Welcome!

The first one’s always a rough, but here is my best go: Welcome! My name is James, and this is my passion project. I love anime and manga, and I want this to be a place where I can freely express that love with an incredible community of like-minded people.

What is 20 Pages 20 Minutes? Good question, because as I write this I am not entirely sure yet. There’s just so much to talk about frankly I don’t know where to start, but I think saying a little about myself would be a good start.

My history with anime and manga is probably relatable to a lot of people who became entranced with the medium: dubbed versions of Naruto airing on Adult Swim on Cartoon Network in the mid-2000’s.

There is nothing more nostalgic.

Between the Lee vs. Gaara, Naruto vs. Neji, and the Sasuke Retrieval (attempt), there were so many memories I have of admiring the depth, intensity, and artistry of a classic shonen series. Not to mention as a 10 year old, the fights were cool as f***.

However sometime along the way growing up, I completely forgot anime even existed. I believe the source of the problem was my parents decided to get rid of our cable package at the time (it was 08′ so no hard feelings). So naturally without a way to watch, I never kept up.

Flash forward 10 years in my early years of college, and I am eating lunch outside of the campus rec center. Headphones in, I searched for a perfect YouTube video to dive into before diving into a turkey club.

While scrolling, I come across a video titled “NARUTO and SASUKE VS. MADARA UCHIHA FULL FIGHT 4K 60FPS”. I had already gone through most of my queue of subscriber videos, so without too much thought I clicked.

Where are the ninjas.

That was my first reaction. And with a never-ending abyss of curiosity and making reading obscure fan wiki-pages a favorite pastime, I dove right back in to make sure I could fill allllllll the gaps.

It was perfect. Episodes, without ads (thanks crunchyroll), were only 20 minutes. The optimal length for a busy college kids. Just enough time to eat, walk to and from class during university, or 3 episodes could be playing in your headphones while at the gym.

I finished all of Shippuden over the next couple months. The ending both satisified my curiosity and filled the gap in nostalgia I was missing.

This was just the start. Over the next 10-ish years up through now, I found new anime, revisited old ones, dived into new genres, and eventually adopted the love for printed manga.

I’ll share with you all all the stories that I’ve consumed over the years bringing to you my loves, hates, and everything in between.

Hopefully this blog can be a little bit of everything for you: relatable, comedic, critical, analytical, and realistic. Anything I can possibly think of, I will include here in excruciating detail.

Welcome. 20 Pages 20 minutes is live now. Enjoy the ride.