Mazinger Z or Why I Went to Japan

Some great stories start with a sentence like "I had a farm in Africa..." or "En un lugar de la Mancha...". Mine is "I went to Japan to work with robots..."; a bit of a stereotype, though true. What brought me to this? I don't really know, just I followed an unseen path, maybe.

Once i assisted to a lecture about new interesting developments in engineering, and a former algebra professor mentioned something called computer vision. I thought, "wooow, computers can actually see?!", and I decided to study such astonishing possibility. Now it is my job.

I grew up with Mazinger Z. I was so crazy about it that even had an actual fist that could fly. Then, one of the most unbelievable turn of destiny, somebody decided to build an actual replica of Mazinger right in front of my dad's village. Can anybody believe that? Yeah, and it is still there, standing in the middle of nothing more than pine trees and some old houses, 10 m high. Maybe that was my unseen path.

I went to Japan to work with robots. I worked in a research center similar to that in the cartoon, but there was no pool from where a glider would appear. No gigantic robot, either. No monsters, no Dr. Hell, no Baron Ashler, no Kabuto Koji, no Sayaka Yumi. No glory, no epic. So, I've abandoned robots and Japan. Or was it the other way round?