Why is the temple name "Tera-P" in Katakana?

Something I thought I had lost has turned up.

KER (Kevin's English Room) video “The 1st Returnee Werewolf” The name tag I used when I was invited to appear in name tag. The photo is of the one I took home as a souvenir after the shoot.

From the day after this video was released, the response was huge, and I was approached one after another even within the company where I work. For some people, this was the first time they learned that I was a returnee. I thought I had lived my life quite skillfully. To say I lived holding my breath might be an exaggeration, but it's easy to become a nuisance for one reason or another. I have tried to live as inconspicuously as possible. There are a few returnees like that around me. It's a survival skill for living in Japan.

And yet, I took the exact opposite action. And that was to appear in a video by a famous YouTuber. And in an amazing project at that. As of this writing, the video has 6.4 million views. That's a number I don't see very often. Why did I apply?

On the day of the shoot, the staff handed us name tags and permanent markers and told us to write our names ourselves. When I applied for this project, the name field asked for a nickname, not my real name. I've had many nicknames in the past, but the one I chose at that time was "Tera-P".
Honestly, I don't remember if I wrote "P" in Katakana or Hiragana. In the first place, I didn't think I would pass the screening, so I didn't think about it too deeply. It was an audition notice my wife found. She told me to try it, so I just applied on a whim. We were talking about how there's no way I'd be chosen for a project by a super-famous YouTuber. I had no preparation or anything.

This day was the actual Werewolf game. The three members of KER must not find out that I am a returnee. Maybe they'll find out from my handwriting. If I use Hiragana, won't they find out from the roundness of the "hi"? If it's the Katakana "ヒ", it's just straight lines. Okay. As it happens, the Kanji "寺" (Tera) can also be written with only straight lines.

That's how it is. Since I went with this once, I have no choice but to stick with Katakana. I decided to use Katakana for this Note account as well. Same for X (Twitter).

The emails I receive also come addressed to "Tera-P-san." It's kind of embarrassing.
Is this okay? I should have chosen a cooler name (laughs).
Too late now.
In the emails I reply to, I write "Tera-P" at the end myself.
Because they wouldn't know who it is if I used my real name, right? I have no choice but to go with this forever (laughs).
Is everyone in show business like this?

By the way, what I heard from the staff at that time was that we were 8 people chosen from a total of 500 applicants. I remember a chorus of surprised voices echoing in the room at once. We, the participants, had just received a call from the KER side saying we had passed the screening and came to the meeting place on the day. I had no idea the odds were that high.

Viewers see the video of the eight of us lined up through the screen, but we don't see ourselves from that angle. We were lined up in a row, with the three KER members sitting in front of us. Yes. What remains strongly in my memory is the sight of the three of them lined up, and the staff standing next to them trying not to be caught on camera. Even if I could see the participant next to me, I couldn't see the person next to them.

What's interesting is that, unlike a TV appearance, it's YouTube, so it stays up forever. Unlike TV ratings at the time, YouTube is recorded by the number of views. And you can watch it as many times as you want at any time. That's why the numbers are still growing. It's the times. Even after a year, people sometimes suddenly say, "I watched that the other day!"

One day, I wondered, where did that name tag go?
I looked for it but couldn't find it. I thought I had put it here, though.
Usually, it's something you should keep somewhere safe, right? It's not that I didn't value it, but there is a reason for this.

After the shoot, I was told that it would take about three months to edit this length before the video was actually uploaded. Three months is quite a long time. On the day, we just filmed the video and finished, so I didn't really have a sense of it. I even thought, maybe it won't be interesting and will get scrapped., and things like that. My memories were also fading a bit.

At the time, I didn't think the response would be this huge later on, so I wasn't that attached to the name tag. But once you lose it, you start to worry about the thing you lost. I thought it would turn up someday, though.

And sure enough, it appeared suddenly one day. My wife said, "It was in a place like this." It had gotten mixed into a large bag where we collected our children's craft projects. Come to think of it, it was just after the new school term had started. It must have gotten mixed into the bag my child brought home before spring break. The moment I saw it after a long time, for some reason, I felt like I had met a celebrity. That's the name tag of the person who was in that video. Even though it was my own thing, I had a strange feeling, like it belonged to someone else.

Time had passed, and I guess I was able to look at it objectively all of a sudden.
Why did I start Note and X? I thought I started them just because, but there must be some reason at the root. I've been doing it while feeling uneasy, but at that moment, I thought this:
Maybe I had lost my own identity for a long time.
After returning to Japan, I lived by killing my individuality. Surprisingly, it feels like returnees live quietly so as not to stand out. If you act even a little bit conspicuous, you are treated as a nuisance. I've always tended to hide my background, or rather, I've steered conversations in a direction where I don't talk about it much myself.

But after appearing here, I thought maybe it's okay to express myself more. Now that I've come this far, maybe it's okay to live as my true self without worrying so much about what others think. That's what I thought when the name tag turned up.
Something I had kept deep inside for a long time. I thought I would try a way of bringing it to the front. I guess that's why I started various things. Like Note and X.

This name tag is one of a kind in the world.
I am also the only one of me in the world.

This is ↑
A post I put on X (Twitter) with a photo of the name tag in the title.

(While keeping each of our thoughts to ourselves) Watching the video where I was lined up with members who were putting English to the forefront, I was able to look at the group I belong to objectively. This is home..

I was always away. I still feel that way often. In Japan, being a little good at English is often valued, but the longer you live abroad, the more that reverses, and it's common to be disliked if you don't act "like a Japanese person." I've experienced that more than enough. But I realized that I do have a home like this. I must have started various things because I found a place to belong.
Finding the name tag cleared up the things I had been feeling uneasy about for the first time.

I am grateful to my wife who found the audition,
KER who invited me to this project, and the
participating members who appeared with me.

Tera-P

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