sense of enlightenment that is brought by the feeling of relatedness that is Mari Okada’s experience.

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This is by far the second book that I’ve reviewed for this blog, the first one was Chutzpah & Chutzpah, which is about Saatchi & Saatchi in the eyes of the people who were part of it.