Chibilicious - Having my own small, cute world is great

The Japanese culture and ways have been embedded in me as long as I can remember. I remember watching Astroboy and Voltes V as a kid but truth be told I can’t remember anything about Astroboy except an imagery of this courageous boy robot with missing legs from some, I believe, gracious reason out of the goodness of the heart. I don’t know what I am missing from not remembering anything about the series but I am very glad to know that in Japan, Astroboy is still revered greatly upon, especially since Astroboy started the known animated culture we know today called Anime.

Following this Anime culture is the Japanese drama series. All of my acquaintances know that my fascination for Asian drama series expounds more than known American shows. I remembered a time at the mall when I was browsing through Anime DVDs at my fave Anime store, when the proprietor mentioned he was selling at that time a comedic clay version collection of Star Wars. He even played to show us customers what he was talking about. I admit that I found the known Star Wars characters in clay amusing and their parody was something good but I didn’t get to appreciate it as much as the other customers did. This is for the simple reason that, I haven’t watched one single episode of Star Wars.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I’ve been living under a rock with regards to Star Wars. The store proprietor was so shocked, I was practically hearing the bolts in his head stop working. Even my boyfriend (who was still courting me at that time) couldn’t believe that someone so much into animation and fictional culture haven’t watched an episode of Star Wars. Haha, I believe they seem to realize that naivety for someone my age still exists. Hahaha!

Back to the topic at hand, I recently got into a phone discussion with my boyfriend that became quite a debate. It started with him asking what kind of movie we are going to watch a weekend when we hang out at his place. He said we could watch anything I want as long as it is not Asian. He mentioned he has nothing against my fandom over the genre but he wants to see something English (American) at that time. While my brain was mulling over titles I would like to watch, I relayed to him the story of the recent Japanese movie I saw titled, “Kimi wo Imouto o koi o suru (?)” (Translation: My Love, My Sister). It is the story of twin (a boy and a girl), who, by some work of fate and feelings, fell desperately in love with each other. Yes, it is also a story of incest and complications and I can’t help but feel pity and a bit of shock and disgust for the plot. Still, the concept does intrigue and I ended watching with feelings of pity for the two, for they are really siblings. There were no twists in the plot for them to be able to love each other freely.

When I finished telling him the story, he commented how weird it sounded and I had the notion it is something he would not want to see. That was when the following conversation happened and it brought on a discussion whether the things Japanese culture is currently getting known about in the country are good:

Me: It may be weird (referring to movie stated above) but it brought about a lot of feelings. And think of it this way, every kind of story we see is derived from a thought or a fact in reality. Who knows that these things really happen.

Him: True. It maybe true that such incest issues happen and their feelings maybe genuine. But think of how the media played the role of showing too much of the possibilities in any given situation and it is for those exposures that people are doing things they shouldn’t be doing. Just look at what happened with those twins. Maybe there is a similar situation somewhere. If the involved see that movie and get to think that the possibility is okay, they might end up regretting their action and be banned from their own points in their part of the society,

Me: True. But you cannot blame them for creating such shows. The Japanese are great story-tellers. Just see the Animes we watch. You admitted you like Battle Royale and Shinobi and they do deal with a lot of emotions.

Him: I admit I like Battle Royale. What guy wouldn’t like that kind of action? But it is still all so weird. It’s just plain weird. A lot about how the Japanese known here is weird and sometimes… well, not good. Just look at hentai. There was a time when only very few people knew what it was and access to it is very limited.

Me: Yea, I remember those times when there were very few of us otakus and it seemed we had an elite world of our own.

Him: Yes. That’s exactly it. Now, you just say the word hentai, and everybody knows it. And since we all know what hentai means, we can’t all say things in it are for everybody to see. Porn is porn. Access to it by a lot of people, especially with a lot of pirated products here, does not bring any good implication on the Japanese.

Me: Hey, don’t be like that. You cannot place hentai in a solitary spotlight since it is not the only porn source in the world. It just so happened the culture and the name reached here and it got a strong impact on the society. Whatever you say, the Japanese culture is something I absolutely adore. Nothing is black or white. Maybe it so happens the Japanese culture is seen differently here.

Him: Hey, I’m not saying they’re all bad. I couldn’t say that since nobody is perfect. But still, with regards to a lot of their stories, they’re weird.

Hehe, our discussion ended there and we talked about a more serious subject. Religion. ^^ I don’t remember what we had eaten on that day to have such serious discussion when we both knew we had to sleep early because of early work tomorrow.

Still, I love our discussions. I love the way he thinks.

For me still, whatever everybody else thinks, the Japanese culture has embedded a lot of things in me. Ideals, friends, stories, etc. Their way of thinking is something I adore about them. ^^

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