(no subject)

there was a rainbow over Ballard on the bus north today.

My love is a redhead again.

The paper I am reviewing for a conference is terrible, and I am really putting in too much effort in trying to describe all the ways it smells bad.

We had thunder just now!

um, yikes.

Via comics worth reading, who looks at it as "clever niche marketing": Pop Japan Travel.

specifically squirmy: Ultimate Ninja Tour and Gothic & Lolita Tour. [ew, and Yaoi and Bishonen Boys' Love Tour; okay, they're all squirmy.]

Some of it is self-mocking: the ninja tour includes the following (bold added):

we’ll take you out to one of two rival ninja clan villages: the Koga ninja village. There you will find yourself in a very real village where ninja families have lived for centuries. Get to know the friendly locals, but don’t make a wrong move or they might flip out and…!! Then you can visit a house where a real ninja once lived.

But irony is a thin mask to hide behind here. It's one thing to laugh at your own culture's obsession with some part of another and it's quite another to encourage the actual point-and-gawk. It feels like the whole thing should come with a label "please do not bang on the glass." Japan is not a zoo for your entertainment, manga boyz.

Full disclosure: I am white and American and anglophone. I am a fan of Studio Ghibli too. Yes, when I point a finger, three point back at me.