I was busy this morning visiting a Shinto shrine to pray for health and good luck in the new year, as well as success for J-List. So I decided to do another quick “ask me anything” post, answering questions from J-List customers on Twitter and Facebook. Enjoy these random questions about Japan answered for you!
13 Questions About Japan for 2021
Do older generations enjoy watching anime? Or is it only younger people who watch?
As I’ve written before, pretty much everyone in Japan grows up consuming anime and manga along with their friends. Then in junior high school, when the pressures of adulthood start to exert themselves on people, they either put their toys away, becoming serious about their career and their studies or else go forward in life while maintaining an emotional attachment to reading manga and watching anime. Our rural liquor shop gets the weekly manga magazines like JUMP and Magazine in a day before convenience stores, and I love seeing lawers in luxury cars pull up to buy the latest issue.
Questions about Japan: How is comedy different between Japan and the U.S.?
Interesting question. I’d say that the basic “unit” of comedy in Japan is the two-man manzai team, in which a deadpan “straight man” (boke in Japanese) will set up jokes, which the “funny guy” will react to in a witty way (tsukkomi). When you look at the Japanese entertainment landscape, most of the legendary names got their start doing manzai two-man stage comedy, including Beat Takeshi.
Boke/tsukkomi is also a staple of anime, such as Seitokai Yakuindomo, a show which consists of nothing but sexual jokes set up by all the characters, which Suzu and Tsuda react to.
Questions about Japan: Have you been on a true mixed bathing onsen (kon’yoku)?
I became a fan of visiting both onsen (natural hot springs) and sento (public baths with saunas) soon after arriving in Japan, and I’ve probably visited at least 300 different such baths, between exploring my home prefecture of Gunma and visiting onsen inns with Mrs. J-List. Sadly, I’ve found exactly *one* mixed-bathing bath during all that time, meaning that they’ve basically become a myth, just like those old-style school swimsuits with the line across the bottom that no longer exists outside of anime itself.
It’s much more common for establishments to offer a “private bath” that a family or couple could rent for an hour if they wanted to bathe together.
What is healthcare like in Japan?
Japan has a U.K.-style national healthcare system that covers 70% of medical expenses for most citizens. It works well and, as you can see from Japan’s long life spans, serves its citizens well. Japan’s medical staff have been working extremely hard to get Japan through the current crisis, and we’re all happy to have their support.
What was your experience with women in Japan? Do they flock to you because you’re a blonde gaijin?
While I’ve known outgoing, fun foreigners who make friends when they arrive in Japan, including people to date, people who are shy in their home countries won’t magically be different if they come to Japan. I will say that the act of learning a foreign language actually causes you to develop a new personality when speaking that language, and I might have made my “Japanese” persona more a little more outgoing and fun to be around than my English-speaking self. Learning a new language is like a second chance at choosing the kind of person you want to be!
What is the smallest apartment you’ve ever lived in?
I’m in Gunma Prefecture, 100 km northwest of Tokyo, so I’ve never lived in a really small apartment. Rooms in Japan are always measured in how many tatami mats would fit in the room, if it were a tatami room, and never had rooms smaller than an 8- or 10-mat room, with a separate small kitchen. Tokyo is much more densely packed, however.
Questions about Japan: Is Internet access restricted in Japan in regards to pornography? Are off-shore porn sites blocked?
Nothing is blocked from inside Japan at all. I can look at Pornhub or any other adult site, even though the uncensored content wouldn’t always be legal to possess. We ship our uncensored visual novels out of San Diego because it wouldn’t be legal to stock them inside Japan.
Are there any names with stereotypes or certain connotations in Japan? Like how in America, “Poindexter” is a nerdy name, “Ethel” sounds like a grandma, etc. What are the “cool” and “uncool” names in Japan?
As in English, there are trends to names, and we sometimes get impressions from people based on their names. Some examples include:
- People over the age of 60 often have names tied to the Chinese Zodiac, like Tora if they were born in the year of the Tiger. My mother-in-law was born in 1939, the Year of the Rabbit, and her name incorporates the rabbit kanji in it, marking her as a member of the Showa Era.
- In the 70s and 80s, most girls received names containing 子 ko meaning “child,” like Kumiko or Keiko or Seiko. These days that trend has been completely reversed.
- Inside anime, you sometimes encounter characters with aristocratic-sounding names like お手洗い Mitarai, written with kanji that could mean “toilet,” or 毒島 Busujima, which phonetically sounds like “ugly face island,” or 処女, which is pronounced Tokonome but could be read as shojo, meaning “virgin.” While names found in anime are stylized to create more interesting characters, real people do have these family names in Japan.
- Around the year 2000, parents started giving their children annoyingly colorful names called kira kira name, such as Doremi, Maple and Nasa. So as these kids grow up and enter society, we’ll be encountering them more and more… unless they change their names to something less flashy once they enter adulthood.
What’s the best site to find relocation jobs in tech in Japan?
While I’m not up to date on specific sites to get information, I do have this post up detailing why people with technical skills, especially up-to-date web design and programming abilities, are extremely in demand here in Japan. Is it hard to move to Japan? Not particularly, and Japan welcomes anyone with the skills and companies want people who will follow the rules and pay their taxes. Most jobs do require a 4-year degree, though there are some exceptions depending on the type of job.
I do recommend strongly that ESL teaching jobs should be avoided unless you’ve already got specific experience and qualifications in that field already, or can work in ESL for only a short time before switching to something better. The salaries for teachers have only fallen since I was teaching back in the 1990s.
Do you like nihonshu? If yes which one would be your favorite? I like Tenshin from Kita-kyushu.
Although I literally live in a liquor store (my in-laws run a small shop that’s attached to our house), I never developed a taste for sake other than the occasional atsukan hot sake ordered at a restaurant.
Is it possible to be a weeb if you’re Japanese?
I saw this question on Quora, the place people go to ask really weird questions apparently, and included it here.
The word and concept of weeb are unknown to the Japanese, and inside Japan, they would just group any otaku as an “otaku” and leave it at that. While a less-than-kind term for obsessive anime fan does exist (it’s キモオタ kimo-wota), almost no one would care if you’re an anime/manga/game otaku these days, since everyone’s an otaku about something.
If there’s a group that receives sideways glances from society at large for its occasional obsessiveness, it might be idol otakus, including both male fans of female idol groups like AKB48, and female fans of “Johnny’s-kei” boy bands.
Are you a member of the oppai or oshiri faction?
While both boobs and butts are both great in their own way, I think I’d have to choose the latter if I had to make a choice.
Thanks for reading these random questions about Japan for 2021. Got any more questions you’d like answered? Post them below or ask us on Twitter!
Valentine’s Day is coming up, and as usual, J-List is here to support you with a fun Valentine’s Day Sale! Whether you need to buy some delightful chocolates for that someone special or need a “girlfriend replacement” if you’ll be spending February 14th alone this year, you can get 5x points off your order! Start browsing now!
