All signs point west.

Not too long ago, my business mentor gave me the book, ‘The Alchemist”. In the book, the hero is on a quest, and he goes through all kinds of trials, tribulations, and hardships for the sake of finding his way to his ultimate destination.

After months and years of struggling, when he can see his final destination in sight, and he is sure that he can get there, he stumbles upon a beautiful Oasis, and stops to rest there. While there, he meets a beautiful woman whom he comes to adore, is offered housing for as long as he wants, and has all the food he can eat. Having finally found comfort and happiness, he feels a burning desire to settle in, but yet and still however, happy as he may be, he still has not completed his quest, and ultimately, painfully, he brings himself to leave, and carries on to his ultimate destination.

For myself, I find myself wondering if Tokyo is my Oasis. It’s taken me 6 years to get to this point, but I’m comfortable, known and respected. Half the time, I don’t even need an agent, I’m contacted and offered work directly. I’m also producing my first action films, and have the full support of both the action directors who trained me. I’ve built both a taekwondo program and an action training program from scratch, and both of them have about 30 students respectively. The martial arts blog that I’ve writing for Gaijinpot has been so successful that they want me to start a martial arts section of their website, and are allowing me to bring in other to contribute to it. I’m conversationally fluent in Japanese, and I have no particular problems communicating, and my business language ability is improving by the day. Life is good.

Despite all that however, much like the hero in the story, I’m still just not quite there yet.
Even if I’m comfortable, half of my income still just comes from English teaching. As a function of the lack of unionization in their entertainment industry, the Japanese entertainment industry is particularly hard on it’s ‘little guys’ so only the people at the top make any real money. Even some of the stunt men I train with- (who occasionally put their bodies or their lives in danger doing what they do) barely make enough to get by on, and often times have to work other part-time jobs. As a function of that, I have to do 2 or 3 times as many jobs as I would have to in the states to make the same amount. Beyond that, although being the only foreign action actor out here does give me a strong USP, that also means that the roles that are available are few and far between as well.

In short, in my heart, I still feel that I can do better, and if the even if the American entertainment industry is the hardest one on earth to get into, I just wouldn’t be me if I didn’t try.

Furthermore, if I can find success in the American entertainment industry that will make me ten times more marketable here, and in general big budget productions prefer to fly in foreigners than use the ones they have here anyway. (As a function of the fact that it ‘looks more exotic’).

THE PLAN

In april, when one of my other roommates moves out, painfully, I’m going to give up my apartment. (Which is in a super convenient location), and take an apartment through Westgate while I work for them full time for the next three months and pay off bills.

After the contract , I will head back to the states for three months to hit up Michigan (which is up and coming as a ‘movie town’) both East and West Coasts, and Vancouver. (Where a great deal of Hollywood's biggest blockbusters are filmed).

After feeling things out, if nothing solid has popped up, then Westgate will fly me back into Japan, and I can work (and save) again for another 3 months, and then they will fly me back home at Christmas. At that point, it will be time for the ultimate decision: Use the money I made to buy a car, and head to LA, or use it to come back to Japan, get a new apartment here, and join an official Katana action school, and Japanese language school and really REALLY bust my tail to make it big here.

Either way, with all of my college debts and everything, I will only be able to make enough to do one or the other. I can't do both, and once I commit, I can't change my mind. I guess it’s man’s ultimate paradigm: stick with what you know and stay in your comfort zone, or put it all on the line to try for something better.

As always, I refer to ‘IF’ for my inspiration:

“If you can make one heap of all your winnings,
And risk it one on turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breath a word about your loss, …
…You’ll be a man, my son!