I’ve always been a huge fan of Christmas, loving everything about it: the music, the annual re-watching of the Charlie Brown Christmas Special with the family, even shopping in crowded malls. But it seems that not everyone in Japan is a fan. Far from being a religious holiday, Christmas in Japan is a little like Halloween, a cultural import that’s fun because it comes from the West. While the 1% of Japanese who are Christians do go to church on December 25th — after they get off work, since it’s not a holiday — Christmas is primarily an excuse for lovers to go on a special romantic date. But the sight of all those リア充 ria-juu, or happy and well-adjusted casuals with boyfriends/girlfriends, has caused a group of lonely single men called the Revolutionary Alliance of Unpopular Guys to demonstrate against Christmas, saying it’s unfair to single men who may not have the spare money to wine-and-dine a lady. Additionally, one restaurant bans couples from entering on Christmas Eve in order to spare “emotional damage” to the single male staff. While the demonstrators and the restaurant owners are doing what they’re doing in part because they want to score some “internet fame,” is there something to their argument? What do you think?
When I went to Australia in November I managed to injure my knee when a wave hit me from the side as I was exiting the ocean, and yesterday I went to a new hospital that specialized in “sports medicine” related injuries to get it looked at. This wasn’t just any hospital, though: it was operated by Zenshu-kai, a group affiliated with the Japanese Zen sect of Buddhism, in the same way a hospital in the U.S. might be run by Episcopalians or Catholics. Silly American that I am, I heard “Zen” and expected the doctor to issue prescriptions while kneeling seiza style in the middle of a minimalist dojo, but it was just a slightly well-used hospital staffed with hardworking doctors and nurses. While I feel I have a good working grasp of the history of Christianity through the years (the Catholic Church, the Reformation, the rise of the major denominations), I know next to nothing about Japanese Buddhism, such as Nichiren, Shingon, or the “evangelical” Buddhist movement, Sokkai Gakkai. Which puts me in pretty good company, since Japanese themselves never know anything about Buddhism until reaching the age of 70 or so.
We’d like to take a moment to thank everyone for your support over the past year, and wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. This has been a busy year for us, what with the many awesome English visual novel releases and the launch of this fine website. We hope to bring you many awesome new products in the new year!
