Introductions Are In Order

Hello everyone and welcome to Otaku Vegas! This is the very first post of this blog and I think it is the perfect time to introduce myself and let you all know what you can expect to see here.

First, a little bit about me. My name is Phillip Ash and I have lived in the Las Vegas and Henderson area for a little over 14 years now. I have been a fan of anime for as long as I can remember. The first anime series I actively watched was Sailor Moon. I then moved on to Dragonball Z. When that ended I wanted more and turned to the internet to tell me where to find more. Since then I have done my best to keep up with anime, both dubbed and subtitled.
I discovered manga about a decade ago. I have always been an avid reader of books but aside from my very first comic/manga experience with Wendi Pini's Elfquest I felt that "comics" just were not interesting enough. Then I saw a manga in the bookstore with the same name as the anime I was watching (which was Chobits if you were curious). I bought the first two volumes of the series and have been hooked ever since.
Through my love of anime and manga I have gained a great deal of interest in the country responsible for their creation. So much of the Japanese culture included in anime and manga was new to me. I wanted to learn more about this new culture and experience as much of it as I could.

That is where this blog comes in. Las Vegas and Henderson are both large cities with diverse groups of people. In these cities you can find places that let you experience many different cultures, including that of Japan. The problem I have found is that it can be difficult to find these places if you don't know where to look. I hope this blog will be able to help people experience as many things from the culture that brought us anime and manga as possible. In this blog I will review all the places I have visited that relate to anime, manga, or Japanese culture. This includes bookstores with manga, Japanese markets, and restaurants that serve the food found in the series I have read and watched. I will also occasionally review manga and anime that I have read or watched. Most of these reviews will be positive ones, as I am not likely to feel motivated to write about any manga or anime that I did not enjoy :-)

I also hope that this website will help me get in touch with others that share my interests and know of places that I have missed. If you know of any places in Las Vegas or Henderson that relate in some way to anime, manga, or Japanese culture that I have not yet reviewed please feel free to post a comment to the most recent post in this blog and I will give it a try and review it as soon as I can. I look forward to trying out new places :-)

Thank you for reading this far and hope that you will visit this blog again. I will do my best to make this blog an informative and fun place to visit!