Japan: Day 2
Today was the Ghibli Museum, and it's... almost a bit difficult to explain. It was really neat, and one of the first signs said something like: "You are entering a story. Become a part of the story and keep it in your memories, not in your camera." I thought that was really neat, and obviously pictures weren't allowed inside. Though outside... =D There were so many really awesome things, and my favorite room was the one with all the pictures of the backgrounds from the different Miyazaki movies. SO. MANY. PICTURES. And so much blue and green! It was really incredible.
There were some AMAZING stained glass windows - one for each major Studio Ghibli film that's already been made. So Spirited Away, Castle in the Sky, Kiki's Delivery Service, Ponyo, Nausicaa, and more were there. There was also a giant stuffed Catbus that kids were crawling all over, as well as a number of other amazing things. It was just incredible. Outside there was a giant robot like from Castle in the Sky, and he was starting to grow grass, which was so very Miyazaki. The whole place was lush and beautiful and covered in green growing things, so it was just amazing. I picked up some books and magnets and stuff, as well as a few postcards.
After the Ghibli Museum, we walked over to Kichijouji (and Cory gave me that look of "I know what you're thinking..." and he was right. "Kichijouji" -> "K. Ichijouji" -> "Ken Ichijouji" Yes.) and we grabbed some food at Kokoro Ramen. We then jumped on the Oedo line again and rode over to Musashi University, where we met up with a couple of professors there. Sensei was giving a talk about masculinity and harem anime, so the talk was pretty well attended. It was in Japanese so most of us didn't understand too much, but we got the gist of it. Especially since the powerpoint was in English, just for us. It was really interesting, what I could understand, and I ended up talking a lot with a girl named Alex who was sitting near me. She's a student from a US university who is spending a year at Musashi. John was another student from the same US school and was there as well. Then there was Laura, Charlotte and... Sahesh? I'll have to find out her name from someone else later. I heard it, but forgot it. :(
Alex told me about a bookstore called "Book Off" that sells recent titles for really cheap - kinda like the Japanese version of Half-Price Books. Sounds like heaven! I didn't get to go today, but maybe soon I'll check it out. I know I've seen one of those around before today...
But after sensei's talk, we all headed downstairs for a reception. After going to the wrong room, we eventually found where we were supposed to be, and we all hung out with some of the Japanese students. Alex and the others were learning Japanese and only had about a year of experience, but the other students were Japanese students learning German, which I have very little experience with, so it got really interesting really fast.
Sensei translated for me when I got asked about American animation and such, so I mention Avatar: The Last Airbender and told them about how American cartoons really aren't as good as they used to be, and how anime has really taken over, especially among teens and up.
Eventually though, I ended up with Brady and a group of Japanese girls. Apparently they were talking about sports before I walked into the conversation, but after I came in, we switched over to anime and video games. We talked about Cardcaptor Sakura (and the BAAAAD English version) and other things... We talked about our favorite Pokemon, and we played charades trying to figure out which one was which because the names change from Japanese to English. "Mizu" and "Yami" and "Hi" were thrown around a lot. I never thought that the Japanese words I taught myself in middle school and high school would ever come in handy... I guess they did! One girl liked Mightyena (fortunately still called "maitoyina" in Japanese), Brady liked Blastoise, and I liked Rapidash ("garoppu" in Japanese). I mentioned Digimon and we talked about our favorite seasons (another girl liked Digimon Adventure the best), and then they asked for my favorite, so I told them that my current favorite is Soul Eater.
THEN I mentioned Hetalia. Oh boy, that was fun! One of the girls cosplays Spain, and I told them that I was Canada. I then mentioned that I had a friend who was Prussia, and they got all excited. "Prussen! Prussen!" It was really nerdy and awesome. I got my camera and showed them the pictures of Brittney and Kumajiro that I took before I left, and they said that Kumajiro was very cute.
We also talked about music and stuff, favorite bands and things. One of the girls said her favorite American group was Queen, which I found amusing. I also asked about Persona (and got a response of "Ah! Megaten! Hai!", we moved on to TWEWY ("Subarashiki Kono Sekai?" "Ah, only by name." "Sadness.") and then FIRE EMBLEM (via SSB =D). We talked about which ones made it to the US and tried to figure out which one was which. I also noticed that I only call Rekka no Ken by it's Japanese name. Which helped a lot. And then I mentioned that I want to do a cosplay of Nephenee, and two of the girls got really excited. It was fun nerding out with them. They even complimented my on my knowledge of Japanese fandom, so that was really exciting. I want to talk with them some more, so I may get whatever the Japanese equivalent of Facebook it. I forget what they called it... but I'll go hunt it down. One of the girls had Facebook, so I'm going to go find her soon, but the others didn't.
That was still awesome and amazing and so many wonderful things. I hope it goes as well at Hosei! Also I got a huge boost to my confidence with Japanese. Maybe my grammar wasn't quite right and my particles were all messed up, but I think everything got across well. I meant to ask them how my Japanese was... oh well.
♥
There were some AMAZING stained glass windows - one for each major Studio Ghibli film that's already been made. So Spirited Away, Castle in the Sky, Kiki's Delivery Service, Ponyo, Nausicaa, and more were there. There was also a giant stuffed Catbus that kids were crawling all over, as well as a number of other amazing things. It was just incredible. Outside there was a giant robot like from Castle in the Sky, and he was starting to grow grass, which was so very Miyazaki. The whole place was lush and beautiful and covered in green growing things, so it was just amazing. I picked up some books and magnets and stuff, as well as a few postcards.
After the Ghibli Museum, we walked over to Kichijouji (and Cory gave me that look of "I know what you're thinking..." and he was right. "Kichijouji" -> "K. Ichijouji" -> "Ken Ichijouji" Yes.) and we grabbed some food at Kokoro Ramen. We then jumped on the Oedo line again and rode over to Musashi University, where we met up with a couple of professors there. Sensei was giving a talk about masculinity and harem anime, so the talk was pretty well attended. It was in Japanese so most of us didn't understand too much, but we got the gist of it. Especially since the powerpoint was in English, just for us. It was really interesting, what I could understand, and I ended up talking a lot with a girl named Alex who was sitting near me. She's a student from a US university who is spending a year at Musashi. John was another student from the same US school and was there as well. Then there was Laura, Charlotte and... Sahesh? I'll have to find out her name from someone else later. I heard it, but forgot it. :(
Alex told me about a bookstore called "Book Off" that sells recent titles for really cheap - kinda like the Japanese version of Half-Price Books. Sounds like heaven! I didn't get to go today, but maybe soon I'll check it out. I know I've seen one of those around before today...
But after sensei's talk, we all headed downstairs for a reception. After going to the wrong room, we eventually found where we were supposed to be, and we all hung out with some of the Japanese students. Alex and the others were learning Japanese and only had about a year of experience, but the other students were Japanese students learning German, which I have very little experience with, so it got really interesting really fast.
Sensei translated for me when I got asked about American animation and such, so I mention Avatar: The Last Airbender and told them about how American cartoons really aren't as good as they used to be, and how anime has really taken over, especially among teens and up.
Eventually though, I ended up with Brady and a group of Japanese girls. Apparently they were talking about sports before I walked into the conversation, but after I came in, we switched over to anime and video games. We talked about Cardcaptor Sakura (and the BAAAAD English version) and other things... We talked about our favorite Pokemon, and we played charades trying to figure out which one was which because the names change from Japanese to English. "Mizu" and "Yami" and "Hi" were thrown around a lot. I never thought that the Japanese words I taught myself in middle school and high school would ever come in handy... I guess they did! One girl liked Mightyena (fortunately still called "maitoyina" in Japanese), Brady liked Blastoise, and I liked Rapidash ("garoppu" in Japanese). I mentioned Digimon and we talked about our favorite seasons (another girl liked Digimon Adventure the best), and then they asked for my favorite, so I told them that my current favorite is Soul Eater.
THEN I mentioned Hetalia. Oh boy, that was fun! One of the girls cosplays Spain, and I told them that I was Canada. I then mentioned that I had a friend who was Prussia, and they got all excited. "Prussen! Prussen!" It was really nerdy and awesome. I got my camera and showed them the pictures of Brittney and Kumajiro that I took before I left, and they said that Kumajiro was very cute.
We also talked about music and stuff, favorite bands and things. One of the girls said her favorite American group was Queen, which I found amusing. I also asked about Persona (and got a response of "Ah! Megaten! Hai!", we moved on to TWEWY ("Subarashiki Kono Sekai?" "Ah, only by name." "Sadness.") and then FIRE EMBLEM (via SSB =D). We talked about which ones made it to the US and tried to figure out which one was which. I also noticed that I only call Rekka no Ken by it's Japanese name. Which helped a lot. And then I mentioned that I want to do a cosplay of Nephenee, and two of the girls got really excited. It was fun nerding out with them. They even complimented my on my knowledge of Japanese fandom, so that was really exciting. I want to talk with them some more, so I may get whatever the Japanese equivalent of Facebook it. I forget what they called it... but I'll go hunt it down. One of the girls had Facebook, so I'm going to go find her soon, but the others didn't.
That was still awesome and amazing and so many wonderful things. I hope it goes as well at Hosei! Also I got a huge boost to my confidence with Japanese. Maybe my grammar wasn't quite right and my particles were all messed up, but I think everything got across well. I meant to ask them how my Japanese was... oh well.
♥