Living the dream, what does that even mean

[honeyswallow]

Before you worry, no, this is not another moaner post, but something that came to me yesterday and that I would like your opinion on.

Okay, so I am in Japan right now. This is a pretty big deal, and that mainly because Japan is a very nice country and I have wanted this for pretty fucking long.

Comments

[statr]

I love Sakai Masato a lot, Aoi Miyazaki too, so seeing them together again after Atsuhime and as husband and wife again makes me want to watch ツレがうつになりまして。so bad. I wish the dvd would come out very, very soon.

[honeyswallow]

But this time it#s even the real feeling of husband and wife! They are so lovely. At first I thought 'hm, what a weird pairing, why that again?" but I completely changed my mind...

just uh.. rambling?

[fishings]

Ahh... I've personally never met anyone who called themselves a Japan-expert. No one was that presumptuous about all things Japan, thank goodness. I've been fascinated with Japan and the Japanese language since about that age too, but I've never actually thought of the place as a weird of alien land. It's more of a curiosity. But yes, I did want to know if the panty-vending machines existed. I find it hard to be derisive about anything. Maybe it's my bias. I can't even find the gyaru repulsive. If anything, they're fascinating. The hosts and hostesses are to respected too, for the life they choose to live. It's a tough land to live in. I took a subject that dealt with examining social problems in Japan, and it was interesting to see how within a land that people call strange, there are prejudices that are hidden away and not addressed because everyone would rather be all hush-hush about it. I'm not speaking from first-hand experiences, but I had papers to read on the subject and my lecturer was someone who had lived and worked for

Re: just uh.. rambling?

[fishings]

also by cliches I think people mean the schoolgirls, the mecha, the otaku, etc. everything that has ever been sensationalized in the news. :p

Re: just uh.. rambling?

[honeyswallow]

I'm glad I asked you to say something, because even though you might have rambled, I now have a clearer view on things XD And those clichees.... they are really everyday things... looking at them from here, i really wonder what is that great about them.

Re: just uh.. rambling?

[fishings]

It's just the media blowing things up. :p One crazy mass murderer that goes on a rampage, so happens to be an otaku, and everyone thinks that otaku are freaks. The next time the news features an otaku that has a love doll for a wife, the image of the otaku is reinforced in a negative way. :p

[goblinbrodie]

I know what you mean.
Sometimes when I meet Japan-o-philes I find they have this strange, skewed view of Japan based on everything you hear about it from the outside. No, kids, most Japanese people have never heard of your favourite manga, have never seen a panty vending machine, and have never been to a maid cafe. This is the stuff that foreigners love because it's "uniquely Japanese". It's still terribly, terribly niche.

And you're right, the exoticitising goes both ways. On the one hand you've got foreigners coming along and talking as if Japan is the land is perfection and loving everything "different" from what they know, and on the other you've got the Japanese assuming that anyone who wasn't born and raised in Japan could never possibly fully understand their language and way of thinking, oh no!

[honeyswallow]

Ahaha, that manga thing exactly. It has happened often recently that people who think anime are the entire nationm's favourite past time, suddenly have nothing to talk about with anyone they meet because "sorry, I have never heard of that."

And the peole who have can be slightly creepy.