Welcome to the NHK is one of the oddest anime series I’ve watched. This head trip follows Tatsuhiro Sato, a hikikomori, and Misaki Nakahara, a strange girl who decides to help cure Sato of his hikikomori. Sato is convinced that the NHK (which is a public broadcasting company, Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai) is actually a sinister…
Tag: japanese culture
Sake, Fire, and Mayhem: the Nozawa Onsen Dosojin Matsuri
Nozawaonsen is a village of about five thousand people about an hours drive from Nagano City. It is famed for its hot springs, which according to legend were discovered when an injured bear led a hunter to them, its skiing, and for hosting part of the Nagano Winter Olympics in 1998. It is also famous…
Kappa – Dangerous, Vicious, yet Polite
The kappa is one of the most famous of Japan’s mythological creatures. It is sometimes called an imp in the West. This scaly water creature is a mix of a turtle, a monkey, and a frog. About the size of a child, the kappa is said to wait in water for a hapless victim to…
Onbashira, the deadly log-riding festival of Japan
When I first saw videos like the one posted above, I took it as a given that Japanese men would ride gigantic logs down steep slopes at the risk of death and maiming, because OF COURSE Japanese men would ride gigantic logs down steep slopes at the risk of death and maiming. Japan is pretty…
The Two Frogs: A Japanese Folktale
Once upon a time in the country of Japan there lived two frogs, one of whom made his home in a ditch near the town of Osaka, on the sea coast, while the other dwelt in a clear little stream which ran through the city of Kyoto. At such a great distance apart, they had…
Jisei: the Japanese Death Poem
What will your final words be just before you die? Japan has a long history of jisei, or death poems. Jisei is the “farewell poem to life.” These poems were written by literate people just before their death. One of the earliest record of jisei dates to 686 CE with the death of Prince Otsu,…