Copyright laws are totally different out in Japan.  Unlike the SOPA act currently undergoing discussion in American congress, it isn’t even a question out in Japan.  I’m not talking about anything of Saber-Figure-In-China-quality here, but I regularly see pixelated pictures on wall scrolls, rip offs of common generic drink brands with similar colors and designs to the original (so much you wouldn’t notice the difference if you weren’t paying attention), and plenty of copycat stuff that would violate a million and a half laws on the shelves in America.

But in Japan it doesn’t really adversely affect the original content producer’s sales.  Why?  Well, for one, official merchandise is always worth more.  The company is probably going to make a really nice dakimakura and sell it for more than your local Taiwanese rip-off.  Brand names like Good Smile or Alter are always going to sell more figures.  Some people will be satisfied with clay ripoff xxx, but most won’t.  And if the ripoff is of a quality better than the original, it probably won’t be produced in mass if you can buy the official one for cheaper!  Sure, you can get that custom figure or dakimakura, and some people will, but a few sales in that are a small exception that aren’t going to ruin the official company.

Infact, things like doujinshi and fan works are all free advertisement for them.  If people are busy consuming 500 yen doujins every other week reading what they like about your characters, when you come out with that 1500 character/drama CD people are going to eat it up.  Don’t want them to just download it?  Throw in a lyrics booklet, a little figurine extra you can get if you buy the CD, and a little thank you poster with your characters in a nice cardboard box.  Now they’ll buy it, because they have the official materials that say they supported that character.  They love that character because of all the doujins that proliferated said love to date.  And now, they have new source material to make more doujins with.  If handled properly, fan works will often help your sales.

And of course, I went over half a dozen times this weekend how the culture is a read-the-textbook copy-answers-onto-test learning culture.  In this sort of culture, plagiarism isn’t viewed as negatively as they teach us in American school our entire lives.  They don’t want original content, they don’t want a research paper, they just want you to point exactly to where the research you found is.  It’s hard to say in a culture that protects freedom of thought and artwork so much that a doujinshi should be illegal.  They go sing karaoke for fun because I want to do what the singers are doing (and they are celebrating the similarity between them and the singer).  They read doujinshi because they want to see what the original characters they know are likely to do.  They copy textbook answers because they know they are correct.  It’s just something fundamental about the culture that they grow to like, and are a universe away from making that illegal.

In fact, it shouldn’t be a surprise to you that the copy machine industry is one of the leading domestic industries in Japan.  But I hope that didn’t surprise you.

But my point (at least in this article) isn’t the collective mindset of the culture or their system of learning (we’ll save that for later).  It’s that the industry can clearly support itself and actually use fan art and doujinshi to it’s advantage.  So how about some of that cross-cultural exchange and stop bitching some guy made 2.00$ off making a comic about your characters, or remixing your song.  Why don’t you remix your song, or sell something they can remix more and more.  How about using some of that innovation that the west is supposed to be good at and not get shown up by Asian societies (specifically China) when it comes to the economy.  A government is an institution of the people.  It’s specifically in place to make things better for all people, and protect the people.  Companies should quit crying to the government that the guy who put up a karaoke of ABC record company’s songs and pay-pal donate button caused them to “lose” money.  That’s bullshit.  That money wasn’t yours, you don’t have a right to it, and who says that the person listening to it was going to buy your CD with that money anyway.  Believe it or not, taking that away won’t increase your sales (especially in the way they want to with SOPA, it will definitely wind up hurting them.)

Use the way people want to handle their money to your advantage, don’t blame any sort of doujinshi (fan) work for your problems.  American companies should be putting those fans on a pedestal (because they’re likely the ones that actually bought your CDs) instead of throwing them in jail.  It’s because they’re slamming their own fans with 500,000 fines that they’re losing sales, not because that guy made a karaoke that people liked better than the original and got 400$ of donations for it that you think is somehow money that belongs to you.

How about some of that inter-cultural exchange guys?  Can we go back to being an economic giant and supporting what people want to spend their money on, or should we just let Japan and China keep raping the ever living shit out of us?

Sheesh.  Did I mention I like how life actually seems real out here in Japan, and people aren’t bitching or trying to prevent every little seemingly-illegitimate thing from existence.  Maybe we need more low quality shit in America to help raise consumer awareness and intelligence in America.  We all know that baby-boomer age group entering their 50s and 60s (aka, the people with all the power and money), could stand to make some better purchasing decisions.  Though I’m sure anyone reading this article already knows that.

Completely unrelated: So should I leave in translator notes or not?  I was thinking of scanning everything in once I’m done with this one.  I mean, the Raw is already ruined because I’m writing on them, but would anyone like to see my translations uploaded anyway?  Maybe I should make it a point to write the English neater?

Here’s a couple for your own amusement.

Let me start by saying there was a lot I liked about the Japanese school structure.  I won’t focus on those today because I want this read to be entertaining, but they at least deserve mention.

First being that culture festivals are the most ballin’ thing ever.  Did your parents ever bring you to a carnival when you were a kid, or did you ever go to a local farmers market?  Ever have a battle of the bands or a talent show?  A student culture festival is pretty much all those things put together except they’re all hosted by your fellow students, so it doesn’t suck nearly as much.  It’s got a nice atmosphere and the food/events/otherwise are done surprisingly professional and enjoyable results.  They had real grills out to cook the yakisoba, freezers for ice cream, and huge stages for outdoor concerts.  It beats the ever living shit out of any pep-rally I’ve ever been to.  I honestly felt like you didn’t need to be part of the foot-ball team or some sport to be a part of the “school spirit”.  You could get just as hype for whatever club you were in, or even just your class stall.  Remember being dragged to the auditorium for some shitty event?  Yeah, fuck that, I wanted to go to the culture festival.  We should do them.

Another great thing was my teachers worked from 8am to 6pm.  For my school in particular, when they are not teaching in or in a meeting, they are obligated to listen to your every whim and trouble for any amount of time you deem necessary.  In fact, they love doing so because it means they don’t have do their grind work.  It takes a certain type of Japanese person to want to teach Japanese at an International school, and many of my teachers had colorful personalities and studied abroad before.  They were always willing to discuss coursework and my progress, review what was in class, or just practice casual discussion.  I personally made good friends in the Melty Blood community early on, but one of dorm mates made it a habbit of talking with one of our professors after school every day for atleast an hour if not more.  His Japanese got a lot better from that because the teacher was able to help him express what he wanted to say, and he got a lot better at speaking because of that.

Of course, you should never express yourself in class, but if it was outside of your grade or assignments, they were actually very helpful in your own study.  It was nice having teachers around just about any time to go over class work or what you got wrong.  I mean sure, half the time the reasons you got things “wrong” were cultural differences and not necessarily wrong answers, and the class work is so boring there is nothing to review except go home and memorize everything…

Oh right, I’m focusing on the good things.  Good things.  I liked having three different teachers for my class.  It kept things fresh and a good rotation helped avoid getting mad at a particular teacher.  They communicated very well and kept the class smooth.  They also were completely fine with you going to whichever teacher you felt most comfortable with and never had a problem with favoring one teacher over another.  They always wanted you to pass and do well.  (Doing well means passing.)

Which brings me to what I hated: Grades mean a lot.  Mind you this comes from an exclusively A/B student who rarely had a problem doing well in school (in America).  In Japanese school, your ability to demonstrate and remember long sentences out of the textbook, follow along with the class during exercise reviews, and perform timely and accordance with instruction is what makes you a good student.  It’s not a bad thing for the Japanese, because that’s what prepares for them for good salary-man jobs.  However, I have my reservations about teaching an international school like this.  Being taught by Japanese teachers means that linguistics thought and discussion, individual expression, and showing anything about the Japanese language not taught in the class, during class, is ちがう (chigau). Chigau is used as “wrong”, but it also means “different.”  The connotation is completely negative, because not doing what everyone else does is a bad thing.  This is especially true in the classroom or any “professional” setting.

One of the things that frustrated me the most in class is, with 15 Korean and 10 Chinese (bro’s by the way), 5 Malaysian students, and 1 American (me), we always get this question – on any and every topic that isn’t related to Japanese language – we get asked “What <do/how> your people <do/eat/celebrate> <at this time>, or during this <season/event/holiday>.”  I think the Malaysians have a similar problem that I do, but at least they can rotate or quickly come up with an answer between the five of them.  Every time this sort of question is asked, it’s on me to explain, in perfect Japanese, what “Americans do.”

It doesn’t help that I think just about every one of my friends would burst out laughing at the though of me me of all people being the one to represent “Americans” to three other cultures.  Especially considering my interests are largely Japanese, I’ve done a very good job of ignoring American tradition most of my life.  Does America have any culture that the majority of American’s share in or believe, to the point where everyone knows about what people do?  Sure, we have some things.  I can get away with things like “we drink apple cider in Fall” or “celebrate Christmas” sometimes.  But then you get to your midterm and face an essay question like: “What do people in your country do in Spring?”

What the FUCK kind of question is that.

I don’t fucking know what other people do during the spring.  I remember from 3rd grade that some groundhog comes out of the ground or some shit,  but I don’t know how to explain that in an elementary level of Japanese when I barely know it in English anyway.  And it doesn’t help I hear like 25 other students sigh in relief as they happily write about whatever food or festival everyone in their country does around those times for the easy A.   Should I write about how college students get off for spring break, go to the beach, and party?  But I’ve never done that.  I know in Japan during the summer they (or most people have heard of/wouldn’t be weird) for you to eat cheap yakisoba and smash watermelons on the beach – but this essay is for Spring, and that’s not Americans.

Last Spring when I wasn’t busy with school I spent the majority of my time posting about Madoka, playing mahjong, going to Melty Blood tournaments, and fighting off a spiced rum addiction.  I literally spent almost my entire break trying to scrape together the resources for a student loan and trying to learn H-Nanaya in training mode.  That’s incomprehensible to the Japanese, who have free college and can’t believe someone would play a video game for an entire week.  Sure, I know all the Japanese fighting game terms to write an essay way longer than required about what I was specifically training, what sort of mixups I wanted to learn, what combos I was training, and what neutral spacing I wanted to run – but that’s not Japanese my teacher’s would know (much like my English teacher’s wouldn’t know fighting game lingo) and it’d take someone way above my level to even explain where the terminology comes from.

Then, on top of that I’m in Japan!  Why am I writing an essay on video games when I should be writing about something “proper” and following along what we learned in class!  Every thing about even considering that for a test essay is so 違う it’s not even funny.  Why didn’t I just study “properly” and memorize every single essay we ever studied in class so I could easily pull lines directly from it and get an A (just like the Koreans).  Oh yeah, I know why, because that’s plagiarism and I’m taught from grade four how I’m going to be expelled from school if I ever even try that.

There’s a limit to “when in Rome, do what the Roman’s do.” That phrase doesn’t imply that you are Roman or you can do everything the Roman’s can do.  I can’t in one or two school semesters undo everything I’ve learned in the last 22 years.  Not only is it physically difficult to do that, I have severe moral reservations about doing so.  Infact, it’s my job to exchange culture, not just completely adapt to one and abandon the old one.  Is it social intolerance?  Maybe a little, but I can’t feel like I’m really learning anything if I take that route to learning.  And don’t you dare give me that bullshit argument my Japanese is at the level of a 2 year old, and I should always be mimicking the language to learn it or whatever, because fuck you I know they don’t do that when they teach Japanese in Brazil.  I’m trying to learn the language, not learn how to be Japanese.  It’s a great cultural experience but no student is going to care about that when their qualifications for a Japanese minor is on the line.

I hope I look at this a year down the line and laugh.

*If I don’t have a diploma with a minor on it I won’t be laughing.

08/2012 Note: I did look at this over half a year later, and I did pass and get the minor on my degree.  However, I am not laughing and found this to be one of the most frustrating points of my life in vivid memory…

And of course, foreigners are expected to know nothing of what is expected in those times and places.

In fact, to the Japanese, a foreigner knowing how to speak Japanese or act properly is probably one of the most ridiculed and funny things in their modern society.  Nothing is funnier when you walk up to a foreigner and say “Excuse me.” and then reply “すみません。”.  I’ve had people blatantly laugh (it’s a huge rarity for the Japanese to do a blatant-anything) at me when I asked what floor an item would be on, where something was, or what I should do in a certain situation.  At first I thought I might of said something wrong that was inadvertently funny, or my accent sounded strange (and that was certainly the case at first), but I grew to learn that sometimes these reactions were for the sole reason that “He’s a foreigner who can properly ask for something.”

Which is somehow, the funniest thing in the world to them.  I won’t even get started on the level surprise that I get for being able to use chopsticks even though they know I’ve been living here for FIVE MONTHS.

I don’t remember quite where I heard or read this, but I remember someone telling me once “A foreigner in Japan doing things properly is about as funny to them as a cat who can play piano.”  It’s probably true.

Though anyone who comes here on an extended tourist trip could easily learn that.  What I’ve learned through my international study abroad experience, is that anything out of place whatsoever provokes some sort of emotional response.  If you know the proper way to do something, but for whatever reason choose to go about another way (in order to prove a point), you’re considered straight-up a jerk or ignorant fool.  If you don’t know how something works, everyone will rush to help you so you don’t bother anyone else/society isn’t put out of order.  It’s the collective’s job to make sure everything is done properly.

The Japanese aren’t interested in learning about foreign culture when they are in Japan.  Sure, there are some who want to talk to you, and there are some who go abroad, but those people are expecting those situations.  It’s their island, not yours.  When you’re there, you’re probably intruding just by being in their daily life.  I’ve gotten used to the everyday stares walking down the street, but when a girl turns an aisle and sees me there she goes wide eyed and 180′s to prevent an awkward situation.

The whole society builds itself around doing the right thing at the right time.  It rushes with all it’s efforts to maintain the standard.  You’re expected to say certain things at certain times, and not doing so is ちがう.  In fact this is built in from the education structure itself.  You’re expected to memorize long sentences from textbooks, which will reappear on tests in their fundamental forms.

You’ll realize this when Japanese people try to talk to you in English.  They will say things like “Hello” and if you might respond “How ya’ doin’”, and they will completely lose it and give up.  But if you reply “Hello, nice to meet you.” they might instantly say “Nice to meet you.  I am from Chiba.”  If you say “What sort of place is Chiba like?” they might respond “Thank you for saying that, I appreciate it.”  This is because they heard “like” and “Chiba”, and gave their textbook response.  I’ve heard of English teachers in Japan having similar experiences.

As a student you’re expected to do the same thing.  You don’t need to think about or understand the language, you should just know the textbook example.  Clearly if you know the textbook example, you know the grammar form for all situations.  This doesn’t just apply to language learning, but for everything.  Infact, it’s the heart of education structure that you’re drilled to know certain things in class for hours every day, spend hours every night memorizing it, and as thus – it builds itself into daily life in Japan.

And trust me, I can tell you from experience that no amount of teacher discussion (even at an International school), situational-cultural explanation to natives, or otherwise will ever change that.  If you don’t do what’s expected of you in a certain situation, you are wrong for not knowing it or an egotistical asshole for choosing to do otherwise (aka putting your own thoughts above everyone else’s).

Never mind that half of my classmates who are getting A’s can’t handle basic conversations, they know what to say out of the book.  When you examine essays, you’re expected to pretty much copy the sentence out of the essay that related to the question (maybe add から) at the end for “because”.  I’d imagine for Japanese students learning English, the English they are learning only applies to when they meet foreigners, when they want to do business with foreigners, or the examples for when they want to take entrance exams.

I don’t even understand where it starts either.  Kids here are definitely not like that.  I regularly see middle school students playing, pushing each other around, laughing, rough housing, or otherwise acting like normal kids.  The high value for these situations must have roots in the upper level educational structure, when they get their first job, or otherwise.

To me it just leaves this big question of where does the Japanese culture I’ve been interested half of my entire life come from?  Some of my close-in-age or younger Japanese friends at the arcade are not so rigid.  I can read posts online from thousands of Japanese twitter accounts that are outright rude. And let’s not even get started on anime.

Actually, now that I think of it – just where do those overly expressive character designs, outbursts, and clear display of emotion that shows up in anime come from?  Is it another time-and-place thing where “because this is anime, it’s expected to have a lot of emotion”.  The actual term they use for the anime community here is “sub-culture”.  I think those people who really like anime or related works are just reaching out for their individuality, but in fact, they live in a collective society, so they only know how to like it as a group, or talk about it on the internet.  Another time and place scenario.

Thankfully they put art and private thoughts as something that should at the very least be protected (even though not promoted).  In that sense I think art (consequently and surprisingly, this means manga/anime/games/otherwise) is something very important to this culture.  However, that innovation is almost bothersome to the daily structure.  For example, if it’s in a game it’s okay.  If it’s in music, it’s okay.  If it’s in writing, it’s okay.  If it’s in an anime, it’s okay.  If it’s at your job, it’s ちがう.  If it’s at school, it’s ちがう.  If it’s talking to your grandfather, it’s ちがう.  And you spend a lot more time at your job, school, or social superiors than you do by yourself (if ever) in this country.

Now I’m not ignorant.  You’re not talking about how funny you thought Kodomo no Jikan was at work, or telling your grandfather how cute and strong spirited you think Nanoha is in America either.  It’s probably not a good idea.  But I’m not talking about how there is always a time and place for your interests, but more so asking why the culture must have a time and place for you to think, innovate, or be yourself.  We all must fit some social norms and roles, but writing a film and literature essay for college class shouldn’t mean I can’t write about the character designs in Kara no Kyoukai just because it’s animated.

But it means you shouldn’t in Japan.  I don’t get it.

So here’s the first in a collection of articles about my experience here in Japan, ending in just over a month.  I think you’ll be very surprised to find that my experience was not very far off from a lot of Japanese stereotypes.

Let me start by saying I don’t want to stereotype.  I’m not saying by any means that what I say applies to all Japanese people or parties.  I’m not one for common stereotypes.  After living here, I don’t think things like all the Japanese look the same (but I recognize I have difficulties with face recognition).  Japan is different from a lot of countries (especially America) in that it’s government actually represents it’s people as an ethnicity.

Do we have that in America?  No, not really.  Most of us still call ourselves “Italian” or “Irish” or what-have-you in descent.  We don’t even have a lot of nationally-recognized traditions or culture.  Everyone in Britain has their tea time and extended lunch break.  Infact, it’s built into the UK law that you should.  In China they have festivals to celebrate the change in seasons, or specific holidays.  In Korea, seasonal food is huge.  Very few things are eaten year round, and those are considered national foods everyone likes.  Does that mean every UK citizen who works gets an hour break at work everyday?  No.  Does that mean that every Korean likes kimchi?  No.  Does that mean that every Chinese person is at the Spring festival?  No.  But every British, Korean, and Chinese person knows when and what those celebrations are (either daily, seasonal, or otherwise) and that a large majority lot of people thoroughly enjoy those things.  Can you think of things like that which are exclusively American?  It’s hard right?  We definitely don’t have one ethnicity.  Comparably, we can acknowledge that there are a lot of Chinese people in China.  There are a lot of British people in Britain.  Japan takes this to a whole new level.  99% of the Japanese-speaking, Japanese ethnicity, and Japanese people are in Japan.

Sure there’s a small faction of Japanese who went to Brazil after WWII, but who cares about that.  I say that derogatorily because in fact, I’m sure a lot of Japanese people would say that if a person wasn’t born and raised in Japan, then those people aren’t Japanese (especially if they’re half-blood).  Why? Because they don’t contribute to Japanese society. (Infact, I heard that directly from a Japanese guy in a local bar in Ikebukuro who happened to speak ridiculously good English.  When I asked him about how the Japanese people do such a good job of ignoring homeless people, he said “It’s not our way, because we know those people can’t give back to society.”)

Anyway, back on topic.  The point is, I’m not stereotyping but when it comes to the Japanese specifically, you need to recognize that what “everyone does” is what is accepted as normal and that they very much so like that. The whole society has very strict social norms for not invading other’s privacy, or asking what people really think about things. Furthermore, America is a country that is very much so the opposite of that.  Sure, you’ve heard this before, but let me assure you that experiencing it for yourself is it’s own level entirely.  The whole “everyone does this at this time”-thing just really doesn’t exist in America.  It exists in most Asian countries, the French are very particular about their language, there are rich histories in countries like Italy and Germany, but do we have obligations or necessarily even a huge knowledge of what “other people” are doing on their “holidays”?  Hell no.  And most of us don’t care to know, either.

What you do on your holidays mostly comes from your chosen religion, or what your family have always celebrated.  This makes what people do at the largest a religious event, with no majority on anything.  Usually, most people keep to their households and family to decide what’s an important day to take off.  Thing’s like it’s Dad’s birthday, or it’s your anniversary.  Who gives a shit about Valentine’s day or Hanukkah?  I don’t get off for those holidays.  It’s part of our Constitution to accept and let people freely worship; but at the same time that doesn’t mean that we include ourselves as part of that.  Infact we think it’s offending to label everyone as doing the same thing.  This makes the only completely neutral and safe “American holidays” things like Thanksgiving, New Years, and maybe Memorial/President’s day or other such real-historical or religious-neutral nature of events.  Even so, we can’t say the majority of Americans consider things like Martin Luther King Jr. Day a “real” holiday in thought or celebration.

Well, why is this a big deal?  Well, when you live in Japan, you’re expected to be a representative of your culture.  Japan is a culture that celebrates similarities.  You are rewarded for doing the same thing as others.  America’s is a culture that celebrate’s individuality.  Infact, we may be devoid of culture except for this very point.  Not to say we’re devoid of teamwork though, when the individuality is strong enough, you will attract or hire a very strong group of people who do the same thing, making minority action and revolution a very strong valued part of our history.  So from a young age we’re shown that being one of those great people who brought upon a revolution of change (like Thomas Edison or The Wright Brothers) is something desirable.

From this inherent difference also comes a completely different sense of standards.  Saving a philosophical debate of what’s “right and wrong”, or a cultural debate of what’s considered “right and wrong” in Japan and America, think about when you do something “bad”.  Why was it bad, what was bad about, who is it considered to be “bad” by.  In America, there’s a lot of consideration into intent and motivation to the point where thought-crime has almost pervaded our justice system.  In Japan?  That doesn’t exist.  Hypothetically, if you have terrible thoughts, and do something like draw up plans to kill someone by creating an elaborate system of piano wire to cleanly slice someone’s head in your local park, masturbate everyday to cartoon drawings of naked children, or write a program to steal 500 yen from everyone’s bank account – as long as you don’t disturb anyone else by doing so and keep to yourself – it’s completely okay.  Well, maybe that’s not “okay”, but it definitely isn’t outrageous enough to be considered illegal.  As long as you don’t put a name to a person to kill, stalk an underage girl, or hit execute on that program and don’t talk about such things in public – no one is going to bother you.

In America (at least these days, with more than radical interpretations of current and implementation of new law) those sorts of things are outrageous, right?  Why would you order piano string, write that program, or look at disturbing fiction unless they really wanted to do that.  The second someone walks into your room and sees blue prints for a piano string hookup using a local park for architectural dimensions, finds parts of that code on the internet, or a risque image of that cartoon child in a bathing suit, it’s actually their responsibility to inform the police about it.  Any jury would put you in jail for criminal intent.  Sure, not everyone would run to the police, but most people at the very least you would make feel uncomfortable.  Why?  Because it’s outside of their personal moral standard.  Infact, having those things in your own possesion in America could even make one feel guilty.  Why?  Because it’s against your own “personal moral code”.  It doesn’t matter if someone else doesn’t know about it, it’s still bad.  In Japan, should that coincidentally happen people have a social norm for respecting your privacy and not jumping to the conclusion you would actually do those things.  To the Japanese, something that doesn’t bother anyone else can’t possible be “bad.”  No thought or planned action that does not surface into reality is completely fine.  Within yourself, there is no limits if you are being a normal, respectful, member of society.

Maybe this is a bit of a stretch, but a medieval history college class I took tells me(and I’m sure any anthropologist would agree with me) that this individual-intent system we have comes from the fact our current culture and government derives from either a “God” always “watching over you” or against “your own honor”.  Our personal moral code is taken from what we feel is right or wrong.  To the Japanese, this is the opposite.  A standard of “No one is more important than anyone else.” and “As long as they do not hurt other’s, or other people don’t know about it.” – any sort of secret, idea, or otherwise is okay.  When other people know about it, they shame you into believing you did something wrong.

I’ve actually had this happen to me once, when I didn’t finish my homework for class.

One Wednesday night after a barrage of tests (had two that week already), running on 3 hours of sleep, it would be a good idea just to turn the alarm off, come home, and crash until I woke up.  I was really stressed out because I learned my mom had just put into the hospital for cancerous tumour removal (she’s okay now) and my grades weren’t the best.  I was also frustrated over a lack of money, being in slight financial duress.  So, I came home at 3PM and woke up at 5am the next day, made myself breakfast, watched some anime, caught up with my friends in America (it was evening for them), and refreshed for class Thursday.  I told my teacher very politely I didn’t have my homework that day, there wasn’t any excuse, and would be happy to turn it in after class.

Man did she flip shit.  She slammed the books from the other students she collected and told me to look at them.  She said things like “look at the hard work of everyone around you”, and demanded to know why I didn’t do my homework.

I would like to note, that I am 22 years old. (We have a curfew of 11pm too, but more on that another time.)

When I told her I don’t have a particular reason and would like to discuss it after class, she started yelling at me, asking me who’s money and time I was wasting by being here.  She turned to everyone and told them to look at “how I was wasting my own time”, and “what a disgrace I am”.  All the Asian students started whispering to each other in their native languages and looking at me.

Fortunately, my personality is akin to that of Gilgamesh.  I had no qualms or breakdown about this (though I know many people who would of given up and apologized.)  At this point I honestly couldn’t believe that this was happening to me.  Are you kidding me, 犬先生？You should be lucky I’m here paying your pay check.  Though the reality of the situation doesn’t register to her, and why I was not instantly apologizing also does not register to her.  For 犬先生, it’s for my own good.  To her, I am ちがう.  I was not doing what everyone else worked hard to do, and extraneous circumstances are irrelevant.

We are the Borg, and you will be assimilated.

To be honest though, I kept quiet.  I figured saying anything from there would make the situation worse and in some senses was actually speechless at the whole event even happening in the first place.  I’m also not an asshole.  I realize this is a normal thing for their culture, and I am not in my home country.  If I wanted to put any truth to the “diplomacy focus” of my degree, I had to have some tolerance for other cultures even when they deeply offend me personally.  I mean, had this been America, I probably would of stood up, left, and headed to my dean’s office – or I might of rallied a couple students to fight with me on the fact she was yelling for no reason on the grounds that it’s completely irrational, and helps no one — not that this would ever happen in America (beyond elementary school) if the teacher had any common sense or understanding that an adult student’s life does not revolve around homework.

So being too speechless to respond to the damn near bi-polar snap, I just sat quietly as she moved on with class.  However I didn’t feel bad for not doing that homework.  I was perfectly justified in my reasoning to not do it, and I think health wise it was a good decision.  However, the collective was supposed to do it.  Therefore, in the eyes of the Japanese, I am wrong for not doing so.  I’m pretty sure in the Japanese perspective, if I came home, did my homework for 3 or so hours, and then entered a state of not sleep and worry over my mother – as long as I did my homework and showed up, everyone would support me, and it would all be okay.  It’s okay if I suffered for the entire day, because everyone would of been there to support me.

I have never been so proud to be American.

But more on the specifics of the Japanese education system later…I just wanted to show some both radical and real examples of how different the cultures could be, in situations both for the benefit of the doubt and against an individual living in Japan.

Some of you may ask, “Why should I get these expensive headphones? My skullcandy’s work great…”

This is a common question.  Let me answer in a few ways for you.

1: Skullcandys are a terrible piece of crap.  They are for hipster 12 year olds.

2: Investing in a sub $100~ pair of headphones will generally last you longer than a pair of $20~ headphones. Many of my friends go through multiple skullcandy headphones that cost anywhere from $10-100 each. I’ve had my ad700 for almost two years now with no issues, and it costed me $90~
3: Better bang for your buck if you are willing to make the investment

TL;DR: Do not buy Skullcandy, Bose, Beats by Dr. Dre, Apple, etc. They are all pieces of shit and over priced.

~ AMP ~
A headphone amplifier is an audio amplifier designed particularly to drive headphones instead of loudspeakers. Most commonly they are found embedded in electronic devices such as integrated amplifiers, portable music players and televisions, but standalone units are not uncommon.

How they work:
Effectively, a headphone amplifier is a small power amplifier that can be connected to a standard headphone jack or (usually) the line output of an audio source. The headphone amplifier improves the sound quality by increasing the amount of power available to move the transducer, increasing the control that the source has over just where the transducer is in space.

A great amp I’ve had was the Fiio E9. It can power pretty much any headphones by supporting 600ohms max. This is paired great with the Fiio E7, or you can use any other DAC with it.
I recently tried the Hifiman EF2, a hybrid tube amplifier. The DAC in it wasn’t as great, but the amp was much more impressive. It can really bring out the brightness and coloration for a pair of headphones.

If you want to look into more, you can do so here.

~ DAC ~
In electronics, a digital-to-analog converter (DAC or D-to-A) is a device that converts a digital (usually binary) code to an analog signal (current, voltage, or electric charge). An analog-to-digital converter (ADC) performs the reverse operation.

- I first had the Asus Xonar DX sound card, it is great, but remmeber it stays inside the desktop computer.
- The Fiio E7 wasn’t that great of a DAC, but considering it is portable it changes that fact.
- This Nuforce uDAC(1, not 2) is pretty good for what I paid for ($40). It is small and portable. USB powers the device and I think it supports up to 300ohms.

Again, more here.

~ Headphone Reviews~

- Audio Technica ATH-AD700 [Open Dynamic]:
+ Great representation of mids and highs (frequencies)
+ Great for gaming (You can tell where enemy’s are from, the bass from explosions doesn’t escalate over other sounds.)
+ Very comfortable
+ Very durable (I’ve dropped these many times on my tile floor, I’ve dented the grills before but those are easy to fix)
+ Long cable for home use (in some cases it could be bad but you could just tie it up)
+ Low impedance (Easy to drive)
+ Amazing soundstage
+ Lightweight
- Very lacking in bass
- Can get uncomfortable (after about 3-4 hours)
- With an AMP/DAC and a EQ you can get a bit more bass out of it but not enough for you bass lovers.
- Price fluctuates too much
- Price Tag (What I paid for it): $90 + $5 for shipping from Amazon

- Audio Technica ATH-M50 [Closed Dynamic](coiled):
+ Great soundstage
+ Low impedance (Easy to drive)
+ Foldable, comes with a carrying pouch
+ Plenty of bass in most situations
- When comparing to my D1100, I find the bass to be a bit muddy and less punchy.
- Not as comfortable as my D1100
- I’ve enjoyed these for the past 6 months, but I sold them after getting the Denon D1100. I honestly think the Denons are superior in everyway.
- Price Tag (What I paid for it): $109 shipped from Ebay
- AKG K701 [Open Dynamic]:
+ More bass than ad700
+ Highs were not as sharp as AD700
+ Decent soundstage
+ Looks cool
- Somewhat hard to drive
- Needs 1/4 to 1/8 adapter for 3.5mm jacks
- Build quality wasn’t as great in my opinion
- Needs an AMP/DAC to get the enjoyment out of them.

*Keep in mind I only had these for a month. I barely used these. These are a love or hate pair of headphones. I didn’t hate them but I rarely enjoyed them.
- Price Tag (What I paid for it): I traded my Beyers for this. They go for around $250

- Beyerdynamic DT990 (250ohm) [Open Dynamic]:
+ Great soundstage
+ Great bass while representing the mids and highs still
+ Pads are pretty comfortable
- Caused me fatigue after 2 hours of usage
- Did need an amp due to high impedance
- Price Tag (What I paid for it): $179.95 free prime shipping from Amazon

- Denon AH-D1100 [Closed Dynamic]:
+ Low impedance (Easy to drive)
+ Great soundstage
+ Lots of bass
+ Great mids and highs while pertaining bass
+ Comfy
+ Short quality cable
+ No tightness on the clamping/pad
+ Comes with a carrying pouch
- Not foldable
- Build quality is questionable; not the best but not the worst.
~ Price Tag runs around: $135

- Grado SR80 [Open Dynamic]:
+ Low impedance (Easy to drive)
+ Great representation of highs
- Can be quite uncomfortable at first, heed my warning
- highs can be too sharp in some cases, becareful amping this or turning at high volumes
- Weak bass, not as weak as ad700 though
- Price Tag (What I paid for it): $90 free shipping from Head-fi.org

- Sony MDR-XB700 [Closed Dynamic/No Picture]:
+ Low impedance (Easy to drive)
+ Lots of bass
+ Very comfy
+ Somewhat lightweight
+ Short cable
+ Easy for travel use
- Bass can be overwhelming and mids/highs can sound muffled
- Cable quality isn’t as great
- Price Tag (What I paid for it): $65 free shipping from Head-fi.org

[Open Dynamic]: No sound isolation. Meaning anyone nearby will hear what is being outputted from the phones. These types of headphones are not optimal for public/travel use. In most situations I find open dynamic headphones to be more comfortable, however much larger.

[Closed Dynamic]: Sound isolation included. Much better for public/travel use. Mostly the pads are going to be made of leather. Keep in mind in hotter temperatures you may sweat more. Possible fatigue due to a tighter clamping from the headband.

Outside of that, here are some price guides.  Not made by me, but it’s nice to look around at multiple opinions.

What a fucking baller.

So, I didn’t know what to expect going into Daiteikoku.  In some respects, I wanted Sengoku Rance in space – but from the start I knew this would be based off the other 大-series games.  In some ways I got both, and in others, not either.  I’m not as overly critical about this as some long-time Alice Soft fanatics might be, so I will say that 大帝国 is pretty fun.  There is an entire wiki dedicated to AliceSoft game mechanics and information, so I’ll just briefly go over the system in Daiteikoku. You play as Togo, Space Admiral of the Japanese Navy.  Your wife passed away, leaving you with a lovely daughter.  Thus, you return to being a player, so long as your daughter likes the girl you’re pimpin’ it up with.  The whole setting is a World War II parody where some of the most historic figures in history, such as Adolf, come to life as teenage girls or otherwise (Adorufu-chan) to serve in your military, one way or another, as the story progresses.

Each turn there is a strategy phase where you can see weather or monster alerts, planned invasions, and what country owns which territory.  Some turn-based story events happen on these turns as well.  During this phase you can move your units around, attack opposing countries, research, and equip new ships to your admirals.  Afterwards comes your tactics phase and counter phases where you do battle with your opponents.  Following that is your event phase where you get one opportunity to please a girl (making her stats better, or in some cases, convincing captured enemy units to join your side), talk to a wolf god, some awesome old man, or a couple other of your cronies, go for story events, cheat, or end the game (I kid you not.)

Daiteikoku is not a terribly complicated game.  It requires some strategic planning but you can take over a lot of territory easily once you get a hold on the game-play mechanics.  It’s difficulty ranges dramatically throughout the course of the game, and the plot keeps a nice balance between good humor and good build up.  If you really like some extra flair of gameplay to your VN’s (a’la Utawarerumono), then this is a solid game that’s worth playing.  It had some nasty bugs to start but those have been patched in version 1.02.

That being said, I have the same complaint with Daiteikoku everyone else does.  It’s not Sengoku Rance.  It has a territorial combat system that is fun (slightly more fun and challenging then Sengoku Rance), but it’s just missing something.  I definitely got the flair of “I must do nothing but play this game.”, but it was short lived to about a day and a half compared to Rance’s several weeks.  Infact, I still want to go back and play Rance every now and again.  So I suppose where I have to agree with some hard critics is the overall appeal of the main cast (the Japanese admirals).  Maybe it’s because I didn’t grow up in Japan (and I don’t know the historical representations very well), but I just don’t really like the main cast (as amazing as the dialogue for the Togo is, it really doesn’t grip me).  The character design seems okay but they just don’t mesh very well.  Some of the best character design came from the other countries, where I felt like more time was spent.

Being a single father, Togo aims to please those around him and has no true ambitions of his own – much different than the agenda of Rouga or Rance.  I think a little more time spent in this department could of made a world of difference, since I’m enjoying the game immensely more when my own commanders aren’t on the screen.  While the writing is okay, it just means you care less about your own military.  When I was playing Rance, I always wanted my military to beat down my opponent to victory.  Princess 帝 on the other hand?  I could care less.  I measure a game’s value by the “am I realizing I’m playing a game while playing it” meter.  By contrast, I like a game more if I’m just so into it that I don’t even think about the fact I’m playing a video game.  Maki-chan did make me HNGH, though.

What kept me into playing without doubt is this beauty on the right.  Adorufu-chan is one of the most entertaining characters and definitely had some of the most entertaining scenes and reactions with the Togo.  Protip, if you ally with Germany early and break through the south before they’re taken over, you can rescue Adorufu and add her to your military.  She’s a solid unit and probably has the most in-depth plot in the game, save for Katherine.  Her voice acting is also amazing, especially in the H-scenes.  Damn did I love dating the #1 tactical and progressive genius in the galaxy.  アドルフちゃん – she is just too damn moe.

Though, at the end of the day Daiteikoku had me hype for about a week at the most, so I’m not dieing to replay it.  Part of it is the accumulation of important battle decisions which could hurt you 15 turns later, may cause you to have to replay a large portion of your game if you fuck up too bad (which is frustrating and demoralizing).  Seriously, if you fuck up once, NATO and Warsaw are going to declare war on you.  But then again, once you know everything you can pretty much blaze through it with ease (also demoralizing).  In Rance, I always had the feeling I could come back no matter how many turns it took, and breezing through weaker territories was fun.  In this game, I always feel like I either am playing to boring and am just easily conquering, or I can’t come back when Rance attacks me (and he does make a pretty big cameo).  In short, the pacing and direction is pretty weak.

That being said, it’s definitely worth a run-through if you can get a hold of it (due to AliceSoft’s Japan sales only restriction after the unnecessary international backlash against eroge due to RapeLay about a year or so back).  Maybe it just tickled my fancy because of my love for war drama, so I’m not being as hard on it as I should.  Though if you love visual novels, you’ve played some Alicesoft games before, you have at least a vague understanding of Japanese as a language, and you <3 <3 war drama then you’ll enjoy it at least as much as I did.

It might be kinda gimmicky in catering to the territorial conquest hype after Rance…but…look, I really, really enjoyed dating Adorufu-chan.

Ever since my adventures through Wanko to Kurasou I’ve never been able to stay away from my beloved dog girls, and Dog Days is no exception.  This is definitely my guilty pleasure for this season…

When you walk into watching Dog Days, you can get a lot of wrong first impressions.  The major ones would be that this is a serious anime or that this is a bad anime.  I think Dog Days facilitates some people setting themselves up for disappointment.  As a huge fan of war drama, I can say that I felt a bit of lack luster after watching the first episode.  The fact that the “wars” (which easily could of been amazing) are actually treated as a sports event kills the early atmosphere impression that a real war war between cats and dogs is going on in a universe where you summon middle school boys to be war heroes.

And then, you realize exactly what I just wrote in the last sentence and come to the conclusion that this anime wasn’t serious from the start.  So, the next thing you think is that this is a bad anime.  I followed on with these jokes from the start – convinced that my love for this anime came exclusively from my love of dog girls and dislike of cat girls – but then I realized, what part of this anime is “bad” exactly?

The pacing and direction is amazing.  The character design is detailed.  The music is adequate.  The animation is fluid and comes from an experienced studio (Seven Arcs).  The voice actor list includes superstars like Norio Wakamoto and Nana Mizuki.  The special effects team is off the charts.  The only thing anyone can hold against this anime is just the sheer lulzyness of it’s content, setting, and plot.

It’s not even a bad plot, it’s just…weird.

The main leads are a bit lack luster but they do their jobs of being moral fags like many other stories I’m sure we all remember (I’m looking at you Shirou).  The truth is it’s hard to put into words what draws me to watching Dog Days.  Maybe my days of LOYALTY at Ye ‘olde Orange Farm just draw me to supporting an entire dog kingdom.  Maybe it’s the facial expressions I see streaked across Eclair’s embarrassed face.  Maybe it’s just because I want to pet Ricotta’s ears that badly.

Maybe I’m just easy to please?  I get my little dog-ear girl treats and I wag my tail?  I want to feel guilty for liking it but I’m just too damned shameless.  Let out a bark if you’re feeling the same way.

So here are the TV-size lyrics for the Nichijou （日常）OP.  If you suck at Japanese you can put them in a romanji translator or something and try to get lucky.  Maybe I’ll put up the hiragana later.  Separated them by male (blue), female (pink), and both (green) – via thisguy.  Just figured I’d let you guys know the full version seems to be out.  For the record, the video is the full version and the lyrics below are the TV size, so they won’t match up for the entire song.

「ヒャダインのカカカタ☆カタオモイ-C」
作詞・作曲・編曲・歌：ヒャダイン

たった今初めて気付いた (恋に落ちたのだな)
24時間 キミ・キミ・キミ (意識せざるを得ません)

なんか (なんか) いつもと違うキミと (二人)
ぎこちない会話 まさか (リョウオモイ？) いやカタオモイ！
やばい 視線合っちゃった

なになに？ このドキドキ？ (シャバ ダバ ディビ デュワ バッディー イェイ！)
思考回路 グチャグチャ混線 (ダバ ディビ ドゥビ イェイ！)
こんなこと初めてだよ 熱でもあるのかな？

急転直下 いらっしゃった恋心 (あっちゅうま 顔発火で 真っ赤っかー)
バババカな手が震えるぞ (これが俗に言う恋なの？)
ヤヤヤっちゃった 会話噛みまくり (気まずい沈黙 まみむめも)
キミの (キミの) 気持ち知りたいよ
カカカタ☆カタオモイ

初恋 (いつもの通学路)
ピカピカ光る (I will fall in love)
空も飛べそうさ
カカカタ☆カタオモイ

I’ll try to have some reviews up in a couple days, finals and such.

What I really want to talk about is the actual devastation of this event.  Though this blog largely (or nearly exclusively) focuses on otaku culture, if you want to read up on your idols and voice actors other sites have done a very good job of covering that information already.

So in this post, I’ll largely be focusing on how you can actually help the Japanese people instead of just covering it as some new thing that happened that may of not effect you or just effect your anime schedule for the next few weeks.  If you want to know that information, it’s simply:

-No Madoka for estimated two weeks (Shaft’s HQ building critically hit).

-No Go Sick for estimated one week.

-Index Season 2 being temporarily suspended (J.C. Staff drawing room destroyed).

So with that out of the way, let’s focus on the actual event and what we can do to help our beloved culture.

So, let’s start with the facts:

• The Sendai Earthquake reached a general accepted average of 8.9 on the Richter Scale, the 5th largest in history and largest Japan has ever seen.
• The most devastated region was North East Japan, around せんだい市.
• There are currently an estimated 400 dead, and roughly 800 more missing.  Keep in mind while these numbers seem small, the damage from the event no doubt left tens of thousands homeless and even more out of a job.
• Hawaii, California, Peru, and Chile were also severely affected.
• Connection (both internet and conventional communication) to the regions involved is severely limited.

I was watching the remains of the Madoka stream when I saw these events transpire from helicopter footage and cameras from national Japanese television stations.  Personally, it had a huge impact on me.  It wasn’t as if I saw it and thought “how tragic”, but the more I thought about the people who live there, colleague’s family, and Japanese friends I’ve met online – the devastation and scale of the event really started to dawn on me.  Call me a weaboo if you will, but I didn’t know I had such a strong connection to the Japanese people.  Being immersed in their media, entertainment, and general culture for over a decade was one thing, but after working through the language and meeting Japanese people I slowly started to learn how much I actually gave a damn.  A lot of my time and effort really went to understanding this culture, and even more was spent enjoying what they’ve brought to me.

I had nothing but dismay, shame, and anger when I heard some of my fellow countrymen say things like “Why do people care about Japan, do you not remember Pearl Harbor?”

Let me take a moment to answer that question…

No, I don’t remember Pearl Harbor.

I wasn’t alive during Pearl Harbor.  But I read about it.  I also read about how the Americans kept their own Japanese interment camps during World War II which were on par with Hitler’s Jewish concentration camps (except some people weren’t released until the 1960s).  I also read about how Japan was the first country to be hit by the atom bomb, twice, resulting in the death of millions of civilians (both radiation inside and outside of Japan – not even including the blast nucleus.)  And then I also read about their transition to democracy over a cooperative surrender.  Let’s not forget they built an amazing, efficient economy – despite their terrible natural resources – and went on to become the best “Westernized” Asian country and ally of America and Western Europe.  Oh yeah, how about that strong international support in the last 30 years?

And I’m still not even up to where I was born yet.

To not be supportive of helping those undergoing these tragedies is a tragedy in on itself.  Anyone who thinks that we not provide some of the less-than-one-percent of our national budget dedicated to foreign aid (because it’s “not our business”) is in-human (just like our friend Kyuubeh on the right).  Right now, Japan is facing many crisis: lack of communication (both internet and conventional means), a possible nuclear meltdown, and lacking equipment to remove debris to help trapped and missing human beings who could be potentially suffocated to death, crushed under tidal wave pressure, or mangled in debris.

So yeah, call me a softy, but I thought I’d help out.  I donated to the American Red Cross’s specific mission on this disaster; but there are many other charities available as well.  I just asked myself what was I really going to do with that 10$ anyway.  Buy 2.7 gallons of gas or so?  Split a two for 20 at applebees?  Save up for that figure?

Nah, I think I’ll be okay.  Someone running low on oxygen in a basement trapped under a pile of debris that used to be his or her home, however, doesn’t have that same peace of mind.