First, a bit of site administrivia out of the way – I enabled wordpress connect for commenting, though that will require creating a subscriber account on this site. I’ll set up a privacy policy at some point, but for right now, just rest assured I’ll only use whatever data I
As a gaijin, which literally means “outsider” or “outside person”, our exposure to Japanese culture is almost always initially through their media in some way. Either anima, manga, J-pop, or some other type of media that Japan has spread throughout the world. And make no mistake, Japanese media and culture is amazing.
A friend asked me today how women are treated in the Japanese culture. And it brought me up short, because I’d never even considered that question seriously. It’s funny, because most of my exposure to Japanese culture has been J-pop, and a through that, a couple of hundred young women
One of the big bugaboos of western culture right now seems to be the idea of “cultural appropriation”. I, personally, don’t give a toss about cultural appropriation – not only do I not consider it a thing, I consider it something that – except in the most egregious of cases –