About Me

~Name~
   Sarah Azara
~Date of Birth~
   29-05-1993
~Nationality~
   Dutch (from The Netherlands)
~Youtube~
   SarahAzaraDubs
   hoilo1122
~Fanfics~
   hoilo1122

~Anime, Manga & I~ 

It shall come to no surprise to most of you that I got to like Asian 'things' through anime and manga. It might be a surprise though how I got into that in the first place. I've heard several people talk about their first experiences with anime and manga and it is usually along the lines of having encountered a series on TV or having friends that were into it before them. In my case the story is a little different though: I got into anime through school. Well, it's not like they encouraged watching anime, I doubt even that the teachers at my school knew what it was, but what they did want to encourage was cultural education which is why they took us to the cinema every now and then to watch a foreign movie. And in my case two of those movies just happened to be Spirited Away and The Cat Returns. 

Just like most people who have seen these movies (especially Spirited Away) I watched in awe and loved the movie even after leaving the cinema. Still I didn't go looking for similar movies at the time because I was a passive 10 year old and at the time the internet wasn't yet known as a place to watch movies illegally. At least it wasn't to me.

Several years later I had picked up the hobby of watching countless of movies online and renting them every now and then. It was during those sessions of finding a good movie to watch with some friends in the movie rental that I stumbled upon a DVD of Spirited Away. My friends didn't really want to watch it though so I remembered the title and watched it later on at home. After that I started looking for other movies of the likes and after anime movies, anime series quickly followed. It was when I realized that there was a longer version of Inuyasha in 'cartoon form' that I got to reading manga.

~Hello!Project & I~

With Jpop most people get into it through anime music or friends and for me it wasn't much different. During the summer of 2009 I went to a friend's birthday party and there I met another girl who was also into anime and manga. After keeping contact online she soon convinced me to cover a few songs with her. First some Disney songs, then some opening theme's of some anime we both liked and finally she got me into singing Berryz Koubou's Watashi no Mirai no Danna-sama after spamming me with the song for several weeks. After that things set of at a top speed with her covering several more songs with me and taking me into her dubbing project where I sang even more. And through singing the songs I got more and more familiar with the girl groups that are a part of Hello! Project. And up to this date I still listen and sing to their songs. I only really started caring for the girls when I started Hello! Morning episodes though. I found out that besides their nice music they also have awesome personalities and this eventually lead my to my major girl-crush on Yoshizawa Hitomi which reached it peak when I went to the Hangry & Angry mini concert at the Japan Expo when they released their new single: Reconquista.

~SHINee & I~
I am well aware that SHINee is one of many Kpop groups and should therefore easily fit under that header. But for me it was still a giant step to go from liking SHINee to liking Kpop in general and it also took quite some time. This is why they have a header of their own (and also because I love them most~). With SHINee it was another case of not taking the common route. About a year ago (so the beginning of 2012) a friend and I decided to start a role playing forum where people could impersonate any Jpop or Kpop idol they wanted in a high school setting. Now I don't actually remember that anyone there chose a SHINee member as a character, but after awhile another friend and I started to write our own story as the forum itself slowly died out. In this story we also took up some other characters besides our own and in her case it was Infinite's L. It was him that I was researching about when I stumbled upon SHINee. I had been watching one of Infinite's music video's, kind of liking it but not really impressed, when I saw an interesting video in my recommendations list along the lines of 'Kpop boys kissing game'. Well... I just couldn't refuse and clicked. And one of the many Kpop groups that was in that video playing a kissing game was SHINee (though they sucked at it, really~). Because of that they also showed up in the recommendations and since my friend had also used everyone except for Jonghyun as a minor character in our story I thought I might as well check them out. 

I watched many of their TV appearances and other random snippets and I quickly started to love their personalities despite not being into their music much and ended up watching Hello Baby. After I had watched the whole series I watched some more of their TV appearances until I finally got Lucifer in my head and started to like the song. Since they had only just released Sherlock at the time I also came across that song and really like it a lot and after that I just got into the SHINee world more and more (greatly annoying the friend that I was roleplaying with if I may say so.)

~Kpop & I~

Unlike the previous headers there wasn't a specific period of time that I can point out that I got into Kpop since it is something that has slowly grown onto me. I first came into contact with Kpop when I was asked to take part of a cover of SNSD's Oh! I did do it and listen a few more of their songs but that was about it. Then later after I got into SHINee I once again started to come get to know other Kpop idols. This was mainly when they appeared on TV along with SHINee members or later when they were mentioned in fanfics. Through that I mainly got to know F(x) and started to listen to some of their songs. Before that though, as I was checking the SMTOWN channel for video's with SHINee in it, I came across EXO's MAMA which had only been released a few days before I checked the channel and I absolutely loved the song. Somewhere during that time I also started to like a few other girl group songs because I had watched Key dance to them and liked them while doing so.

It stayed like that for a long while with me listening to SHINee and an occasional SNSD, F(X) or EXO song or those songs I had come to like through Key's dancing. That is, until I stumbled upon a TL;DR video from Simon and Martina at Eat Your Kimchi. I watched nearly all the TL;DR video's and then watched their reviews on SHINee songs and whatever else interested me. 

The final thing was when I came across the remix of Psy's Gangnam Style, BIG BANG's Fantastic Baby and 2NE1's I am the Best. After that I came to the conclusion that I liked Kpop in general and wanted to know more about it. And that is when I decided to start this blog.