The lack of updates recently is because I’ve been in the final preperations for my trip to Japan. We leave tomorrow morning and have to be at the airport prior to the “buttcrack of dawn”. I know that the main hotel we’re staying at has some sort of Internet acccess but I don’t know if I’ll have time to post anything. If I don’t; I’ll see you all in 2 weeks.
Category: Life
Sometimes, I feel the need to talk about me (imagine that).
I didn’t sleep so good last night, not quite sure why. I went to bed late and was completely exhausted but partially woke up a couple of hours before the alarm clock went off. My wrist braces1 were bothering my hands, so I took them off and tried going back to sleep. That sort of worked but it wasn’t really good sleep, as I was still somewhat awake. Though that did allow me to somewhat realize that I was dreaming while I was doing so. Unfortunately, I either had no control over the dream or I did and just never cared to change it. Also, I had the distinct impression that this was not the first time I’ve had this particular dream, though I cannot recall any other time that I’ve woken from this dream.
Just 5 days away from flying off to a foreign country for the first time. 🙂
Oh and I am working on a couple of other entries to post, but I’ve got real work to do and can’t spend the time finishing those up yet (plus a paper to finish for my course, laundry to wash and bags to pack).
As briefly mentioned in various posts on this blog, I’ll be heading to Japan for a vacation/class. The current count is 9 days until takeoff. I’ve got all the omiyage that I’m going to take with me. I’ve got plenty of clothes1. I’ve got my luggage. I’ve started planning how I’ll be packing for the trip and what all I want to take with me besides clothes (e.g. camera, sketchpad, sanity). I am getting very excited about this trip, but it still feels somewhat unreal to me.
In part because I still don’t believe I’ve got enough money to do this2 and in part because I’ve not been on an airplane since I was two. I don’t remember that flight but my Mom tells me that I handled it fairly well. The flight is one part of the trip that I’m not all that happy about as it’s fourteen hours in coach and while my legs do fold up; I’m pretty sure it’s going to be miserable for me. Of course, the worse part of the flight for me is that I’ve enjoyed watching too many disaster movies where planes have exploded, crashed, been ripped to shreds or something equally nasty happened to the passengers. It didn’t really help that I caught the episode of Mythbusters3 where they “fire a bullet into the shell of an aircraft to find out if a single shot can cause explosive decompression — and total aircraft destruction.”4 Eep!
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Well, I finished reading Patrick Drazen’s Anime Explosion! The What? Why? & Wow! of Japanese Animation over the weekend. It’s not a bad read but it’s also something that I never would have read on my own1. Mostly because I think I can grasp enough of the culture concepts presented in the Anime I watch from the context that they are given in to get the jokes. Though I will admit some of the things mentioned in this book do help with my comprehension (e.g. the concept of yasashii and some of the Japanese mythology mentioned in the book). It’s a lot more interesting than any textbook that I had to read in my college years and makes a pretty decent introduction to anime for the uninitiated.
Something to keep in mind while reading this book is that the author tends to speak about the Japanese people and their beliefs/culture as though they are a monolithic whole. While I have never been to Japan (yet); I think this is overly simplistic as there are variations in all cultures and differences between individuals2. This would break down some of the authors points, but then going into that sort of thing would probably be better addressed in some sort of advanced book about the Japanese culture rather than a beginners introduction to anime.
My only other complaint is the author seems to feel compelled to spend a large portion of the book talking about ecchi/hentai and the differences in how Japanese & Americans think about nudity. Perhaps I’m not a perfect fit for the target audience of this book; as I’ve heard about this many, many, many times before and I would have prefered the author to devote more time to other topics.
Even given my complaints, I think I would recommend this to any recent fan of anime that wants to learn more about anime’s background. At least, any fan who asked me about it in the next year or 2. Anime shows are very in-the-now and in a few years the new anime fan will not likely have heard of any of the animes mentioned by this book, which would reduce it’s value to them. As a plus3, the author does not include a must-see list of anime. This helps keep the book feeling timely as there’s no ancient list of anime to make one wish to scorn the book as being outdated and anybody who recommends the book to a new anime fan will surely have their own list of favorites to recommend as well.
1 This book is required reading for the course I’ll be starting in a couple of weeks.
2 While the Japanese due to seem to generally put the group ahead of the individual; anybody who’s looked at their J-Pop musicians can say there is definitely some variation in there!
3 I saw some reviews of this book on Amazon.com that complained there was no recommended list of anime to watch; but if those reviewers had read the book carefully, they would have realized this was deliberate due to the very ephemeral nature of anime.