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 Posted: Sun Nov 17, 2019 7:07 pm
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Posted: Sun Nov 17, 2019 7:20 pm
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11 Surprising Things That Come from Japan
J-List
Mon, Oct 28, 2019 8:22 am
11 Surprising Things That Come from Japan
It’s well known that many of the conveniences of our modern world originally came from Japan. The country’s many innovations have included CD players, video cameras, toilets that wash your butt for you, the lithium battery in your phone and the LCD screen you’re reading these words on now. But it’s fun to explore some less-famous things that come from Japan. Let’s explore 11 things that originated in Japan.
Fortune Cookies
Based on a cookie sold in Kyoto in the 19th century that contained an omikuji fortune, and first sold in the U.S. at the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco in the 1890s or early 1900s. They eventually became associated with Chinese-American food culture instead of Japanese.
Lots of Words
The Occupation of Japan from 1945-1952 naturally brought Allied soldiers into close contact with Japan, and a lot of words entered the English. These include “head honcho” (from ?? hancho, the leader of a group or team) and tycoon (from ??, a word created to serve as a formal address for the Shogun). Other words that are Japanese include bokeh, panko, and emoji.
Modern Reality Television
Back in the 90s, I watched a show called Susunu! Denpa Shonen, which had such interesting concepts as following two comedians as they hitchhiked from the bottom of South America to the top of North America, or another comedian who lived in a one-room apartment naked, subsisting on food that he managed to win in online contests, or another segment that followed two other comedians as they try to escape from a desert island (though the drama is lessened by the fact that they’re obviously being followed by a camera crew). To me, these shows seemed to inspire the later wave of Western reality television.
Rock, Paper, Scissors
Although based on similar hand games created in China, the modern form of jan-ken-pon developed in Japan in the 17th century. It was first described in English in the New York Times article in 1932. So rock-paper-scissors really does come from Japan.
Tornadoes
For years, tornadoes have been ranked on the F-scale. The F stands for Fujita, as the system was developed by Tetsuya “Ted” Fujita, who spent his life researching them.
Futures Contracts
I was surprised to see on Wikipedia that the idea of futures contracts began in Japan with the Osaka Rice Market in 1730. Also, the candlestick charting method was also developed in Japan.
Robots?
Do robots come from Japan? Karakuri ningyo, wind-up mechanized dolls that can do things like serve tea or do simple performances, can be thought of as the origin of robots. They date back to 1662.
Instant Coffee
We all know that instant ramen was invented in Japan, when Monofuku Ando started the Nisshin Noodle Company at the age of 48. (So don’t let anyone tell you you’re too old to try something new.) But did you know that instant coffee was also invented by a Japanese? In 1881 a Japanese student named Satori Kato was researching matcha powder and was able to create coffee that could be vacuum dried for easy drinking later.
The Cell Phone Camera
I remember when the first crappy cell phones with cameras in them, sometime around 1997, which were called sha-me (from shashin meaning photo and mail) at the time. The pictures were the size of a postage stamp and looked terrible.
The Novel
The Tale of Genji, the story of the many loves of a fictional member of the Japanese Imperial Family, the book is considered the first novel, with characters and structure similar to today’s novels. There are several anime adaptions, by the Genji Monogatari Sennenki version from 2009 is my favorite.
Cosplay
The idea of obsessively dressing up as your favorite fictional characters kicked off at a science-fiction convention in Yokohama in 1978. The term itself emerged in 1983, when the editors of My Anime Magazine needed to shorten “hero costume play” to “cosplay” to fit the copy on the page.
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Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 2:59 pm
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What Were The First Words of Japanese You Learned?
J-List
Mon, Nov 18, 2019 8:22 am
What Were The First Words of Japanese You Learned?
One of the fun parts of becoming an anime fan is opening yourself to a completely new language, which naturally brings a world of new concepts. I studied Japanese at SDSU and assisted my studies by watching anime and reading Manga, as well as transcribing and translating my favorite songs so I could sing them at karaoke. I thought it’d be interesting to ask J-List’s followers what their first words of Japanese were, and here’s the list we came up with!
I want to write about the first Japanese words we all learned. What were the first words of nihongo you became aware of, on your journey as a student of anime?
— Peter Payne November 15, 2019
Kawaii. Yes, the Japanese word for “cute.” It’s actually very old, and shows up in The Tale of Genji, often considered the first true novel, written 1000 years ago.
Baka. Japan is different from English in that there aren’t a lot of highly anatomically descriptive insults to use on people. One of the most common ones is baka, written with the character for “horse” and “deer.” Supposedly the word is based on some legend about a king who couldn’t tell the two animals apart. The Osaka version of the word is aho.
Kokoro. A word that takes a little time to fully understand, kokoro represents the metaphysical aspects of one’s heart. When people switch bodies, their kokoro are said to have switched.
Naruhodo. It means “I see” or “that’s a good point.”
Yappari/yahari. They mean “as expected” or “I knew it.”
Kakka or Ware-Ware. Two words I learned as an old-school fan. kakka means “your Excellency” and ware-ware is a formal way to say “we.”
Sugoi. It means “amazing” or “incredible.”
Sasuga. This one is kind of hard to translate. sasuga basically means “wonderful, as usual” or “great, as may be expected” and is used to praise someone for living up to our expectations. Written with characters that mean “flow” and “stone,” it’s was coined by writer Natsume Souseki based on a Chinese poetic word.
Itadakimasu. It’s the honorific version of “to receive.” You’re basically thanking the person who made the meal for you, or thanking the animal that died so you could eat it, depending on how Buddhist you want to get.
Hassha. All Godzilla fans know , which means “fire!” or “launch!”
Origami The first word of Japanese I remember learning, other than domo arigato, Mr. Roboto from the famous Styx song (which I thought was Italian for the longest time) was origami. I had a book called Flying Origami in the third grade, and I remember puzzling over this bizarre word, wondering how it might be pronounced.
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Posted: Wed Nov 20, 2019 12:33 pm
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Japanese and American Animation: Which is Better?
J-List
Wed, Nov 20, 2019 8:24 am
Japanese and American Animation: Which is Better?
Over on Twitter I have fun with J-List’s many followers, trading memes and discussing currently airing anime as well as classics from the past. Sometimes I tweet something that causes a huge explosion of comments, like when I opened a discussion about what voice actors we all get a little obsessive about. Yesterday I tweeted a post by an animator in Japan comparing two made-for-television animation shows from 2018, Violet Evergarden and Thundercats Roar...
This generated a ton of comments both on Twitter and on Facebook, and showed me once again that fans are really passionate about the animation they love, whether it’s “anime” (animation done in anime style generally being based on works by Japanese artists and writers, and produced in Japan or various Asian countries) or American animation (generally based on works by American studios, aimed at various target audiences in the U.S. and animated in the U.S. and various Asian countries). So naturally, I wanted to write my take on this discussion.
Right off the bat, several readers pointed out that cherry picking any two shows gives results that are not very useful. You could just as easily take some great work of American animation and compare it to Crayon Shin-chan or Doraemon, which are animated in a more cartoonish style. The shows are aimed at different audiences, too: the kind of sophisticated anime fan who will appreciate Violet Evergarden is quite different from a younger fan watching Thundercats Roar, or an aficionado of the previous Thundercats series.
It’s interesting to step back and look at the different paths of animation studios in Japan and the U.S. have taken. Back in my childhood days, the animation was mostly limited to Saturday Morning Cartoons, and for a child, there was nothing more magical than waking up early and sitting in front of the TV to watch Scooby Doo or Super Friends or whatever the big three networks had lined up for us. Around the time Filmation — the studio that pioneered reusing the same animation again and again, which felt to me like a “kids are stupid, they won’t notice” attitude — was becoming a powerhouse in the animation world in the U.S., anime started to become more and more popular, it seemed that a paradigm shift was in motion.
The trend continued, and for a while the American animation industry seemed to be on the defensive, like the time Disney tried to “out-anime anime” with Atlantis: The Lost Empire, which was painful to see. Another issue was that U.S. studios were more susceptible to being targeted by annoying parents’ groups, who lobbied that cartoons should always be “family-friendly” and complaining about awesome shows like Hanna-Barbara’s Johnny Quest because it had guns, drama, and danger, which apparently children can’t handle. Compared to the watered-down stories about “friends working together” and jets which always showed pilots parachuting out of their jets before they exploded, because “you can’t show death in cartoons,” anime was blowing up cities and planets, showing characters in romantic relationships and providing stories that were generally more compelling.
Today anime and American animation are as different as anime is from Hollywood. Anime focuses on the tropes its good at, like isekai, harems and cute half-demon sisters, and American studios do on what they’re good at: shows that specialize in snark, series that self-parody themselves with bizarre character designs, or shows that just want to tell uniquely American kinds of stories, like King of the Hill or Adventure Time or the various DC superhero stories, using the medium of animation.
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Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2019 4:36 pm
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Who’s Your Favorite Side Character in Anime?
J-List
Wed, Nov 27, 2019 8:24 am
Who’s Your Favorite Side Character in Anime?
There seems to be an unwritten rule in anime that the main character will often be surpassed in popularity by the side characters around him or her. Sometimes this is extreme, like in Evangelion, Sailor Moon or Ojamamajo Doremi, where virtually all the side characters are more interesting to viewers than the main characters. I asked J-List’s cool followers to tell me their favorite side characters in anime, and this is what we came up with!
Who’s your favorite side character in anime? Mina from Takagi-san
Mako Mankanshoku. A great sidekick for Ryuko from Kill la Kill, she is always the most entertaining character on screen.
Miharu Mikuni. One of the many side chicks in Kiss x Sis, she was entertaining and fun
to watch, though her “charm point” was, er, incontinence.
Himeko Tachibana. One of the hallmarks of Kyoto Animation is that their characters are so beautifully designed, even the side characters become beloved of fans. Himeko, the girl who sits next to Yui, developed a huge fan following.
Inosuke Hashibara. There are a lot of great characters in Demon Slayer, but Inosuke is the most entertaining to watch. He’s one of my favorite side characters in anime.
Mina, Sanae and Yukari. Though they’re side characters, they’ve got a huge following by fans who say they’d watch a series just about them.
Tsuruya-san. The friend and defender of Mikuru, we know very little about her, including her full name. Yet she’s a very popular side character in anime, spawning memes, and a whole manga just about her.
Saten and Uiharu. Though they lack the flashy esper powers of the other Railgun characters, they’re always entertaining us, usually while exposing poor Uiharu’s pantsu.
Hibiki Tsukahara. You’d think the six main heroines of Amagami SS would be enough for fans, but many of them obsessed over Hibikim the friend to Haruka. There’s tons of fanart focusing on her.
Here are your Captains favorites:
Rei from Evangelion (She is a go to it kind of girl)
Rei Hino from Sailor Moon (Though she maybe considered a Main Character)
Nurse Joy from Pokemon (I have considered Crossplaying her)
Joey from Yu-Gi- Oh! (Red Eye Black Dragon and devotion to his friends)
Sakura from Naruto (Though she maybe considered a Main Character)
Carla from Fairy Tail (She is so cute!!)
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Posted: Wed Dec 04, 2019 8:20 pm
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McDonald’s Anime Commercial! Is Anime Taking Over?
J-List
Wed, Dec 4, 2019 8:23 am
McDonald’s Anime Commercial! Is Anime Taking Over?
Anime appears to finally be taking over all aspects of life in Japan if the new McDonald’s anime commercial is any indication. The commercial is for the new limited GuraCoro, or Gratin Croquette Burger, which the company sells every winter. But instead of promoting it in a traditional TV spot, they decided to make a full-blown promotion using anime
The McDonald’s anime commercial is made in Idolmaster Cinderella Girls-style, and stars former AKB48 member Atsuko Maeda, veteran seiyu Ayana Taketatsu (voice of Kirino and Yuzu from Citrus), and Aimi (who’s been in BanG Dream and other shows). The three play three friends from university who are out walking in the freezing cold and decide to meet at their favorite McDonald’s and share their favorite meal together, as they reminisce about old times. (@McDonaldsJapan) December 2, 2019
In addition to the animated commercial, they’ve created “audio dramas” with each girl giving her backstory and what her relationship with the other two girls is…and of course how much eating a Gratin Croquette Burger makes her feel warm inside.
This isn’t the first time anime has been used in marketing. Companies have learned that one of the most effective ways to catch the attention of young people they want to hire is to use anime imagery, and anime-style posters promoting employment opportunities at restaurants and convenience stores are pretty common. McDonald’s dialed its recruitment efforts to 11 by making a fully animated commercial in which young people get jobs at McDonald’s and find personal satisfaction and enrichment while they cook french fries and hamburgers.
The big break for anime cross-marketing came in 2007 when Pizza Hut paid for actual product placement in the Code Geass anime, which is why C.C. is always eating pizza. Some limited pizza boxes with Code Geass art were printed and distributed, and everyone thought that would be the end of things. In reality, cross-marketing products directly to Otaku’s proved so successful, that it’s now common for everything from chewing gum to canned coffee to gyudon beef bowl to products in convenience stores to be marketed through anime art and packaging.
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Posted: Thu Dec 19, 2019 11:12 pm
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Six Things Foreigners Should Not Do In Japan
J-List
Wed, Dec 18, 2019 8:26 am
Six Things Foreigners Should Not Do In Japan
Recently, Japan has been blessed with a high number of foreign visitors that have been flocking to Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto to take in all the wonderful mysteries that the country has to offer. And while this has been an incredibly positive thing both for the foreign visitors to Japan as well as Japan itself, which benefits economically, there are times when gaijin go a little too far. So here’s a post discussing six things foreigners should not do in Japan.
The Boom in Tourism in Japan
Tourism has positively exploded in Japan over the past decade. After dropping to a low of 6 million per year in the aftermath of the 3.11.11 tsunami and Fukushima disaster, it’s shot up at a steady pace, topping 30 million visitors in 2018, a number which will only increase with next year’s 2020 Olympics.
This has changed Japan in some major ways, as pretty much every business has re-aligned itself to be more convenient to foreign visitors, printing up menus in English, Chinese and Korean, adding free WiFi to their establishments and doing other things to help us feel welcome. The visitors come from all over the world, with numbers from China, Taiwan, Vietnam, France, Australia and the USA all rising yearly. Only numbers from South Korea are falling, As a result of the high number of tourists, Japanese have become even warmer and more welcoming to visitors than they already were, always happy to tell us which subway line to take and talk with us if we’re seated beside them in a bar. In my new weekend life in Tokyo, I’ve been enjoying chatting with people from all over the world while I eat and drink, Blade Runner-style.
So here’s a list of things to keep in mind when planning your next visit to the land of the rising sun.
First, Enjoy Your Time in Japan Without Worrying Too Much
As a foreign visitor to Japan, you’ve kind of got a special status as an okyakusan (a guest), and as such are excused from not knowing every bit of chopstick etiquette or how many times you’re supposed to ring the bell and clap before praying at a Shinto shrine. So relax and enjoy your time in Japan without stressing out about getting every little thing right.
It’s different for someone like me, a permanent resident. While the Japanese will gladly cut me slack if I make a faux pas in a social situation, I’m expected to follow social rules more than visitors from abroad.
Know What’s Illegal in Japan
Remember that Japan is still a conservative country when it comes to any kind of drugs. Even bringing your ADHD medication can be a problem. Check ahead of time if you have questions.
When in Japan, visit any koban (police box) if you need assistance or have lost a wallet or other items. They may or may not speak a lot of English, but they’ll find a way to be helpful. You can even borrow train fare from a police box (or any train station), if you promise to return the money later.
Try To Avoid Being Overly Loud
Japanese know that foreigner visitors are excited to be in Japan, and they’re forgiving if we get a little loud. But it’s nice when we are aware of what volume level is appropriate for a given room.
Basic Eating/Drinking Manners
I had an interesting experience when I attended my daughter’s high school graduation dinner in Australia, because I was the only American in the room, and thus, the only one without impeccable British table manners. I freaked out, obsessively watching the others around me to figure out how to eat without bringing shame to my country.
While eating in Japan isn’t such a formal affair, there are some basic things to avoid doing. The main points to keep in mind are:
Don’t stand your chopsticks in rice or hand food from chopstick to chopstick, as this is tied to funerals.
When drinking with others socially, it’s polite to pour for others and having them pour for you, especially if it’s a senpai or someone of higher rank than you.
A lot of establishments accept cash only, so check ahead of time.
The Japanese rarely eat while walking or in public places, although certain foods like ice cream are not a problem.
A lot of things that would be frowned upon in the West are perfectly okay here, like slurping your noodles or picking up a soup bowl to drink out of it. Note: don’t slurp spaghetti, as it’s a “Western” food and therefore subject to a different set of rules.
Don’t Be a “Maiko Paparazzi”
A newly-coined phrase this year is maiko paparazzi, which describes the tendency of foreigners visiting the Hanami Kouji area of Kyoto (the geisha district) and surrounding the poor maiko girls as they walk to work, photographing them and even rudely touching their kimonos, which are purchased by the girls themselves. To combat the “geisha stalker” problem, photography in the area has been banned, with a fine of 10,000 yen for violations.
Similarly, it’s NG — a word that sprang from the Allied Occupation of Japan meaning “no good” which the Japanese use as the opposite of OK — to photograph maids handing out flyers for maid cafes in Akihabara, or ask cosplayers at Comiket outside of approved areas for a photo.
Understand the “Golden Rule” of Japan
If there’s a single “golden rule” of Japanese society it’s that we should all avoid causing meiwaku, inconvenience or annoyance, to others. If you understand this concept, then you don’t need to know any more about how to get along in Japan. For example, you don’t need to be told that “talking on a cell phone inside a train or bus should be avoided” as this would cause meiwaku to the people around you. Also, don’t eat a steaming hot beef tongue bento on a train, like Nao did in episode 2 of Charlotte.
Bonus: You Might Want to Bring Gifts
Depending on who you’re meeting when you come to Japan, you might want to bring some random gifts from your home country with you. It’s always a good idea when visiting Japan.
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Posted: Wed Jan 15, 2020 7:23 pm
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‘Magia Record’ and the Return of the Madoka-verse
J-List
Wed, Jan 15, 2020 8:29 am
‘Magia Record’ and the Return of the Madoka-verse
Anime has taught me many things. Fun things are fun. Blue-haired girls never win romantically, especially if they happen to be childhood friends. The circumstances of one’s birth are irrelevant, it’s what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are. Another thing anime has taught me is that, no anime is ever really gone, and if you wait long enough, the anime you love will eventually return. This is what has happened with Magia Record, a high-quality spinoff of Puella Magi Madoka Magica that I think fans of the original will enjoy.
The story follows a new generation of characters who have been recruited by our old nemesis Kyubey to sign contracts and become magical girls so they can do battle with evil witches in exchange for a single wish. The story is based on a mobile game from Aniplex in which players recruit a team of magical girls and play through the game story, defeating witches and recovering grief seeds.
One of my pet peeves as a fan is that the stories told in anime are fun and enjoyable, but are often poorly structured because that’s how stories that grow out of a long manga or light novel series naturally tend to flow. So when a great anime that tells a nearly perfect story comes along (like Madoka Magica, or AnoHana, or Chu2koi season 1, or Gurren Lagann), I really want to enjoy it as a complete thing, and certainly don’t want that beauty of it to be diminished by the story continuing in a new direction. I wasn’t really a fan of the Rebellion sequel film because it disrupted the (to my mind) perfect balance of the original Madoka series. Happily, I don’t have this kind of negative reaction to Magia Record so far and am able to sit back and enjoy the totally new story, characters, and visuals the show has to offer.
Will Madoka Fans Embrace Magia Record?
One of our favorite companies in Japan is Nitroplus, which JAST USA and J-List have worked with closely on projects like Super Sonico, the 100% remastered Saya no Uta and the upcoming Togainu no Chi – Lost Blood – and Totono: YOU and ME and HER game titles. This is the company that also created Madoka Magica, and like many of their most popular works, the story flowed from the magic pen of Gen “The Butcher” Urobuchi. Whenever a new Nitroplus project is announced, fans hold their breath while they wait to learn whether Urobuchi will be personally involved with it or not.
The lack of Urobuchi’s name in the credits for Magia Record has caused some anxiety among anime fans, who assume that, when coupled with the lighter tone of the original mobile game, it means that the tightly-packed plots, dark overtones and tragic story elements of the original Madoka will be absent from the new series. While I’m not familiar with the mobile game, I can say that so far, the new series has everything fans could have asked for: a new generation of magical girls with new mysteries to discover, the familiar unsettling visual design of the witches in their bizarre worlds, plenty of dark imagery, and even a proper OP by ClariS.
I’m honestly loving the anime more than I thought possible. My mouth was literally agape as I realized that the Madoka-verse had finally returned to us. Are you hyped for the new Magia Record anime series, or do you think it will be the worst thing since season 2 of Aldnoah.Zero?
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Posted: Sat Jan 25, 2020 9:19 pm
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More Random Quora Questions About Japan Answered!
J-List
Fri, Jan 24, 2020 8:24 am
Hello and T.G.I.F. from your friends in Japan! We’re rushing today’s post a bit because today is the day of the J-List New Year Party! In Japan, groups of friends and organizations have a Year-End Party in December to commemorate what happened in the past year, and another New Year Party in January to officially mark their hopes for the new year (and decade, this year). J-List plans to keep on being your awesome Friend in Japan, so thank you for your past and future support!
More Random Quora Questions About Japan Answered!
Since I’m on a short schedule today, I thought I’d do what I’ve done in the past: answer some of the random questions about Japan I’ve seen posted to Quora. Quora, if you don’t know, is a question-and-discussion community that has always impressed me with the quality of its users and discussions from people on various sides of complex issues. Hope you enjoy my answers to random Quora Questions About Japan.
Does Japan have “America Otakus”?
The idea that being extremely into a hobby is unique to anime and Star Trek fans is completely wrong. In Japan, there are biker gang types called “Yankee” famous for dying their hair “blonde” (it generally comes out orange) and dressing like a parody of Americans from the 50s. In the 1970s, when nostalgia went mainstream in the U.S. with films like American Graffiti and Grease, Japan experienced a similar boom in classic American culture called Rockabilly, which somehow never stopped being a thing here.
Do people in Japan talk the same way in anime? Does it have the same structure and usage?
As I wrote in my post about why learning too much Japanese from anime is not the best idea, the language used in anime is highly stylized and not always representative of how people actually speak. Don’t make the mistake I did, learning ultra-manly Japanese from Fist of the North Star, which I had to work hard to un-learn…
Are Japanese game shows really as wild as the Internet leads us to believe?
I often write about how the “lens of the Internet” causes us to believe Japan is a stranger place than it really is. For example, we hear of bizarre flavors of ice cream in Japan, like wasabi or squid ink, and form an inaccurate impression, because in reality the #1 ice cream flavor in Japan is…vanilla, as it is in most countries. But that’s not very flashy, so the more colorful ice cream flavors become over-represented when Japan is viewed through the Internet.
On the other hand, the above Japanese game show — perhaps better called a variety show as these are famous Japanese actors/comedians enacting pre-set up situations rather than average contestants off the street competing for cash prizes — does exist.
Why do the Japanese love Korean dramas so much?
South Korea has worked hard to create an amazing culture of TV dramas which are among the most dramatic storytelling in the world today. I know this because my Japanese wife tells me every night as she watches hours of Korean dramas, making her sound like me explaining why I became an anime fan many years ago
Why are there still Japanese who want to move to the U.S. despite the quality of life in Japan is much higher?
First, everything is relative to each individual, and some might value the amazing opportunities and social freedom America offers over a higher level of stability and low-cost excellent healthcare system found in Japan. In the end, the place where each of us feels the deepest emotional connection is the country we’ll be happiest in.
Why does Asian culture, especially China and Japan, embrace the idea of “saving face”?
I read a lot of James Clavell’s books in my day, and this is concept is always very central to the motivations of his characters. In reality, “saving face” doesn’t really seem to be a thing in modern Japan…at least I’ve never encountered it linguistically.
Why is Japan so safe?
Crime isn’t zero in Japan — over the past 25 years, my in-law’s rural liquor store was robbed three times, but it is extremely low. Whenever a crime does happen, as we all learned last year, it can be impossible for us to fathom since Japan is usually such a peaceful place.
Do foreigners have a bad reputation in Japan?
Not at all. As the number of foreign visitors has exploded in Japan, Japan has reoriented its economy to accommodate the new wave of visitors, and they’re super to receive so much love from visitors around the world.
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Posted: Tue Feb 25, 2020 5:33 pm
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Show Us Your Favorite Patriotic Anime!
J-List
Mon, Feb 24, 2020 8:20 am
Show Us Your Favorite Patriotic Anime!
One of the most amusing aspects of watching anime is seeing what kinds of silly stereotypes will be inserted to represent characters from the U.S., Britain, Russia, and the other major countries in the world. Sometimes these can be somewhat groan-inducing, but other times they can make us feel proud to see our home countries represented in anime. I asked J-List’s Twitter followers to share their favorite patriotic anime related to their home countries, and this is what we came up with.
United States
There are a lot of patriotic anime images of the USA, with side characters often being included. Americans in anime are always tall, sporting flamboyant personalities and positive attitudes.
Americans are portrayed as being “my pace” (living life at their own pace) and being outside of social rules, which they can pull off because they’re American.
Britain
British girls nearly always seem to be blonde, be extremely cultured and drink tea constantly, even while fighting in a tank.
Canada
Canada doesn’t get that much love in anime, and I was going to go for the generic option of a Hetalia gif. Then I remembered this awesome commercial animated by Your Name-creator Makoto Shinkai promoting tourism in Canada. Sadly I couldn’t find any anime gifs of characters eating poutine.
China
China is well represented in anime, nearly always with highly skilled characters who wear “China dresses” (aka qipao) every day. Do they wear those in China?
Singapore
When the girls from A Place Further Than the Universe stopped off at Singapore on their way to Antarctica, a squee of joy was heard, as Singaporean fans thrilled to see their country represented in anime.
Australia
Despite having a close relationship with Australia, there’s not much representation of the country in anime other than good old Hetalia, an episode of Sabagebu where the characters travel there to engage in Mad Max jokes, plus an anime based on Lucy May Poppel.
France
France is well represented in anime, from Rose of Versailles to Nodame Cantabile. In an episode of Dagashi Kashi poor Hotaru gets France and Italy mixed up a little.
Italy
Italy also shows up in anime a lot, in such great shows as Kurenai no Buta and Gunslinger Girl. The 4th season of Lupin III was outstanding, set entirely in beautiful locations in Italy.
Germany
Germany gets a big shoutout in JoJo, and many popular characters hail from the country, from Laura Bodewig to Erica Hartman.
Switzerland
If you’re from Switzerland, there’s a good chance you know and love Heidi, Girl of the Alps, which is a very patriotic anime for that country.
Belgium
The Manekin Pis statue in Belgium is ridiculously famous in Japan, and there’s a replica of the statue in Hamamatsucho Station in Tokyo. Every week attendants dress him in different cute costumes.
Russia
Japan seems to be fascinated by Russians, and imagine them to have magical fairy-like powers. The Katyusha song from Girls und Panzer was a great moment of friendship between Russia and Japan.
Scandinavia
The Scandinavian countries don’t get featured in anime very much except for Vinland Saga! A long and detailed dramatic anime about Vikings living in the old days. How cool is that?
Dutch
I couldn’t find any Dutch anime characters, but don’t worry: “Neo Holland” gets an awesome mecha in G Gundam.
Mexico
Mexico is another country that’s under-represented in Japan, which probably has something to do with the fact that there was a diaspora of Japanese emigrating to Peru and Brazil in the early 20th century, but not to Mexico. As a result, it can be a real challenge to get anything resembling decent Mexican food in Tokyo, and the only Mexican anime image I could find was the Teqilla Gundam.
India
Finally, India gets a few references, most famously in the hardworking character Arvind Lavie from the outstanding Planetes by Sunrise.
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Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2020 1:17 am
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Which Era of Anime Characters is the Best?
J-List
Wed, Mar 11, 2020 8:21 am
Which Era of Anime Characters is the Best?
One topic that’s fun to explore is why some fans perceive “classic” anime girls from the 80s or 90s (or whatever era they happened to become anime fans in) as “better” than anime characters from today, perhaps because of the nostalgia factor or perhaps they don’t like modern anime character designs. Let’s have some fun exploring which era of anime characters is the best
Features of 80s Anime Characters
Let’s begin with the 80s analyzing some of the tropes that were popular at the time, both visually and internally, so we can find which era of anime characters is the most awesome.
The 80s was the decade when anime became a mainstream industry, with the popularity of Urusei Yatsura, Super Dimensional Fortress Macross, Dragon Ball, and other shows. As I’ve written before, pretty much every child in Japan is a “proto-otaku” while growing up, watching anime and reading manga avidly. As the pressures of life start to kick in around junior high school, they must make a choice as to whether they’ll “grow up” and become a career-focused adult, or maintain an interest in otaku culture going forward.
The 80s were visually bold, with hand-painted cels and a high level of attention to the shadows that fall on the face — there were almost always three pigments used on a face, no more and less — as well as meticulous attention to the eyes. With some exceptions — Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Oscar from Rose of Versailles — it’s hard to find a truly strong and complex female character from an era when most shows were about males wanting to pilot giant robots.
Changes in Anime Characters in the 90s
What anime officially started the 90s for you? For me, it’d be a toss-up between Hideki Anno’s Fushigi no Uta no Nadia or the awesome Record of Lodoss War, the anime that first introduced Western-style fantasy themes to anime.
The 90s saw anime continue to grow as an industry, attaining massive success around the world as licensing took off and studios could make many times their animation budgets reselling series out to all the countries of the world.
Many innovations happened in the 90s, including adding characters and story elements that both male and female audiences could enjoy on equal footing (Sailor Moon, Gundam Wing, Evangelion). A lot of the tropes we take for granted now, from twin-tail hair to tsundere girls who hide their emotions behind the violence to characters with “alternate sexuality,” became commonplace during this era.
Visually anime creators abandoned the bizarre facial shadows and other details that defined the 80s and created a more varied look across the various types of shows. The 90s also saw the beginnings of moé — characters designed to be so cute, they cause (mostly male) viewers to experience feelings of love and protectiveness. The term is attributed to the extreme cuteness of Tomoe Hotaru (Sailor Saturn), though the “characters so cute you can’t resist buying” go back to the days of ZZ Gundam at least.
Moving Into the 2000s
I’d say the “modern” decade of the 2000s was defined by three factors: the end of hand-painted cells in favor of digitally colored frames, which happened by the year 2000; the rise of anime based on light novels rather than manga comics; and the bursting of the international anime licensing bubble in 2006.
The first change meant that the style of anime shifted slightly as 100% digital coloring was introduced into animation, which explains why the old guy at your local anime convention hasn’t gotten in any new stock of animation cels in the last 20 years. The big shift to stories based on light novels, which took the lead in this decade, meant a much higher level of complexity and quality in the stories and characters anime showed us. And the 2006 bursting of the anime bubble (when Music Land, Suncoast Video and Newtype USA all failed) caused anime studios to come up with new ways to sell to existing fans.
How Were Anime Characters in the 2010s?
This is a harder question to answer. Other than the fixing of the “anime season” system, with anime series either being 1-cour (12 episodes) or 2-cour (24 episodes), it’s hard to come up with themes that define this decade when we look back someday. Some candidates might include the following:
1. Standardization of genres, allowing us to immediately identify whether a show is isekai, slice-of-life, cute-girls-doing-cute-things, idol, or whatever, very quickly.
2. Some interesting “post-modern” series that turned established genres on their heads (like Madoka Magica)
3. Attempts by studios to get fans to accept more CGI than they were usually on board with.
How did anime characters change visually in the past decade? Again, it’s hard to think of any specific themes, other than that character designers got really good at pushing the emotional buttons of most of us fans, as we saw during Rem’s confession scene in Re:Zero. I’m sure after another decade we’ll be able to look back at the decade of the 2010s with more hindsight and judge things better.
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Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2020 7:46 pm
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What We Can Learn From the ‘Eizouken’ Anime
J-List
Fri, Mar 27, 2020 8:44 am
What We Can Learn From the ‘Eizouken’ Anime
The current anime season is winding down, and it’s time to finish up the various anime series we’ve been watching. While this has been a difficult time for us all, being told that to “stay home and watch more anime” in order to save the world does have a certain appeal to it. One show that really impressed me this season Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken, a love-letter to the old days when anime was focused on fanciful, organic mecha instead of isekai worlds and idols.
As I wrote in my first write - up on the show, Eizouken ni wa Te wo Dasu Na! is a lovely and wonky anime about three girls who decide to create an anime together, following their adventures as they work to achieve their dream. The series is filled with shout-outs to the classic days of anime and is based on the three founders of Studio Ghibli. Let’s see what we can learn about anime and life from Eizouken!
Midori Asakusa
The main character is Asakusa, who as a young girl watched Future Boy Conan and was drawn into the show’s universe, desiring to design the kinds of mecha and flying ships she saw there. She possesses an amazing imagination and is able to create beautiful mecha and bizarre worlds for them to inhabit at a moment’s notice. As the mecha designer of the trio, she most represents Hayao Miyazaki (My Neighbor Totoro, Castle in the Sky).
Tsubame Mizusaki
A rich and free-spirited girl, Mizusaski is under pressure to enter the entertainment world by her famous actor parents, but she has other plans: to become a world-class animator. When she’s banned from joining the school’s anime club, she decides to create a “visual arts research club” (eizouken) with the other girls to get around her parents’ rule. Since Tsubame is a popular girl in school, Kanamori is quick to use her as the kanban musume (literally “sign girl”) who will serve as the face of the group. As the team’s passionate animator, she fulfills the role of Isao Takahata (Grave of the Fireflies), who passed away in 2018
Sayaka Kanamori
The third girl is Kanamori, who is so focused on getting money for the team’s projects that she picks up the nickname “Kanamoney.” She’s clearly meant to represent Toshio Suzuki, the money-minded business manager at Studio Ghibli.
Kanamori is serious about promoting the group’s works through social media because she knows that “no one will come to a store nobody knows about.” When she was a girl, she helped out at a local liquor shop, only to watch helplessly as the store went bankrupt because the owners refused to be innovative about their business. A lot of career-minded people obsess over Alec Baldwin’s famous “always be closing” speech, but I believe the scene in which Kanamori details the sad death of the rural liquor store (which is in episode 9) has the potential to provide an equally enlightening lesson for anyone with an entrepreneurial bent.
The scene certainly resounded with me because I run a business that’s dependent on reaching many followers through Twitter and Facebook, and also because my house is literally a rural liquor store run by my wife’s elderly parents.
The Fantasy Element of Eizouken is the Best
One of the joys of the show is when the three girls enter one of Asakusa’s meticulously-crafted worlds, which are somehow animated as if Miyazaki had manually painted the scene with watercolor paints, and yet the motion flows with unbelievable smoothness.. This obviously needs to be done with the magic of CGI, something I complain about in some settings. But after the fantastic visuals in Eizouken (as well as last year’s BEASTARS!), I clearly need to re-think some of my own biases.
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Posted: Fri May 29, 2020 12:29 am
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12 Japanese Superstitions Explained
J-List
Mon, May 25, 2020 8:30 am
12 Japanese Superstitions Explained
I’ve learned a lot about the Japanese people in the 28+ years I’ve lived in Japan. They’re extremely hardworking, which is one reason I enjoy working alongside the Japanese staff of J-List. They’re hygienic by nature, already having a tradition of wearing protective masks and washing hands regularly, which has been very helpful during the virus crisis. I also learned that Japanese can be extremely superstitious, holding many unique and colorful beliefs. So here’s a post with 12 Japanese superstitions explained, with cute anime images!
Japanese Superstitions: Blood Types
One thing we learn early as fans is that anime and manga creators can be obsessive about blood types, meticulously assigning them to their characters. The origin of the belief that blood type and personality traits are related comes from research done in Japan in the 1920s. While rejected by the medical community. blood type superstition remains strong in Japan and South Korea today.
The supposed blood type personality elements are:
Type A people are extremely organized and meticulous, almost to the point of being a**l retentive.
Type B are creative but sloppy and are “my pace” (living life at their own pace). I am type B, and my type-A wife constantly writes off the things I do that annoy her to my blood type. There are laws in place to keep employers from discriminating against workers by blood type (primarily type B people), and it’s illegal to ask blood type on job applications.
Type O people are easygoing and make natural leaders. During WWII the Japanese military promoted men with type O blood over other blood types, believing them to be better leaders.
Type AB are talented and composed, but can be “two-faced,” having dual natures they hide from others.
The Japanese Are Very Connected To Their Ancestors
While most Japanese will insist they have no religion at all, the “default” spiritual system of Japan is Buddhism, and as a rule, the Japanese generally feel a close connection to their ancestors, specifically their deceased grandmother and grandfather. In situations where a Christian would feel they’d received internal guidance from Jesus or Mary, I’ve observed that the Japanese will believe their dead grandmother (or whoever they were closest to) was present, showing them what to do. One of the most important holidays in Japan is Obon, a Buddhist event when the souls of the dead are believed to return home for a visit, riding on horses and cows (represented by cucumbers and eggplants, which parents make with their children).
Don’t Stand Chopsticks Up in Rice
Many Japanese beliefs are related to funerals. Don’t stick chopsticks straight up in rice, because it’s done for the dead at funerals, and don’t hand food to someone chopst0ck-to-chopstick for the same reason. Similarly, you should never sleep with your head pointing north, because this is reserved for the dead on their final night before cremation. And make sure to throw salt on your body when arriving home after a funeral, or the soul of the dead person will enter your house. You wouldn’t want that!
(Salt has always been seen as a purifying agent in Japan, and whenever someone my wife dislikes comes to our house, my wife will actually throw salt on the ground to purify it after the person has left. Try it with people you dislike, it feels oddly reassuring.)
The Number 4
There are a lot of number-related superstitions in Japan, the most famous being the number 4, which can be read shi, which phonetically means (death). They also dislike the numbers 13 (the traditional unlucky number from the West) and 9 (which can be read ku (meaning “agony”). Airline counters will usually omit all three of these numbers. On the other hand, Friday the 13th is oddly seen as a day good things happen in Japan.
Japanese Superstitions: Lucky and Unlucky Days
If you’ve ever bought a Japanese calendar from J-List, you might have wondered what the kanji are written on the days were. They are rokuyo, a system of six rotating days that including taian (“big peace”), the luckiest day for getting married, butsumetsu (“death of Buddha”), the unluckiest day, and tomobiki (“take you away with him”), a day you should never have a funeral or the living will be “taken away with” the deceased person. Generally Japanese people will not take delivery on a new car before checking their calendar to choose a “lucky day” for the arrival to take place.
Don’t Write Names in Red
You should never write a name with a red pen. It’s basically instant Death Note if you do.
Names and Superstitions
The Japanese can feel strongly about names, and the luck they bring. When I first arrived in Japan I did a stupid thing, legally registering my name as in kanji, because I thought it looked cool. The downside is that I have to write these difficult characters on every official form I fill out. I’d like to change my name, but my wife insists that doing so would be a terrible mistake, fundamentally altering my destiny, so I’ll keep it the same.
The Red String of Fate
Many Japanese beliefs come from China, like the belief that someone is connected to the person they’ll eventually marry by a “red string of fate”
Sneezing
If you sneeze, it means someone is gossiping about you. Have you noticed this in anime?
Every Western Superstition
In addition to various and sundry local folk beliefs, the Japanese have imported many of the superstitions believed in the West, from the number 13 to nervousness about black cats and walking under ladders.
Hinoeuma: Fire-Horse Girls
The Chinese Zodiac a big part of life in Japan, and it’s believed that the animal of the year you were born in affects your life. The “worst” year to be born in is called hinoeuma, or “fire-horse,” a remnant of a romantic story about a woman named Oshichi who met a temple page during a fire in Edo in 1682. She wanted to see the boy again, so she got the bright idea of setting the city on fire a second time, so they could be together. This grew into a superstition that girls born on the 6th cycle of the Year of the Horse would be headstrong and unable to be happy in life, which caused Japan’s birthrate to drop notably the last time it happened in 1966. There’s another Fire-Horse year coming up in 2026…I wonder what will happen?
The Biggest Japanese Superstition: Yakudoshi
Finally, the most closely-followed of the Japanese superstitions is yakudoshi, or a “bad luck year” when everything will go wrong, which means you should always avoid doing things like buying cars, building houses, or starting a new business around these periods. The ages are 25, 42, and 61 for men, and 19, 33, and 37 for women. Happily you can go to certain Buddhist temples that specialize in yaku-yoke, the removal of yakudoshi bad luck. In most aspects of Japan, this belief is very old, dating back to the Kamakura Period (1185–1333).
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Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2020 1:05 am
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How Does Anime Define True Love?
J-List
Wed, Jun 3, 2020 8:27 am
How Does Anime Define True Love?
As expected, Kaguya-sama: Love is War is one of the gems of the current anime season, offering lots of entertainment as we follow the romantic “war” between Kaguya Shinomiya and Miyuki Shirogane, who both love each other, but want the other to confess their love first. In a recent episode, Kaguya gets dejected and asks the cynical-but-good-hearted Ishigami about the meaning of love. Here’s the exchange:
Kaguya: Ishigami-kun, have you ever suffered from not being able to obtain true love?
Ishigami: True love? Let’s be a little more realistic. In this day and age, nobody can love another person without any self-interest involved. It’s foolish. Now, realistic love that’s in each person’s heart… Why don’t people realize that’s what true love is?
Something about the exchange bothered me, because I didn’t know the word Ishigami used, and the subtitles didn’t seem to cover the situation appropriately. Investigating further, the phrase he used was toushindai no ai, literally meaning “love as tall as your height is,” which is a romantic phrase meaning love without exaggeration or falsehood, with both parties trying just the right amount for the relationship to flourish. J-List’s DVD buyer explained it to me this way: “In this case, each person gives 100%. Not trying too hard by giving 120%, and not being lazy, giving just 80%.” In order words, Ishigami-kun’s advice on love is to find someone you can be comfortable with, with a good balance between what each person puts into the relationship.
Incidentally, Chika also answered Kaguya’s question on the nature of true love.
Chika: It’s simple! True love is the kind of love that can’t be swayed by appearance, like with Beauty and the Beast. Love that cools off just because one person’s appearance changes sucks! It’s fake!
How the Japanese Define Love
Since words create the framework for our thoughts, it might be interesting to look at the words used to express love in Japanese. They are:
suki. Literally means “like” but also represents the first stages of romantic love.
daisuki. “Big like.”
koi. The word for romantic love, the “fiery” sexual love you experience in the early years of a relationship before it cools to a longer-term love.
ai. The primary word for love is ai, which encompasses the truest love and affection you feel for others. While koi is always a romantic in nature, ai can be the love we feel for family members, our country, or all of mankind. The deepest way to say “I love you” is ai shiteiru, but this is almost “too romantic” to be used. Yasu, J-List’s doujinshi artist contact manager, says it to his wife only once every five years or so, “so when I say it, it will really have an impact.”
ren’ai. A combination of koi and ai that means romantic love. Sei, no…
Like, love. English terms are sometimes used for clarity, as in the example below. The word suki essentially means “like” so Madoka had to switch to the English words to finally learn Kyosuke’s feelings for her.
Other Ways Anime Defines True Love
This got me wondering what other ways anime defines true love. Here are some examples!
Welcome To The N.H.K
Of course, it’s fashionable for otaku-focused anime to make jokes about love being a “trap,” as Yamazaki from Welcome to the N.H.K. does. "Romantic Love is a trap to expand the capitalist system!
Sakura-sou no Pet na Kanojo
The pragmatic Ryuunosuke from The Pet Girl of Sakura-sou expressed similar feelings towards the idea of love. Of course, the jokes are on him, since Rita has him in her sights, and is very aggressive about winning him. "Love is simply an electric bug in the human neural circuit. You can throw your unnecessary emotions into that trash can here"
Love Is Like A Cocktail
According to the cute short anime Love is Like a Cocktail (Japanese title Osake was Fuufu ni Natte Kara, or “Don’t Bring Out the Alcohol Until We’re Together as Husband and Wife”), love is defined by having a cute younger husband who loves to do housework then make exotic cocktails for you before sexy time.
Science Fell In Love So I Tried To Prove It
One adorable series was Science Fell in Love, in which two science-types fell in love, but because they couldn’t quantify what love was exactly, they decided to start a series of experiments so they could prove what love was. "This is the evidence which led me to determine that I seem to be in Love with you."
Monogatari Series
The Monogatari series offered this definition of love: if looking at their face makes you want to have their babies, you’re in love with them. It's that simple.
Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood
Finally, my preferred definition of love: finding someone who’ll give you half their life in exchange for half of yours. Can’t ask for more than that in life!
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Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2020 11:27 pm
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Want to be a Cat? Watch ‘A Whisker Away’!
J-List
Wed, Jun 24, 2020 8:27 am
Want to be a Cat? Watch ‘A Whisker Away’!
Need something to cheer you up in these trying times? Have you always wanted to give up all the worldly cares of the human world and live life as a cat? Then you should make sure to watch "A Whisker Away", an outstanding animated film from Toho and Studio Colorido that was intended to be shown in Japanese theaters, but is instead being distributed as a Netflix exclusive due to Covid-19
A Whisker Away Will Make You Want to Be a Cat
A high school girl known as Miyo (but nicknamed Muge, short for mugendai nazo ningen or “limitless enigmatic human”) is in love with her classmate Hinode, but since she’s a little “KY” — kuuki yomenai, meaning a person who’s bad at reading social situations — she doesn’t realize she’s coming on a little too strong. One day she encounters a mysterious talking cat who gives her a mask that allows her to transform into a white cat named Taro. This allows her to get close to Hinode because her cat form resembles a cat he owned who died. There’s only one problem: in exchange for the cat mask, she’s required to give up her “human mask” to a certain cat in the story who desperately wants to live as a human. And if enough time goes by…she might have to remain a cat permanently.
A Whisker Away is a wonderful film, and everyone who has Netflix should make sure to watch it. It’s kind of a cross between Spirited Away and The Cat Returns, two of my favorite Ghibli films. It’s created by Junichi Sato, director of the first two seasons of the original Sailor Moon, and written by Mari Okada, the genius scriptwriter behind AnoHana, so you can expect some feels along the way.
Meaning of ‘Nakitai Watashi wa Neko o Kaburu‘
The Japanese title of A Whisker Away translates to Wanting to Cry, I Pretend to Be a Cat. The phrase neko o kaburu literally means to wear a cat on your head, and expresses the idea of hiding your true nature in front of others, something like the phrase “a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” In the case of Muge, she’s always acting cheerful and genki even though she’s going through a lot, due to anxiety over her father’s remarriage and her feelings towards Hinode.
There’s a whole category of cat-related phrases in Japanese, and when I was studying Japanese, I had fun trying to learn them all. Here are some common-ish cat-related words you might encounter in Japanese!
neko-jita, or a “cat’s tongue.” It means someone who can’t stand to eat hot foods.
neko no te mo karitai means “I’m so busy, I’d borrow a cat’s paw to get all my work done.”
neko ni koban means “gold coins before a cat.” It means the same thing as “pearls before swine,” e.g. something that’s useless in a given situation.
neko no hitai, literally “the forehead of a cat,” which is not very large. Someone might apologize for having a small house, saying, “Sorry my house is so cramped. It’s as small as the forehead of a cat!”
nekomeshi, literally “cat-rice” is miso soup with rice mixed in. It’s terribly gauche and everyone’s embarrassed if their children eat this peasant food, yet my kids loved it growing up.
nekoze or “cat’s back” is what a person with a hunched back is called. I have one of these after 20+ years of blogging about anime and Japan
umineko or “sea-cat” is a traditional word for a seagull because a seagull’s cry and cat’s meow sound similar.
As you can tell, the Japanese love cats quite a lot.
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