Mrs. J-List is visiting Australia with a friend for a week, so I’ve got the house to myself, which is kind of nice as it means I can watch anime and drink beer til 3 am if I want. Rather than gorge on anime and beer all weekend, I decided to pack a bag and head down to Tokyo to explore some parts of the city I hadn’t visited yet, like the excellent Tokyo Edo Museum that shows you what life was like back during the Edo Period (1603-1868). I also bummed around the Ryogoku area where the National Sumo Stadium is, which is quite interesting as there are always sumo wrestlers passing by on the street you can strike up a conversation with. Visiting Tokyo from J-List’s home prefecture of Gunma (100 km north of Japan’s capital, pretty much in the exact center of the country) is always a treat, since the level of fashion and culture is much higher than it is out in our humble corner of the country. My eyes pop out of my head at the vibrant fashions and beautiful Tokyo girls every time I’m there.
It’s interesting to see how some kinds of pop culture transfer move over national boundaries — the fun hare hare yukai dance from Haruhi, or cosplay and fanart involving a certain blue ribbon — while other types have a harder time jumping from one country to another. Most old-school gamers know the famous “it’s dangerous to go alone, take this!” line from the 1986 Legend Of Zelda NES release, but Japanese fans never latched on to that particular scene and made a meme of it. Similarly, one of the famous lines from anime in Japan is Amuro’s “You hit me! My own father never hit me!” response to being “Brightslapped” in the original Mobile Suit Gundam, but that quote hasn’t become part of the shared consciousness of anime fans outside of Japan. Most forms of humor are hard to translate from one culture to another, too. The other day I was watching a late-night re-broadcast of an episode BBC’s excellent Top Gear, which has quite a following in Japan, with my wife. Again and again I’d laugh out lout at the hilarious Britishisms uttered by presenter Jeremy Clarkson (“the car’s suspension is so low, you can feel it every time you drive over an amoeba”), but because these were not being accurately represented in the Japanese subtitles, my wife had no idea why I was laughing so hard.
We’ve got some good news for fans of English-translated visual novels: the English version of Starless is available now! Actually we’re still waiting for the finalized packages to come in stock, but since every copy of the Limited Edition comes with a download code, enabling you to play the game on the official release date, we’ve sent these codes out to all preorder customers. You can still order the game, which comes with a deluxe large-sized box, DVD-ROM, and a 62-page artbook filled with amazing art, character data and an original interview with creator Sei Shoujo. Order now, if you haven’t already!
