Wonder Woman 2017 review

Here's a post that has little, if anything, to do with Japan. Sorry. Sometimes you have to follow your heart.

So, Wonder Woman, you guys.

There's this scene where she's in a WW1 trench, looking out across No Man's Land (get it? GET IT?), where a small village held by the enemy is slowly starving. She wants to cross, but her male partner is like, "But bro, you can't, because you will literally die." And then she's like "BUT I'M WONDER WOMAN" and she fucking SPRINTS across that shit, and suddenly her allies are backing her up, and angry Germans are shooting hundreds upon thousands of bullets at her and she just pulls out her shield and is all "I'M WONDER WOMAN THOUGH." It's pretty great.

I really liked this movie. Maybe more than it deserves, because I badly wanted to, but it's still a good movie. The pacing and editing could use some work, especially the interminable front-loaded exposition scenes, but things pick up once we hit the comic relief detour in London. The fight scenes don't have a lot of tension, but that's endemic to the genre, and at least they're brief enough to at least feel exciting. Characters' abilities are telegraphed fairly well, that is to say, they don't suddenly develop new powers as the plot demands. Wonder Woman gradually manifests her strongest abilities over the course of the story before finally getting a grip on them for the final confrontation, rather than having them come out of nowhere at the end. When Chris Pine has to fly a plane at one point, we don't blink, because we've already been shown that he knows how. The WW1 setting is cool, as well (opening up comparisons with Captain America: The First Avenger, but that's a topic for another blog and another blogger).

Viewing the movie as a man, it seems like the Chris Pine character was supposed to be our audience insert. I was prepared to be annoyed by this, because like, why can't I envision myself as Gal Gadot instead? I want to be Gal Gadot. Everyone wants to be Gal Gadot. But it actually ended up being really well-done. They could have played him as a boorish horndog who only finally comes to acknowledge Wonder Woman by the end, but no, they had him be respectful from the start, not to mention intelligent, funny, and moral. He treats her as an equal partner, if not more so, giving credit where it's due, and admonishing any card-carrying member of the Old Boys' Club who suggests she may be anything less than capable for being a woman. In other words, he's a fine role model for young MEN, which I wasn't rea;;y expecting from this movie.

UPDATE: Here's a column that says everything I just said, except articulately.

Also, Diana gets to have sex! And again, it's done really well! It comes off as a sudden but natural development in their growing relationship. She doesn't “give in” to his advances, and it doesn't devalue her as a woman or in any way whatsoever diminish her power as a feminist icon. She goes for it because she wants it, has fun, and doesn't regret it. Fucking perfect.

I don't know yet what the reaction has been from Japanese women, but women in the English-speaking world seem to be psyched about this movie, and it's awesome. Will Wonder Woman signal the beginning of a new era for women in action movies, or cinema in general? Will we FINALLY get a Black Widow solo film? Wait, does this mean Gal Gadot will get a larger role in future Fast and Furious movies?! Because that would be fucking sick.

By the time I was done, I felt like I'd glimpsed the future.

Star Wars vs Gundam: An unprofessional comparison

You probably haven't noticed since it hasn't really been mentioned in the news or on social media, but Star Wars: The Force Awakens recently hit theatres. Plenty have been showing Star Wars and only Star Wars for several weeks running. They are going to make a lot of money. Meanwhile, I, a longtime Gundam fan, am currently watching the original Mobile Suit Gundam for the first time. For its age, it's an incredible show; the quality of the animation is astounding, and the story is pretty timeless. Still, I can't help but notice that it came out in 1979. Know what else came out just two years earlier? The original Star Wars.

Creating the “space” genre, or merely repackaging it?

A lot of the Star Wars pre-game analyses I saw in the weeks leading up to the new film's release claim that Star Wars launched the space genre. Before Star Wars, commercially viable, intellectually accessible science fiction simply did not exist.

Bullshit.

I'm not just saying that because of Gundam. Gundam launched after, not before. I just explained that like two paragraphs ago. Jesus, please try to pay attention. No, I'm alluding to something interesting I read in a recent Cracked article:

“George Lucas, hot off the enormously successful American Graffiti, tried to buy the rights to Flash Gordon to turn it into a big-budget film franchise. They couldn't come to terms on a deal, so Lucas just decided to just write his own version. That's all it was. ... The rough draft of Star Wars was an incoherent rambling mess, borrowing entire scenes from other movies, mostly Akira Kurosawa samurai films (then again, Kurosawa had borrowed his from American Westerns). ... For the space dogfight that would mark the climactic battle at the end of the film, Lucas literally stitched together footage from war movies and documentaries, then just re-filmed them with spaceship models, shot for shot. In other words, Santa Claus isn't real."

Space Captain Harlock

Flash Gordon, "Buck Rodgers, Kurosawa, Westerns (Tattooine!), old WW2 footage. Sounds like Lucas had a lot of good material to draw on. But don't think that Japan was devoid of material at this point, either! It had its own “swashbuckling space adventure,” the 1970s anime Space Captain Harlock. It was popular enough to merit a revival a couple of years ago. And there's plenty more where that came from. 2001: A Space Odyssey, both book and movie. Or how about The War of the Worlds, an HG Wells story from fucking 1897. The decade preceding Star Wars even saw the rise of another space-themed series of TV shows and movies, an obscure property called “Star Trek.”

Metal Gear REX

Everything new steals from everything old. Harry Potter draws on centuries of mythology. Divergent mashes up Harry Potter and The Hunger Games, which in turn probably took ideas from Battle Royale. Metal Gear is a mixture of old movies, whatever is currently on Kojima's mind, and, inevitably, Gundam, because you can't tell me the series that launched the mecha subgenre did not in some way influence the eponymous war machines. Hell, even Gundam itself mercilessly cannibalizes its own plotlines to new purpose. Gundam Seed is just a repackaged Mobile Suit Gundam; 00 is just Wing for a post-9/11 audience.

Neither franchise “created” the space adventure. That door had already been slowly dilating open for decades. What they did was put an interesting spin on established conventions and make their own contributions to the cultural landscape. Which, given the flood of boring, derivative fluff we're inundated with every day of every year, is a huge accomplishment anyway.

Legacy

A steam-powered Oobu machine from Sakura Taisen. This one
in particular is piloted by the character Sakura.

Supposedly, less than 1% of people (English speakers?) have never seen any of the Star Wars movies. I was actually surprised it was that high! That's the power that these movies have. And besides Dragonball Z and Pokemon (in that order), I can't think of any other cultural treasure that has had a stronger or more enduring impact on the modern Japanese popular consciousness than Gundam. Final Fantasy? In Japan, Dragon Quest is bigger. Dragon Quest? Nice try, you sarcastic twit, because Dragon Quest is kind of only for nerds, while the other three are widely known by everyone. Sakura Taisen? You know what, now you're just annoying me.

I've heard that when making Sonic 2, Naka Yuuji wanted to pay tribute to the most popular things in America and Japan at the time, which he determined were Star Wars and Dragonball Z, respectively. Hence why Sonic collects seven Chaos Emeralds to transform into a golden, super-powered state, and why Eggman/Robotnik's latest creation is the planet-like Death Egg. I'm not completely sure if that's a true story, but it sounds credible.

The point is that both series have had such a – what? Oh, you think Gundam's not that important because Dragonball Z beat it out for a reference in Sonic 2? Go plan a day trip to Odaiba, tell me if you see anything interesting.

Close to 40 years later, both Gundam and Star Wars are huge, at least in their own countries. In case you forgot, The Force Awakens has just dropped. 2015 saw the beginning of a new Gundam continuity, the Iron-Blooded Orphans, which I haven't watched yet but is most likely far less silly than the English title makes it sound. Both have been the mother of sprawling franchises encompassing everything from physical toys, books, comic books, video games, all kinds of shit.

Merchandising

 “Lucas,” notes the Cracked article, “knew that he was, in part, making a series of toy commercials.” Once you see it, you can't unsee it. Why are there so many variations of Stormtrooper? Because then you can make a separate action figure for each of them. Ayla Secura gets an action figure. Lando's co-pilot gets an action figure. You can buy a goddamn Lego Death Star. The Expanded Universe is/was so successful because it explores intersting, in-depth stories within a compelling universe, but also because it allows for a nearly limitless number of concurrently developed products, with a huge install base, across every creative medium known to man. They had these novels about Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan pre-Phantom Menace, I thought they were just about the pinnacle of literature when I was a little kid. RIP Expanded Universe.

GAT-X131 Calamity Gundam

Now Gundam is an interesting case, it wasn't designed with the possibility of merchandise in mind, rather the プラモデル plastic models were designed first, and then Tomino was called in to create the anime in order to market the toys. When I first found out that Calamity from Seed was originally supposed to be 1.5 times the size of a regular Gundam, but this was changed because it would mean the scale model would have to be bigger and thus more expensive, it absolutely blew my mind that something so seemingly trivial could actually affect, no, constrict the creator's vision. Of course, back then I also didn't know that a lot of the best moments in movies were born from blind chance, that the stories and settings of video games are crafted in response to the gameplay mechanics and not the other way around, etc. Well, I was a child.

Which, while I'm on the topic, is why it always amuses/frustrates me when people complain that in making the prequels, George Lucas took Star Wars and “made it for children.” Uh, have you fucking seen the first three movies? THEY ARE FOR CHILDREN. Look at Luke – he is a hero made for children. His robot buddies are hand-made for children. And I'm sorry for treading well-trodden ground, but come the fuck on:

Star Wars is for children and always has been. And actually, so is Gundam. It's sophisticated enough that you can see it for the first time as an adult and still appreciate it, but let's be realistic, here, we're talking about giant robots fighting each other. It's only that Japan is a little less moralistic about its entertainment and coddles its youth a little less. (Broad strokes. Obviously.)

Themes

Char Aznable, fan favourite and one of the key characters of
Gundam's "Universal Century" continunity

　Psych! The two couldn't be farther apart. Gundam tells a nuanced anti-war tale in which there are no clear good guys and bad guys; the antagonists in the first series, the Principality of Zeon, want nothing more than independence from the oppressive Earth Federation (and I spent much of the series trying to figure out why the Federation didn't just give it to them). Later series continue the story from their perspective. As things develop, Mobile Suit Gundam scratches topics such as ecology (decades before An Inconvenient Truth) and transhumanism. Star Wars, meanwhile, is about how war is awesome, violence solves every problem, the good guys not only always win but always survive, and your enemies are all irredeemably evil.

Hero's Journey?

You could say that both Luke Skywalker and Amuro Rei follow a fairly typical Hero's Journey, one of the recognized plot structures in literature. Luke has humble beginnings (a moisture farm), gradually comes into his abilities, and finally destroys the Death Star in the climactic action sequence. It works even better on a trilogy-wide scale, with blind luck leading the way to victory in A New Hope, Luke screwing up and battling his inner demons in The Empire Strikes Back, and emerging in Return of the Jedi as a confident, skilled combatant.

Source.

Similarly, civilian teenager Amuro Rei is thrust into a combat role by circumstances, and initially depends heavily on the capabilities of his machine to achieve victory. Understandably, he develops (a fairly believable depiction of) PTSD after a few battles, stops eating and sleeping properly, and lashes out at the people trying to help him, including his closest friend. At one point he even deserts his ship, White Base, and absconds with the Gundam, which is military property in the first place. Eventually he comes to terms with his fear, achieves his potential, and becomes a truly skilled pilot bent on protecting White Base and its inhabitants.

Of course, I'm not sure this actually says anything substantial about these two series. It probably just indicates that the Hero's Journey is a good fit for a space opera. Which I guess is interesting in itself, actually.

Accidental retro-futurism

This is a common pitfall of science fiction: By the time the real world has caught up chronologically with the one you've created, it may have actually surpassed the technology you were envisioning, or gone off in a completely different direction. Early cyberpunk had conceived of the Internet before the Internet was the Internet, but it didn't occur to people back in the 80's that we would eventually be able to access it wirelessly.

"These days its design seems completely inadequate." Source.

 Again, even today I find Mobile Suit Gundam relevant and immensely enjoyable, but one does notice the occasioanl hiccough in technological progress. I think this is most noticeable in the viewscreens used by crewmen on White Base and in their mobile suit cockpits, which is to say they look like an old TV your father has stored in his basement because he hasn't bothered to throw it away yet, not like modern monitors and certainly not like anything we'll have by the time we're living on the moon.

Meanwhile, control panels on the shiny, just-finished Death Star look as though they're best suited for operating a Magnavox Intellivision.

Cutting-edge computer technology in the world of Fallout.

This can injure suspension of disbelief, but I actually really dig this. It's kind of like a fingerprint left on a work by the era in which it was created. You can always think of it as an alternate timeline, like in Fallout, where humanity pursued nuclear technology instead of computer technology, so that even computers manufactured circa 2077 intentionally look like they came out of 1950.

Destruction!

The Death Star destroying Alderaan is the cayalyst for sections of plot in A New Hope. Mobile Suit Gundam kicks off with the destruction of the protagonist's home, the space colony Side 7. Huh.

Laser swords

Lightsabre – beam sabre. Even the names are similar.

If there's one thing East and West could agree on in the 1970s, it was that laser swords are just plain cool. Or “totally radical,” I guess.

But all of this pales in comparison to...

Amateur mechanics

As a young boy, Anakin Skywalker built C-3PO...

...and as a budding scientific prodigy, Amuro Rei created the purely decorative robot Haro.

Anakin, of course, becomes Darth Vader. And in some Gundam series, Amuro occupies the role of villain.

Coincidence?

The crossover section of Fanfiction.com thinks not.

Canyon

During my high school exchange, I saw some people online talking about the first Iron Man movie, which had recently been released. And my first thought was, “Iron Man? I don't even remember seeing trailers for – oh, right.”

Similarly, in a once-recent post by Stupid Ugly Foreigner, he laments the disconnect from English-language popular culture he suffers while living in China. This phenomenon is exemplified in Pharrell's “Happy,” of which he was utterly unware until long after it had already become entrenched in our cultural constitution. Now that I'm back in Canada, I'm facing kind of the opposite problem, and when I get back I'm going to have to relearn everything.

An example: The first time I heard Kyari Pyamu Pyamu's seminal "Pon Pon Pon," it had already been popular for months. In fact it's almost strange to me now to think that there ever was a time when I'd never heard it – it's so clearly ingrained in the cultural landscape of its era. To not know at least that much was to have no idea what a certain type of Japanese person was listening to at the time, and that shit was important to me. I leaped aboard that particular ship as soon as I saw it, and then throughout the rest of the year I managed to catch everything new as it bubbled up into the cultural consciousness of Japanese young people. Unfortunately I've now effectively lost all knowledge of what's trending back there, and it's going to take time to get back up to speed.

I can use the Internet to keep abreast of the latest vicissitudes in television and idol gossip, but that's a poor substitute for everday immersion because it's all through my own filter - limited, not "off the street," not necessarily bearing any relation to what's actually popular. Metroid, for example, is more popular outside Japan than within it. In the Korean's account of his tour of the South by Southwest music show in Austin, I read that he saw a relatively new Japanese loli group called Starmarie, who were supposedly the most popular Japanese singers going. Except that my immediate reaction was “Who the hell are Starmarie?” Sure enough, it turns out that they are indeed a popular Japanese idol group – in America.

So what, you may say. It's just movies and music and other meaningless bullshit. You might have a point. A mild de-syncing with cultural developments that will no longer be relevant a year from now might seem like a fairly minor loss. But remember that anime and music and dramas and everything else are all things I have a certain dependency on, because they're my primary means of studying the language. I am constantly on the hunt for new material to consume, integrating its knowledge into my biomass, mining it for not only new vocabulary and grammar but cultural tidbits and talking points. Without the constant, effortless exposure you get in Japan, I am forced to subsist on what I can scavenge from YouTube or d-Addicts.

Access to this stuff also affects my studying habits. I've always been a proponent of self-motivation – that is, if you really want to learn another language, you just do it, every day, or else adjust your expectations. That means that on a day when you come home from work or school, exhausted, depressed, and without the slightest desire to study, you clench your teeth and do it anyway. So it'd be idiotic to say that lack of access to Japanese pop culture adversely affects my study regimen, but easy access to it does positively affect it. You should always be able to force yourself to study, but a spoonful of heroin makes the medicine go down.

Also, though I have no pedagogical training, I feel like all the studying I do while in this “engaged” state is more effective. Perhaps I am simply more receptive at such times, and thus better able to absorb new vocabulary and constructions. Or perhaps even more simply, I just pay closer attention when I'm interested. Or maybe it's just my imagination. Anyway I'm not going to stop.

Finally, a big part of a country's contemporary cultural identity either stems from or is resolved in its media trends. I don't think that's too grandiose a statement. The plot twists in big TV shows get people talking. Artists use their media to communicate a deeper message. People will resort to the refrain of “relax, it's just a movie” for as long as movies continue to be made, but that's utterly and obviously wrong. Our art, even our for-profit art, is both informed by our shared cultural experience, and adds to it. It's important. It's not World War II-level historical significance, but you can't just discount it.

And again, for me, soft culture is a part of how I connect with Japanese people - knowledge of what's trending in their pop music and television is often a good ice-breaker. And how many friendships are born from mutual interests? The early conversation of practically any first encounter is spent searching out common ground. Obviously don't hinge your identities on what anime you like, because if you want to be interesting you have to be interesting in and of yourself. But I can't count the number of times I've inspired shock and delight for merely having heard of something Japanese. If nothing else it shows that you're receptive.

On the other hand, I guess if not being quite up on the latest moves and grooves is my greatest concern, as compared to somebody arriving with no knowledge of Japan or Japanese, maybe I'm doing all right. There'll be a brief period of adjustment, but in no time I'll be slinging timely observations and relevant pop culture references like anybody else. Now all I have to do is find a job, win the lottery, or earn the favour of the yakuza, and I'll be good to go.

Lonesome Road

As soon as Udon sees me off, I'm alone. From here on out, it's all strangers and solitude. I'm riding to Umeda, but instead of the excitement I would normally feel at a day or night of fun ahead, I just feel drained. Fuck it. Here we go. I really am leaving Japan. Well. Fuck.

I get hung up at Umeda because I fail to realise that I need to make my transfer at Oosaka, and spend over an hour wandering around like an idiot, but it's so hot and I am so goddamn tired, I just kind of go with it. Important point is, at no time do I feel nervous. Concerned, yes, but it's all purely intellectual. I've grown.

I'm riding the express but do not realise that there's an additional cost associated with this until a guy comes around to check my ticket. He addresses me in Japanese and does not bat an eye when I speak it back to him, I pay the difference and he gives me a ticket, and I slump back against the wall, not at all embarrassed about having made a mistake. The train pauses for a while for seemingly no reason; the old ladies near me speculate that it's either regular maintenance or a suicide. One of the two. I reach my station and disembark. I have to say, it has been my experience that carting luggage around the major transit centres is no big thing, but as you wind away into the local stations it becomes increasingly burdensome, in this case requiring a series of confused elevator rides just to reach the opposite platform.

Easily locating my hotel, I have a lengthy and detailed conversation with the guy at the front, and not once does he remark on the unprecedented multitasking of my speaking Japanese while being foreign. I appreciate the compliments, I really do – but from time to time it's nice to have my ability to communicate in the language of the country I live in not be pointed out like it's a fucking UFO sighting. I head to 7-11 to print off my electronic ticket, which seems to contradict the whole “electronic” idea, but I accomplish the deed while barely paying attention. I am so in control.

It's late and the train ride took hours. But I've arrived! At least now I can relax. Well, I've misplaced my fucking cell phone charger, but nothing I can do for the moment. Fortunately, Jugs is online, so my final sad, lonely evening doesn't devolve into a totally self-congratulatory emo wankfest. But then...

[5:56:13 AM] Rude Boy: OH WOULD YOU FUCK RIGHT OFF. the documents i printed at 7-11 i now cant fucking find

[5:56:46 AM] Rude Boy: WHAT

[5:56:47 AM] Rude Boy: THE FUCK

[5:57:57 AM] Jugs: :c

[5:58:29 AM] Rude Boy: im leaving japan

[5:58:34 AM] Rude Boy: im leaving a lot of things

[5:58:47 AM] Jugs: bb, i can' even imagine how hard this is for you

[5:58:53 AM] Rude Boy: i am so. incredibly. fucking. tired.

[5:59:07 AM] Jugs: but i can promise you lots of hugs in canada

[5:59:27 AM] Rude Boy: it is SO MOTHERUFCKING HOT JUST FUCK RIGHT THE FUCK OFF THREE MONTHS LAREADY SERIOUSLY FUCK. OFF. JUST FUCK. OFF. no more plz. no more of this fucking heat. i am so fucking tired

[5:59:46 AM] Rude Boy: i cant even

[5:59:48 AM] Rude Boy: i cant do this.

[5:59:57 AM] Rude Boy: i am actually just

[6:00:02 AM] Rude Boy: WHJERE THE FUCK ARE MY DOCUMENTs

[6:00:47 AM] Jugs: you totally can do this

[6:01:18 AM] Rude Boy: i actually am almost breaking down right now

[6:01:33 AM] Jugs: you not being able to do it isn't even an option in anyway

[6:02:05 AM] Rude Boy: it is so fucking hot

[6:02:07 AM] Rude Boy: where are my documents?

[6:02:11 AM] Rude Boy: where?

[6:02:13 AM] Rude Boy: where? :(

[6:02:17 AM] Rude Boy: where are my fucking documents? :(

So far I've concealed my emotions, but that one little thing has made me snap. Thankfully, Jugs is an awesome person and stays online to talk me through it even though it's already morning in Canada. And I do eventually find the fucking things, thank fuck. Unfortunately, I can't reply to the message that Udon has almost certainly sent. I feel pretty bad about that.

In the morning, I catch the shuttle to Kankuu. From this point forward, the idea that I might speak anything other than English does not occur to anyone for the rest of my life. At Immigration, an old man punches a hole through my gaijin card, but then he gives it back, an unexpected souvenir.

I'm staring down the barrel of 25 hours of continuous travel; a duo of pointlessly long stopovers have conspired to try and make me kill myself. More than anything else right now, I wish for a companion. Not even to help me work out my complicated transfers and baggage dickings-around; it's cool, I will do all of the thinking, I will make all of the decisions. I will be the grizzled world traveller. It's only that it's going to be fucking boring. I want someone to bullshit with. Seriously, I'll take almost anybody. I'd even take a particularly calm and astute child at this point. Well, maybe not Insufferable Dumbass. I'd leave him at home. It defeats the purpose to bring someone who will make the trip feel even longer.

At Incheon, I find that I'm actually remembering many of the areas I passed through the first time around. Is this what it's like to be a capable, experienced international plane person? I'm sorely tempted by the “Experience Korea” souvenirs, but decide that it's a little tacky to buy something from an airport gift shop without ever having actually seen the country. Maybe if Korea still sparkled...

An Indian guy about to begin studying in Canada gets cornered by one of the dumbest people I have ever heard words slough out of. He asks how long he's lived in Korea (five hours), and why he didn't go visit the ocean if he had so much time between flights (are you...really?). He then inquires as to why he didn't just take a flight directly from Mumbai to Vancouver, all at once demonstrating that he knows absolutely nothing about international travel, or geography, or humanity, or the laws of physics. I try to bury myself in the book that I started reading at YVR a year ago – The Sun Also Rises, turns out it's pretty great – but his exuberance bores itself straight into my brain. Oh hey! Looks like I did bring Insufferable Dumbass with me! I am finally saved when he convinces the Indian guy to go line up for the plane shortly after it arrives at the airport. Eventually I follow in their wake. Some guy has tried to take my window seat. Haha, no.

I watch Iron Man 3. It's bad.

Setting right my mistake of nearly a year ago, I order the bibimbap. The flight attendant asks if I've ever “tried” it before, which seems a little condescending, but how is she to know that I'm not a moron. Good luck I didn't pick JAL. I'd Kansai-ben their ears off and then we'd ALL feel awkward. Still though, you take everything they give you and mix it together, it's not fucking hard. The meal is quite tasty. In my experience, Asian food survives the transition to “airplane food” most intact out of any cuisine.

I watch a Chinese movie called “Finding Mr. Right.” It's surprisingly good! It's about a young Chinese woman who goes to America to have her sugar daddy's baby so that the government doesn't force her to abort it, but then she meets people there and plot ensues. You should watch it. Also the main girl is gorgeous.

All the Korean movies are action movies and supernatural thrillers. Why can't I just watch a silly romanticomedy? I want to learn “You had me at hello,” not “Make him an offer he can't refuse.” The only Japanese movie heavily involves dogs, so that's out, too. Luckily I'm tired. My strategy was to stay awake as long as possible in order to sleep as deeply as possible, because I know that once I fully wake I'll pretty much stay that way. Time to make out with the cabin!

I stir from my slumber and crack the window. Still dark outside the plane. The moon is reflected against the wing, and I crane my neck to peer up at it. This high in the atmosphere, there's little between us but space. Crazy.

When I wake again, the people beside me are eating breakfast. A small sign has been attached to the seat in front of me: “While you were resting, we were unable to serve you. Please let our service staff know your preference.” It earns points for saying “resting” rather than sleeping, but then immediately loses them all by making it sound like I'm causing problems for them. How about “It is our policy not to disturb passengers while they are resting. Our staff would be happy to serve you at your convenience.” See, I could totally be in marketing. A guy comes by and asks me for my choice, with an attitude suggesting that his job would be so much easier if it weren't for all these fucking people trying to fly to places. His pronunciation is frankly terrible and the only option I understand is “omelette” so I take that even though I know it will be an abomination. I can't finish it.

Then I'm in Canada again, somehow. White people everywhere. Negotiating yet another labyrinth of signage, and then Immigration – I don't like the bullpen style of YVR. Kansai and Incheon are a little clearer and more streamlined. They've installed a new “electronic border guard” system since I was last here. Did you guys know about this? You scan your passport and then your paperwork, greatly speeding up the process and, presumably, lowering the airport's overhead (no pun intended). An automated female voice even warns me that border services will have some questions for me.

A young, blonde woman frowns at my customs paperwork and, not unkindly, asks, “You have unaccompanied baggage with you?”

Well, no, ma'am. If I had it with me, it would be accompanied baggage.

Anyway, I end up getting a customs receipt so that I won't have to pay tax at the post office (as what I'm importing is within my exemption), so it turns out that it pays not to lie to the government. Very, very occasionally.

At Tim Horton's, I fumble with the coins, barely recognizing them.

Fushimi Inari

Increasingly as of late, every time I see a picture of some famous Kyouto sight I find myself thinking "Oh hey, I've been there." Across four visits in twelve years, one way or another I've ended up going to pretty much every single major tourist destination in the city. In fact, Fushimi Inari was basically the last one I had left. With my time here rapidly running out - for the moment - this was to be a sort of swan song for my solo Japan travels, one last box to check off the big list.

I was almost immediately waylaid by a blonde English girl, who was looking for a different station. I helped her find her destination and in the fifteen minutes or so that we spent together, I learned that she was teaching English in Viet Nam, and had come here for a visa run. She was quite interesting; I'd have liked to talk with her more. I'm always fascinated to talk to expats from different countries, especially other Asian countries.

Anyway!

 Hey, does this remind you of anything?

Ordinarily I would have shot this whole area much more extensively, but on this day, the camera angle, subject, and composition was often determined by factors such as where the shade happened to lie, and whether or not I had been standing in direct sunlight for more than zero seconds.

 Foxes! Foxes everywhere! They're messengers, apparently. This one has a key in her mouth.

 Ok, so now we're heading to the main event...

 A ton of gates! Seriously. For some reason I'd been thinking there'd be just one line of them, somewhere. No way. We're talking tens of thousands. There's a mirror on the grounds and blah blah blah, but this is the main event here at this shrine. It also appears at the end of Memoirs of a Geisha, which, though I hate to admit it, is kind of what made me want to come here in the first place.

 What.

 See, I told you they were everywhere.

 A branch in the path! Whatever. I didn't know the meaning of either character (both of which recur, together, throughout the complex) off the top of my head, so I just chose one at random. I went with the right one. Judging by the video above, the left is the one where Memoirs was filmed. Damn!

 So if you look down the path, the gates appear to form one solid wall, but if you view them at an angle, you can see the gaps. Now if you're like me, you've wondered just how far apart they actually are. Here's a picture, with my hand for scale. Answer is: It's completely inconsistent. Some are jammed up right against each other, some I could almost squeeze my body between. I hope that was informative for you.

 Couples! Couples everywhere.

 Like I say...it turned out to be a much larger place than I'd anticipated. Come here expecting to invest some time, bring good walking footwear, and prepare for a lot of uphill walking. And don't be afraid to head back down once you've had your fill, because you're never going to explore all the various paths unless you work here.

 Just behind the main shrine area. Wow. Ok. We get it, Fushimi Inari. You like gates.

 After following behind this agriculture fan and his gf for a bit, I decided to explore a side path. After twenty minutes of walking, I was rewarded with fascinating sights such as this:

 Well, ok, also this:

 But, again, also this:

 Also, this. This is either a Shintou god I'm not familiar with or the most ostentatious Buddha I've ever seen. I actually stood there and wished I'd had Stupid Ugly Foreigner with me.

 Couple!

 This is where things got truly arduous. I stopped even bothering to try to take photos. There was nothing but stairs. And gates, which at least provided ample shade, but mostly, stairs. Stairs and stairs and stairs and stairs and stairs. At one point I had to rest because I felt the onset of delirium. But I didn't gave up. And my tenacity was rewarded with...!

 This thing. Yay?

Ok, also this.

Gaijin Tales! Mother Russia saying and doing things

Australzealand: Is that in Kansai? It takes about an hour to get from Kansai to Kyouto Station.

*

Australzealand: Then here in Kansai, everyone's like “homa ni” and “nan yan...”

*

Rude Boy: Going somewhere exciting?

Lithuania: Yeah!

(beat)

Rude Boy: Don't overwhelm me with detail.

Australzealand: Do you find your sarcasm sometimes lost on people here?

*

Insufferable Dumbass: Whatever, people are gonna talk behind my back. I'm used to it, even back home.

Big Finn: Have you ever tried to think about maybe why that is?

*

Rude Boy: i think my least favourite part was when i was complaining to one of my friends about how i often feel that i'm not being afforded the deference i would be were i japanese, and how i understand why it happens, but it's not about me needing to be the big man, it's about feeling disrespected

Rude Boy: and one of the other guys with us said "well, of COURSE you're not going to be respected. you just have to accept that this is japan."

Rude Boy: and i was like

Rude Boy: um

Rude Boy: no

Rude Boy: not an acceptable answer

Rude Boy: excuse me while i unfriend you in real life

*

Nara (turtle girl from before): She's mad.

Rude Boy: What, really? I didn't even notice.

Nara: Well, she is.

Rude Boy: What the hell did I do?

Nara: Probably nothing. But she's a girl.

*

Insufferable Dumbass: Emperor system and imperial system...are those the same thing?

*

Hot girl's shirt:

Want To Do You All

*LOVE GIRLS*

*

Rude Boy: I only have three beer.

Mother Russia: That's enough for you, right?

Rude Boy: Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Mother Russia: :3

*

Mother Russia: I talked with the Russian girl today.

Rude Boy: In Russian?

Mother Russia: Yeah.

Rude Boy: And was she like, “Um, your pronunciation is perfect, but you speak like a small child...”

Mother Russia: Hahaha! No...but I could see it in her face.

*

Mother Russia: Good night, broken person!

*

Rude Boy: oh and because i was drunk and had been watching too much mad men i kept taking her lighter and lighting her cigarette for her last night loooooooooool

*

Mother Russia: It's supposed to look all relaxed...

Rude Boy: She doesn't look relaxed. Look at the position of her arms, she looks like she's masturbating.

Mother Russia: Well...that's pretty relaxing, right? :3

Rude Boy: Ha! Could be. But judging by her face she looks more into it than relaxed.

Mother Russia: Why do you keep saying 'she?'

Rude Boy: Who is it?

Mother Russia: Me!

Rude Boy: O...h!

*

(halfway through Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas)

Mother Russia: Do you like it?

Rude Boy: Yes, although I have some questions.

Mother Russia: “What is this movie about?”

*

Insufferable Dumbass: In Germany, is it pretty popular with the Japanese food?

*

Rude Boy: [Name]-CHAN!!

1kkaisei: YES!!

Rude Boy: YO!!

1kkaisei: GOOD AFTERNOON!!

Rude Boy: She's really energetic...

Genmaichan: Are you trying to say “young?”

Rude Boy: Maybe I am.

*

Rude Boy: want some cheeseburger pizza

Mother Russia: a mix of both?xD

*

Lithuania: You going to have some coffee with those sandwiches?

Rude Boy: Um...no? What the fuck?

Lithuania: Oh, it's pretty popular in Lithuania. Coffee or tea with sandwiches.

Rude Boy: ...I guess I can't talk. My country's national cuisine is French fries with gravy and cheese curds.

*

The moment when you find yourself in a busy footpath, stealthily trailing after some high school girls in the hopes of stealing a glance at their socks, you begin to question your life choices.

I was trying to figure out if they went to my old high school.

*

Rude Boy: Piss...cocks...fuck...

Lithuania: I wish you could hear yourself.

*

Lithuania: I'm gonna start watching Game of Thrones.

Rude Boy: You might not like it. Apparently there's a lot of fucking.

Lithuania: Yeah, one of my friends said it was more like Game of...“P.”

Rude Boy: …“Piss?”

Lithuania: No! Other “P!”

Rude Boy: Game of...Penises?

Lithuania: No! P o...

Rude Boy: ...oh, “Porn!!”

Lithuania: Yes!!

Rude Boy: Now I'm curious about Game of Piss, though.

*

Rude Boy: I saw something horrifying today.

Lithuania: What was it?

Rude Boy: Do you know those giant spiky caterpillars? I saw one on the sidewalk on the way home, and a hornet was just stripping the fuzzy part off its body...

Lithuania: That's terrible!

Rude Boy: ...and it was thrashing around and trying to push it off like “No, stop!”

Lithuania: Oh, see! That's it, right? You have the right to defend yourself from the attacking caterpillar!

Rude Boy: Uh, yeah, I'm pretty sure the caterpillar was just minding its own business and the wasp was like “Oh hey, food!”

Lithuania: Haha.

Rude Boy: Like if I had to kill to eat, I would obviously try to do it in such a way as to inflict as little pain as possible. But it didn't even kill the caterpillar, it was just like “I'm gonna start from the back,” and just started eating it alive.

Lithuania: That's intense!

Rude Boy: And I'm like, what's my responsibility here?

Lithuania: You should never interfere with nature.

Rude Boy: Right, and even if I did, what then? The same exact thing is going on in a forest somewhere right now. I can't be there every time it happens. It's not like I can just end all suffering. It really got me thinking about how nothing we do matters and we're all fucked...it was a very depressing existential moment.

Lithuania: So what did you do?

Rude Boy: Well, I just left it there.

Lithuania: What! Probably this was a test from God, and you faaaaaailed!

Rude Boy: Doubt it. Do you understand “Deism?” The idea that God exists, but doesn't interfere with the affairs of this world. Cause it's the old argument, either God is impotent, or He is wicked, or He doesn't exist.

Lithuania: This conversation got deep fast.

Rude Boy: I'll show you deep fast. Anyway that wasn't even the worst part. When I went back to school a couple of hours later, it was there in the same spot, only now being torn apart by a small army of ants. And it was still thrashing around like “Nooooo!”

Lithuania: Oh my God! You should have just stomped them allllll!

Rude Boy: Well, maybe I should have at least stepped on the caterpillar's head. Just to be merciful.

*

When I learn a new word, I often spend the next little while trying to insert it into conversation as often as possible, frequently employing it even in instances where I would normally say something else, or stitching together extremely tenuous excuses to try it out. I assume this is normal for most people learning a second language. Partly this is for practise, partly it's to check if I'm using it correctly, and partly it's just excitement. It's like getting a new toy toy to play with.

Part of studying a language formally means memorizing long lists of vocabulary that seems 99% useless. Like “constabulary” or “positron.” When in hell am I ever going to need a word like that? Even if I do, I'm better off looking it up when these specialized situations do crop up, and instead devoting my study time to more common words and phrases.

That said, when, in the course of your day, in some conversation or on some sign, you do encounter a word or kanji that you had to memorize for a test, the feeling is downright magical.

And you know what's even better? To struggle and struggle to grasp the nuance of a grammatical pattern, to hear it but not comprehend it, to come up with a half-dozen example sentences but not be sure if they're right...and then one day, unprecedented, have the spontaneous urge to use the construction in a sentence you're already in the middle of saying. These are the days when you've got this whole language-learning thing under control, you are worldly and educated and intelligent, you really are making progress, and have not been spending hundreds of hours of your life for nothing.

Then usually the next day you can't understand when the konbini clerk asks if you want a bag or not and you feel like the densest sack of shit who's ever walked this earth, which is why you sort of learn to savour the small victories.

*

Once when I was eating an ice cream cone, Mother Russia took it from me, ate the top part, and then gave it back with a huge groove in the surface of the ice cream, because she'd tried to rake it out with her teeth to avoid eating the cone.

Rude Boy: Um.

Mother Russia: Because of my diet, remember! I can't eat carbs!

Rude Boy: Uh-huh. Did you...need some help with this? >_>

Mother Russia: Yeah!!

Aaaaand so we started swapping, with me filing down the cone for her, and her eating as much of the revealed ice cream as she could before handing it back to me to continue my work. Then I pulled out a second one...which she stole, but this time got impatient, grabbed a spoon, and, after a few minutes, gave me back the empty cone.

Rude Boy: Oh, thank you so much. I'm so super excited to eat my, fucking...hard, dry bread.

Another time, she drank four coolers, I drank four beer, and then took down another half beer before she noticed that I was slowing down and just finished it off for me, without asking. Then she took my last beer, also without asking, and drank that too.

She can drink me under the table. It's awesome.

And finally, continuing with the theme of “Mother Russia ganking all my stuff,” she also sometimes takes my meat when I get a bentou, because she knows I don't really like it.

Rude Boy: Wow, you must really like having my meat in your mouth.

Mother Russia: I do!

Rude Boy: Hehe.

Australzealand: -.-

*

Japanese language teacher: What do you know about Liberia?

Chinese student: It's a very cold place, right?

Japanese language teacher: Isn't that...Siberia?

*

On the spur of the moment, I decided to go downtown. I realised partway there that I'd just made two transfers without paying any attention to what I was doing, my mind occupied by the more pressing concerns of essay topics and homework. After taking a stroll through some of my favourite areas, I decided I was hungry and stopped at Subway, where I noted that they'd hired a new girl. I dropped in at my local Round1 for a few rounds of Wang at Midnight before remembering that I needed to pick up Part 2 of 1Q84; considering the locations of nearby bookstores, I opted for Junkudou, in a spot I rarely visit but certainly not far out of my way. Finally I checked BookOff for any desirable new stock before heading home. A year ago I couldn't have found any of these places even if you'd given me a map.