Well, we’re done with Anime Expo, and what a fun time it was. Thanks to everyone who came by to say hello during the show!
In the last season of Lost, Japanese actor Hiroyuki Sanada — quite well known outside Japan due to his being in Ring and The Last Samurai — played the role of the mysterious priest Dogan, who keeps the smoke monster out of the temple or something. My wife has a been a fan of his since his Japan Action Club days, and was thrilled to be able to enjoy some lines of dialogue in her native language, rather than in the many difficult dialects of English that Lost is so good at. In his first scene, Dogan refers to an “infection” (kegare) that one character had been exposed to. It was a word I knew well, because it’s what my Japanese daughter says if I try to kiss her good night. For some reason, Japanese girls have a major issue with their fathers once they reach a certain age, which seems to go beyond the general fear of “cooties” that all teenagers might feel. In Japan people take baths every day, and a family will use the bath water for several family members, since all washing is done outside the tub, but my daughter insists on taking her bath before me every night, so my fatherly bacteria won’t infect her. It’s not that she hates me or anything — we get along great. She’s just decided that, like all fathers, I am simply unclean.
So what do you think? If you’re female, do you hug and kiss your father, or push him away because he smells bad and makes dumb jokes?
Japanese girls often view their fathers as “unclean.”
