• ABOUT

頑張る

Ganbaru (頑張る lit., stand firm), also romanized as gambaru, is a ubiquitous Japanese word which roughly means to slog on tenaciously through tough times. The word ganbaru is often translated to mean "doing one's best", but in practice, it means doing more than one's best.

-- wikipedia

The idea for this podcast started years ago, in my little college student brain. I felt like there was so much more to learn besides what we were taught in the classroom - that there are lessons we can learn in the most unexpected places - and I could make a podcast about how anime was that unexpected place for me. After graduating college, I moved to Texas, and forgot about the podcast for a little while.

When I met Alexa, everything seemed to fall into place for making the exact kind of podcast I had envisioned years ago. The woman was a walking anime encyclopedia! Now, after all this time, we have teamed up to bring "The Shounen Protagonist" to life!

It sounds so short and simple when you boil it down to a paragraph, but the journey to where we are now was anything but simple. There were so many times in between point A and B when I was rock bottom, suffering from depression, and unsure of tomorrow. During those times, anime was the catalyst that gave me the courage and strength to get back up off the ground, time and time again.

I'd say all of our journeys are anything but simple. Life is hard. Growth can be painful. Mistakes are unavoidable. Maybe some of these things sound familiar to you as well. Yet, there are so many things that make our lives joyful. The media we consume reflects these truths of life, presenting them to us in a way that we can use to empower ourselves and others.

This podcast is meant to be a celebration of all those things that bring all of us joy, inspiration, knowledge, and appreciation. It's a celebration of the entire geek culture umbrella, through the eyes of two adults who never quite grew up -- and realized that is nothing to be ashamed of.

XOXO, Tanya