Guys you have no idea how long I have wanted to rip into this topic. That’s right, today I’ll be writing about anime. Buwahahah be afraid.

Now I’ll admit, I’m a video game girl so I’m impartial to video gamers, but honestly some anime fans make me want to insert my head in a door frame and slam the door repeatedly. To begin with, DO NOT CAPITALIZE THE WORD anime. Do we say “Hey let’s watch a Movie”?? NO! SO DON’T CAPITALIZE IT!

Okay my pet peeves aside, anime is an animated form of entertainment that is very popular in Japan. It’s basically animated TV shows that are aired on television. Dozens of new shows and new seasons are release yearly. The target audience for a show can vary, but a lot of shows are aimed at the teenager through the twentysomethings crowds. Only a couple shows are selected to be English dubbed every year, but a lot of bilingual fans will translate the shows, insert subtitles and then release them on the Internet.

So you know what anime is, so what are the stories like? To make things more interesting I’ll list for you the bias that an anime fan would have if they believed everything they saw in the shows. (And I did a lot of extensive research on this!) So here we go. If an anime fan believed everything they saw they would think: giant robots freely roam the earth; the world will end in the year 2020; the world already ended in the year 2000; clumsy, stupid girls make the perfect candidates to save the world; in every school in Japan there is at least one magic girl with a five minute transformation scene; changing your clothes in Japan to that of something magical will make everyone think you’re a different person; Japan just happens to be a mega-center for all sorts of human/demon things who want to take over the earth; in every classroom you have the typical stupid girl, smart girl, hott girl and athletic girl; swords/katanas will always beat guns; ninjas, who are supposed to sneak around, will either be faceless or wear bright jumpsuits; normal people can jump in the air and hover for a while before picturesquely falling back to earth without breaking a leg; all high school students in a sport can defy the laws of physics and the most needy/emotionally stunted guy will always get the girl.

Whew. I think I described an aspect of almost every anime. Or at least a great portion of them. That’s all for today, class dismissed!

Hello readers! JapanFan here with another Japanese artistic topic, music!

The Japanese shamisen, or sangen, is a three stringed musical instrument played with a bachi, also called a plectorum in English. (Kind of like a big, BIG guitar pick.) A shamisen is about the same length as a guitar, but it has no frets, and it’s body looks suspiciously similar to a drum. The drum like body is, sad to say, made of cat or dog skin, although in the past they were made of paper. (Japan is probably one of the only countries in the world where you can play your pet.) The strings are generally made of silk or nylon, and the bachies used to be made with ivory and tortoise shell, but now are generally constructed out of wood.

The shamisen can be played alone, with other shamisen, or with an ensemble of traditional Japanese instruments. Both men and women traditionally play the shamisen. Shamisen are used with kabuki, but they are most widely known for their part in Bunraku, a puppet type theater which involves three puppeteers per puppet, and a narrator who is accompanied by a shamisen.

Additionally in the 19th century female players carried on in a concert tradition, and around 1900 blind shamisen players (as well as shamisen players who could see) created a new style of playing. This new style was based on traditional folk tales, but involved a lot of impromptu playing as well as fancy fingerwork. Here’s a Youtube Video of two Shamisen players.

In the 20th century Shamisen were used to play non-traditional music, like blue grass. Yes, yes Japan has also been infected with country music.

That’s a brief blurb about the Shamisen! It is hoped that you will be able to better appreciate this beautiful Japanese instrument. (Even when it was used for country music.)

Hello readers, Japan fan here with another topic about Japan!

So Japan doesn’t have Broadway or Shakespeare, what does it have? It has Kabuki!

Kabuki started in 1603 by a miko, or priestess, named Okuni. She began to perform dances and dramas in dry riverbeds in Kyoto. It became immensely popular and more females began to perform with Okuni. They were cast as both male and female characters. However, soon the women began to attract too much attention, the wrong kind of attention. (Go figure huh?) So women were banned from performing in 1629. (Because of course that was the only way to protect them. Yeah, right.)

Young men took over the roles of Kabuki actors, and they placed an emphasis on drama rather than dance. The young men played both male and female parts. Because their voices were higher pitched they were easily able to carry out both roles. But will wonders never cease!! Soon these handsome young men also began to attract the wrong kinds of attention, and sometimes brawls would break out. So in 1653 the Shogunate ruled that adult males only could act in Kabuki. (I bet that made for some REALLY ugly female leads.)

Because adult males were all of the characters, Kabuki took on more of a sophisticated, comedic style of drama. Eventually this kind of Kabuki died out, especially when onnagata danced onto the secene. Onnagata were men who covered themselves in so much makeup and clothes they could truly fool the audiences into thinking they were female. (That must have taken a lot of makeup.)

Behold, the astonishing transformation from middle aged man to a…beauty?

From 1673-1735 Kabuki thrived. During this period Kabuki was officially stylized and several great Kabuki writers lived, releasing many influential works. Around 1750 Kabuki fell out of favor.

However, just as it survived through husky voiced males pretending to be pretty girls, Kabuki was once again revived around 1868, the time of the Meiji restoration. This time the Kabuki Theaters targeted the upper class, and occasionally a Kabuki drama was performed for the Emperor Meiji.

Kabuki took a hit after World War II when times were tough for all of Japan. But Kabuki is considered to be moderately popular today. There are a handful of large theaters in the major cities, and women have once again been welcomed back into the theater. (After World War II an all female troupe was formed, they are still around today.)

Additionally Kabuki has spread West. Kabuki troupes tour through America and Europe, and in addition to performing Japanese drams they will perform adapted versions of Shakespeare as well! (Imagine Romeo the playboy in a kimono!)

That’s a basic history of the Kabuki Theater! Look forward to more information about Kabuki dramas in upcoming posts!