Why I love Anime

Goku; charming as a boy, a legend as a man.

Merry Xmas to you all, I hope that you're enjoying the holidays with your friends and families.

I wanted to write this blog post in regards to the influence Anime has had on me these last few years, most notably on Hajime no Ippo, Naruto, and not forgetting DragonBall Z of course as that's where it all started for me.

In the West, animated cartoons have mainly been aimed at children and in the last 10-20 years have become more and more popular as a form of satire for a more mature audience.

Why don't we have a British equivalent? Hmmm...

However, in the East, or at least in Japan, the medium of cartoon has long been a medium to express deep, meaningful drama that cover a range of topics that ultimately all have to do with the human condition, all of which gets wrapped up with tongue-in-cheek humour and giant inter-dimensional talking ninja toads.

When in doubt, do a Kuchiyose no jutsu!

To the untrained eye, Anime just might appear to be juvenile fantasy nonsense for children, but it is in fact so incredibly deep, that Anime often demonstrates the power to move your soul in a way that few films or books ever do these days. Whatever the medium, art can convey incredible ideas and inspire our greatest hope, ambition and the courage to see them through, and Anime does this in immense proportions. In many Anime shows, the main protagonist is a plucky underdog, sometimes not liked or ever taken seriously by others, and always accompanied by a good looking rival that everyone else likes much to their chagrin. If you ever feel that you're up against the odds in life, been overlooked by those around you who seem to win the favour of everyone else whilst you only earn the scornful looks of disdain and disgust, then there is guaranteed to be an Anime character that you'll relate to.

Alone and unwanted.

It all started for me with DragonBall Z, the sequel to the DragonBall series that only made it to the wider West after the sequel itself had found loyal following on Cartoon Network. The main character was Goku, an alien humanoid that was sent to Earth as a baby so that he would destroy the planet and prepare it for colonisation by his race who would follow later. However, he crash-landed on Earth and was raised by a man who cared for him and because of this he learnt compassion and love, and grew to vow to use his powers to protect everyone. Goku grew up and attracted the attention of many villains who understand that they must destroy him in order to conquer Earth (or any other nearby planet they fancy), with each battle, Goku becomes stronger and even wins over the hearts of his enemies to change their ways, but only when he sees one of his friends die in battle, does he dig deep and reveal his true power and becomes a Super Saiyan.

When faced with an unforgiving enemy who waged death and destruction, Goku watched his friend die before realising that he had to find a greater strength if he was going to save everyone. And with the pain of watching his friend get killed, realising that he wasn't strong enough, he used the pain to fuel his ascension into becoming a Super Saiyan; a metaphor for our own inner strength that we can only access when we dig deep into our desires and find it deep in our souls. DragonBall Z was my entry into the world of Anime, after this my fascination with these cartoons got a bit deeper and I started to realise how moving Anime could be. Anime is by its very nature very optimistic yet grounded in the realities of our human shortcomings of fear and greed. Through the characters, I related to the problems and became inspired to be courageous in the face of adversity and become stronger than whatever challenge appeared.

Ippo combined Mike Tyson's "Peek-a-Boo" style with Jack's "Dempsey Roll".
I used to do this as a warm up before gigs.

In the depth of my depression in 2006, I started my road to recovery with an Anime called Hajime no Ippo (loosely translated means "One of many steps"), in the West it was known as "Fighting Spirit", but because I am a pompous Shinnichi (Japanophile), I prefer to refer to and watch Anime in Nihongo (Japanese). Hajime no Ippo is an Anime about Boxing, the main character is Ippo Makanouchi, a young introverted boy with no friends who gets bullied a lot. One day, a local Boxer saves Ippo from being beaten up after school, Ippo then decides to want to learn to defend himself and takes up Boxing. Through the Boxing gym, he makes friends and earns respect, his life changes and his dream then becomes to one day be the Japanese National Featherweight Champion. I used to watch the show and felt that Ippo's life kind of related to my own problems at the time, so I latched on and found it incredibly inspiring to watch. Maybe my own inner introvert could find a channel to pursue his dreams, so I would dash home after my minimum waged games testing job to watch as much as I could to help me become mentally stronger and inspire me take my own "One of many steps" towards my own dreams.

One of the most profound things I have learnt from Anime is that the main protagonist is a plucky underdog who has little choice other than to go up against immense challenges to find any joy or purpose in life. These characters are the perfect example for someone who feels out of touch with the world, as they can be related to.

Naively optimistic with grand ambitions, that's why I love Naruto.

The best example of this is in the Naruto Anime. A petulant brat that annoys everyone and which none of the girls at all fancy, Naruto decides that his ambition is to become "Hokage" (the most powerful ninja and village leader) when he grows up so that he will be acknowledged by everyone that shuns him and so that he can protect everyone. As the series progresses, Naruto's shortcomings and the scornful attitudes of those around him change as they realise that his ambitions are truly selfless, Naruto effectively becomes mightier than his problems, and his fortunes and the attitudes of those around him change in his favour. Naruto always focuses on what he can give (except when he wants to eat ramen) and his example in giving unconditional love brings him and those around him joy as he forges the path in alleviating pain and ushering in peace to the cursed ninja world of war.

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe it's all nonsense, perhaps these stories of inspiration, having ambition and being courageous are of no value in our everyday lives of having to wake up, go to work, earn just enough to live off and then do it all again the next day, every day until our flesh perishes on this mortal plane. Or maybe I might be a little right, just maybe a little, if you have a dream, work hard and smart, and never ever give up... maybe then, dreams do come true...

Sneaky photo I took on my phone the day before we shot the show... see it on BBC3 in 2012!

FREE TICKETS TO MY TV SHOW!!

Check out my brand new TV show!!

The time has finally come! I am giving away FREE TICKETS to my TV show - THE IMRAN YUSUF SHOW.

We're recording TWO shows at THE GARAGE on SAUCHIEHALL STREET on TUESDAY 6th DECEMBER, the FIRST SHOW is at 7pm, the SECOND SHOW is at 8:30pm.

To get your FREE TICKETS go to WWW.SROAUDIENCES.COM, choose CURRENT SHOWS, click on THE IMRAN YUSUF SHOW and register for your FREE TICKETS!!

Since you're reading my blog and must be a true fan, you can get your FREE PRIORITY TICKETS by entering the secret password "Dattebayo" in the Comments & Information box when applying for the tickets.

I'm really, really, really excited and looking forward to the show. It's going to be a cool mix of stand-up with sketches much in the ilk of the inspiration behind this dream project of mine; Chappelle's Show.

The News

Fed up of all the bad news? Bored of listening to the same old intolerant, hateful nutjobs that incite fear into society? Upset at all the stories of famine, disaster, and poverty? Sometimes it seems that we're overwhelmed by all the bad news in the world, that we'd be forgiven for feeling that there is no hope for humanity.

So, I choose to post this in the recognition and celebration of those who work towards making the world a better place and the profound positive effect their selflessness has on humanity, and just how much of a difference just one person can make when charged with a noble will of contribution.

FEEDING THE POOR


ISRAELI DOCTORS HELPING ARAB CHILDREN


Also, I wanted to share this, it's the most romantic thing I have ever seen. True romance thrives...



And there you have it, don't let the violent, ignorant and greedy acts of a few blur the vista of just how awesome human beings can be...

WTF?!

Thanks to Omere Isaac for spotting this and posting it on my Facebook Fan Page, it seems that my love for Swedes went too far during this week's England game.

Real? Photoshop? Doppelganger?

I fell out of my seat laughing at this, thinking it was a very good Photoshop job, but it turns out that it is in fact very real! Check this link on YouTube, you'll see someone who looks like me 5 seconds in - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkn0LMCiHHY

It definitely wasn't me, I was gigging in London, I swear!

Why I love Jackie Chan

I love Jackie Chan, he is my number one childhood hero and I am going to tell you why.

"I love you too!"

I have been a massive Jackie Chan fan since I was 8 years old, when he was only known outside of Hong Kong thanks to the now almost redundant video rental stores that stocked his movies in the 'martial arts' section, where there was always an abundance of Jackie Chan movies that were mostly so good, that to a 8 year old, they elicit repeated rental. I knew and loved Jackie Chan way before he became famous in the west for his Hollywood movies, which really kicked off in the mid 90s thanks to Rumble in the Bronx.

But it's not just because of his movies that I love Jackie Chan, but because of his journey in life and who he became after starting out in a very menial life as the son of civil war refugees that earned their keep as cleaners for the French Ambassador in Hong Kong. He came from nothing with all the odds against him, he dreamed big, worked hard and became a ridiculously massive success and inspiration to people all over the world. His movies transcended cultures and earned him fans from every corner of the globe, the true mark of how spirit can bond people.

You can read Jackie's fantastic biography; I am Jackie Chan, My Life in Action.

Available online, get it on Amazon.

I highly recommend you buy this, it's incredibly inspiring and will give you an insight to a truly incredible man, a true underdog hero with a massive heart. If Naruto was real, he'd be Jackie Chan. Get it here from Amazon in the UK - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jackie-Chan-My-Life-Action/dp/0345415035

Like I said, my first experience of Jackie Chan was when I was 8 years old, when I first moved to NW London, one of the responsible adults in my household rented out a movie to keep me placated during time off school. That movie was called "The Armour of God".

The original cover I remember from my childhood.

The Armour of God was like Indiana Jones with Kung Fu, mostly set in Europe with Jackie Chan as an international treasure hunter; Asian Hawk. To cut a long story short, Jackie has to rescue his cousin's girlfriend from an evil cult and acquire "the armour of God" that they have, a set of armour and weapons from a medieval war that were on the collection list for an antiques dealer who bankrolls Jackie's mission. Jackie has to end up fighting the entire evil cult single handedly, despite being totally outnumbered, his ingenious resourcefulness and 'never give up' attitude gets him by. By this point, I was in love with Jackie Chan, and then he said something in the movie that would change my life.

Towards the end of the film, Jackie Chan becomes a little bitter and starts venting about the hardships in his life. He then said this to his on-screen cousin -

"When I was a kid, I dreamt of being a hero, saving people, doing good deeds..."

Those words went straight to my naive 8 year old heart, and in that moment I decided "that's what I want to do". I might not be an international treasure hunter with insane Kung Fu skills, going around the world, beating up evil cults. But I can't help but think that I still believe in those words, that like Jackie, I learnt that one's desire for strength is only so that we can protect and help others weaker than us. Schmaltzy as that sounds, I would learn just how pertinent those words were when I learnt about Jackie's early life of modest means, hard work and having a dream. At the very least, his attitude towards a challenge is something I have most definitely embraced.

Jackie was sold into a Chinese Opera Academy at age 7 for a contract that lasted 10 years, in the hope that he would learn some skills and eventually have a trade in performing when he left at 17. It was 10 years of the kind of training and treatment that today would be unequivocally construed as abuse. He left the academy at 17. Poor and considering himself not good looking thanks to a fight that left him with a big broken nose (just like me), Jackie lived the life of a a stuntman in Hong Kong, earning a pittance for risking his life with no insurance or health & safety regulations on the set of various movies. He earned just enough to survive with no opportunity for anything big on the horizon. He also met his first girlfriend at 17, a beautiful young girl who came from a wealthy family and was a singer. When her father found out that she was dating Jackie; a poor, ugly stuntman with no realistic future, he forbade her from seeing him again. Jackie ran away, crying that he would never be good enough for any girl. Money and looks were areas he had no leverage in. After about a decade of hardship after leaving the academy, Jackie met up with his academy brothers; Yuen Biao and former academy bully; Samo Hung and dreamed of making their own movies. Shortly after, Jackie Chan became the biggest sensation in the asian movie market with all the wealth, opportunity and fans he could imagine.

For those of us who have been Jackie Chan fans before his Hollywood years, will know that Jackie's journey to stardom has been well earned, he pioneered cutting-edge fight choreography with his trademark underdog personality that endeared him to others who felt they too were outcast. Unlike the invincibility of Bruce Lee, Jackie was vulnerable and scared, but showed courage and ingenuity that inspired many of us, that perhaps we too could be as awesome as him.

Jackie is now not just a movie star, but a global brand. His work is not just on screen, but extends to enormous amounts of charity. If you've never seen a Jackie Chan movie, here's a snippet of his top ten fight scenes.



Some of you may have seen me on the Children in Need charity edition of Mastermind, where my chosen subject was Jackie Chan. I hope I did him proud.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0175nwk/BBC_Children_in_Need_2011_Mastermind_Special/

Finally, to show you the extent of my Jackie Chan love, this is the kind of stuff I got up to in my teenage years -

Story of a Naive Optimist - Part 4 (Action)

The final part of my 'Naive Optimist' story is all about ACTION.

First of all, having the right attitude and having a goal are both primarily emotional and mental, they cost nothing more than a little imagination and self-belief. Secondly, a strategy is a scientific plan, it requires intelligence, research, and advice before being committed to paper so that it may be followed and checked against. Finally comes action, this is where blood, sweat and tears come into the entire equation and ultimately deliver the goods of that which you desire. Taking action is the most difficult part, it actually means getting up and physically putting your attitude, goal, and plan into an actual physical action. Taking action will give you a result, which can often be failure, but the trick is to re-strategise and try again until you succeed. Once you've failed enough times, you'll have a pretty sure-fire way of consistently achieving the result that you want at a decent frequency.

The above might sound easy, but it is always the 'taking action' bit that is the hardest. Whatever your dream is, it's putting the effort in that can be difficult. However, if you want your goal enough, then the persistence to see it through will win over and eventually you'll take consistent action and eventually achieve the result you want.

An example from my own life and the answer to the question posed by every person considering to be a comic, is this - JUST DO IT.

Whatever your goal is, just get out there IMMEDIATELY and JUST DO IT. Sitting around dreaming and planning and never putting it into action is pointless. It's better to get out there and make mistakes so that you can learn from them for yourself, than to sit around speculating all the time. There is a lot of techniques that comics use, but none of them can be really learned until you experience using them in the field, so despite all the books one could read on becoming a stand-up, the best thing to do is just get out there and work on your craft. This is probably apt for just about any vocation, just get out there and do it.

Take action, and in the words of Anthony Robbins "TAKE MASSIVE ACTION". The bigger the effort, the bigger the result, the education and even possibly; the prize. Whatever your goal is, take massive action towards it, invest a lot of time, effort, money etc into what you want to do. The more you invest into your desires, the more you'll be committed or handcuffed to succeeding, until eventually your desires readily becomes your reality.

Final additional tips on my "Story of a Naive Optimist"series would be this -

Want to make more money?
Simply "add more value" to what you do. Expand your skill set, refine your skills, become the best. The more value you add, the more money you can expect for your contribution. Ultimately, own a business or be an investor, make your money work for you.

Want to improve your health?
Stop putting crap into your body, put nourishing things into your mouth instead. Exercise regularly, join a gym, train with a friend who will push you or like me, get a personal trainer. Also, get plenty of rest, your body repairs itself whilst you sleep. Last of all, take 1 x 20 min power nap a day during the day.

I've been learning about the science of personal development for a few years now and have had some relative success, I'm not entirely out the woods yet, but at least I managed to escape working in a video games QA dept for minimum wage and receiving a regular bollocking for not wanting to do unpaid overtime.

Well, that's all folks, I hope you found this informative and entertaining. Stay tuned to my adventures, I've got myself this far and now I'm gunning for the big time...

Welcome to my Penthouse Apartment on the Thames...

Check my sweet ride...

Det handlar om svenska kycklingar!

Dream big, work hard, love deep... anything is possible...

Story of a Naive Optimist - Part 3 (Strategy)

In my experience of the personal development scene, I learnt of this famous saying -

"If you fail to plan, you plan to fail". 

Having a positive attitude and a goal are very emotional processes, it takes imagination and self-belief, which is critical to your success. However, the next part; strategy, is all about moving things into the area of measurements and critical thinking, planning your success is actually very scientific.

Genius, full stop.

I had all the self-belief in the universe and the ambition to become a video games designer for Nintendo, a dream I have held in my mind since I was eleven years old when I got my very first home console; the 8 bit NES with Super Mario Bros and Duck Hunt. I spent all of my years in high school playing my Super NES and Street Fighter 2, neglecting academia and instead trying to perfect that 4 hit Dragon Punch combo. All I wanted to do was make video games (when I wasn't at Karate classes) and despite voicing this to the school careers advisor, there was next to no resources or advice in the school environment to put me on the right path, so I continued not doing my homework and playing more video games. I managed to get into doing GCSE Information Systems, but was kicked out after a couple of classes when the teacher realised that I had no idea what I was doing. Regardless, I had a burning passion to make video games and that alone would ensure I was never going to be deterred from making it into the video games business, I was emotionally charged with all the right stuff to make my dreams come true.

However, I did not have a scientific plan to take those emotional assets to help me hone my skills and use them effectively to earn my rightful position as protege to the legendary Shigeru Miyamoto. I dreamt of spending every day gleaning from his creative genius yet humble persona, learning about his design philosophies and perhaps running out to the Lawson's outside the Nintendo HQ to get him some Pocky or a Pocari Sweat. However, I failed to plan, thus the plans to my failure had been made. I did make it into the video games business and even enjoyed some relative success, but to this day I have never met Miyamoto :-(

Be careful of getting excited just because you're in the right business or environment, this is where a lot of dreams are broken due to lack of planning. Just like your goals, your plan must also be written down, except it must be broken down into the most minute detail of every step you intend to take and factor in contingency plans if things don't go to plan. In that event, you must have other avenues to explore to keep you moving at all times towards your goal.

In order to get your plan started, you must ask yourself a series of important questions that will help. What steps can you take to get what you want? Who do you need to talk to that can help you get what you want? What do you need to learn to get what you want? To give you a relative example, what I should have done even before I joined the games industry was write down my plan and begin learning and mastering my skills in level design and script writing with a good design tool, and building a portfolio of work that would become part of my reputation. Also, I should have taken proper Japanese business language lessons, instead of just using an audio programme and learning to ask where the toilet is. If I had a plan for my video games dream, maybe right now I would be making the next Super Mario game from my office in Kyoto. Instead, I learnt from my failure and made sure that my goal to become a comic would be replete with perfect planning.

One of the most helpful ways to start planning is to write your goal down and then work backwards, describing the step that would be required before the one ahead of it would be achieved. Project planners use this method to figure out how to release a product on a specific date. Working backwards allows you to set a goal and then build a plan towards it using a step by step method.

Each step must be broken down into individual details.

Once you break down each individual step into as much detail as possible, you'll be then presented with tasks or 'mini-goals' that you can readily achieve towards the journey of your main ambition. For example, I knew that in order to be considered for regular paid work as a comic, I needed a minimum of a solid 20 min set that promoters would want to book me for. I started out working towards a 5 min set, then built my set minute by minute until I got to 20. Then I started to compere, which expanded my skill set. Then after a combination of continuing to build my set minute by minute, joke by joke and developing my compering skills, soon enough my hour long solo show was born. Next thing I knew, I was on my first UK tour. Boom.