Category Archives: Art

Ben-Tou Anime Review/ Impressions

Food Fight! Summary: Tasty, but pack your suspension of disbelief and a thick skin with your lunch box.

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Thoughts On Japanese Idols, In General

Just A Few Thoughts I was reading up on Japanese Idols, which, believe it or not, isn’t something I normally get into whatsoever. I’ve been focused on other areas and, well, I avoid anything that smacks of obsession like some people … Continue reading

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Even Gundams Get Snowed On

This is a life-sized, 1:1 model Gundam (making it going on 60 feet in height) that exists in real life in Japan. Gundam was Japan’s first “realistic” (that is, realistic style) leading robot in Japanese animation (i.e. anime). You can … Continue reading

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A Short Tale of a Novel

It had taken me many years, but I finally tracked down the first novel of the Record of Lodoss War novels. I’d seen the OVA years before and was a great fan of it for many reasons. It took a … Continue reading

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Sensei’s Corner, Dec. 9, 2011

Nothing Bad It’s been a while since I’ve been writing in this blog, but it’s not really because of anything bad. Actually, a number of minor and major problems have been fixed so I feel like I have the luxury … Continue reading

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So, Why I Like Japan

There’s a serious danger in trying to rant about something across cultural barriers. A Japanese native saw a re-post of my post yesterday on not hating Japan and thought that someone, either the poster or the writer (me), hates Japan … Continue reading

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Today’s Random Japan Picture, Oct 25 2011

From a festival in Kyoto. Kyoto literally means “capitol” and was once the long-time capital of Japan. To this day, it remains a great cultural epicenter.

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The Resilience of the Japanese People

A Nation United by Disaster The March 11 (“3/11″) earthquake and tsunami disaster striking Japan has brought into sharp relief the basic resilience and sense of unity of the Japanese people. Whatever the faults of Japan, this is one of … Continue reading

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Making Viewers Suffer Before Good Endings

大した苦労だった One enduring feature of Japanese storytelling is that, if there is ever to be a good ending, protagonists must appropriately suffer before it, and so must the viewers. Some shows can get very hard to watch. And not all … Continue reading

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The Japanese Art of Storytelling

I’ve written my thoughts about this before, to a point, but one of my enduring reasons for liking Japanese culture is the deep tradition of high quality storytelling that I have discovered within it.

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