The Otaku Report: Vol. 3

It's been about a year since my first Otaku Report, in which I tell you all about the fun weeb things I get to do because I live in Japan.  It seems apropos that I should give a shout-out to the best damn student of all time in this, the third edition of the Report. I mentioned to somebody before vacation that I was hoping to see an old student, and they thought I was being nice (no, they clearly don't know me well if they think I have nice impulses).  For me, I just thought it was sad that they'd clearly never had a student who was such a badass they'd actually want to spend time with them after graduation.

The Kawaii Kingpin and I didn't really break any new ground on the Way of the Weeb that week (there was more time spent in bookstores but that is all I'm going to say on that subject).  That didn't actually matter to me.  See, to make a Bungou Stray Dogs reference (this IS the Otaku Report, after all) I'd been feeling kind of Dazai lately.  A little too detached - you might even say no longer human.  Relating to people and interacting socially had become mendoksai.  It's probably a defense mechanism; after all, there are probably limits to how many times you can rip your still-beating heart out of your own chest, and yet that's the leaving nature of the expat lifestyle.  So I feel like I've been the lite version of my normal brew.  On the other hand, hanging out with the Kawaii Kingpin was just normal for me.  We didn't really do anything, just ate, talked, and shopped, but it was the best time I've had in a long time.

I did consider dragging him somewhere touristy with me - he left himself WIDE open when I first got into town by mentioning sightseeing - but I couldn't quite bring myself to do that to the best minion of all time.  Since he likes masses of people about as much as I do, it seemed pointlessly cruel (also, I'm still hoping he'll make it to Tokyo before he graduates and it would be nice if he actually wanted to see me).  I did drag him into Round One for a few games of big fat Space Invaders, but I don't think he actually minded that.

Speaking of Space Invaders, I first saw it at the Round One near Yokohama Station earlier this year and I've been itching to play it ever since.  Shaggy and I (but mostly Shaggy) used to play the Atari version of this game when we were kids, so it held a certain amount of nostalgia for me.  The Japanese arcade version of it is so lit, though - you actually sit in the gunner's seat and have this big ass laser thing to shoot the aliens with.  Playing with the Kawaii Kingpin revealed a fundamental difference in our approach to the game.  I was trying to keep from dying, while he was racking up points, with the end result being that he killed me on the point spread, but since he's a hardcore gamer it would have been surprising if it had ended any other way.

Back to Bungou Stray Dogs, back in September I got to go to the stage show at Sunshine Theater in Ikebukuro.  It told the story of the "black" period, or basically the first few episodes of season 2, which focus on why Dazai left the Port Mafia.  This might be disappointing if you're a fan of the Armed Detective Agency, or even of Akutagawa, who only appears in silhouette.  Since (for once) my favorite character is central to the story, I was okay with it.  Sensei had to help me buy the tickets, and she was a little worried because it wasn't in English, but I reassured her that I'd do just fine.  My Dazai plush was not quite finished because I managed to melt his bolo clip in the school's toaster oven, but since he was pretty much done I brought him with me anyways.

It may have taken me five short trips and one year of full-time living, but I finally got the chance to see a kabuki play.  After school let out in June I was messing around in Tokyo and saw an Art & Live poster in the train station.  When I looked it up it turned out to have listings of different fine arts events in Tokyo...one of which was a kabuki play that tells the story of Naruto.  After my second time watching Noh (aka, trying not to nap in public), I was questioning whether or not Japanese theater was for me, but if ever there was a kabuki for me, it would be Naruto.  For starters, some of the character designs already look like the old ukiyo-e prints of kabuki actors.  I also figured I could deal with the language gap, since (thanks to the anime's prolific flashbacks) I knew the story front and back.  I wasn't entirely sure how they'd manage to boil 700 manga chapters down into a play, but I was game to give it a chance.

Well, I should have figured that one out from something Blondie once told me.  She complained about how long the kabuki she saw was, and that she left after the first part.  I naively thought that this would be like a classic western 3-act play, with a short intermission thrown in.  As I later learned (according to Wikipedia), kabuki's concept is more than just entertainment...it's an escape from the world.  Personally I prefer to escape via a good book, but hey, to each their own.  Suffice it to say that intermission, when it came, was 45 minutes.  I went to the bathroom.  I went to buy postcards.  I drank some water and twiddled my thumbs, because I didn't bring a bento - and STILL I waited.  It was August, and in spite of the air conditioning it was hot in the theater, so I got drowsier and drowsier.  FINALLY the second act started.

The costumes were gorgeous, and I loved some of the ways they achieved special effects.  Sadly I don't remember them all that well at this point because it's been three months since then, but I remember thinking that they'd managed to tell the story while remaining true to the medium.  I was fighting to stay away to the end, but then the second, FORTY-FIVE MINUTE intermission started, and I decided it was time for me to go find the nearest Coco Curry.

Although I don't dote on my students here like I did in Mongolia, I don't hate them all.  Recently one of the girls in elementary asked if I watched Touken Ranbu, and I felt just awful, telling her shiny little face that I'd missed the opportunity to go to the Swords of Kyoto exhibit while I was on vacation.  There was a stamp rally, too, but I couldn't figure out where all the stops were and I've already written about one of those, so the final item in this Otaku Report deals with pop-up shops.  I was ecstatic to learn that one had just opened for Golden Kamuy on the 6th floor of the Marui department store at Shijo Kawaramachi (I'd be even more happy about it now...episode 20 was not precisely my kind of fanservice, but it was in the ballpark).  I didn't really care for the special design character goods - one of the things I love about those characters is their normal character designs, so putting them in different contexts didn't really work for me.  That said, anytime you can visit a shop selling ONLY goods from one of your current favorite anime, I call it a win.  Now I just have to hope that Goodsmile will get their acts together and make me a Sugimoto nendoroid.