I've been a Harry Potter fan for over twelve years. Many thanks to J.K. Rowling for fueling my obsession to the series and for my love of reading!

Anyway, a little bit of useless info about myself:

1. My favorite Harry Potter characters are Remus Lupin, Albus Dumbledore, and Severus Snape, followed closely by Minerva McGonagall, Sirius Black, and Regulus Black in a three-way tie for second. Recently, I've grown rather fond of Filius Flitwick, too. It's safe to assume I love them all...at least Rowling left me two by the end of the series...

2. My favorite fan fictions are as follows:

Albus Dumbledore: Here Be Monsters I by Dzeytoun

Minerva McGonagall: Heiress of the Raven by Lev

Remus Lupin: It Could Never Be Remus by RavenNat

Severus Snape: A Promise to Be Better by Raven Dancer and Sticks and Stones by PhantomTF

Sirius Black: The Summer of the Phoenix by JolieBlack

Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall: The Tears of Those Left Behind by Saint Potter and Out of Her Hands by Quill of Minerva

Albus Dumbledore and Severus Snape: A Forest Meeting by SeverusSnape19

Remus Lupin and Severus Snape: The Wounded by ReeratheRed and Closets and Confessions by Bamfwriter

Sirius Black and Remus Lupin: Lying Low at Lupin's by chrmisha and It Wasn't Usual

Severus Snape and Minerva McGonagall: Old Wounds by Xiao Gui

3. I'm an American. I live in America. I eat American food. I do some American things. Having said that, I'm a fan of British and Scottish accents. I like Japanese culture (samurai, sushi, Arashi, mochi, candy). I like to eat Japanese food.

4. I've been dancing for 18 years. I primarily do contemporary jazz and hip hop. I used to do hula, tap, and gymnastics (but I would not say that I have much training in any of these fields).

5. I love Japanese manga and anime. Some of my favorite series include Dragonball Z, Tenchi Muyo!, Rurouni Kenshin, InuYasha, Yu Yu Hakusho, Fushigi Yugi, Kodocha, Naruto, Gundam Wing, G Gundam, Sailor Moon, Usagi Yojimbo, Fullmetal Alchemist, One Piece, Bleach, Death Note, Love Hina, Boys Over Flowers, Black Cat, Fruits Basket, Nana, Skip-Beat, Godchild, The Cain Saga, Tail of the Moon, Kaze Hikaru, Aishiteruze Baby, Prince of Tennis, Red River, Samurai Deeper Kyo, Negima!, Love.Com, Vagabond, Kare Kano, Hana Yori Dango (Boys Over Flowers), and Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion.

6. I am also a huge fan of the Johnny's group Arashi. Originally, my favorite member was Matsumoto Jun. I am now convinced that Sakurai Sho is my favorite, but it is really hard to choose between them. MatsuJun was the first one I heard about (through Hana Yori Dango). He is very uniqe in his singing style as I have yet to find someone that sings like him. Sakurai Sho is a very well-rounded individual: he's intelligent, he sings and raps, he acts, he does the news...he just needs to work on his back handspring (Ganbatte, Sho-kun!). Aiba Masaki is another one with a uniqe singing voice. He's very funny, but he's also a very hard worker. His letter on 24hr TV was so sweet. Ninomiya Kazunari is subtly clever...I think our personalities are similar in this way (perhaps this is because our birthdays are so close?). He's also a very good actor (Letters from Iwo Jima, GANTZ). It took a while for me to learn to like Ohno Satoshi, but I really like him, too! He has a beautiful singing voice, and he's very hard to scare.

7. I love Johnny Depp (as an actor...I'm not one of those psycos that wants to marry him or anything like that). I've watched the entire Pirates of the Caribbean series more times than I can remember. I can say the lines along with the actors, which is pretty bad. I've also watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Finding Neverland, The Secret Window, Sweenry Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and Public Enemies.

8. Also, I like Tom Cruise. Not as much as I used to, though. I like his older movies. I honestly don't know how many times I've watched The Last Samurai and Collateral (probably too many times for most normal people), but I've also seen Rain Man, A Few Good Men, Top Gun, War of the Worlds, The Outsiders, Cocktail, Minority Report, Jerry McGuire, and Mission: Impossibe II and III.

9. In addition, I love Alan Rickman, Gary Oldman, Orlando Bloom, Hugh Jackman, Viggo Mortensen, and Liam Neeson.

10. My favorite store is...was...Borders. I loved the Japanese manga section.

11. I am currently working towards receiving my MBA.

12. I am not a slash writer. Sorry, not my cup of tea.

KAWAII-KON 2011

HAWAII'S SEVENTH ANIME AND MANGA CONVENTION WAS THE MOST AWESOME YET! Kawaii-Kon was held at the Hawaii Convention Center on April 29-May 1, 2011. I was able to go to all three days this year again. The first thing I did was head to the dealer's room to check out all of the anime and manga merchandise. I didn't spend much this year. I was going to buy the first box set of Fullmetal Alchemist, but the dealer's room closed on Sunday before I could go. Oh well. But I did get an Ichigo figurine, an Uchiha Sasuke figurine, a small Majin Vegeta figurine, a Naruto zip-up case, and a KiLaLa ears headband...all for $13! Thank you, $2 and $3 merchandise boxes!!!!!

This year had lots of great panels! The first one I went to was for Wendee Lee (Faye Valentine from Cowboy Bebop). She is simply amazing! I love Cowboy Bebop, so meeting another voice actor from that series (Steve Blum came to Kawaii KON a few years ago) was so cool. My mom came with me to watch her panel, and my mom, who only watches Korean dramas, was really interested. I'm going to try to get her to watch Cowboy Bebop now because she said she wants to see it. Next was Scott McNeil's panel (Duo Maxwell from Gundam Wing, Koga from InuYasha). I felt like there was 20 different people up on stage because he was doing a different voice every couple of seconds. I had to try really hard to keep the camera from shaking because I was laughing so hard! I was even able to get his autograph and a picture with him. He's super cool, too! This year's guest from Japan was Yamaguchi Kappei, who plays the voices of InuYasha and L from Death Note. I was actually surprised that I could understand a lot of what he was saying without the translator (who actually wasn't translating everything...the girls behind me were getting mad). If your interested, check out my YouTube videos of Kawaii-KON 2011 (http://www.youtube.com/user/saiyanwizard).

We also got to dance for the opening ceremonies and the dance-off again, which we had a lot of fun doing. We did an Arashi Medley for the opening ceremony featuring Magician Kaulana. We also did Lotus to kill time for the judges to make their decision during the dance off, but the video playing behind us lagged the entire time, which made that performance an EPIC FAIL. I mean, we did everything right, but it looked like we were wrong because the video was off. We're gonna try to record it again at the studio so I have a nicer video for YouTube...

Kawaii-KON will be back in 2012 at the Hawaii Convention Center!

JAPAN, JANUARY 2011

I recently took my third trip to Japan, and it was SO MUCH FUN! It was a little cold when it was windy, but other than that, the weather was quite manageable. My friends and I (there was four of us in total) stayed in Ueno, so we were right on the JR Yamanote line. We visited Akihabara (for all your electronic and gaming needs), Hamamatsucho (for the PokeMon Center), Harajuku (Takeshita-dori, the Johnny's Store, and Kiddy Land...spent A LOT of money there), Shibuya (Tsutaya and NHK), Maihama (Tokyo Disney Sea, the happiest place on Earth...well, any Disney park is the happiest place on Earth), Odaiba (Fuji TV, Aqua City, and Joypolis), and Ebisu (to visit Ebisu Garden Place from "Hana Yori Dango," which I am now re-watching for the third time).

The only downside was that the exchange rate was not in our favor. Back in 2007, the exchange rate was between 117 and 121 yen to the dollar (I went to Japan twice that year). When I exchanged money this time, I only got 82.5 yen for every dollar (and in Japan, I only got 79.6 yen to the dollar). Times certainly have changed...

As for the flight, going over took almost nine hours! I was able to watch four movies on the plane: "Easy A," "Alladin," "You Again," and "The Town." The special television programs (which were probably for first class) included "Hanamizuki," so I was sad that I couldn't re-watch it. The flight back was a quick six hours. Once we got off the plane and through customs, my dad picked me up. After a little unpacking, I went to the studio to teach class. I'm infamous for getting off a plane and going to dance...

I hope I'll be able to go again sometime soon, but for now, I'll just eat my green tea Kit Kat...

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, PART II

Of course, I HAD to go to the midnight showing. My friend was gracious enough to wait in line for me while I was at dance. Once I got there at about 9pm, we waited in line (in the alley behind the theater) until about 10 before they let us go into our theater (Theater 8), and we scrambled to the top to get great seats in the last row. I spent the waiting time playing Bejeweled 2, listening to Arashi's new album, "Beautiful World," answering questions from this guy who got dragged along to the movie without having seen the first seven movies ("Is Dumbledore like Gandalf?" "Who is Voldemort?" etc.), and watching my friend amaze the kids next to us with magic tricks. (Yes, he's a magician...and like a good magician, he carries a deck of cards with him.)

And then...we watched it...

There are no words to describe the sheer epic-ness...

Well, yeah, there are...when I got home, I updated my Facebook status...

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 was FRICKIN' EPIC! Everything that needed to be there was there, from McGonagall kicking ASS to Snape's true loyalty (yeah, I was ALWAYS right) to the "Not my daughter, you bitch!" That's how you do a movie RIGHT!!!!!!"

So yeah, I liked it. A lot. No, really, like I went to watch it again a few hours ago. Twice in one day is necessary! And my friend and I already planned to go again when our other friend gets back from the mainland next week. So if you haven't seen it, go watch it. RIGHT NOW!