It’s been a little over a month since we announced our first-ever summer internship and since then, it’s been pretty wild ride. We had about 250 people apply in the first round, a bigger response than we ever could have hoped for. After a second round, we narrowed down the number of people and last week, we finally chose our summer intern. We’ll introduce him in a second, but first we wanted to give you guys a recap of the whole internship process.

Round 2

The people who made it into Round 2 had to write three Tofugu posts in only 72 hours. Over 80 people participated in the second round of our internship application, writing about all sorts of crazy topics. We got posts about brain-controlled cat ears, Studio Ghibli death metal, monkey waiters, cool Japanese music videos, and learning Japanese from music.

Koichi and I can’t thank all of the applicants enough for all their hard work and dedication. As I’ve said before, we’re always so impressed by our awesome community. We love you guys! ♥

Meet John

All our applicants were great, but we had to narrow it down to one person and, as you probably have guessed by now, his name is John. John blew us away by sending in his three awesome entries the very first day. We’ve already turned one of his entries into a post on Tofugu about a weird, Japanese urinal-based video game, and you’ll be seeing lots more of his writing in the future.

John will be helping us out over the next few months writing posts, doing research, working on a to-be-announced larger project, and generally being awesome. Please welcome our new slave intern, John!

Hello! I just graduated not too long ago and I’m pretty excited for this opportunity with Tofugu. Some of my hobbies include listening to music, drinking soda, fighting crime by night, and playing video games. Hashi and I plan on working together to get into Bronze League in Starcraft 2. Wish us luck, we’ll need it.

I double majored in Japanese and economics with a minor in engineering sciences. I am currently working as a computer technician until I can find a job better suited to my degree and experience.

I mentioned above that I like music. I really enjoy electrotrash, post-hardcore, and picopop. I watch a lot of Japanese programming ranging from movies and TV shows to anime and dramas. I play a lot of video games, both PC and console.

Climbing to the top of Mt. Rokko in Kobe, Japan

I studied abroad in Kobe, Japan last spring for ten weeks. It was probably the best experience of my life. I made a lot of lifelong friends, had many once in a lifetime experiences, and really improved my Japanese skills. If you ever have the opportunity to travel to Japan, or any foreign country for that matter, take it! You definitely won’t regret it.

Anyway, it’s great to be here and I’m really looking forward to my internship here at Tofugu! If you have any questions for me, feel free to ask them in the comments below!

P.S. Think John is super awesome and cool? Follow Tofugu on Twitter.

P.P.S. Refuse to believe that anyone could ever be cooler than Koichi or Hashi? Like Tofugu on Facebook.