In Japan, animation is a big part of your media diet. I moved out

“In Japan, animation is a big part of your media diet. I moved out to Los Angeles at 9, and when I got homesick, I would watch anime.” — thus spoke Hiro Murai, a storyteller of vision and heart, who journeyed from the quiet streets of Tokyo to the golden haze of Hollywood. His words speak not merely of childhood longing, but of the invisible threads of culture that bind us to where we come from — the sacred bridge between memory and identity, between what is seen and what is felt.

In this utterance lies a profound truth: that what we love as children never truly leaves us. The animation of Japan — those worlds painted with light and soul — are more than mere pictures in motion; they are dreams immortalized. They whisper of courage and loss, of friendship and fate, of the eternal dance between man and spirit. When Murai speaks of his media diet, he speaks of nourishment not for the body but for the spirit — stories that feed the roots of who we are. To lose them would be to forget one’s own reflection in the river of time.

When he left Japan and crossed the ocean to Los Angeles, the young Hiro entered a land of new sounds and strange skies. The language was foreign, the faces unfamiliar, and the pace unyielding. Yet when he pressed play on those familiar tales — perhaps the gentle melancholy of My Neighbor Totoro, or the soaring fire of Spirited Away — he found himself home again. Through anime, he remembered his people’s way of seeing the world — not as conquerors of nature, but as kin to it. In the glow of the screen, the spirit of Japan reached across oceans to comfort its wandering son.

Such is the power of art born from truth — it transcends borders and time. When a culture pours its heart into creation, that creation becomes eternal. The animation of Japan carries its philosophy: beauty in imperfection, strength in quietness, and hope in despair. These stories travel farther than any ship or airplane, and in the heart of every viewer, they plant seeds of remembrance. When Murai, now a creator himself, tells this story, he reminds us that art is not escape — it is return. It is the path home for all who have wandered too far from the soil that first gave them song.

Think of another wanderer — Yasunari Kawabata, the first Japanese Nobel laureate in literature. When he wrote Snow Country, he too was away from his spiritual home, trying to capture the purity of a world fading beneath the frost of modernity. Like Murai, he used art as his vessel to sail back to the essence of Japan — the stillness, the simplicity, the ache of beauty. So it is with all who create from longing: they build bridges across silence, between past and present, between heart and homeland.

The lesson in Murai’s words is this: never forget the language of your roots, even when you live among new stars. The world will ask you to become something else — to speak, dress, and dream as others do — but do not silence the song that was first sung to you. In every home of exile, whether it is a city, a country, or a moment in time, there will come nights when your spirit hungers for the taste of home. Feed it, as Murai did, with the stories that raised you. For memory is not weakness — it is strength disguised as longing.

So, dear listener of tomorrow, when you too feel far from where you began, seek not comfort in forgetfulness, but in connection. Watch, read, sing, and remember the art of your people. Let the colors, sounds, and dreams of your origins live again in your heart. For in doing so, you carry your homeland wherever you go — not as a burden, but as a light. And someday, like Hiro Murai, you may find that this very light guides your own creations, helping others find their way home through the vast and beautiful loneliness of the world.