“If I were asked to explain the Japanese spirit, I would say it is wild cherry blossoms glowing in the morning sun!” — Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801) Japan’s flower language isn’t as well develop as in the West. Japan’s stories and theater focused on humanizing plants as opposed to using them to convey emotions and messages….
Category: Culture
Felice Beato and Kimbei Kusakabe, Photographers of 1800s Japan
The mid-to-late 1800s marked a shift in Japanese history: the Meiji Restoration. The old guard, the Tokugawa Shogunate, with their isolationist attitudes were overthrown, and Japan began a miraculous modernization movement. When you consider the shift, it is amazing. Japan went from being primarily agriculturally-based in 1853 when Commodore Matthew Perry of the US forced…
Why Reading Manga is Good for Your Brain and for Autism
Manga is good for your brain. Yep. You’ve read that right. In fact, reading manga may give you an advantage over those, like me, who grew up reading only traditional books. Manga benefits those with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) too. The medium requires a different set of skills than reading traditional books. Not to say…
Citrus: Lesbianism at All-Girls Schools
Citrus is the first yuri anime I’ve watched from start to finish. The story follows the fraught romance between two step-sisters Yuzu and Mei. As you can expect from anime, they share little in common. Yuzu is a fun-loving city girl while Mei is cold and by-the-books. Yuzu feels conflicted about her feelings. After all,…
Sex, Zen, and Poetry. The Life of Ikkyu Sojun
When we think of monks, we think of bald guys sitting around praying and studying all day long. Monks shirk women, booze, and other worldly pleasures. Back in the 15th century, one Zen monk turned this tradition on its back. Ikkyu Sojun decided to be true to himself and that meant regular trips to brothels….
Living a Wabi Sabi Life
Wabi-sabi doesn’t have an equivalent English word. The phrase itself is rather fun to say: wabi-sabi. The phrase describes an aesthetic, a feeling, that underlies our experiences of art and landscapes. The phrase contains two words that, though similar, work together to describe what we in the West would call nostalgic tragedy. Wabi can mean…