Journey into Japanland
Posted on April 12th, 2009
Since I’m going to write quite a bit on Japanese anime and drama in this blog, I decided to do a post on how I got into Japanese culture – both pop and traditional in the first place, as well as explain a little on how I started learning the Japanese language.
My first exposure to the Japanese-related was were kid shows like Kimba, Hello Kitty (yes, there was an anime of it), and mostly maho shoujo and super-sentai shows such as Sailor Moon and Power Rangers. Of course, like most people back then (in the 1990s) I was unaware that these shows and mascots had Japanese origins. In the late 1990s, some of my friends started gettting onto the massive wave that is Pokemon, as well as series such as Gundam Wing, Rurouni Kenshin, Fushigi Yuugi and Slayers. Interestingly enough, despite said friends’ efforts to introduce the wonderful world of anime to me, I did not get as into it as they did. So I did have some awareness and knowledge of it, but then how you ask, did I come to like it?
I had taken up a rather neutral and indifferent stance towards anime and manga (it’s a long story and I’ll spare you the details). Basically while I found that it was fun and different, I just did not get the hype. Then in 2003 I went overseas to study, and I was perusing the topics given for the final media & communications research essay. One of them involved writing about the influence of anime, and I don’t know what overcame me then, but I decided to choose that topic. I decided to give anime (which had grown even more popular as the years had passed) another chance. Since I knew nothing other than my friends’ talk about it, I had to research from scratch. And well, let’s just say I developed interest in it from a pretty much academic viewpoint. As part of my research I came to know and watch other anime series and movies that my friends had not mentioned; shows that actually held my interest and appealed to me better than what my friends had shown me. I have always been a bit resistant to following the crowd, so I guess finding something on my own was exciting to a certain extent. After submitting the essay I started looking for more anime similar to what I found; my best friend managed to persuade me to join a cosplay group who introduced me to even more, and while I still wasn’t a total convert, I did get more interested in it.
Then I went to university, during which my academic and personal interests in history and literature spurred me to take a subject on Japanese popular culture. It was more of an elective subject as I did not belong to the Japanese or Asian studies department, but I throughly enjoyed learning about Japanese culture from bento to enka to post-war ideologies, amongst a myriad of other topics we dipped our feet into each week. I also started going to online communities and forums about life in Japan and just became fascinated with the Japanese mindset and its levels of politeness and the strange and quirky things to deal with Japanese society. It was also during this time I started reading manga. In 2008 as part of my postgrad studies in publishing, I wrote another essay more in-depth than the first on the manga industry and its journey to the west.
Around the mid 2000s, I discovered three things that have become the main things I love about Japanese popular culture.
1) Japanese drama. It first started off with stumbling upon drama adaptations of anime or manga series such as You’re Under Arrest, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon and Ace Wo Narae… Then came Gokusen and GTO, two manga to drama adaptation that really made me sit up and start to like Japanese drama alot more. I eventually came out of the school/family-drama mindset and went on to more complex series; office stories, historical epics, mystery drama, medical, etc… and I was really blown away by it. The greatest appeal to me about drama was that it was never too long or too short (usually 12 episodes at most per season whereas english tv series have about 20+ episodes and go on for what seemed like forever, till I eventually lost interest at some point, not bothering to keep up). Another thing was that even when I was a child, I preferred shows with real people acting in them to cartoons – which explains my preferrence for drama over anime – and drama just seems more real and solid.
2) Musicals. For as long as I can remember, I have been enchanted and swept away by the glittery world that is broadway. I also love listening to songs in various languages and when I found Japanese recordings of musicals it was only natural that I took to them quickly. It helped that as a huge musical fan I already knew to words to many songs in English so I could understand bits and pieces of the Japanese translations when I started learning Japanese. And I also discovered anime turned into musicals, which after taking some getting used to, were a whole new and exciting thing for me.
3) Music. As with musicals, I love a good piece of music. As with anime I just wasn’t into stuff my friends tried to get me into… but as the internet brought up more advances like youtube and music sharing communities I eventually found Japanese music I actually liked. I listen mostly to J-pop, rock and some enka, and I tend to follow artistes who are not necessarily big but whose vocals and lyrics suit my liking. And I’ve managed to get some of my friends into these lesser known artistes, which is fun.
Well, so I’ve established that by the mid-2000s, I was very much into Japanese culture, both popular and traditional. And at this point in time I was considering learning a new language. I love learning new languages, and had dabbled a little in a couple here and there, but aside from English and Chinese, I hadn’t studied any seriously. I decided that Japanese would probably be one of the best choices since I was then currently into the culture. And it would be nice to one day be able not to depend on English translations, scanlations, subs, etc and be able to decipher the language on my own. And that is basically how my learning of the Japanese language started. I went online and searched for a Japanese langauge school around my area, found one, and have been there ever since. I really enjoy learning even more about Japanese culture firsthand from my Japanese teachers, and it has opened up so many new avenues for me; interest wise and perhaps I may end up living in Japan for a bit in the future, who knows?
Recently I’ve taken up an interest in reading Japanese literature by authors such as Yukio Mishima, Shusako Endo, Haruki Murakami, etc… one day I hope to be able to read such great works untranslated.
In short my path to getting into Japanland has been a slightly less conventional one, but it has been interesting no less and I don’t regret it. I may not be a huge fan of anime still, but it did lead me to discover a world beyond that, and I guess I owe it thanks to some degree.
Peaceout.
Filed under: ** jdrama, japan, Uncategorized