For a long time Megumi Sasaki felt that something did not quite fit.
The feeling settled like a shawl around her shoulders — she tried to shake it off but couldn't.
"It wasn't that I disliked Tokyo or college," says Sasaki, recalling her days as a French literature student at Aoyama Gakuin University in the metropolis. "But everyone thought I was a bit strange. I wasn't into the stuff everyone else was into. I was never your typical college girl, carrying brand handbags and going to Roppongi. Sometimes I would look around and wonder what I was doing there."