Okay, so I know this is old news, but I figured before I started rambling on and on about Takeshi, I may as well explain first how I got so obsessed.
Most people (even my friends) don't know this but really, I've been watching the X-games ever since we had cable, every time I stumbled upon it while channel surfing, so really, I discovered the Yasutoko brothers by myself. Nobody told me about them. And nobody influenced me to get fascinated by them. Not that anybody had to. After all, if you saw a 9-year-old competing with professionals who were almost all over 20 years old, in a sport that wasn't at all conventional, who wouldn't be fascinated, right?
Only, then, I wasn't really obsessed. I was interested, but mostly, only whenever I came across it on ESPN by chance. I didn't check the TV schedule or anything. So I didn't really see it often for the next few years.
But then last year, around October, while I was waiting up for my sister (it was already early morning), I came upon the replay of the X-Games IX on EPSN, at exactly the time that Eito was going to his 2nd run. Since the Yasutoko name was already familiar to me, I didn't change the channel, and so I witnessed (for the first time in 2003), his amazing run, which consisted of at least 3 big finishing tricks. I was taken aback.
I mean, I knew they were great skaters but because I haven't seen them in a long time, I didn't realize that they had already gotten that good.
Hence, my sudden increasing curiosity about them. After the replay, I immediately surfed the net to find info on them--any kind--interviews, pictures, articles, and without even realizing it, I was suddenly hooked.
I couldn't talk or think about anything else but the Yasutoko brothers. And I couldn't help but notice just how cute Takeshi had gotten over the years, with a better fashion sense, and without his trademark glasses. Of course, he'd always been cute, but I always thought that it was because he looked young, kind of like the way toddlers, no matter who, are always cute, but that is, only until I saw Takeshi again at the X-Games IX and realized that he now looks more mature.
So there. That's how my obsession started. Or, actually, that's how my addiction started. My obsession could actually be a whole other story. I'll just put it in the next entry.
