Back at that time, I was nervous, excited, hopeful, worried…  I was just starting college, and countless doors to the mystical treasure known as the “rose-colored campus life” lay open before me.  And the one I chose was:

And so it was that I became a master of the rectangular desk, using my power to store gigabyte after gigabyte of pixel data.  But sometimes I wondered if I couldn’t have done more.  I couldn’t shake off a feeling of regret.  Had I joined the sports circle, I’d be defeating giants.  Had I tried out the shooting club, I’d be able to shoot bullets off water and through bulletproof glass.  If I went with Mahjongg, I’d be determining world policies with my rising suns, and if I chose the dating circle, I might already have a hundred girlfriends by now.  All the flavors of the world I had missed; the taste of an intriguing novel or a well-cooked pokute come to mind.  But I got stuck in a loop, feeling empty; the lack of a ring above my head the only proof that I wasn’t a robot.  And while other people didn’t run away from me as if I was a character from a horror movie, it wasn’t as if the girls were flocking to me asking for back of the knee kisses or marriage proposals either.  Still I avoided asking for help, for fear of incurring a debt.

And yet the world still turns.  I look out at the world I only know and start to think it might not be that bad.  I met a lot of cool people, and that’s what it’s all about, right?  Friendship.  We might blast each other with magic or shoot our lasers, but if we could just stop and take the time to understand each other, we could all be friends.  Yeah, friendship.  We had some good times, like when we put our guns on and our “ore no T-shirt” T-shirts too and claimed a place in Wasabi Con’s anime room.  And the DDR tournament, where we tried our hardest to score the most points and become the ultimate hero of an electronic dance mat.

I learned a lot of life lessons too.  Let’s see… things like don’t pollute the water or you might have to worry about an invasion from a squid girl.  Being a mangaka is tough, even more so when your good ideas are be turned down in favor of boring and bland stories that will sell well anyway.  A simple, problem-free life is no good if it causes you to lose your willpower, your individuality, your soul.  All the hassles you go through and all the troubles, all that difficulty in your life just might be what makes it fun.

And it slowly dawned on me.  This must be the good end.  If were given the opportunity to wish for anything I wanted, I’m not sure I would sign the contract at all.  This was the circle I was meant to choose, and I would stand and defend it, if only by shooting rocks from behind the scenes.  Besides, I still had my own future to look forward to.  What would I become after my transformation scene?  A universal man of beauty?  A masou shoujo?

Anyway, it’s been an awesome year at the Anime club.  I bid a hearty “Maid-o” to the club for now, but I’ll be back next year.  To all you people, from the ones I knew well to the ones I hardly met, stay awesome.