Celebrations In Japan for Two Months

I'm leaving in a few hours for Japan on a Study Abroad program with my university. I'll be there until towards the end of June. So, if you have to complain that it seems like I'm hardly ever on, I have a legitimate excuse.

I'm very excited but I'm pretty scared, too, even though I've already been to Russia and Korea before. I mean, I've got to speak only Japanese, complete some hard university courses in about thirty days, learn how to get along with a host family... it sounds pretty tough. But I'll grow from it, I know, and it's too late to back out now.

V!

See ya!

 

Not trying to hijack YKs thread, but I've got a similar announcement and don't feel like making a newthread for it. I will be in Germany from june 1 to august 1 for an internship. I might have my old laptop, and a dial up connection.

I'm a bit scared myself. I lived in Germany for two years, but that was 4 years ago. I've forgotten a lot.

YK: I'll see you when we get back. We have to watch more of Juuni Kokki after all. Have fun in Japan, I know you'll enjoy it.

 

Cool deal guys, good luck with that

- Ark

 

yes enjoy your time relax and make it fun youlucky goose

 

The wonders of ADSL in house, but without much time.

I'm doing all right, and have gotten lost a couple times. Now Japan's only intimidating when I'm trying to understand what's being said to me . I'm an incurable shopper (well, browser at least) and have found a couple really great stores, like the Kinokuniya in the Sogo Department Store and Animate. I'm now faced with the most manga I've ever seen ! A kind of earthly paradise.

I haven't found a movie theater with RahXephon yet. Or one at all. I'll keep looking.

Class about drove me nuts last week. I have to study six, seven hours a day and I still have no hope of absorbing it all. There`s at least sixty new kanji in the next assignment. But now I'm not letting it kill me.

I visited the Tokyo Tower Saturday with my host family. It was too smoggy to see Mount Fuji, but I could see the metro government building in Shinjuku at least (that twin-towered building that the Kanoe in X works at). It was great to finally see the Tokyo Tower in person; it was a wonderful experience. We also visited Asakusa, site of the oldest temple in Tokyo. That was cool too, mostly for the gate and watching people throw coins into the box in front of the Buddha. There was also this fire where it's said if you rub the smoke into your face and hair it'll make you smarter. I can't stand smoke, but did it anyway.

I'll probably come home with at least one piece of Juuni Kokki merchandise

Best of luck to MO in Germany!

Not sure if I'll be able to do any studio tours between the big laundry list of cultural sites, but I think I might ask.

Later, everybody!

 

RahXephon stuff

OK, I've now seen the RahXephon movie, and I guess it struck me a bit strangely.

I had to go a long way to see it, from Yokohama to Ikebukuro (about an hour each way) so it made the whole thing really expensive in the end, but I think it was worth it.

I'm not sure what to say of what I thought of the movie (probably mostly because without subtitles I didn't catch a lot). I think from a completist's standpoint at least it is worth seeing. In a way it's still the same story but there were enough changes for it to feel like a completely different story. It seemed to be a lot more centered on Haruka than the TV series was. They cut some stuff I would've liked to see kept and vice versa, plus some character roles changed quite a bit, especially with Ixtli and Quon. A lot of the new stuff was really quite exciting.

It was longer than I thought it was going to be - it's about two hours even, instead of the 90 minutes I expected. But they were trying to cram ten hours of plot down into two. Some parts were really quite jumpy, especially most scenes involving Dolem, but overall it seemed to flow well enough to work as a movie instead of a recap episode.

I was surprised I didn't get lost getting to or in Ikebukuro, since I've never been into Tokyo on the train by myself. It was a fun experience.

I bought the first volume of the manga while I was waiting for the movie, and it's already looking like my least favorite version... oh, well. They can't all be done by the original character designer. But what's with Ixtli's greatly expanded role? I don't understand how it's going to work with who Ixtli is in the anime.

 

glad you saw it still looking forward ot it myself, though I'll likely have to wait a couple years.

I wondered about that stuff myself after reading the first bit of the Manga.. Not really sure how they are going to work that out. I think I complained a bit about it in some earlier thread somewhere.

Good luck with all that work, sounds like a real load. Must be awfully cool to see all that stuff though.

I've got up to ep 27 of JK now, haven't watched any past where we saw to yet.

 

Ah, don't worry (in an eX-Driver kind of way)! I'm sure there'll be a leaked screener or something that we'll have hold of sometime this fall. In any case, I'm enough of a Region 2 DVD slore that I'll probably preorder whatever uber-special limited edition of it when it comes out in Japan. That won't solve the subtitle question, but hey...

And you never know. It seems that more of the studios over here are looking at including English subs to promote more importing instead of piracy.

Oh, I'm probably coming back with the RahXephon Official Illustration Book, though I don't know if it's new enough to have movie illustrations. I hope it has the movie poster I saw at the theater - it's not that one with Ayato looking like a sea god that you see on the website and merchandise. It's one that has an egg inside which you see the face of young Haruka and Ayato, and I just thinks it's really cool. I wanted one of those posters a lot.

Hurrah for JK! Hopefully 27 will put us through the second arc when we see it. I'm getting a soundtrack or two at least, and probably also a big pencil-board with a pretty kick-a illustration on it (I think it's somewhere on the Media Blasters/Anime Works site - it has Yoko in tattered uniform with the sword in the center. You know what a huge first-arc fan I am).

At this rate I'm going to be a souvenir disaster!

 

And as I'm away a bunch of stuff happens at home. JK Vol. 1 for Region 1 is now announced for 7/29. And that limited BP box... argh!

 

Sorry, I'm just tired of seeing MartL listed as the last poster.

Akihabira is kind of a fun place. Maybe one of the most dangerous places places in the world for people like me. The Gamers store there (AnimeGamers in LA is in the same company) is eight floors tall. Pretty scary.

 

be strong

UK's phantom source for JK is making noise again, should have through the 30's when we get back.

Keep the updates coming, great to hear how things are going there. Less than a week before I finally take off myself (guess I announced it a bit early hehe)

 

I have returned.

Well, five weeks Yokohama and three weeks "Kyoto", I'm back in the States and online for the first time since Yokohama.

Never did make it to any studios. I was too busy all the time to look any up, make reservations, or whatnot. One girl tried to find Squaresoft's offices in Tokyo the day before she came back. She didn't succeed.

Yokohama was the nightmare of the 9-6 study schedule. We worked hard on our classes, but... well, since everybody had trouble trying to do a semester class in 25 days (and failed the exams) I think we all passed. I think I already mentioned my Tokyo Tower trip the first Saturday. After that we had a big list of places we needed to see in Tokyo, Yokohama, and Kamakura pretty well on our own time. We saw Kamakura in groups on the second Saturday. Some of the temples there were really gorgeous, plus we saw the Great Buddha (you can even pay to go inside it) there and Minamoto no Yoritomo's tomb. He started the Kamakura shogunate, the first samurai government of Japan, in the late 1100's

The other two Saturdays were spent trying to get the sites in Tokyo seen. On the first, we all went to the Edo-Tokyo Museum, which has a lot of exhibits on the history of the city and life there from the 17th to the 20th century. They've even got life-size replicas of part of the Nihonbashi bridge, the Nakamura kabuki theater, and a newspaper office from Meiji-era Ginza in there. The only other thing I did that day was hang out in Asakusa, where there was a festival going on. Basically the festival was the mikoshi (shoulder-borne vehicles for Shinto dieties) being carried around the district. The area was even more packed than usual and it was pretty fun. I could've gone and seen some sumo instead, but it was like $40. I kinda regret not going, though.

On the second Saturday, I went and tried to mop up the other sites myself. After too much running around lost in Shibuya and then being redirected to another train stop two stops north, I finally found Meiji Shrine with a little help from a police officer and a koban map. Meiji Shrine, dedicated to the emperor of the Meiji era and his Empress, was probably one of the most amazing places I saw in Tokyo. In the middle of this big city, there are these meadows and almost forest-like areas. It was really pretty. Then I ran into a Japanese friend that hung out with us in Asakusa the week before and he helped me navigate my way to Yasakuni Shrine, dedicated to all the war dead from the Meiji Restoration to the end of WWII. It's kinda funny, the brochure says, "To date, some 2,500,000 dieties are enshrined here". After that I saw the gorgeous east gardens of the imperial palace (which used to be the shoguns' castle), Tokyo Station, stuff like that. A really tiring day.

On other various days I explored the shopping around Akihabara, Ginza, the like.

 

This is turning into way too much of a travelogue.

Anyway, the next Saturday we all moved to Kyoto, and that was pretty well all. Monday we started the insane travel schedule, squeezing all we could out of our unlimited JR train passes. Maybe I should just do a list for now, with the highlight sites for each city.

Uji (Byodo-in, the temple shown on the 10-yen coin)
Nara
Himeji Castle
Osaka Castle
Hiroshima (atom-bomb museum)
Nagasaki (couple of cathedrals, a site of martyrdom, a-bomb museum)

Dang it, I've been interrupted so I now have no train of thought. I'll bring notes and get online again in a few days. See ya!