Welcome to the second in a four part series of entries about my successful application for a Monbusho Research Scholarship. If you haven’t already, I recommend reading the first part (in particular, the disclaimers contained therein). This entry deals with my process for putting my research proposal together.
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The Monbusho Research Scholarship appealed to me for a number of reasons when I first heard about it. On a personal level, I love Japan. I had lived there for three years prior to my application for the Monbusho Scholarship, and have a keen interest in the culture, language, art, food and people.
On a professional/academic level, the idea of studying in Japan appealed to me because of its rich history in the realm of comic books. I’ve wanted to be a cartoonist since I was a kid, and have long believed that the medium of comics are just as capable as film or prose of creating powerful work of real artistic value. It is towards this ideal of creating “literary” comics that I aspire, and I felt confident that studying in Japan would help me in that regard.
Add into the mix that a Monbusho Scholarship would allow me to pursue my research without going severely into debt, and that cemented my desire to go for it.
So when I first resolved to apply for the Monbusho Scholarship, that’s where I stood: I had the vague idea that my research would be geared towards improving the quality of my comics, but exactly how I would spend my time was still very much up in the air.
Continue reading How I got the Monbusho Research Scholarship (Part 2 of 4)→