um, yikes.

[trochee]

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.

Comments

[isolt.livejournal.com]

Eww. Eww eww eww.

One thing that I will say for the ninja tour is that I would bet that Koga is stunning; it's in Shiga, where I spent the summer, and while Koga is on the other side of Lake Biwa, I can't imagine that anywhere in Shiga is unpretty. Shiga was gorgeous.

(But there are no more ninja in Koga.)