One new anime from the currently-running season that caught my eye is Jinsei, which means “life” as in the span of a person’s life from start to finish. It’s a series about a mild-mannered Japanese youth named Yuki who finds himself running a “life counseling corner” for the school newspaper along with three moe-tastic assistants: Fumi, a bookish girl from the literature club, Rino, as well-endowed girl from the science club, and Ikumi, a “genki girl” who’s great at all sports. Each segment starts out the same, with a student in the school submitting a “life counseling” problem for Yuki and his companions to try to solve, which usually results in them going on a short adventure that teaches the characters something about themselves while providing fan service for viewers. As is usually the case with anime, you can pick up interesting cultural tidbits, like in the episode in which a girl wrote about her mother disliking a boy she brought home because the boy had been chewing gum while he met her mother, which is bad manners in Japan. The boyish Ikumi says, “Why not have the boy pretend to be a ‘major leaguer’ from America? They’re allowed to chew gum anywhere, right?” from which we can guess that Americans have a reputation for chewing gum at inappropriate times among the Japanese.
One reason I like the J-List Facebook page and Twitter feed is that communication is two-way, and readers can shoot questions to me any time. The other day a reader asked about driving in Japan, so I thought I’d write about that for today’s post. Cars in Japan, of course, drive on the left side of the road, which was essentially the result of Japan wanting to be noticed by “Britain-senpai” back in the 19th century. Driving this way isn’t that hard to get used to – I just make sure I’m going the same way the other cars around me are going, and if my (mildly dyslexic) brain ever get confused, I remember that my body needs to be closer to the center of the road than my passenger, no matter what country I’m in. While getting used to driving on the other side of the street isn’t too hard, remembering which side of the car the steering wheel is on is apparently impossible, and both my wife and I regularly attempt to get in the car from the wrong side for months after returning from the U.S. The Japanese associate 左ハンドル hidari handoru or cars with the steering wheel on the left with driving the free and open roads of America, rather than cramped streets of Japan. Back in the 80s, it was a status symbol to have a car with the steering wheel on the left, and people would go to great lengths to import a car from America or Europe so they could look cool in front of their friends.
It’s a great time to be a Sailor Moon fan, with the new series airing and lots of awesome Sailor Moon products being produced for fans. We’ve got tons of awesome products on the site, from Sailor Moon pens to pointers to plush toys and figures. Browse today’s ranking of products now, and get your preorders in before the items you want sell out.
