@SpiteLesbian
Far from controversial, pretty much all anime is explicitly right wing. That doesnโt make it not entertaining, it just means they arenโt a good place to look for political understanding. Some more gross than others though of course.
It doesn't look anything like Blade Runner, though? It just looks like Japan, the country whose aesthetics happen to have inspired Blade Runner. Such a weird statement.
So this thankfully turns out to have been a panic over a chef accidentally dropping a knife they were carrying home in an irresponsible manner rather than an attack.
Video: frightened passengers trying to escape from a knife attack today at Shinjuku station. Three people were injured and police arrested have arrested the suspect, a "foreign man" (NHK has not reported a specific nationality).
@MolondrongoTV
@UnseenJapanSite
To be 100% accurate is says โunionโ as slightly mispronounced, which the character tends to do, followed by โpaid days off.โ But yeah, just embarrassing how obvious the lie is with this one.
A rare ยฅ2000 note appeared in my change the other day. Often considered an unlucky bill in Japan, itโs also seen so infrequently that, when I recently tried to pay with one at a Shimokita kebab shop, the staff assumed it was a fake and wouldnโt let me use it.
There's a long history of political assassination in Japan, even of Prime Ministers - but in the past decades, that sort of violence has faded totally into the past. The attack on Abe feels shocking in a country where politics are often dispassionate and gun violence non-existent
Anti-vax Olympians get that free pass into Japan, meanwhile, those of us with loved ones, job prospects, school, and more are still left in seemingly unending limbo. Makes sense.
Michael Andrew, the highest profile unvaccinated American Olympian, refused to wear a mask in the mixed zone. Every other US swimmer Iโve seen all week has worn one.
Studio Ghibli did not design this DVD case because, 1: it's a blu-ray case. 2: It's a fan-created concept piece, namely by
@panasonynet
. No official release of the film has ever looked like this.
Pizza Hut employees have been leaving little English-language messages on my pizza boxes when I order in (which I do more than I probably should, heh) - today was a new one: a friendly Anglophone squid.
Working on a translation featuring axolotls - and turns out the Japanese word for axolotl is quite the ๅ่ฃฝ่ฑ่ช (pseudo-anglicism): ใฆใผใใผใซใผใใผ (ลซpฤrลซpฤ), from "Whooper Looper." Seems the word was created to avoid the original, ahorลtoru, which sounds like "dumb old fart."
Lots to unpack here but interesting how the default โforeignerโ remains a blonde white dude (with requisite giant/้ซใ schnoz) when most foreign nationals working and living in Japan are not Caucasian.
June is crackdown on illegal aliens month in Japan!๐
You must always have a residence card or passport with you and show it to cops if they ask
Violations may result in a fine of up to 200,000 yen and/or to 2 years in jail
Take a photo with your phone, keep it there
Iโm asked this constantly, but seriously
Use textbooks. I know it doesnโt seem appealing and they donโt hit the dopamine centers like apps are designed to, but if youโre serious about language learning, get at least one good textbook and learn it cover to cover.
@Min75Re
It's true - Ghibli (despite its incredible prominence) is not representative in many ways, and there are unfortunate imperialist/irredentist undercurrents to plenty of anime. But in reality, neither left nor right represent "pretty much all anime," an incredibly diverse medium.
For those speaking with Japanese friends, family, and co-workers today, here's an important bit of vocab for you: ๅฃๆญขใๆ๏ผใใกใฉใใใใ, kuchi-dome ryou๏ผ๏ผHush money.
Was just reminded of something extremely nice a coworker did for me back in Japan - one of those moments when someone asks you a question about your culture, really listens, and then even acts on what they've learned. Really felt great.
@UnseenJapanSite
The fact that they're located in Okubo of all places and feel comfortable spouting off like this with their whole chest is something else.
The need to make every last Japanese word somehow its own, magical concept alien from other cultures has now gone far enough that weโre apparently parading the word for โnostalgicโ like it doesnโt exist in other languages ๐
Yesterday a guest at the Tokyo-based sushi restaurant my wife works at motioned her over and said โI just wanted to tell you how good your Japanese is.โ Thing is, she is Japanese. Behold the power of having โOskowโ in katakana on your name-tag.
On a little walk between Shibuya and Ebisu, on a lookout for a likely cafe, and chanced upon this book cafe. Looks nice, I momentarily thought; itโs then that I noticed it was inside of a giant Happy Science building and was, in fact, โproducedโ by them as well.
Kept on walking.
This is actually something that happened a few years back now, but reminder that this is how Japanese news media decided to portray the event at the time:
A train conductor in (Osaka) Japan recently said โThere are many foreigners riding the train today. We are sorry for the inconvenienceโ through the train announcement... um...?????????
Yen is getting crazy weak compared to the US dollar once again. Tough times for those getting paid in Japanese currency with student loans or other payments to be made back in the US.
Since it's a bit topical, I was interviewed as part of this recent Jewish Telegraph Agency article on perceptions of antisemitism in anime (and Japan at large)! It's a very interesting article with a wide range of research involved.
In a certain sense, living in Japan removes some of the escapism of anime for non-Japanese viewers. When living and working in Japan, Iโd try to watch anime to relax after work, only to find I was re-encountering the social structures that exhausted me during my work day.
These guys have been around for a while. Part of the rather sad reactionary ใใชใขๅ ็็บใใใmindset. I suppose from a foreign perspective it's a bit funny how this isn't an anti-religion protest - they just really don't like seeing romantic couples being happy in public.
A tiny anti-Christmas demonstration was held in Tokyo today. It sounds like they do not like seeing happy couples celebrating Christmas.
In Japan Christmas is often viewed as a romantic day for couples (similar to Valentine's Day in the US).
I've seen a lot of insane translation job posts in my day. Heck, I've even worked at some ridiculous rates, especially in my early years as a translator. But $20 for 220 pages of manga due in 5 days?! Pffffffffffffttttttt.๐
Approaching ยฅ152 to the dollar right now. Pretty unbelievable - really feel for JP residents who have to send money back to the US for various reasons right now.
Hey. Hey, you.
Maybe don't be the person who sees a post about Fukushima, Japan's third largest prefecture, home to a million+ who've had to deal with over a decade of being associated with the stigma of a coastal nuclear disaster, and immediately decide to further that stigma.
Cool research gig recently led me to a connection with the 1947 film Snow Trail (้ๅถบใฎๆใฆ). An interesting crime drama tale set in the snowy Japanese alps, it's also scripted by Kurosawa Akira and features Mifune Toshiro's first (famously handsome) onscreen appearance.
*Person sees poll of Japanese people in Japan*
"This Jew is pushing the 'gaygenda' on them! (By reporting on a poll of Japanese people in Japan)"
(I'm the only Jewish person on UJ staff, but the idea that UJ is a "secret Jewish psyop" happens to be useful for conspiracy chuds)
Gatekeepers are incredibly weird. Encountering this situation in real life is a chance to make a friend and expose them to more anime that you like, not to judge them for not yet being into the same esoteric stuff you are.
Farewell, Olivia Newton-John. One of her major cultural contributions in Japan is that it's her cover of John Denver's Country Roads that plays at the beginning of Ghibli Whisper of the Heart, setting a standard ENG version for the JPN ใซใณใใชใผใญใผใ the movie so popularized.
@Edo_Granpa
Somebody within that thread actually agreed with the OP that anime is fascist because "the Akira manga is really anti-American." It's like, those aren't the same concepts at all? Also seems very reductionary regarding Akira's themes.
Today's Shinano Mainichi discusses how, back in 2007, a Fukuoka middle school (poorly) photoshopped a half-American Japanese student's naturally brown hair black. Given the forced dying of natural hair colors that still goes on today, I wonder when else this might have happened.
Overjoyed to discover the originating thread of JPN accounts fondly recalling Scatman John as a memorable Showa-era figure, and doubly happy to discover he was in Japanese ad campaigns. For a while there, it truly was Scatman's World.
Iโm certainly guilty of explaining Okinawa as the โHawaii of Japanโ to Those who otherwise know nothing about the prefecture. Of course, saying a region is like the โ__ of another countryโ flattens and uncenters, but as Akemi Johnson explains here, there are some real parallels.
As a provincial American, this being the katakana for โfoyerโ was throwing me for a loop before I realized it comes from the French rather than our weirdo โFOY-erโ pronunciation
As soon as I saw this picture of Netlfix-Faye's costume, I knew we were going to be getting these sorts of braindead winge-takes about how it wasn't "accurate" to the original anime by people who can't seem to comprehend how utterly ridiculous what they want would look in motion.
Writing kanji is extremely useful during the learning process in terms of memorizing and getting a feel for the written Japanese language. Once you're actually functional in Japanese and living/working in Japan, though? Immediately becomes the least-used aspect of the language.
Unpopular Opinion:
I think it's more important for Japanese learners to learn to WRITE kanji/words than most Japanese Language advice givers and content creators tend to admit.
Already seeing guesses being made as to the motives here - and honestly, they could be anything and from any direction (or no direction). Last major assassination in Japan was an angry yakuza killing the mayor of Nagasaki over what amounted to a parking ticket.
It can be easy to miss this fact if you're mostly on English-language Twitter, but Japanese Twitter is gigantic - somewhere around 50-60 million users, with Japanese users only behind American ones. Getting the second-largest national userbase increasingly annoyed isn't great.
In case you're wondering how Japanese-language twitter is taking the recent chaos:
"Not like anyone is going to be able to see this anyway!! I can do this as much as I well please!!"
(OP has formed the name "El*n" and is using it as target practice)
Was double-checking that residents donโt need passports when boarding domestic flights here in Japan, only to encounter a surprising fact about flying here: you actually donโt need to present any form of ID at the airport in Japan. Just another reason flying seems more a breeze.
@RyoYokoe1
I'd generally agree, although I've seen people who find his environmentalism "preachy." Either way, the idea that his films don't contain "political messages" is just ๐ฅด
Incredibly, after a year of waiting Iโm actually on a 787 bound for Narita. The plane is large, but feels at about 10% capacity - not surprising given hardly anyone can actually enter Japan right now. Reminds me a bit of when I returned to Japan one month after March 11th, 2011.
One of my least favorite traits of Japanese TV dubbing is how every woman, no matter how she's speaking in her native language, is made to sound as prim and properly feminine as possible.
@sheepchase
Japanese TV is also really bad at that. I once heard a Nigerian man (whom I could hear speaking fluently in British English) being dubbed in Japanese with a deep, heavily-accented voice which implied he was speaking in broken English. The voice actor just reverted to stereotype.
In Ichigaya and stopped in front of a Koban to grab this pic of the Japanese Red Army wanted posters. A policeman poked out his head to see what I was up to. โJust getting a picture of the Sekigun.โ He nodded, smiled, and said โlet us know if you find them.โ
Bookshelves at the Shinchi-machi library, a small Fukushima town on the border with Miyagi prefecture where I often visited. The books have fallen, a result of the earthquake, but the shelves remain upright. They've been made in such a way as to "protect visitors."
Last week was our Jewish wedding, but we still wanted to honor her Japanese heritage and family. One way we did so was to drape obi (kimono belts) from 4 generations of her family in the space. These included her own, her mother's, her grandmother's, and her great-grandmother's.
It with great pleasure that I must report that that the Ebisu Beer Museum, as part of a display featuring references to their product in the literature of such luminaries as Natsume Soseki, also features Katsuragi Misatoโs great love of Ebisu beer in Evangelion. Eva is culture.
It's May 25th here in Japan, which means it's officially 50 days until the release date for Studio Ghibli and Miyazaki Hayao's first theatrical film in nearly a decade, "How Do You Live" (ๅใใกใฏใฉใ็ใใใ). So far this teaser poster is the only imagery we have. Exciting!
It happened: walking at a nice clip in Shinjuku and an older Japanese man matches my pace and starts determinedly calling out to me in English. Instinct kicks in, but ask him what he wants anyway. "I'm Christian," he says animatedly. "I'm Jewish," I respond, "so not interested."
1. I would absolutely love to visit the Upopoy Ainu museum, and Iโm very happy to see a Japanese tourism ad using the word โindigenousโ
2. Itโs full-on impossible to enter Japan as a tourist and will be for some time, so getting Japan tourism ads still feels frustrating
Still a contrastive experience seeing a movie like Deadpool & Wolverine in a relatively packed theater in Japan and watching Ryan Reynolds monologue jokes in what feels like the silence of the tomb.
Kan, star of an incredibly sweet episode of Queer Eye: We're in Japan, is looking for people to sign this petition to create a system to grant rights for same-sex couples in Tokyo.
Will you please sign the petition, share this tweet, and help Tom and me have an option to live in Tokyo as a same sex couple?๐ฌโค๏ธYour support will lead us to have marriage equality in Japan๐จโโค๏ธโ๐จ
#PartnershipActforTokyo
@PartnerActTokyo
I got to interview native Okinawan temporary tattooist
@DrawingMim
about her connection to the once-forgotten tradition of women's hajichi tattoos, which have a long and storied history as part of the dominant women's spirituality of independent Ryukyu.
Out at a Russian restaurant and the Japanese guy next to me is talking disapprovingly about how loudly foreigners react when watching movies. Just literally had this discussion with Yui yesterday - about how Japanese crowds donโt really laugh during movies. ๐
Thereโs something strange about seeing the local pariah of extraordinarily bad takes escaping the bonds of his own adjacent subculture and managing to appear as an object of mockery in a completely different venue.
Not a surprise, but still worth mentioning how empty Asakusa was last evening. This was taken around 6PM - such a different experience from before the travel ban.
This is an interior in "Mei and Satsuki's House," a complete reconstruction of the Kusakabe's home from My Neighbor Totoro, built for the 2005 Aichi Expo. I was lucky enough to visit the space some years ago; it's a wonderful, authentic representation of a Showa-era home, too.
Tototo in Nakano might be the best pizza Iโve had in Japan. Incredible use of local ingredients and flavors on a perfectly baked crust. Wonderful location amongst the warrens of izakaya. Going to go back soon for sure.
ENG-language anime groups out here treating the sensitive/touchy subject of Abe's murder yesterday like he was a Nintendo director or popular manga artist. This was from a Ghibli appreciation group - something tells me neither Miyazaki nor Takahata would appreciate this meme.
The Ghibli x Star Wars project has been revealed! It's a short entitled โZen โ Grogu and Dust Bunnies,โ allowing two cute mascot IPs to meet. Most importantly from my standpoint is that it will be a 2D-animated piece - directed by none other than the legendary Kondo Katsuya.
I feel this doesn't recognize that Japan also has major issues regarding gender equality/specific issues women face. A major source of stress for people in the US right now is abortion and potential loss of other rights (gay marriage) - no national gay marriage in Japan, either.
This story is currently trending in Japan, as backlash begins against the utterly unfeeling response of the school involved whose representatives have claimed that "the perpetrators have a future too." Truly disturbing stuff.
Okay, this really grinds my gears so let me talk about it. TW: bullying, suicide
There's this bullying case in Japan right now, a 14 year girl died because of it.
Her name is Hirose Saaya. She froze to death in the Asahikawa river.
In awe of this old ladies of Ghibli cosplay group โ and not surprised that I was able to figure out who all of them are pretty quickly (top right took a sec, though). Ghibli has a great roster of memorable older ladies ๐