I assume you've heard the term bucket list before. It's a phrase that implies there are things you HAVE to see, generally before you kick the bucket, but people also use it for singular trips. The bucket list of things you have to do when you visit Japan, for example. The thing is, I don't actually like this term. Maybe I'm too old for it - in a way similar to the fact that I'm too old to really understand bullet journals (they happened after my time, yo) - but I think the bigger problem is that they deny the reality that there are layers and layers of possibilities in every trip.
I'd been resisting the pull of Japan since leaving, telling myself that I needed to buckle down and save up before I went back, because when I went back I was going to DO ALL THE THINGS! I'd like to say that this was very practical of me, and applaud myself for not giving in to temptation...but I'm not really a very practical person. As you know by now if you read my last post, my resolve broke about a month ago, and I started thinking about what else I could do in my favorite city in Japan.
See, my first go-round was all about geisha, shrines, and castles. My focus shifted before I came back three years ago, when I went to about a bajillion festivals and art workshops. Last fall I planned my trip around art exhibits and yokai hunting. But the thing is there is ALWAYS something else to do there. For example, the Ningyo Kuyo at Hokyo-Ji. I've been wanting to come to this ceremony since I first learned that doll memorials were a thing in Japan, and this time the dates finally lined up. I went to the Ningyou Kanshasai at Meiji Jingu, but this was completely different - more intimate and ceremonial. Hokyo-Ji is a Buddhist nunnery temple where the head priestess was traditionally an imperial princess. Normally they hold the ceremony outside, but since it was kind of rainy, we were gathered on the porch of the garden. I ended up with front row "seats" - before it started they ushered all the foreigners to sit on tatami mats on the left side of the ceremony - and although it was a struggle to stay awake after about five minutes of chanting while different VIPs made their presentations, I was rewarded in the end with a musical performance (how much do I miss taiko? SO much) and maiko dances. Sadly I still haven't gotten to see the funeral pyre, but I guess that's just another reason to go back - I hear Tokorozawa holds one in June...
Another temple I neglected on past trips was Kosan-Ji. This is where the Choujuu-Giga - a series of scrolls depicting animals doing wild and crazy things - were created. They're often considered the earliest manga, and although I'd wanted to see where they came from the last time I was in Kyoto, there's never enough time to do everything.
From a subway station near my hotel I could take one bus all the way to the temple parking lot, so it seemed like the time was right to finally make it. Actually finding the bus was the hardest part - it was one of those pesky JR buses that doesn't have a number, and as much as I love Google maps, they still haven't figured out bus stops. The temple was beautiful, and walking across its wooden floors in my sock feet as I soaked up the sun was relaxing. But its best feature was probably how it demonstrates one of the things I love the most about this place. Kyoto is definitely a city, but all along its fringes are these beautiful bits of nature - mountains, forests, a lake. I've said it so many times that it hardly bears repeating: I'm a city girl through and through. But I grew up in the country, and I've lived in Mongolia so many years that I also enjoy leaving civilization behind every once in a while. Kyoto gives you both.
I steered clear of art museums this time but found more than enough art along my way. I stumbled across yet another Zen Buddhist temple as I was cycling around Gion on my fifth day, Kennin-Ji. I decided to go in on a whim - I needed to park my bike somewhere, since I was thinking about getting some ties cut that morning and Yasui Konpiragu doesn't have bike parking - but it turned out to be a serendipitous whim. I was struck immediately by the beauty of the gardens, most likely because I've been building one in which to display my sacred relics. If anything, I guess that was the driving force behind a lot of the sightseeing I did during this trip - later the same day I went to Eikan-Do specifically to see their gardens.
But Kennin-Ji also had some great art. They had screens of Fuujin and Raijin - gods of wind and lightning - possibly the originals, since they seemed to be selling an awful lot of swag featuring them. But they also had an incredibly beautiful contemporary sumi-e painting of twin dragons in the main prayer hall, done to commemorate the 800th anniversary of their founding. When I left the temple, I felt like I'd done my professional development for the week, and felt just that much less guilty about wasting time on shopping.
I did not, though, end up going to Yasui Konpiragu afterwards. See, in addition to a shit ton of shopping and hanging out with my padawan, I was looking forward to some quality time with Sensei, who turned out to be on vacation the same week as me, and announced that she'd be coming through Kyoto on her way back from Shikoku after I booked my ticket. I realized that she was the perfect person to go with to get my ties cut. See, Yasui Konpiragu's kamisama is famous for cutting ties with prejudice, and after getting yet another email from our favorite cyberstalker, I figured I could use a good tie-cutting. Afterwards we wandered up to Yasaka Jinja, and then back toward Sanjo where her hotel was, stopping at Red Rock for lunch. I hadn't realized til I saw her how much I missed her.
After a full day of shopping in Osaka on Saturday, trying to scurry back to the hotel through the rain while protecting my treasures, I kind of just wanted to eat yakiniku and stay in for the rest of the night. But there was one, last thing I had to do; after flopping on the bed for about a half hour, I realized I'd be pissed at myself if I missed it, so I blow-dried my clothes, trudged down to the bus stop, and embarked on my way to Taishogun Street. I went there last fall to hunt yokai, but I missed the main event - the Hyakki Yagyu, or Night Parade of 100 Demons. Given my own particular idiom, this was totally unacceptable, and since it was happening while I was there this time, I really had to make it. The Japanese do cosplay like nobody else in the world, with the end result being that you really felt like you were mingling with myths on the street. Eventually musicians joined us and began to play - oh my taiko! - and the ayakashi danced off into the night.
I continued down the street past the stalls of the Mononoke Ichi - a market selling yokai goods - just narrowly resisting the temptation to buy a paper kitsune lantern (it was 3,000 yen and I was already bringing back both kitsune AND a lantern, or else I might have succumbed). Further on Daishogun Hachiman Jinja was lit up with lanterns and stalls selling food, and I couldn't resist the lure of one more kakigori before I left. Everyone should be so lucky as to both start and end a week in Kyoto with a matsuri.
Or that’s what they say at any rate. After a week’s worth of shopping in Kyoto and Osaka, I have my reservations regarding the veracity of that statement. Maybe money can’t buy love, but it can buy me new toys, and that’s close enough for me.
When we last left off, I was singing the praises of Nendoroids. Until about a year ago, these were the anime figures for me. This is largely due to the fact that the industry isn’t exactly known for catering to its female fans, and I didn’t exactly try to find out otherwise...it was just too depressing. But everything changed when I won my first scale figure, Roy Mustang from Fullmetal Alchemist, who I snatched with the claw of doom. Unlike a nendo he was frozen in place, but he was bigger, and had a really cool pose, and maybe he broke something in me, because I started watching for prize figures when I went to the arcade. This isn’t the cheapest way to build a collection, but through it I was able to add a nice Rimuru to my hoard.
Meanwhile, back in April I refuted the supposition that wickedness never was happiness in my post about AnimeJapan. I mentioned going out for yakiniku afterwards and buying something I’d been eyeing at Book-Off...an Ichiban Kuji prize of Natsume Takashi. This was kind of where the dam broke and my money started flooding out. In quick succession I ordered MegaHouse’s new Kitaro, as well as Kusuriuri, who I’d found at Lashinbang in Akiba (which was convenient, since I sold off a couple of touken danshi nendoroids to pay for him). And that was about the time I left Japan, and - you might think - stopped “wasting” money on toys.
Foxes and torii from Fushimi-Inari-Taisha
You would be wrong in SO many ways. Imma put aside the argument right now that these are not mere toys but works of art and investment pieces (or at least, they are when I’m not being self-deprecatory), and I’m not going to go into too much depth about purchasing figures online, because this is a travel blog (sorta. Sometimes). Instead, suffice it to say that between teaching and my two courses I’ve been eagerly curating my collection of sacred relics, finally joined by my own personal holy grail, the Yato I was, at long last, able to buy on Yahoo Auctions. This has been equal parts delightful and frustrating, though, because I keep thinking of cool crap I could use if only I was in Japan, or had access to a real Daiso. Someday I'll probably write more specifically about my displays. As far as the shopping part goes, though...well...three weeks ago I decided to throw financialcaution to the wind and make my triumphant comeback. Convenient, huh?
Gacha? They gotcha.
Before I could even make it to Daiso, though, I came across another source of treasure - gachapon machines. I can’t believe I wasted two years in Japan without truly appreciating the genius of their capsule toys. Before I looked at them as a none-too-reliable source for anime swag. As a curator, though, I now see the potential they have as accessories for nendoroids. Mostly I just let myself discover them as I went, but I did have an eye out for two specific things - tiny gachapon machines and a drink vending machine. The first I found in Kyoto’s Shinkyogoku arcade. The second I never did manage to track down, although the Yellow Submarine in Denden Town had just about every other gacha I could hope for, and - among other wonderful things - a model kit for a coke machine that made me realize I could DIY myself one, which in the end sits better with my artistic tendencies.
I was supposed to make that trip with the Kawaii Kingpin, but an ill-timed bout of indigestion meant that I had to go it alone. In some ways that sucked, but it also worked to my advantage, since it meant I could leave super early and indulge in my Saturday morning Denny’s routine, not to mention that I didn’t have to worry about him judging my choices. Sometimes a girl needs her own bunny figure, okay??? I also didn’t have to fight him for the Goblin Slayer nendoroid I found for 3500 yen, so in the end I was able to forgive him for going and getting sick.*
The natsukashii was thick on the ground, even if I have only been gone three months. I was kind of looking forward to playing some UFO catchers, but I’ve gotten wiser in my old age, and instead of fighting to get the damn machine to spit out what I want, I hit up the local Book-Off+ and was able to get the most recent Sasuke. I’ve done a pretty decent job of adhering to my one character/one figure rule, with the upshot being that I resisted the temptation to get scaled versions of my Haikyuu best boys and had both the money to buy Sasuke and space in my treasure chest (carry-on suitcase).
Anyways, the moral of the story is that the Beatles didn’t know what they were talking about. Money can buy you love, especially if the thing you love is adorable chibi figures of cute boys. Because at the end of the day, although I love scale figures and have worked hard to diversify my collection, sometimes a girl needs a nendoroid. Or two. Or five.
*Also he gave me the drawing he did of Tomioka-san. And spent Friday waiting to receive Mitsuha and Taki for me, because after we saw Weathering With You, I had to rewatch Kimi no Na Wa, which made me realize I needed their nendoroids. There’s a reason he’s still my favorite - my disciple is saiko.
So if you ever tell me you've been thinking, "Maybe it's time to get a master's degree," I - as a caring and concerned friend - may recommend you ask yourself a few more questions before proceeding. This week the question is, "Did you ever get over procrastinating?" When you've put off your assignment til the night before, and you get a headache, will you be able to push through the pain and do the work anyway? If not, are you tech savvy enough to deal with the inevitable issues that come up when you woke up at 5:30 to finish before school on a half-asleep brain? Because that is where I was this morning. I still managed to get 100% from a professor that I've heard is tough but excellent, but I just take that as proof that God really does watch out for fools and children.
This week you're getting a break from the art posts courtesy of Engrish. Although she was quick to explain that she and Blondie hadn't been to many cultural events while I was gone (because there really hadn't been any), she was even quicker to deliver one. Danshig Naadam is the religious flavor of Mongolia's manly sports festival, first celebrated in 1639 to commemorate my old buddy Zanabazar's elevation to the Peerage (or something like that...his title was Bogd Jebtsundamba Khutuktu rather than Sir Zanabazar, but you get the gist, right?)* This year the timing was pushed back to the beginning of September, which is good, because when I took Evil's niece in 2015 it was in August and too hot to really enjoy.
The reason why I was REALLY looking forward to it is the fact that after five previous years in Mongolia I was still trying to see Tsam dancing. Okay, so to be fair, I'd seen it before, not only at Tumen Ekh but at an event the owner of my school invited me to attend at the National Museum of Modern Art, but...well, you know me. If seeing something is good, seeing it in its original context is even better. And the previous time I went to Danshig Naadam, we somehow missed the Tsam dance.
See, Tsam wasn't intended to be entertaining. It's not some crazy booty-shaking in fancy dress just for funsies...not that there's anything wrong with that. I personally enjoyed the hell out of exactly that during my years in Korea. But Tsam has spiritual significance, as was pretty apparent from my first look inside the Naadam stadium on Sunday. Across the field I could see an enormous applique thangka - a Buddhist devotional image - hung from the roof of the stadium and facing the field. According to its very short Wikipedia entry Tsam can be seen not only as religious instruction but also a form of meditation. Which makes sense, because the music is not exactly the rockin'-est beatz. Tsam dance moves to the sounds of cymbals and conch horns, the latter of which have a tendency to drone a little, and while it's not the kind of sound that will drift you off to Dreamland, there is something hypnotic about it.
On the other hand, it carries very well over a distance, and as Engrish and I left for the stadium from our rendezvous at the nearby shopping center, we were reassured that we were in the right place, and hurried on our way over.
I might have been a bit concerned we were missing the action, but the dance was in progress as I went in to claim some seats for us. Engrish joined me a few minutes later after waiting to hear from Blondie, so she got to see a little before the masked dancer left the field. I wondered if that was it, but before long, another dancer came out and performed, and eventually Blondie joined us and got to see it all for herself. It's possible that she may even have been a little grateful that she didn't see the entire dance, because...well. I'm just going to come out and say it: the dance is a little repetitive. Maybe the conch horns sound a little like butt-trumpeting. If it's enough for you to see just a glimpse of the dance, Tumen Ekh's daily performances are a wonderful opportunity to do exactly that.
But on the other hand...even though the seats in the stadium can't be considered comfortable by ANY stretch of the imagination, and the full dance seemed to stretch on a little, I didn't for a second wish I had missed the chance to experience it.
I was sitting in the shade on a cool, Sunday morning, with two of my favorite peeps, feasting on a culture I'd been largely cut off from the last two years. I was finally experiencing something I'd hoped to see for most of the years I lived in Mongolia. Sadly my dumb ass left the apartment without my Big Gun - I actually realized as I was walking out to get in the taxi, but I was worried about being late and also, I was lazy, so I didn't go back for it - so my photos were shot with my iPad. Sorry for that. Luckily after the dancing wound down the dancers came over to the altar set up in front of the thangka, so I got some decent shots anyways.
And THEN they handed out candy, and it was like a feeding frenzy. If you've never been to Mongolia, you have to understand that Mongolians love candy. It's not even that good chocolatey shit like we Americans hand out every Halloween...no these are just the hard candies like everyone's grandmother except mine keeps in a glass dish in their house. I didn't join in the battle royale, but one of the grandpas kindly shared with Engrish. It was sweet. The gesture, that is, not the candy...we were ready for some real food by this point, and maybe our Western culture has some deeply ingrained beliefs about accepting candy from strangers.
The blogging for this year could be off to a better start. Ignore for the moment the fact that I'm a few days late and several dollars short (arigato very much, Japan). I like to joke around about the fact that I have six readers, but for the moment, it's actually true. If you are currently reading this, you are one of a very short list of people privileged to my writing. To explain why, I've gotta take the Wayback Machine to last January. A friend of mine asked me to meet her for dinner because she needed to talk about her then-husband's escalating temper. Between myself and her other friends, we got her out of the situation before any lasting harm was inflicted, but unfortunately, that wasn't the end of the tale. Her ex-person (as he turned out to not be legally married to her under either Japan or US laws) managed to get ahold of email addresses of some of her friends and has ever since been spamming us with emails that range from pathetic ("This is killing me") to manipulative ("I'm going to kill myself") to just plain creepy ("I pray to God that something happens to you like this one day," which I'd gleefully inform him isn't how God works - and even if He did, I'm pretty sure I'm on better terms with Him - except that would require a response, and I've been avoiding that). And then last week my friend let me know her ex-asshole looked up her new Facebook account, because my friends list is public, and the fact that I've never had anything to worry about as far as internet security goes was a thing of the past. There's not much solid info in here, thanks to the fact that I adopted The Evil One's practice of using code names shortly after I started this blog, but I suppose if someone wanted to be a creeper badly enough, they could figure out a lot, especially if they knew my actual name. So here we are. Eventually I imagine it will be okay to make my blog public again, but for now, I'm erring on the side of caution.
But that doesn't let me off the hook as far as the blog goes. I promised that I was going to blog y'all some Mongolian art, and that was just as well, since I sort of got stood up by an old student on Saturday morning. To be fair, I was dubious when he suggested meeting at 9:30 am, and it turns out for good reason, but I had a book and - as he pointed out - I had a good breakfast, finally learning exactly what eggs benedict are at ROC in Zaisan. I went to Merkuri from there to continue restocking my kitchen, since I had inexplicably rediscovered the desire to bake again after two years without an oven. After a well-earned foot massage I was finally ready to see some art.
The first artist I actually saw the previous week after visiting the Union of Mongolian Artists show. The Sengeragi Gallery (formerly Best Art) is in the same building, and although Art Avenue said that Batmunkh Tserendash's Nomad Art exhibition was only August 4-7, there it was, so I checked it out.
Sculpture is really not my thing, but I keep telling myself that I need to get over that. That's cause I'm an art teacher, yo. Of course, I'd never thought about it the other way around...that being an art teacher could help me get over my blocks about sculpture not really being my thing Looking at Tserendash's sculptures didn't make me a better sculptor myself, but I felt like I had a better appreciation for them because I teach about sculpture.
For example, the first thing that stood out to me about Tserendash's work was the materials that he used. Although I can't give you particulars about what kinds, he works primarily in wood, with metal embellishments. There is striking contrast between the warmth of wood and the organic qualities of its grain against the metal, but it's interesting to see the ways in which Tserendash manipulates these qualities to make them more compatible; staining the wood a cool color, or shaping the metal into more organic forms. Some parts of the work appear at first glance to be metallic, but on closer inspection turn out to be distressed wood. This purposeful manipulation of materials begs the question of what the the thought process behind the choice was. To make the sculptures lighter? To make a statement about the impermanence of nomadic life? I'm pretty sure I'm not versed enough in Mongolian art at this point to venture a guess.
The other thing I most enjoyed about Tserendash's work was the play of the shadows on the gallery walls. One quality of sculpture is that it does have that third dimension. You can view it from different angles, but this also means that when light strikes it (particularly the bright, directed light favored in galleries) there will be an interaction with the space. The sculptures were interesting but seeing the shadows they cast suggested to me that the work was the contemporary successor of Mongolian artistic traditions. But then maybe I'm stretching.
Queens, by D. Ganbold
I dropped in on the Altan Khaan Gallery after the Sengeragi Gallery, but didn't look critically until a week later. Dorjderem Ganbold's exhibition, "Once Upon a Time in Mongolia," highlights the usual Mongolian themes, but expresses them using a fauve color palette and abstract treatment. He is the grandson of a Mongol zurag painter named Ch. Minjuur, and it wasn't until I was getting ready to write this post that I figured out that Mongol zurag is essentially the Mongolian equivalent of nihonga. If you've ever seen a rendition of a Naadam scene, or a thangka painting, these are typically painted with mineral pigments, although the pigments used seem to be different from the ones I used over the last year and a half (unless they aren't, in which case it's probably down to the fact that I favored the large grain sizes that get that beautiful sparkle in sunlight).
Autumn Melody, by D. Ganbold
With these pieces Ganbold aims to give an eternal sense of grandeur to nomadic life. The scale of these works works well towards achieving this; although he had some smaller pieces, such as "Childhood," for the most part his paintings are at a relatively large scale. What makes these especially effective is the contrast between cool backgrounds and warm, vivid colors in the foreground. Even from outside the gallery the glowing effect of his color choices catches the eye and draws you in.
Splendid Altai Mountains, by D. Ganbold
I do have to say that I found the surface texture to be somewhat distracting. The paint was neither as thickly textured as some of the visual texture might lead you to believe nor super smooth. Either one of these would have been fine, but instead there were areas where the paint rose away from the canvas that - at least to me - detracted from the overall quality of the work. But maybe that's just me. If his goal is to preserve what he (in his artist statement) calls "true intangible assets of Mongolia," I would say that this is a successful body of work.
However...I'm sure this will come up again as I try to write about Mongolian art, but Mongolian art largely seems to incorporate the same themes over and over again ad nauseum. Herders and herds and horses and the fucking badass Mongolian queens, Chinggis, the steppe, the mountains, deerstones, long script: I'm probably forgetting one or two, but you get the gist. Don't get me wrong - these are important traditions to Mongolia, but I feel like contemporary art here is so obsessed with its past that it's blind to the issues of its present and future. And the more I've studied art, the more I value work that can shock and challenge and make a statement. So here's hoping for more of that in posts to come.
There were times over the last two years that I missed Mongolia simply because I thought it would be nice to have some down time. Japan was my own personal wonderland, but I ran myself ragged. Starting my master's with painting sent me on an art-making adventure that took up so much time that I didn't finish a single plushie until I got home that first summer. I didn't have much of a social life, but that was a moot point because my weekends didn't exactly leave much space for friends (especially since mine weren't really the kind to drop everything at a moments' notice to take a train to the other side of Tokyo for festivals or otaku events). I did manage to sit down and post a blog relatively regularly, although this was mostly thanks to the drink bar at Denny's on Saturday mornings. I know that someone, somewhere has said something about how you can't do it all. I can't think of what the exact saying is, or who came up with it, but the gist is that you have to make choices, and that was kind of the story of my last two years.
Well now, here I am, back in Mongolia, and I've hardly known what to do with myself the last two Saturday mornings. There's no Denny's, and Shibuya is too far to drop in for a nihonga lesson. This is compounded by the fact that I lived in Mongolia for five years last time. If there's something to do here, I have, most likely, already done it.
For my inaugural post I decided to visit my old favorite gallery, the Union of Mongolian Artists Gallery. They had a joint exhibition that ended yesterday, so I figured it should have priority over whatever else I might come across. The gallery was divided into two discrete sections, but I found myself drawn to Shagdarsuren Baatar's work first. It was characterized by earthy colors and energetic, flowing line work. Although she draws on a lot of well-worn Mongolian imagery - horses, knot work, Buddhist iconography, deerstones, and Chinggis Khaan, to name but a few - her style keeps them from getting stale. Many pieces shared the perspective seen in traditional Naadam paintings. Nutag-2 is one example, showing the way her treatment makes for a fresh and interesting take on traditional Mongolia. I was less inspired by her more polished portraits, such as Ezen; these more figurative works felt more pinned to reality by their treatment, losing much of the liveliness of other works.
Khair, Sh. Baatar
Her ability to play with historical Mongolian art forms was also brilliantly demonstrated in paintings on leather. Some of these were done on remnants stitched and applied to canvas, but she also makes use of traditional wooden stretchers to showcase her work, resulting in a beautiful recollection of the past.
But perhaps my favorite, somewhat predictably, were her erotic works. (Remember please that I was hentai long before I moved to Japan). She had a series of monochromatic drawings all titled Tatalbar in - best guess - charcoal, depicting couplings within gers. These stood out to me not only because of the exuberance of their eroticism, granted by her trademark linework, but the careful details included, such as the stitching in the felt rugs being frolicked upon. A more subtle reference to classical Mongolian artworks was found in Khair and Orshikhui, in which the subjects are posed similarly to tantric Buddhist sculptures (a replica of which - fun fact - I found in the school cafeteria this week. It wasn't particularly explicit, but I would be surprised if the high school boys hadn't picked up on it).
Uya-2 & Uya-1, B. Khongorzul
The other half of the gallery was taken up with the somewhat impressionistic work of B. Khongorzul. Her art consisted of monumental sized portraits and historic scenes, as well as some flowers. I was first struck with the feeling that her portraits were reminiscent of John Singer Sargent's, somewhat loose brushwork effectively rendering the cloth of her subjects' apparel. I never felt that Sargent portrayed people as they were, though, instead layering grandiosity upon them (to be fair, he was painting the filthy rich for money; they didn't exactly want to look like their everyday selves). Khongorzul's subjects, on the other hand, are everyday Mongolians, and her depictions of them as they are grants a feeling of dignity to such everyday people.
Khun Gurnii Uilchid, B. Khongorzul
Her historical works, on the other hand, have nothing everyday about them. Although these are grandiose - in a couple of cases even mythological - they are nevertheless grounded in reality. The labels demonstrate the meticulous research that went into making these works believable, even when the scenes depicted, such as the women sewing a felt carpet of which only a fragment remains, may not have happened at all. I can respect the hell out of that.
I have to admit that I may have been having something of an existential crisis since leaving Japan. The artistic work I've done over the last two years has been firmly rooted in my experiences there, so I feel a small bit justified in at least some panicking. Will I be able to finish my works in progress when cut off from their source, let alone begin new pieces? I'm still trying to figure that out, but I'm holding out hope that the sum effect will be a positive one. I've found myself struggling to decide whether or not my ideas have relevance, or if my appropriation of Japanese culture and imagery into my art is worth anyone's attention. Maybe by going outside my context I'll figure that out; if not, I at least hope seeing the ways in which Baatar and other Mongolian artists own their own culture might inspire me. Either way, at least I no longer have to live for the weekends. Even though it's only been a week and a half since work started - three days with kids - I remember why I loved working here so much. It didn't feel like work, and that's a wonderful thing.
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only." -Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities My first post after arriving in Japan pondered the possibility that it was better to be a tourist than to live here. After two years I'm not sure I figured it out. On one hand, I have had far more experiences and learned much more than I ever could have hoped, even if I'd spent every vacation I had in the last two years in Japan. However, the truth remains that work was...challenging, at best...and my salary low enough that after two years I've decimated* my savings. It was a two-year whirlwind, but the school year finally edged its way into thankful oblivion. I got my Mongolian visa, eventually** finished packing and cleaning, and headed back to the States for the summer.
Iowa might not exactly be my favorite place in the world, but it's got a few things in its favor, other than my family. There are times that I think you could film a live-action Studio Ghibli film here. Although spaces as green as the shady spot in a corner of my dad's field are few and far between, the sheer numbers of fireflies are mind-boggling, and the number of butterflies this year was just unreal. I mean, every time I drove anywhere I felt like I was mowing down nature, although this presented an excellent opportunity to collect...let's say...art materials, although I don't have a project in mind yet. It was also pretty cool to feel like I was stepping into the Shire whenever I left the house.
Under the circumstances, maybe it was inevitable that I'd want to celebrate achieving Level 40 with a bonfire/fairy party. I spent so long making wings for the various Winter Lords and Summer Ladies that it didn't turn out to be quite as big a dog and pony show as I originally envisioned, but that was probably for the best. The kids had fun playing together and the mortals invited to the revel all went away unscathed and still in fashion, as we broke up the fairy ring somewhere short of a hundred years. A couple of days before that my old rival and fellow Faerie Queen, Baby Chicken Wing, invited me to go see Japanese schoolgirls (and one schoolboy) play in a handbell choir. Could there possibly be a better event for me? I say nay. Both of us were familiar from handbells from attending a certain church in our hometown...Babysis turned down the opportunity because she still goes there, thus it ain't no thing for her...so we kind of had expectations about what a handbell choir would be like. Which they proceeded to smash with their first song, the main theme from Star Wars. They played some jazz, a traditional Japanese song, Tchaikovsky's Waltz of the Flowers...of course they played a couple of hymns, but they were so completely entertaining to watch that these couldn't even be compared to the old ladies that play at church. My mind was also occupied with thoughts of the social dynamics of the boy in the cultural club from a Japanese high school, when it wasn't busy thinking that I ought to reread the Old Kingdom Series by Garth Nix (necromancers with handbells...you tell me YOU wouldn't have been thinking it, too).
The family, on the other hand, convinced me to go to the zoo with them. Okay, it was actually Shaggy - I figured if he drove (just under) 5 hours (in his new Beemer, no kids or dogs, obvs) to celebrate with me I could brave the heat and sun, especially when he promised we weren't staying all day. He kept referring to the Henry Doorly Zoo as "the best zoo in the world," and while it is a damn fine zoological park I have reservations about it being the worlds' best, although since zoos aren't really my thing, I can't provide any annoying counterarguments. It was neat to see how much it's changed since the last time I was there, which was probably around 10 years ago, and I loved seeing the niblings together. Later I shared the photos with the family, prompting my dad to admit this might be the best way to experience the zoo.
On my actual level-up day my Mom and I packed up the niblings - detained to give their mom the chance to get shit done - and headed down to Shaggy's place. This is kind of important, since it gives me the chance to visit my grandmother and my great uncle along the way, but what I was really looking forward to was...less a mini-reunion than a micro one, since it's always just me and the Nice One.
That said, this is the third or fourth summer we've gotten together to catch up, providing some much needed sanity and at least a couple of reality checks. Also, a good browse through Barnes and Noble and more food than is probably a good idea. I mean, seriously, America! Who puts brisket on a burger?*** And THEN tops it with a bajillion onion straws??? That thing won't even fit in your mouth! For the record, I ended up knocking most of the onions out of the middle and eating them dipped in sauce, which, also for the record, was excellent, but probably made the order of onion straws we ordered as a side totally unnecessary. Hours later we chased it with custard from Andy's, which Shaggy pointed out they sell at the restaurant, but even if he has room for ice cream after a burger like that, I sure as hell didn't. We discussed taking a road trip for our next act, and now that I've seen this year's school schedule, we might actually be able to make that into a mini-reunion after all...the Evil One's going to be Stateside in January and with a longer vacation the fates may, perchance, align. We shall see.
Somehow vacation was over before I felt like it had really started. My mom always complains that my holidays are too short, but this time I couldn't really argue...in spite of the fact that I spent a whole month at home, it seemed to fly by. I'm not really complaining, since I'm happy to be back in Mongolia, although I'll be a lot happier once school starts and I get to spend time with my kids. Still, it felt strangely short, the way time is a little different in the realms of faerie, where a year can go by in the space of a cicada's song. There aren't any of those here in UB, but I have a feeling the next year will pass in the blink of an eye nonetheless... *I mean that very literally...I have 10% of the savings that I had two years ago. But if my parents are reading this right now, fear not - I'm planning to save more this go-round. **6 a.m. the day I left Japan... ***Blaaack Sheep, that's who.
Mention anime figures to a certified normie, and you might get a look of disgust. Everyone knows what that person is thinking of: attractive, big-busted (possibly underage) women, scantily clad and in anatomically unlikely positions. Well, there’s a reason why that’s a stereotype. There are an awful lot of bishoujo figures out there.
That is not, however, all there is out there. Figures come in a variety of formats, and at different sizes. But the best, in my humble opinion, are the nendoroids I mentioned in my last post. These are figures with exaggerated, “chibi” proportions - huge heads with small bodies. They have interchangeable parts, allowing you to do more with them. They’re smaller than a lot of figures, which means they'll be easier to pack up to your next port of call. Of course, some people think they’re expensive, but those people probably collect Funko Pops (which there’s nothing wrong with, even if the quality of the two can’t even be compared). Plus you can pose them and change their expressions, and even (if you’re tech-savvy and don’t have other things to do with your time) create stop-motion animation using them, as seen in the video below by Dan Von Carr.
However, my favorite thing about nendos (as we hip kids call them) is the fact that they demonstrate greater gender equality. I’m much more likely to find a nendo of a character I like than I am a scale figure. Hell, I think they may actually be planning to make every damn Touken Ranbu character there is, and that’s saying a lot. GoodSmile, the company that makes them, has a tendency to make whole series of characters from given shows.
For example, every one of the Generation of Miracles, from Kuroko no Basuke. One Saturday morning in May, I missed my planned Saturday outing because SOME idiot (ie, the one who writes this blog) volunteered herself to chaperone a 5th grade sleepover. As I sat in the Denny’s near Omori Station, fighting unsuccessfully to get to Asakusa for the annual Edo Firefighter’s Memorial, I checked Goodsmile’s Twitter feed to see whether or not they had FINALLY released any news on the upcoming Hyakkimaru nendoroid (pictured at the top). What I found instead was that there was an event happening in Akiba - WonHobby Gallery 2019. Since I had serious doubts that I was, in fact, going to make it to Asakusa in time, I decided to just stop when I got to Akiba. I’d kinda been meaning to go there soon, anyways...although it perhaps would’ve been better to wait til payday.
The event was like a smaller, less crowded, free version of the Goodsmile booth at AnimeJapan, offering a glimpse into what was coming up from the company. I was a little disappointed that they didn't have any life-size nendos or Nendoroid plushies, until I figured out that their previous announcement was an April Fool’s Day joke. Still, they had a pretty impressive range of upcoming releases to show off. If it weren't for the fact that I don't think I can handle sewing that small, I might even be interested in one of their Nendoroid doll bodies. Since I'm kind of burnt out on sewing at the moment, it wasn't a hard temptation to resist.
But Akiba being what it is, there's always temptation to be found, especially since I got sucked into a new blackhole: nendoroid customizing. See, here’s the thing. Although GoodSmile often releases a bunch of characters from the same show, this is not always the case. Sometimes they’re so busy making new versions of Hatsune Miku that they forget to make the other characters in your favorite show, which is why I’m still waiting for a Sugimoto nendoroid. Although I guess I should be grateful they at least made Asirpa...they’ve never made any of Noragami's characters. Over the course of my second year in Japan, I've been thinking about this more and more. Seeing the expansion pieces - Nendoroid More, as they're called - which allow you to dress up your characters differently, or give them different expressions, got me wondering if it might be possible to frankenstein some characters (cobble together a new creation from spare parts - get it?). It didn't really click, though, until I remembered how cheap I've found some nendoroids in my rambles about town. I realized that if you could find them for a decent price, it might not be so terrible to take a figure apart, make some color changes, and reconstruct it to create a new character.
Well, as it turns out, that's totally a thing. When I started trying to figure out whose hair would work for a Shinra nendoroid I stumbled across the community of nendoroid customizers online. One enterprising couple even created an online shop - the aptly named ChibiChopShop - where they buy and sell parts from nendoroids that have been split up. I'm looking for such specific things that I've only used them once, but when I discovered them, they had the only things I wanted - the hair and faceplates from nendoroid 151, Moritaka Mashiro. With the Nendoroid More doctor body I'd already found on eBay, all I needed was a pair of glasses and probably a little paint to make my first nendoroid, Celty, her own Shinra. He needs a lot of work - the hair’s the wrong color, and the face isn’t right - but once I’m reunited with my supplies in Mongolia, we’ll get there.
And that, of course, opened the floodgates. I had so many ideas that it was tough to decide which to pursue first...but since the pieces basically fell into my lap I started working on my first anime love, Yato.
I found Takagi Akito from Bakuman (#152, from Lashinbang in Kamata)for his body, and Kuroko no Basuke’s Kise Ryota (#1032, again at Lashinbang, this time the big one in Akiba Culture Zone) for his hair, and was able to sell the rest right away through the facebook group for splits. Then I hit up the Volks near Yokohama station on my way home from work one night and spent a good half hour deliberating over paints (ie, the ones that are waiting for me in Mongolia now - this post is kind of back and forth all over the place). Since I really had zero clue what the heck I was doing, I based my educated guess on the name of the paint. Very scientific, I know. Then I got to work, in a painstakingly (or paints-takingly) slow manner. Only to quickly realize the paint was much glossier than I wanted. Back I went for cleaner and advice. There’s still work to do on it, but for now, I’m pretty happy with how he’s looking.
In the midst of all this I made what may be the greatest discovery of all: Goodsmile's facemaker site. This is basically a website that lets you design your own faceplates and have them printed by Goodsmile and shipped to you. The options it gives you are unbelievable. I was a little skeptical at first, but a half an hour later I had designed two expressions for Yato that I had to get printed. The next day I went back to the site, just planning on messing around with it, and ended up ordering two more, I was so impressed with what I’d come up with. The site is in Japanese but with Google chrome that’s almost a non-issue. What might be an issue, though, if you’re not here in Japan is the fact that they only ship to Japan. Both of those issues, however, are covered in this post on Blog DeJapan.
So that’s how I found myself another expensive hobby. Wotakoi’s Nifuji Hirotaka was my third project, and although I still want to repaint his hair, I’m pretty pleased with what I’ve accomplished thus far. I haven’t been forced to do any drastic modifications, but maybe I never will. This past weekend was summer Wonder Festival and GoodSmile announced even more upcoming products - Kaguya-sama, for example, and a painted prototype of both Tanjiro and Nezuko from Kimetsu no Yaiba. What I was really excited about, though, was that they announced a nendoroid of Natsume from Natsume Yuujinchou. I’m not sure that I’ll actually order him - one of the rules I had to impose on myself to get out of Japan was that I was only allowed one figure of any character, and I’ve already got a figure of Natsume.* No, the real value of that announcement to me was, in fact, that there was still hope. That anime from several seasons back might still have nendos coming...sometimes there are copyright issues, after all. Sometimes they have to wait and see if it’ll be lucrative enough to justify making those figures (although I would think the fujoshi fan base of Golden Kamuy would make that a yes). Although it’s nice to rise to an artistic challenge, I’d much rather hold out hope for an official Sugimoto nendoroid, especially with a new season coming up.
If not, I’d settle for a scale figure. I left Japan with more of them than I was expecting, and when I get my apartment put back together, don’t be surprised when the inevitable nesting post highlights my carefully curated collection. I get an extra room this go-round and I know just what to do with it.
*As I mentioned before, nendoroids are small enough that it’s relatively easy to pack them up, especially if you’re willing - as I was, in the end - to get rid of the boxes. So - on the other hand - I might.
