About me

If you've cared enough to read my blog and click on this link, I might as well tell you a little bit about myself, why I am blogging, and various other things about me.

I'm a twenty-two year old male and self proclaimed Hello! Project fanatic that goes by the name Jedimastertrunks or you can call me by my real name, Chris, if you prefer. I hesitate to call myself a wota because I'm not that insane... yet.

I'm a Japanese major that studied Japanese for three years. I've completed the Japanese program at my university and so the next step in my life is to move to Japan and become a professional translator and/or an English teacher. I'm scheduled to graduate Spring 2013 and I hope to be in Japan before Summer 2013 ends (or at most, by the end of 2013).

Originally I got into blogging because a couple of people were bugging me to start. It was summertime and I had nothing better to do. Besides, I knew I needed to get some practice composing essays and articles so I could gradually ease out of the inevitable laziness that summer brings, all the while getting back into school mode for the upcoming fall semester. It may once have started on a whim, but I now really like blogging, which you can see by my never ending stream of long blog posts (and this equally long About Me page).

I was first introduced to Hello! Project five years ago (July 2007) via Youtube, by accident. I was searching for people with skillful dance covers to anime songs when I came across a channel with a pretty catchy/cool song that was unknown to me at the time. Later I would find out that the song's title is Berryz Koubou's Jiriri Kiteru.

From there, I looked up the PV but I actually didn't like it at first (though to be fair, I only watched for a few seconds because the quality sucked; it was a video of someone pointing their camera at a laptop. And remember, this is 2007 when Youtube's overall quality sucked to begin with). For some reason, I gave the PV another chance at a later date and was hooked. Back then I had a hard time identifying the members, but Captain (and to a lesser extent, Momoko) stood out to me probably because of their height and short hair.

I fell in love with Berryz Koubou shortly thereafter. Afterwards, I searched for as much information about them as possible and found their concerts for download at various sites (mainly DivX Stage6. Anybody remember that site?). Literally almost every night before bed I would watch a Berryz concert - that is how I got to know most of their songs and the individual members. After watching Captain's super cool dance solo from their 2006 spring concert, I was aboard the Captain fandom and one step closer to becoming a wota.

Once I got to watching Berryz's earlier concerts, I found out about W (since they did two joint concerts together) and began to take interest in them as well. That led to me finding out about Minimoni, which led to me knowing of Takahashi Ai's existence. I still remember the look on my face when I found out that this small, shy girl that I only knew from Minimoni, had become the leader of Morning Musume. At the time, I knew of Morning Musume and I knew they were the main group, but I didn't know much else. I thought they were still selling millions of CDs, so I just felt a sense of awe from Aichan's accomplishment.

However, that didn't get me into Morning Musume just yet. This was about the time Mikan came out and I wasn't too into that song. So, I moved to the only other H!P group at the time, C-ute. I watched the close-up version of Sakura Chirari and instantly fell in love. Tokaikko Junjou had recently released and that made me into a C-ute fan. I steered toward liking Chisato first because of her boyish style (remember, I was also a Captain fan). She stayed my favorite C-ute member for a long time until Airi took over that spot.

Eventually I warmed up to Morning Musume, and then Resonant Blue came out. At that point, there was no stopping me from loving them. Because of my previous exposure, I liked Aichan the most and she took over my #1 favorite H!P girl position and held onto that title for over two years with little resistance from any other girl.

By the end of 2007, I was so excited about my new fandom, I had to do something about it. My first ever CD purchase was of Berryz's 4th album (from YesAsia), mainly because it was a new release at the time. I even have proof of this claim.

If you visit the YesAsia page for that exact album, the price has gone up to $45. Funny how things change over the years.

After I finished with my H!P shopping spree (I made nine total orders from August 2007 - December 2007 totaling about $500), I moved onto Youtube uploading. I already had a Youtube account from 2006 and I used that account to upload stuff for a short while. After it was suspended by Youtube, I started going by a new name: jedimastertrunks. It was a name I had used before on forums and stuff, just not too often. I can't remember how long jedimastertrunks1 lasted, but it wasn't much more than a few months.

One thing I do remember is that back then, Youtube didn't have man dedicated H!P uploaders; definitely none from Japan like we have now. It was pretty much just me, Amy (giveitbacknow), Alan, and a few others holding down the fort. I was definitely one of the first to begin uploading full length concerts (at least multiple full concerts; some channels had one or two. I had nearly all). I fondly remember buying Berryz's 2007 Summer Concert on its release date, waiting a week or so for it to arrive, and still was the first to upload the concert to Youtube. If I were to do that now, the concert would be uploaded a dozen different times by various uploaders. Again, it's funny how things change over the years.

In 2009 I entered the H!P fansubbing world as a member of ICU-Subs. I got to work on many great videos (though only a couple were released to the public before the group disbanded) and genuinely had fun. In 2010, I even began working by myself to sub short PVs and concert performances. But with ICU's disbanding and with UFA cracking down hard on Youtube channels, I once again looked to reinvent myself.

In July 2011, after not being a part of any major fansubbing groups for a while, I joined SFGundam in Twilight Paradise Fansubs. At the time, TPF had only one member left (SFGundam), so when he made it known that he was looking for new members, I immediately jumped at that opportunity to help. Now, the once 1 member group has become the largest and most active fansubbing group in the foreign H!P community.

My Ever Changing Hello! Project Top Ten:
1. Suzuki Airi
2. Captain
3. Natsuyaki Miyabi
4. Sayashi Riho
5. Tsugunaga Momoko
6. Okai Chisato
7. Suzuki Kanon
8. Fukumura Mizuki
9. Sudo Maasa
10. Nakajima Saki