Hey hey peeps!
One of the most famous manga around the world and the most loved in Japan is a 'little' pirate manga called "One Piece". At first glance, it looks dumb, its story sounds dumb, and the fans look even dumber for drooling all over it. So what is it about this manga that attracts so many people to it? That was something I had been wondering for many years. I tried reading it upon returning from my Tokyo missions trip back in 2010, and...I just couldn't fall in love with it. I could barely even scrounge up a shallow enjoyment for it. It just was the most baffling manga to be the most popular series in Japan and internationally.
Then...I came back.
Back to Japan.
Shoved back into attempting the manga series again....but this time, I watched the anime of it.
So, why should I even bring this manga series up in a blog post about leaving Japan?
Well, it's because this manga really reflects my time here in Japan. I tried something that I was not sure about trying and I fell in love with it. Then there's the theme of friends, companions, nakama, community, family. This is why I brought up One Piece.
The reason why fans flock to this series is because of its theme of nakama. To fully express the meaning of the Japanese term nakama, we have no equivalent in English. The Jisho.org translation lists words such as "company", "colleague, "circle of friends, "comrade" to describe nakama, but none fit perfectly. A nakama is a companion in life who is closer to you than a friend, but is more than a brother, something like fellow comrade in life. Think of the unique relationship between soldiers and then mix a bit more pure friendship and siblinghood into it. That's what a nakama is.
That term, nakama, is the central theme of One Piece and is the best term to describe my CSU study abroad family here. So, as I was discovering the nakama within One Piece, I was building up my own circle of nakama. Even the opening songs, endings songs, and songs sung by the characters themselves revolve around this concept of having nakama by your side.
One OP (One Piece) song that became the theme of my year here in Japan is entitled, "Oretachi wa Family/We are Family". I have linked a Youtube video of the song that also includes English lyrics for it. The characters are discussing their relationship as not being acquaintances nor friends nor siblings by blood, but 'family'. That is what my friends are here: family. We started out as strangers and ended up as family.
On the eve of leaving my dorm, my heart churns with the fear and desperation of not losing my new family. This includes my Japanese friends, my International friends, and my church friends. All of them make up my family here in Japan...and those I have to leave behind. My CSU friends and I can meet up, especially those who are near my home in Cali. But others...are out of my physical life.
As I finish packing and move on to cleaning for tomorrow morning, I struggle to make sense of this concept "leaving". It doesn't feel real yet. I have never really left my life behind before. Even when I when on my missions trip, it was still just a "trip". My friends outside my missions team were "friends from a trip". But the friends around me now are my family. They walked several months beside me. We shared our lives with each other, including the hardships. And because of them, I could survive my hard times.
In short, I am leaving one home for return to another. This is physically and emotionally something new to me. I am learning about the struggles of packing, while experiencing the struggles of separation. I am both scared and excited to see how our lives continue to intermingle and await the opportunity to travel so that I can once again see each of my family members again.
I now have a strong desire to travel all over the world.
Until then, later Peeps!
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