Warning: Extremely long post ahead. Proceed with caution.
Hey all,
I think it was a successful Valentine’s Day, for my part. I gave my okaasan the chocolates that I bought, and I think she liked them. I know Mayu definitely did! But okaasan is probably tired of chocolate by now; today, she gave out girichoco and Mayu gave out some tomochoco. She even gave me tezukuri choco, or homemade chocolate that she made with a kit. It’s really cute, shaped like Kogepan’s face (Kogepan is a popular character over here, on the same level as Hello Kitty). Here is a picture of the Kogepan choco:
It's kinda hard to see the resemblance, but here's the real Kogepan (his name literally means "burned bread")
But now the day is drawing to a close, and I sit here, eating maichoco that I bought at the convenience store, absolutely feverish with excitement as I type this blog entry. Why, you may ask? The answer is summed up in two words: ナルト- 疾風伝 (Naruto Shippuden).
Many of the readers of this blog probably have no idea what Naruto Shippuden is. To those who do, I apologize, for I am about to provide a lengthy explanation. Skip it if you wish, or read on if you want to know my take on the whole subject. Here goes!
Naruto Shippuden is, to put it succinctly, an anime. Now before all of you shake your heads and wonder again why I’m always going on about anime, just wait a minute and hear me out. This is Japan, the mecca of anime, and if you really want to know and understand my daily encounters and important experiences here, then you’re going to have to hear about anime, even for just a moment. You might even find it just a little bit interesting. Let’s start at the beginning.
Anime is Japanese animation. That’s simple enough, right? But it is a little different than the American conception of “cartoons”. Anime can and does have more adult plotlines and serious material, and some adults in Japan seriously watch anime as you would watch CSI or Lost every week. Therefore, someone watching anime at my age is not unheard of. But, that does not mean that it is quite normal. Like in America with respect to cartoons, one is expected to “grow out” of watching anime eventually. Japanese people consider late teens as the normal “limit” age of watching anime. However, people can and do continue watching anime as adults, relatively few though they may be. These people are called “otaku” (meaning can vary as much from “geek” to “obsessive fan”) and are generally considered the losers and unpopular of society, those who lack the social skills to really fit in. For example, my host family was a bit surprised when I said I watch anime, and furthermore, that I consider myself an otaku. That I watch the occasional anime show would not much bother them, but that I openly declared myself something that, in their society, has a somewhat negative connotation was probably surprising. Usually, people are closet otaku, and do not want to admit their geekiness openly. But, both “closet” and self-declared otaku exist and have their own niche in society, and there are enough of them to make Japan’s anime industry one of the country’s most profitable. During spring break I intend to go to Akihabara in Tokyo, otherwise known as “Otaku Central”. This is the otaku’s normal hangout place, with restaurants and stores catering exclusively to them. But more about that later.
Here's an example of the typical otaku:
Note the short height, geeky glasses, heavy backpack and shopping bag no doubt filled with anime goods.
Conversely, something that is not considered an “otaku” or geeky interest is reading manga, or comic books in English. From 5 yrs old to 95 years old, everyone here reads manga. I see them on trains, buses, and in stores. Manga by the thousands is released in the form of weekly manga anthologies, each which target a specific audience. For example, today in the convenience store I saw many boys and old men just standing in front of the magazine rack, reading manga anthologies. I’ve discovered that it is not at all uncommon to see people just stand in a store for ten minutes or more, reading magazines and manga, to the point where in America the store owner would come over and say, “Hey you gonna buy that? This ain’t a library” or something like that. The old men would be reading manga with sophisticated themes like politics, and the boys would be reading something like Shounen Jump, an anthology full of manga targeted at boys. These anthologies contain about ten or so different manga stories, all by different authors. Each week each author writes a chapter (about 15 or so pages) to be published. It’s like the Sunday comics in the news paper, only if each comic was about 20 times longer than that and in black and white (color is too expensive for weeklies). One of the manga published weekly in Shounen Jump anthology is called Naruto, a manga about ninjas.
Here is a pic of the cover of Shounen Jump. In this issue, Naruto happens to be featured on the cover:
Let me explain a bit about the symbiotic relationship between the manga and anime industries in Japan (more like predator/prey or something). You know how, in America, recent movies have been based on books like Narnia, Lord of the Rings, Eragon, or comic books like Superman, Spiderman, X-men, etc.? Well there’s a good reason for that – the book or comic book in question has been around for a while, has proved itself popular and has an established fan base. This ensures that the movie made from it will not fail – at the very least, the producers know that the fans of the book or comic will go see it. It is conservative but sound logic. Similarly, producers in Japan, who are even more conservative than financially-hurting Hollywood, would much rather jump on an existing bandwagon than create a new one. That is, they love to take advantage of the preexisting popularity of a manga by creating an anime from it, thus ensuring that they will grab the viewership of the manga fans at the very least. In the best case, they will create new viewers who like the anime for its own sake. For example, the Naruto manga had already been going on for a few years and had gained a considerable popularity and readership before it was made into an anime approximately four years ago.
Ah, I remember so well the time I first watched Naruto. It was almost exactly two years ago, during JanPlan as a freshman, when I finally decided to give it a try. I was immediately hooked – I marathoned the first 80 episodes in a week (one of my proudest accomplishments). Those were the days….suffice to say that I absolutely love Naruto, and since that January two years ago I have been following it every week. I am one of those fans of the anime only – I started out with the anime, and found no reason to read the manga, really. I’m not a big manga fan, I kinda need the sounds and dynamic camera moves to make it come alive for me. But anyways….it was unfortunate that, just as I caught up to the point currently airing in Japan, something terrible happened. Naruto went filler….
Once more let me explain. For about the first 130 episodes, Naruto had been following the plotline laid out by the manga. As is the case in America, the strictness with which a movie/anime adaptation of a book/manga varies. There can be and has been endless debates about which is better, the book or movie, etc., etc. Just like recent American movie adaptations of books, some animes follow manga plotlines more loosely than others, and vice versa. For example, some animes follow manga story up to a point, and then the writers start creating their own story (usually because the manga is so long and the anime producers need to make their animes end at a fixed number of episodes). Some animes keep strictly to manga plotlines, even so far as copying exact camera angles as depicted in the manga panels. Naruto is one of these, and so Naruto manga fans rejoiced because the manga they love is being reproduced so exactly, and anime fans rejoiced because the manga plotlines are top-notch quality. However, since each episode of anime usually can cover about two chapters of manga, the Naruto anime quickly caught up to where the manga currently was. The anime producers had to make a hard decision – do we stop the anime and resume when manga has gotten sufficiently far enough ahead? Or do we pave our own path here and begin to write new material for the series?
Their choice was the latter, unfortunate though predictable. Naruto was, and still is, a cash machine. Its popularity was such that no one in their right mind would stop production just because they ran out of storylines. Thus the anime entered a phase that we call “filler” because it is material that fills the time between manga storylines. I personally don’t mind filler if it’s done well; however, over the past two years the anime creaters have proved that their skills at writing good material for Naruto are nearly nil. The only person who can write truly good Naruto stories is of course the man who created the Naruto manga, Kishimoto-sensei. Since he is the one who created the characters, only he truly understands them. Therefore, for two years we have seen no character development and overused plot devices. The great anime that was Naruto became a farce, and as a result lost a lot of its viewership. Even so, it is impressive to note that Naruto routinely makes the ten top watched shows of the week. If it is like that at its low, imagine what it will be at its height. I predict the height of Naruto’s viewship to occur tomorrow night at 7 PM JST. How can I pin it down so exactly? I’ll tell you why – it’s because tomorrow is when Naruto resumes with manga plotline.
Finally, the manga has gotten sufficiently far enough ahead so that Naruto can again continue with manga stories. I’ve seen endless commercials and promotions over the past couple of weeks to advertise it. To celebrate, the producers are renaming the series to Naruto Shippuden and giving it a new opening/ending. A note about openings/endings – anime opening and ending songs are usually sung by famous singers/bands in Japan, similar to popular shows in America. The more popular shows (the most money-making shows) are able to hire some very famous singers to do their themes, and as a result many anime songs end up in the top ten of Japan’s Weekly Top 40 (most popular songs). I’ve read that Naruto’s new opening song will be called「Hero’s Come Back!」(hence the title of this post) and will be sung by nobodyknows (and no, I don’t know them, haha). I find the title of the song to be especially apt, since in a sense Naruto really is “coming back” to the way it’s supposed to be. I hope the song lives up to my expectations. But I do know the band that does the ending, they were just on the MTV-esque program that I saw on TV the other day. Since they are pretty famous, I expect this ending song to get pretty high on the weekly ratings. Of course, I have no idea whether it’s a good song or not; I’ll find out with the rest of the world tomorrow night!
Here's the new logo: Naruto Shippuden!
Hundreds of thousands of fans around the world have been waiting nearly two years for this moment, and I’m one of the lucky few who will be able to see it real-time, here when it actually happens. This is the reason why I’m so excited and I can’t wait! Haley and I made big plans for Naruto: Shippuden Day (as I’m calling it). We’re going to leave school after our afternoon classes finish, and go to a shopping area near her house where I will buy any Naruto-related goodies I can get my hands on. Naruto has quite a considerable merchandise line, and I know there are some snack-like things that I can get. I may even get some naruto, a food item for which the titular character is named. It’s a fish-cake-type-thing, and is usually put into ramen (whch happens to be Naruto’s favorite food). In honor of that, I may have ramen for lunch if it works out. Here’s the ramen we ate last weekend in Kyoto:
It was pork-based ramen. Unfortunately, there was no naruto in it, but it was still very, very good. As is the custom here, I drained the bowl to the last drop:
Then we’ll go to Haley’s homestay house because she says she has a really big TV that’s good to watch Naruto on. We’ll watch it and then I’ll stay overnight, since it would be hard to come back to my house late at night. It’s probably better like that, since we can study together then for a test on Friday. I can also give my regards to Machiko-san, Haley’s host mom, who escorted us around Kyoto last weekend.
Speaking of Kyoto last weekend, I never really said what happened. It seems I only get to talking about the previous weekend when the next one is going to start. Well, suffice it to say that I didn’t do karaoke, instead I went to Kyoto with Haley and her host mom on Sunday, and the other days I stayed at home not doing much of anything. In Kyoto we went to Kinkakuji, (Golden Temple) which I had already seen when I came to Japan three years ago. But it was good to see it again, even though it was cold and rainy.
Here's Haley and I at Kinkakuji:
After that, we went to the Kyoto Tower shopping center. Let me tell you, that mall was fabulous. Such a high, pretty, new polished looking building. The mall is built on top of the train station, so it has many floors. One floor is devoted entirely to ramen restaurants, and that’s where we ate dinner. On that floor was one small shop that sold only green tea ice cream – they made it right in front of you! It was so cool that I took a little video of the process. Of course, it was delicious too.
Here's a picture of my dessert:
The mall itself was extremely ritzy – I know it’s not safe to use the word “wasp-y” so I’ll just say “very upper class”. The first four floors were entirely Burberry, if that gives you any idea.
Burberry Golf:
The upper floors sold a variety of traditional Japanese wares made by craftsmen that were also very very expensive. For example, here's a bunch of handmade crafts that commemorate this year being the Year of the Boar:
Here’s some handmade dolls for the upcoming Hina Matsuri (doll festival) –
Yes, that price is about in the $2000 range. Wow. Then of course, there was the floor dedicated to the selling of chocolate, which I described in my last post. I think that was a seasonal thing, however. In any case, very impressive.
Again, I was more impressed by malls and material goods rather than the historical significance of the magnificent Kinkakuji palace. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that I was freezing my butt off at a place I’d already seen. But oh well, there are still many temples in Kyoto I haven’t seen and Haley wants to see them so we will go back there soon. But this weekend, I don’t care if it’s in Kyoto or two streets away, I want to go do karaoke! So we'll see...
Again, I apologize for the very long post. If you've read the whole thing, I applaud you. Don't forget to comment and leave tags!
