Weeb Jail is something else. It’s as if 13-year-old me had moved to Japan and started a Youtube channel. So, whenever the unnamed but self-proclaimed “King of Weeaboos” returns, I press play. This time it took nine months, but, as usual, WJ did not disappoint.
Until today, I had never heard of karuta before. 30 minutes later, I feel the incessant urge to learn and master the game. That’s because, as WJ explains in his mini-documentary about an anime, a competitive card game, and his own experience with both: “Passion is contagious. It doesn’t even matter what you’re passionate about. What matters is that you are. And sometimes, if that passion is great enough, it won’t even matter to you, either. What matters is it’s there.”
Weeb Jail, for example, was the only one passionate enough about Steins;Gate, one of my all-time favorite anime shows, to make a video analysis for every single episode. That’s how I found him and why I stuck with him. But he’s clearly also passionate about making videos, because whereas he usually sits in his room, this time, he filmed himself, the karuta players at a local club, even a whole music clip for the intro of his video. That, too, is contagious.
Passion seeps through, and while it’s inspiring when it rubs off enough to cause real change, even just witnessing it makes us feel alive. Get your dose of passion every day.
