One question I’m interested in is, what happens inside our brains when we decide we love Indian naan bread, or the new Pocky Squeeze, or obsessing over certain Sailor Moon characters? Synaptically speaking, what happens to anime fans as we’re drawn towards or pushed away from different genres, art styles, and character archetypes over time? Do you like tsundere girls who are emotionally fragile inside and adopt combative personalities as defense mechanisms, or do you find them urusai (noisy and annoying)? Do you like anime stories centered around characters fighting each other, either hand-to-hand or in mecha, or tend to stay away from these series? How we currently feel about a thing seems to derive from repeated exposure to positive associations: the social feedback we get from friends who like the same things we do, the shot of dopamine your brain gives you when you look at a fan service image, the incredible rush I felt watching the Wings of Honneamise film in a large group at my university anime club back in 1988, which convinced me I wanted to learn Japanese. Since anime is a such a varied and complex medium, we should all do our best to approach new shows with a open mind so we can discover great new series to become fans of. Hentai, too!
As the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics draw near, Japan is buzzing with excitement. There’s nothing Japanese people love more than the idea of millions of foreigners visiting their country to oo and ah about how advanced their society is, and one technology that will be featured in a big way are…robots. Haneda Airport is currently showing off several robots that will be part of the Olympics, including basic information and tour robots, cleaning robots that can patrol public areas, sweeping and picking up litter, and so on. One cool system I saw consists of wheeled robotic platforms that can be loaded with boxes that need to be transported. An employee attaches a transceiver to his belt and walks to the destination, the wheeled robot platforms following behind, carrying the boxes. Let’s hope they can perfect robot maids in time for the games.
At J-List, we love supplying the world with delicious Japanese snacks, including awesome chocolate products like Pocky and Matcha Kit Kat. Sadly, all chocolate is removed each May, as summer arrives and starts warming things up. Isn’t today a great day to make a chocolate order from J-List?
