China...Pot...Kettle...Black

I happened to see that China had released a warning, advising the U.S. to "be concerned at the rising tide of nationalism in Japan," a statement I found to be great knee-slapping humor. China, of course, is involved with Japan in a dispute over some fairly worthless islands (Senkaku/Diaoyu), and last year China brought one of its most potent weapons to bear against Japan, giving its people permission to riot and burn Japanese car dealerships, department stores and a hapless "Japanese" Samsung factory. (The mobs also permanently crippled a Chinese man for daring to drive a Japanese car, though this was naturally not reported by the patriotic Chinese media.) If China doesn't like Japan's conservative, pro-business Liberal Democratic Party's return to power, they have no one to blame but themselves: no single factor guaranteed the return of Prime Minister Abe and the LDP than the conflict with China. While I don't see any reason to be concerned with Japanese "nationalism" -- which means "no longer willing to put up with crap from China" in this context -- I personally think the Japanese need a little more nationalism. Japan is unique among nations in that there's almost no patriotism here, no reasonable way to show love of one's country, no Japanese version of the various memorials and shrines that are such an important part of visiting Washington D.C. for Americans. The Japanese Prime Minister cannot even pay his respects to the spirits of Japan's war dead by visiting Yasukuni Shrine (the only thing remotely resembling Arlington National Cemetery for Japan) without setting relations with China and South Korea back months or years.

Look at all those rioting Japanese nationalists...oh wait.

Nombres de Automóviles en Japón

The science of Japanese car names is always interesting to study. Above all, they must sound 格好いい kakko ii (cool, stylish), and since nothing sounds cooler to the Japanese ear than English, most cars here get their names from English words -- like Honda Life and Subaru Legend, or Daihatsu's Move Latte, or the Honda That's (yes, "That's" is the name of the car). Other car names, like Corolla or Tercel or Sylphy or Premacy, are designed to "sound" like English yet remain original so they can be trademarked. In recent years Japanese car companies have started mining Spanish as a source for car names, since Spanish and Japanese are very close phonetically -- both have the same five basic vowels, and speakers of one language can learn to speak the other with very little accent. This has resulted in a large number of Spanish-derived car names, like Daihatsu's little van Vamos (I love that name), Nissan's El Grand, Toyota's Carina and Familia, Mitsubishi's Diamante and Viento, and the Subaru Stella (fitting, since subaru is the Japanese name for the Pleiades star cluster). Every once in a while, of course, they come up with car names that have embarrassing meanings, like the Mitsubishi Pajero, which is Spanish for "wanker," or Mazda Laputa, Spanish for "the whore." Laputa, of course, is one of the four kingdoms visited in the satirical novel Gulliver's Travels, and writer Jonathan Swift was well aware of the meaning of the word in Spanish...so there's a good chance we're all being trolled from the year 1726.

Many Japanese car names are based on Spanish.

Mt. Fuji and UNESCO World Heritage Status

One of the most powerful symbols of Japan is, of course, Mt. Fuji, the beautiful volcano that sits astride Shizuoka and Yamanashi prefectures and is visible from Kamakura, Yokohama and (when the weather permits), Tokyo. Known as 富士山 Fuji-san in Japanese (remember, never call it "Fuji-yama," an error foreigners commonly make that has become an embarrassing cliche by now), the mountain has been a part of Japan's culture for millenia. Now Mt. Fuji is finally going to be listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, joining such iconic locations as the Kinkaku-ji temple in Kyoto, the historic village of Shirakawa-go (the setting of When the Higurashi Cry), the A-Bomb Dome and Peace Memorial in Hiroshima, and Yakushima Island, whose lush vegetation served as the setting for Princess Mononoke. Japan had been pushing for its most famous mountain to gain World Heritage status for more than a decade, but had been thwarted by a shameful reality: trash. Though beautiful from afar, Mt. Fuji had been allowed to become an unsightly trash dump, used both by locals looking to discard an unwanted refrigerator as well as climbers who saw no problem with discarding their cup ramen containers when they were done with them. Well, Japanese climbers, I should say -- when I visited the mountain, all the foreigners were extremely careful to make sure we brought back down any trash we'd created. Over the past few years a massive cleanup effort by the local government has been carried out, coupled with much reflection by Japanese, and this has paved the way for Mt. Fuji to gain official UNESCO recognition at last.

Mt. Fuji is finally getting UNESCO registration.

New Sale: 2x Points on All DVDs & Blu-ray

It's a new month, and a new sale for you. This month we're giving 2x points on all DVD and Blu-ray media, with everything from the gorgeous Hatsune Miku "live" concert Blu-rays, the English subtitled Studio Ghibli films and Space Battleship Yamato series, plus all your favorite "naughty" offerings. Click to see the top-ranked DVD and Blu-rays from Japan now!

Last Change To Preorder Song of Saya (No, Really)

Remember, we're about to ship the awesome Song of Saya, one of the most legendary visual novels ever made. It's the story of Fuminori, a medical student who's been in a horrible car accident which forever altered his perceptions of the world into one of abject horror. But there is one bright spot in the hell that he constantly perceives, that of Saya, the only girl who appears beautiful to him. What dark secret is Saya hiding, and who will deliver the world to safety? Written by Urobuchi Gen, creator of Madoka Magika and Fate/Zero! The game should be shipping very soon -- last chance to preorder your copy!

Understanding Japan Through Inconvenience

One interesting social concept you see at work a lot in Japan is the concept of 我慢 gaman, which means to endure or tolerate something that's unpleasant to bear. The idea that is that if there's something that's inconveniencing you, it's better to endure it stoically in an act of self-sacrifice rather than take action to fix the problem, which is generally seen as being impatient or hasty. We see this all the time: my wife and I will go to a restaurant that's much too cold, yet no one speaks up to ask the staff to turn the air conditioning down, preferring instead to tolerate the unpleasant situation while they eat. The other day I visited an onsen hot springs bath on the weekend and was dozing on the tatami mats in the rest area when I was rudely awakened by a 3-year-old boy who felt the need to run at full speed back and forth over the wooden flooring, making a huge amount of noise. The other resting patrons would clearly have liked him to be more considerate of them but instead were silently enduring the situation as proper Japanese should, so I took the kid to task myself...giving him a big shock in the process, since he'd probably never seen a gaijin before. As with the phrase 仕方がない shikata ga nai (meaning "it can't be helped"), which allows Japan get along more harmoniously but also causes people to fail to take action when it's called for, gaman is both a social virtue as well as a potential source of problems.

If the kid had been as cute as Yotsaba, I wouldn't have gotten on his case.

The New Anime Season Should be Called "Attack on Peter's Free Time."

Every couple of years an anime season comes along that's overflowing with must-watch series, and the current batch of shows is a good example. There are quite a few second seasons of popular series to watch right now, including Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai (aka Oreimo), A Certain Scientific Railgun and the moe-Cthulhu fan service vehicle Haiyore! Nyaruko-san, plus new shows like the well-executed hardcore sci-fi treat Suisei no Gargantia and Date A Live, which deconstructs eroge and visual novels in interesting ways. I'm too much a fan of master illustrator and creator of the "tartan check" fetish Kantoku to not watch The Hentai Prince and the Stony Cat, and as a card-carrying fan of Amagami I couldn't miss Photo Kano, the newest innovative harem game-and-anime from Interbrain. Another show a lot of fans have been taken with is Shingeki no Kyojin (English title: Attack on Titan), a dark and awesome show about a world in which humans live inside walled cities to keep out giants called Titans, and the battle that ensues when the giants attack suddenly. I recommend it.

A dramatic scene from Attack on Titan (sort of).

Attitudes about Otaku Inside Japan

One question I'm asked sometimes is, how do Japanese feel about otaku? Originally a semi-formal way to say "you" or "your family" -- my Japanese mother-in-law might say to our neighbor, お宅の子はよく勉強しますね otaku no ko wa yoku benkyo shimasu ne, meaning "your child sure seems to study a lot, doesn't he?" -- the word has come to describe someone who obsesses over various forms of pop culture, usually anime, manga and games. In the same way our perception of the word "nerd" (coined by none other than Dr. Seuss, by the way) has changed over the decades, especially as we wouldn't have companies like Facebook or Google or J-List without us, attitudes towards otakus might be changing in Japan. According to a poll by the Sankei Shimbun Newspaper published this week, 77% of females replied that they would consider dating males who were of the otaku persuasion, and in another poll that asked Japanese if they thought of themselves as being "otaku" about at least one genre, 42% said yes. A lot of this comes from the general embracing of "pop otaku" culture in Japanese society, elevating stars like Shoko Nakagawa/Shokotan or Nana Mizuki to mainstream status on TV, plus the obvious realization that everyone finds enjoyment in obsessing over some hobby -- for example, I've got a friend who describes herself as the "queen of perfume otaku." 

The above polls apply to views on otakuism by Japanese only, of course; when it comes to foreigners with a passion for Japanese subculture, the Japanese have always been a bit more charitable, as seen by the number of TV shows which feature, say, gaijin with more knowledge about Mobile Suit Gundam than Japanese fans, a subject that makes Japanese TV viewers giggle with delight.

Could attitudes finally be changing about otaku in Japan?

Saya no Uta is Almost Here...

In the history of Japan's highly developed culture of visual novels, a few games really stand out as being absolutely fresh and unique, and one of these is Song of Saya. It's the story of Fuminori, a medical student who's been in a horrible car accident which forever altered his perceptions of the world into one of abject horror. But there is one bright spot in the hell that he constantly perceives, that of Saya, the only girl who appears beautiful to him. What dark secret is Saya hiding, and who will deliver the world to safety? Written by Urobuchi Gen, creator of Madoka Magika and Fate/Zero! The game should be shipping very soon -- last chance to preorder your copy!

Thoughts on Japan: Filial Piety and Seppuku

Over the years I've read several novels by James Clavell, which were loosely based on history and set in Hong Kong and Japan. While his stories were always interesting, I've always had a problem with his Japanese characters, who were finely attuned to such ideas as 義理 giri (duty, honor, obligation) and 人情 ninjo (lit. human feeling, e.g. the moral tradition of giving up something for others) and other flowery concepts that didn't seem to mesh with the modern Japan I encountered when I arrived here. I've never met a Japanese who was ready to commit 切腹 seppuku, or suicide through ritual disembowelment, although James Clavell's characters always seem ready to disembowel themselves at a moment's notice to defend their honor. I have observed, however, that most Japanese do practice filial piety, that is, showing respect to their parents and making decisions that take their parents' wishes into account. For example, while Americans usually leave home in their late teens or early twenties and never live with their parents again, in Japan it's customary for the oldest son or daughter to stay at home permanently, taking over the family business (if there is one) and maintaining the house as the central hub for the rest of the family. When that son or daughter gets married, their wife or husband will come live with them in their parents' house, in effect being legally adopted by that family. Another way children show respect for their parents is by studying extra hard to get into a good national university, which is much less expensive than private universities -- as a parent with an almost-university-aged son I'm 100% in favor of this tradition. Last time I was in Shibuya I noticed large posters advertising the final single of popular hip-hop group FUNKY MONKEY BABYS. It turns out that one of the members (DJ Chemical) had promised to follow in his father's footsteps by becoming a Buddhist priest and taking over the temple that his family ran, so he's cutting his fabulous musical career short in order to fulfill his father's wishes.

DJ Chemical (the one in the middle) is starting a new career as a Buddhist priest.

All About "Metabo" and Healthya Coffee

You may remember reading a few years ago that Japan had "outlawed" being overweight. Like much of what you read about Japan, this was completely mis-reported; in reality the government had only established guidelines defining "metabolic syndrome" (in Japanese, メタボ metabo) in an effort to put pressure on companies to encourage employees with waistlines above 85 cm/33.5 inches for men and 90 cm/35.4 inches for women to pay more attention to their health. Those who were above this waistline limit would be offered free counseling by a designated health professional when they get their annual check-up, which they can of course accept or decline as they like. While obesity is really a non-problem in Japan so far -- the country ranks #28 among developed nations as of 2010 -- there's concern that the allure of Western food like McDonald's could create issues later. (I've been told that the small intestine of the Japanese is several meters shorter than those of Westerners, which means they're not as efficient at digesting red meat, though this could easily be a local urban legend.). In practice, the new focus on metabo is a way to shame men -- and nearly always men, as Japanese women are presumably already uptight enough about their weight -- into being more concerned about their health, and even men who are generally slender and fit will be told that no, you actually have 内臓脂肪 naizo-shibo or fat around your internal organs, as if fat isn't everywhere in the body to some degree. The Japanese marketplace is overflowing with various diet products from Calorie Mate to fat-burning Pepsi Special. Now the makers of Healthya health-conscious bottled iced tea have a new product, Healthya Coffee, canned coffee that contains special polyphenols to aid fat burning.

Japan has many products to combat "metabo."

Golden Week 2013 Report

Japan has started Golden Week, a semi-accidental grouping of holidays which gives everyone a nice break from their normal school or work lives. The name Golden Week was coined in 1951 when an executive at the Daiei Movie Company noticed a spike in ticket sales around these holidays, so his company started a campaign to advertise the holiday week as a great time to go see a movie, in the same way that "golden time" ("prime time" to most of us) is the best time to watch television. While the Golden Week name has become universal today, Japan's public broadcasting network NHK stoically refuses to use it, preferring the term 連休 renkyuu ("period of consecutive holidays") to avoid using a label created to advertise a private industry. Golden Week is a major economic boon for leisure-oriented businesses, including tourist spots like Hawaii, Guam and California, so if you happen to notice more Japanese people in your city than normal this week, you'll know why. In the Tokyo area, a popular destination is Karuizawa, the pleasant mountain town featured in several anime series including Waiting in the Summer, and for me, nothing defines Golden Week better then spending a couple hours riding a rented bicycle under the canopy of trees there.

Golden Week is a time for leisure for the Japanese.

Japanese Stuff for Mother's Day?

May is almost here, and that means that Mother's Day isn't far off, so here's a reminder to check the site for any cool mom-friendly products from Japan she might like. My own mother had a great love of Japan, and was always happy to receive gifts from me, from Totoro ceramic music boxes to random interior products to decorate her home with like Japanese Kokeshi dolls. If your mother is interested in Japan, too, why not browse the site to find cool possible gifts for her?