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Mar. 21st, 2013 08:12 amAnother pic of Rokuna as she would have looked before the events of Starbound:
http://dmxrated.deviantart.com/art/Rokuna-pre-story-Starbound-version-360697619
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Finally got around to reading Culture Shock! Japan two days ago, and I'm already halfway through. As a whole, I can tell that someone like me would really not be cut out to live there. The book itself even said that a lot of people living there by default don't find themselves all that well off there. That should come as no surprise, seeing how rampant hikikomori is, and even though the Japanese constitution states that people are free to leave the country, one must wonder how much of an option doing so would actually be, seeing that not all countries (if any, even) would welcome people coming from there.
I do tend to compare the specifics to our own culture or others. For example, businessmen are rarely allowed to take days off from work even for special occasions such as their child's graduation. That's exactly the case with the United States Marines, which Cousin Dennis is a part of; he usually doesn't come home for Thanksgiving, and wasn't even allowed off for Steven's high school graduation, because if they let everyone off for stuff like that, there would be no service (or something like that).
(On the other hand, here's a bit of Fridge Brilliance: In Sgt. Frog, Fuyuki and Natsumi's mother, Hinata, is at work most of the time, but there are chapters when she does come home (although Sports Day was not one of those times). If that's anything to go by, it's quite possible that Miyuki and Minami's fathers in Lucky Star actually do come home more often than one might think, albeit offscreen, and actually spend quality time with them instead of sleeping all day. (Miyuki even does mention in episode 13, giving chocolate to her father and another male relative for Valentine's Day.))
Anyway, the whole point of reading this is to avoid error resulting from me writing based on how things are in my home country instead of doing actual research. Such is exactly what happened in Rockna & a Hard Place and Fuyuki's Hot Night. I remember, when I showed her the still-existing AFF.net version of R&aHP, Adalia Glenys explained, among other things, that formal weapons are rare in Japan, and that Rockna could have easily told her father, the police, or a member of the school faculty what Takeshi and his friends did to her at his house, and they would deal with Takeshi right off the bat instead of blaming her for her own problems*. As for Natsumi playing Doom of all things in FHN, yeah, I read recently that the Japanese generally aren't too fond of western video games.
(*Ironically, I read just the opposite in the Headscratchers page for Azumanga Daioh: The most likely reason why Kimura-sensei has never been fired from teaching is because in Japan, it is a disgrace to be sexually abused, and anyone who reports it brings shame upon herself and her family. (Darfur, anyone?) Visited the page in the first place to ask how Chiyo managed to skip all the way to 10th grade at just ten years old, when in real life, age is the only factor that determines which class a student attends (probably Rule of Funny, if anything).)
For the most part, stuff that goes on in Lucky Star is pretty consistent with what I've read in the book. For example, the fact that Japan's Ministry of Education decides what the country needs and who will study to become what would explain why Lucky Star's main characters had to write down three occupations (or in Miyuki's case, three schools) of choice in episode 17. However, it also mentions that children, and even teenagers, generally aren't asked to do even simple chores such as taking out the garbage, given how much of their time is dominated by schoolwork.
Let's see: Tsukasa is good at cooking, check. Konata is shown cleaning alongside her father, and even makes fun of Kagami for how much she sucks at chores, check. Minami has a dog, and is also shown in a flashback doing some errand-shopping for her mother, check. And that's not saying anything about other anime or anime-based fanfiction, such as Mon Colle Knights (in which Rokuna is in charge of cooking meals and maintaining her household), Sgt. Frog (Fuyuki and Natsumi helping out with New Year's cleaning), and the NGE fic Tokyo3 Babysitters (in which Hikari and Rei help Misato take care of a babyfied Shinji). Yep. Apparently, there are exceptions to things that the book says about Japan in real life. Really, though, it depends on who you ask. Jake says that anime is just escapist fantasy from the way things are in real life, and I'm sure others would agree with him, although Chelle had different answers regarding these two entries than what Jake emailed me when I wrote them.
http://dmxrated.deviantart.com/art/Rokuna-pre-story-Starbound-version-360697619
-----
Finally got around to reading Culture Shock! Japan two days ago, and I'm already halfway through. As a whole, I can tell that someone like me would really not be cut out to live there. The book itself even said that a lot of people living there by default don't find themselves all that well off there. That should come as no surprise, seeing how rampant hikikomori is, and even though the Japanese constitution states that people are free to leave the country, one must wonder how much of an option doing so would actually be, seeing that not all countries (if any, even) would welcome people coming from there.
I do tend to compare the specifics to our own culture or others. For example, businessmen are rarely allowed to take days off from work even for special occasions such as their child's graduation. That's exactly the case with the United States Marines, which Cousin Dennis is a part of; he usually doesn't come home for Thanksgiving, and wasn't even allowed off for Steven's high school graduation, because if they let everyone off for stuff like that, there would be no service (or something like that).
(On the other hand, here's a bit of Fridge Brilliance: In Sgt. Frog, Fuyuki and Natsumi's mother, Hinata, is at work most of the time, but there are chapters when she does come home (although Sports Day was not one of those times). If that's anything to go by, it's quite possible that Miyuki and Minami's fathers in Lucky Star actually do come home more often than one might think, albeit offscreen, and actually spend quality time with them instead of sleeping all day. (Miyuki even does mention in episode 13, giving chocolate to her father and another male relative for Valentine's Day.))
Anyway, the whole point of reading this is to avoid error resulting from me writing based on how things are in my home country instead of doing actual research. Such is exactly what happened in Rockna & a Hard Place and Fuyuki's Hot Night. I remember, when I showed her the still-existing AFF.net version of R&aHP, Adalia Glenys explained, among other things, that formal weapons are rare in Japan, and that Rockna could have easily told her father, the police, or a member of the school faculty what Takeshi and his friends did to her at his house, and they would deal with Takeshi right off the bat instead of blaming her for her own problems*. As for Natsumi playing Doom of all things in FHN, yeah, I read recently that the Japanese generally aren't too fond of western video games.
(*Ironically, I read just the opposite in the Headscratchers page for Azumanga Daioh: The most likely reason why Kimura-sensei has never been fired from teaching is because in Japan, it is a disgrace to be sexually abused, and anyone who reports it brings shame upon herself and her family. (Darfur, anyone?) Visited the page in the first place to ask how Chiyo managed to skip all the way to 10th grade at just ten years old, when in real life, age is the only factor that determines which class a student attends (probably Rule of Funny, if anything).)
For the most part, stuff that goes on in Lucky Star is pretty consistent with what I've read in the book. For example, the fact that Japan's Ministry of Education decides what the country needs and who will study to become what would explain why Lucky Star's main characters had to write down three occupations (or in Miyuki's case, three schools) of choice in episode 17. However, it also mentions that children, and even teenagers, generally aren't asked to do even simple chores such as taking out the garbage, given how much of their time is dominated by schoolwork.
Let's see: Tsukasa is good at cooking, check. Konata is shown cleaning alongside her father, and even makes fun of Kagami for how much she sucks at chores, check. Minami has a dog, and is also shown in a flashback doing some errand-shopping for her mother, check. And that's not saying anything about other anime or anime-based fanfiction, such as Mon Colle Knights (in which Rokuna is in charge of cooking meals and maintaining her household), Sgt. Frog (Fuyuki and Natsumi helping out with New Year's cleaning), and the NGE fic Tokyo3 Babysitters (in which Hikari and Rei help Misato take care of a babyfied Shinji). Yep. Apparently, there are exceptions to things that the book says about Japan in real life. Really, though, it depends on who you ask. Jake says that anime is just escapist fantasy from the way things are in real life, and I'm sure others would agree with him, although Chelle had different answers regarding these two entries than what Jake emailed me when I wrote them.