Dakara Boku Wa… - Introduction
A foreword
This is a very embarrassing work.
From a personal standpoint, I wanted to decline. I won’t lie about things that concern me, personally. As such, there's no avoiding talking about the good parts, which have been left unknown even to my wife.
In truth, there are times when it's better not to know about the actual facts of a situation. There are also times when lies can keep people from being hurt.
Therefore, so that I might not cause my wife, who has kindly stayed by my side for ten years, to resign herself to knowing about any number of incidents, I wanted to refuse this work.
That being said, the reasons I accepted this work were firstly, because I came to understand that being a member of society involves subjugating one’s personal feelings from time to time, and secondly, because I had previously told my wife the barest minimum amount concerning my own past.
With the fact that I hadn’t lied to my wife as a foundation, and for the two aforementioned reasons, I was able to accept this work.
Of course, I also thought about how I might mix in fiction, as I did in my previous book, “Liner Notes.” Basically, if the central characters and those in the periphery of these events are spared pain when I write in such a style, then, well, I could write it like that.
However, if I were to employ such a writing style, at the same time, exactly what would I end up with? It would just be a waste of paper. Moreover, from the readers’ perspective, there would be nothing new to discover therein. Even if this book devolves into a long diatribe of drivel, I wanted to orchestrate that drivel to the best of my ability.
I’d be very pleased if my readers can accept my best-faith effort at showing them my sincerity. To that point, the risks involved are not taken by myself, but passed along to my wife.
That's how it had to be, but it is regrettable.
Ultimately, the fact that I couldn't do things any other way is just one more facet of what makes me the person that I am.
I can only hope that my wife and two children can resign themselves to acknowledging that such a person is their husband and father. In any case, I’ve orchestrated a strip show in the following pages, so...
And now, a preface
Why did I accept this job? Allow me to write down my final reason.
In elementary, middle, high school, and the first few years of college, aside from being unable to participate in sports, I wasn't even able to do most of the non-strenuous after-school activities. Especially during my elementary school years, I was what you might call a frail child. In any case, that frail kid was somehow able to grow up and support a family.
To sum it up, in the opinion of the tax office, where I am listed as the head of my household and acknowledged as a fully-fledged taxpayer, as compared to other Japanese nationals, I could be considered to occupy the slightly higher than average part of the lower than average amongst those who could probably be called the most common type—to the extent that, if you were to take an aerial photograph, you would certainly see nestled amongst other neatly lined up houses belonging to productive members of society, the firmament to which the title “my crib” has been bestowed, its roof shining brightly in the morning sun. Although it may be thanks to a home loan, which I am in the process of repaying, I am moved by the mere fact that I was able to take out such a loan in the first place.
When I, whose sole employment was within the new field known as television animation, was able to, along with a number of other things, achieve the above, I came upon the vague impression that there might exist a process by which a person whose existence runs against past examples might establish their own corner of the world.
That's the reason I was able to do this type of work.
If I was able to do some other sort of job, in an industry that had gained social citizenship before animation managed to do so—such as movies, computer-related industries, astronomy, etc.—and had pursued such a career, I would most certainly have refused the call to work in animation entirely.
Therefore, while it may only be me listing my own experiences, I can be proud in the knowledge that I am able to provide the low-culture equivalent of a historical account of the time during which television animation entered into the broader world as a proper citizen of society. However, I can only speak from my perspective. I am fully aware that other perspectives exist, but I believe that those stories are best expressed by the people to whom they belong.
In any case, this book is of a personal nature, and due to that, aside from the large number of real people contained therein, there exists the possibility of inconveniencing people other than those explicitly mentioned. I intend to use real names whenever possible, but I may also use pseudonyms. In particular, when the story gets a bit dicey, it’ll be with fake names. After all, when one brings a person’s name to light, they’ve already taken the act of exposing that person.
Still, because this isn’t a fictional account, I should note that the birthdays of my two children will differ from what was previously published in “Liner Notes.”