SEVILLE, Spain -- Atsuhiro Shimoyama never planned on becoming a bullfighter. Growing up in the greater Tokyo region in the late 1980s, he opted out of going to college, and instead bummed around searching for something meaningful to do during Japan's wildly inflating bubble years.
Although he had no focus, he did have a naturally graceful body, tall and slender, and eventually found himself accepted into a jazz dance troupe. The group traveled to Barcelona, Spain, and then across the Pyrenees mountains to southern France. It was the first time Shimoyama had ever been overseas and his new surroundings made a deep impression upon him.
Upon returning to Japan, he read Napolean Hill's self-help book, "Think and Grow Rich," on attaining personal success by pursuing fixed objectives. It was also around the same time, that Shimoyama saw the classic bullfighting movie "Sangre y Arena (Blood and Sand)" about the dramatic rise and fall of a bullfighter. Soon a dream was born.
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