Maid cafe

Ah, the maid cafe - a uniquely Japanese innovation (I hope) and a particularly famous feature of Akihabara, the geek mecca. The idea is that you pay a little extra to be waited on by cute girls dressed as maids. The cafes range from subdued - really like a normal cafe except that the girls happen to be in costume - to weird - where they girls fuss over you, act 'moe' (…look it up) and play games with the customers. I've been to a 'normal' maid cafe before, but I just had to see what the other sort might be like.

The elevator door opened to a cutesy, brightly decorated cafe with a stage (where the maids sometimes do a show at set hours), pictures on the walls showing us this cafe's girls, and, of course the girls themselves.  They greeted me with a wildly excited 'okaerinasai!' ('welcome home!') and called me 'ojousama' - I'm the lady of the house, you see, and they were welcoming me like good maids.

There were a few other customers, mostly male and all Japanese, and the different maids chatted with the different tables, or to each other. When customers ordered food or drink, the maid delivering it would have the customer play a little game with them (like, chant some cute phrase before eating) before leaving them to consume it.

The aim of the maids is to spend time with the customers, and make them feel special by joking and asking questions and being cute. They were quite good at this, but I still felt uncomfortable. It's just kind of an embarrassing atmosphere; perhaps it would be better if the cafe were absolutely full of customers and all of them well into their cups, so that there was a loud and cheery atmosphere. I ended up feeling a bit sorry for the girls, because who wants to try to josh along and play cute games with reticent guys who can hardly look you in the eye? I felt vaguely as if I were seeing a new type of geisha, in the sense that their job is to look pretty and chat with customers, no matter how little the customers have to say.

A maid cafe is a little different from a normal cafe; with their gimmicks, they get a bit of extra money out of you. When I went (Tuesday evening), these were the rules:

• There's a table charge - for 1000 yen you can stay two hours. 
•  You must order either a 'set menu', or choose a minimum of two items from the normal menu. These 'set menus', each of them over 2000 yen, included food and drink, as well as maid-related things - like a keychain, a photo opportunity, etc. 
•  You can't take photos of the maids, unless you have paid for the privilege. You can also buy merchandise with the maids' pictures on it - hence why they don't want you to take your own! As 

I've been to Akiba several times, I felt I really had to try a real maid cafe, just for the unique experience. My conclusion: it was a bit too weird for me. Not just for me, I daresay - to my amusement, several times, another foreigner or group of foreigners would come up the elevator, and the doors would open - they'd take one look into the room, pale, and immediately go back downstairs again. If you go, you should go with at least a couple of friends who have a good sense of humour, I think!

A Day In: Shirokanedai

The weather was lovely; it was too nice a day to just go shopping. Where could I go to find a nice spot of nature - preferably somewhere new and not too far away?

I betook myself to Tokyo - specifically, to Shirokanedai, near Meguro. Just by the station is Happo-en, a traditional Japanese-style garden. This garden is not very touristed, but is pretty and is a popular spot for wedding photos. Indeed it was impossible to walk five metres without getting in the way of yet another couple's photo shoot. I sat on a rock and watched the koi - not a bad way to pass the time - until all the groups gradually left. When this happened, I pretty much had the place to myself.

It's not a very big garden, but that makes it a good size to potter around; you can easily see all of it and just sit and enjoy the feel of it. The garden also features a collection of bonsai trees, with their type and age printed; the oldest are over 500 years old!

After Happo-en, despite my resolution to spend the day outdoors, I was lured in by the Shirokanedai Book-Off. For those who don't know, these are stores that specialise in books, CDs, DVDs and games; they sell a lot of second-hand stuff, and you can also sell your own cast-offs to them for a pittance (I did this when I left Japan, having accumulated a vast number of books in a short time and not liking to just throw them all away). 

The Shirokanedai Book-Off has quite a nice little cafe in it, where I sat for a while, and, to my great astonishment, the downstairs had a HUGE selection of books in English. I've rarely seen so many cheap foreign books; I'm not sure quite how this Book-Off in a quiet, obscure little Tokyo neighbourhood should have come by so many!

The upshot was I spent about an hour and a half in there and came away with 11 books…

I decided to walk down Meguro-dori with the eventual goal of reaching the Meguro Parasitological Museum. I should say that this small museum, quirky as it sounded, was the only sightseeing spot on my 'places to go' list that I never visited when I lived in Japan. That I never made it there proves it was never a priority, but being in the vicinity, I thought it a good chance.

Shirokanedai is a pretty quiet neighbourhood, despite the main road I was walking along. There were a couple of cute little cafes and other small shops that I think give Tokyo character. I bypassed a couple of museums and came to a national park, the National Park for Nature Study.

Well, it was a nice day, after all, and although I had never heard of this place, that's what carefree days are for, right? In I went. Great idea!

People are always saying of this or that park or garden, 'it makes you forget you're in the middle of a city'. This park really made me forget I was in the middle of Tokyo. I felt like I'd stepped right into the fresh green lushness of the Japanese countryside. You couldn't see any buildings or hear any traffic noises; just trees.

I wouldn't call it picturesque, exactly; it certainly wasn't manicured; as far as nature goes, it was quite a contrast to Happo-en. Yet it was a refreshing place to be immersed in. It would take at least half an hour to walk around the whole track. 

When you go into the park, you take a ribbon to wear, and return it to the box when you leave. I have since learned this is because they have a limit of 300 people that they allow in the park at any one time, presumably to avoid spoiling the peace of it. And to be sure, it wasn't busy, being mostly populated by old ladies in hats and old men with big cameras. This seems to be a popular place to take nature photos; some shots of flowers and insects are on display near the entrance.

I wouldn't recommend this national park as a major tourist draw, but if you have seen a lot of places around Tokyo and are looking for something new, or if you live in Tokyo, it really is a breath of fresh air.

You know, every time I go to Tokyo, I'm struck anew by how big it is, how much there is too it, how much there is to see. I passed three different museums on my stroll, none of which I'd heard of before, as well as finding that very well-stocked Book-Off, a new garden and a national park.

The most famous of the museums I passed was the Teien Art Museum, right by the park. It was closed for refurbishing though.

I kept walking for some minutes more and eventually passed Meguro station. I passed the river, lined with cherry trees - at this time of year, all green, but when they are in full bloom, it's one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen.

My final stop for the day was the Meguro Parasitological Museum, which I'll mention in another post.

Tokyo Sky Tree

One of the big events of this year was the opening of Tokyo Sky Tree, now the tallest building in Japan (and apparently the second-tallest building in the world, at the time of writing this). This tower opened in May and has attracted hordes of tourists ever since. it can be seen from many places around Tokyo, and is quite near Asakusa - you can walk there from Asakusa (takes about 20 minutes) or take a train from Asakusa. From Azumabashi (near Asakusa station) you can get a good view of it:

At the base of the Tree is a quite good shopping mall and an aquarium. When I got there, it was an average Monday, and the Tree had been open for over 4 months, so I didn't expect it to be crowded. Walking into the mall, I had one of my 'yikes, there are a lot of people' moments. (These moments are pretty frequent in Japan. Depending on my mood at the time, my reaction ranges from a mild 'gee, there are a lot of people' to 'oh God what fresh hell is this').

I did like wandering around the mall though. One store that amused me (and a lot of other people judging by the number of people trying to wedge their way through) was a food sample store on the fourth floor. You know those plastic samples of food you see in restaurant windows, to get an idea of what dishes you can order? You can buy your own. Expensive but diverting to look through.

I didn't end up going up the Tree, since there was a pretty lengthy queue, but I had a nice view of it from the base. I could have bought one of about a thousand different souvenirs of it, but to be honest, although it's impressive to see, it's really not that beautiful a building to have on a postcard or box of cookies.

Movie: Rurouni Kenshin (live action version)

I went to see the Rurouni Kenshin live-action movie yesterday. I couldn't understand much of the conversation in it, to be honest, but I know the original story very well, so I think I was able to understand most of what was going on.

For those who don't know, Rurouni Kenshin is a popular anime/manga about a wandering swordsman, a rurouni, named Kenshin. Kenshin fought in the Bakumatsu war, in which he was the legendary assassin known as the 'hitokiri battousai'. After the war, Kenshin disappeared from public life, renounced violence and took to the road. 

Now, ten years after the war, he carries a reverse-bladed sword which is not designed to kill. He prefers to live peacefully but once his identity becomes known, this becomes impossible - he faces endless battles as people come to him for revenge, asking for his help, or to prove themselves against him. The manga and anime series begin when he meets a young girl, Kaoru, who runs a dojo and invites him to stay after he helps her. Throughout the series, new friends and allies are added to the main cast, as well as an endless stream of opponents.

So how was the movie?

I was a little apprehensive, because it can be difficult to translate an anime to the screen without it being a little cheesy or overblown - a lot of the exaggerated elements of anime/manga - the dramatic speeches, superhuman feats, crazy hairstyles, eccentric personalities - can just look ridiculous when done by live actors. The movie mostly manages to avoid this, although the villains have their over-the-top moments, and there are a few silly parts, like the gang of ruffians who attack the Kamiya dojo.

On the other hand, there are other odd or improbable elements of the book - like Jin-e's powers, Hanyuu's bizarre appearance, etc - which they were able to bring in without it being too over-the-top or ridiculous-looking. The fight scenes were pretty cool too.

On the whole, I think they did a good job with this movie. They took the story seriously, and in fact, this is a fairly serious movie, a little darker than its source material. The movie focuses on the first few episodes of the anime/manga and condenses them into one movie, along with some background on the war and Kenshin's role in it. This focus on story means that some content and character development must be cut, some elements changed and really, it doesn't have a lot of time for the lighter or more comedic elements of the original comic.

While I think they treated the source material respectfully and generally put together a good movie, there were a couple of things I didn't like about it. I think they tried to do a little too much, with too many story lines and new characters. Of course, the movie wanted to introduce all the main characters we know from the show, and have various challenges for them all to overcome, but there was a lot they needed to cram in there. Toward the end, I was starting to wish the movie would hurry up and finish. I think this was also partly because the movie did take a bit of a serious tone and wasn't very fun.

Anime/manga vs movie (spoilers ahead)

In making the movie, they combined a few story arcs - the first one, where Kenshin meets Kaoru and there is a fake Battousai, the Kanryuu arc where they meet Megumi and the Oniwabanshuu, and the Jin-e arc where Jin-e tries to make Kenshin break his vow not to kill. They adapted these arcs to make them more interconnected. The false Battousai, who disgraced Kamiya Kasshin Ryuu, was Jin-e, who was also affiliated with Kanryuu in some way; while Sanosuke and Kenshin were fighting the Oniwabanshu, Jin-e was taking the opportunity behind the scenes to kidnap Kaoru. This movie introduced Saito as a character right from the beginning, but dispensed with Aoshi. 

For the sake of time, and not having too many story arcs (there were already several), a few story parts are simplified, mostly relating to how the characters are introduced. Aoshi is gone - a good thing, I think, as there would have been no time to do him justice. Sanosuke joins Kenshin pretty readily, and at the beginning of the movie, when Kaoru meets Kenshin, Yahiko was already part of the dojo.

As a Kenshin fan, there were two things I particularly liked about the movie - firstly, the chance to 'see' life in the Meiji era in Japan, and secondly, the chance to see each character I know come to life.

So how were the characters and their actors? In general I thought the actors were quite good and fitting for their characters. Some were spot on - Yahiko, for instance, looked and acted just like his animated counterpart, I thought, although he didn't have much of a role in the overall story. I also enjoyed Sano, who did the brawler bit well and provided some much-needed comic relief. He didn't get a whole lot of character development, but I suppose there wouldn't have been time for it.

I thought the girls were well done; Kaoru was a good actor, if somewhat different from how I would have pictured her (I suppose the problem with anime/manga is that you envision everyone with pointy chins and noses!) - my only beef with her was that she really never showed her stuff as a swordswoman or showed the feisty side of her character; she was tough-minded but mostly regulated to the role of damsel in distress. Megumi, the other damsel, was very pretty and did the suffering woman/'fox' role justice. 

Kenshin himself was well acted but he was the one character that really didn't match what I would have expected. He was a bit too much of a pretty boy and looked like he could have come straight out of a boy band, which I found slightly distracting; I could never quite believe his character was Kenshin, rather than a handsome actor playing Kenshin. Saito, also, became quite a handsome guy. He was introduced earlier than he was in the actual manga/anime, but I guess he was a popular character in the comic, so they wanted to give him a role in the movie.

Summary

If you're a Kenshin fan, I'd recommend this movie. It's at least worth it to see your favourite characters brought to life. Personally, I like the manga much better - being much longer, we have more breathing space and more time to get to know the characters - but the movie is generally faithful to the original while avoiding some of the 'larger than life' elements that would make a live action version ridiculous. The acting is good and the storylines are woven together quite effectively.

If you're not a Kenshin fan, would you like this movie?  Well… if you like Japanese movies, or are interested in Japanese culture, you might enjoy it. I don't know if this film would have widespread appeal outside of Japan or fans of Japanese movies. If you see it, let me know what you think. ^_^

Typhoon

As I no longer live in Japan, I don't update this blog much any more, except when I happen to be in Japan on holiday. I'm here in Kawasaki at the moment, holed up in my hotel room during a typhoon, so I may get one or two posts out.

Back when I lived in Japan, I kind of wanted to experience a typhoon, just so I could say I had. Not a big one, mind you; I wasn't wishing disaster on the local populace, but 'typhoon' sounded so much more dramatic than 'rain storm', and we don't have typhoons in Adelaide. I never actually saw one though; whenever typhoons were predicted, they always just missed Kanto, or else they hit on the rare occasions I was away on holiday. Generally, September is a 'good' time for typhoons.

Now that I am in the middle of a typhoon, I can tell you what they're like from the inside: like a whole lot of wind and rain. Trains get delayed, stores close and the streets empty. It's pretty exciting stuff, I can tell you. So exciting, I'm planning to spend the whole evening in my room drinking chu-hi and eating 'Mini One' chocolate croissants.

Do and don't miss

One of the Japan-related blogs I've been following for a long time is 1000 Things About Japan. This blog was started by an American lady who had lived in Japan for over 20 years and was planning to finally return to America. She decided to blog 1000 things she would and wouldn't miss after leaving Japan.

It's interesting to read it now, because she has just recently returned to America and so some of her recent posts are coloured by what she does actually now miss and doesn't miss.

It got me thinking; now that I have been steadily living back in Australia for a year and a half, what do I miss about Japan?

1. The shopping. In general, I really preferred shopping in Japan. There were lots of different shops; you could easily go to different areas and have a huge selection to choose from. And most things are cheaper there than in Australia. Books, for example. Most ESL textbooks here are around $70-80 each, but in Japan I could get the same books for about $30. Comfortable and inexpensive shoes are also much easier to find in Japan.

2. Hanami (cherry-blossom parties). On Facebook last month, all my Japanese friends were posting pictures of the cherry blossoms. My old 'group', which used to have a party in the same park every year, posted pictures of this year's, which made me aware that it was the first one I'd missed in four years.

3. The chance to unconsciously improve my Japanese every day. I still study Japanese a lot, and recently I've been blasting a lot of kanji study. Any time I see kanji in my 'real life' - such as on menus at a Chinese restaurant - I look at them all to see which ones I recognise. Other than that, I don't get much opportunity to practise what I'm learning. I would love to spend some time in Japan again so I could be surrounded by Japanese. Every time I've been to Japan, I've noticed that I could understand and read more of what was around me, and I enjoy that.

4. Karaoke. This ties in with both enjoying hanging out with my friends, and wanting to practise my Japanese reading more. I sometimes go to karaoke here and sing Japanese songs, but the selection is much smaller, and a lot of the songs I know aren't there, so I have to sing the same songs every time. But I love karaoke! ^_^


5. The way everything was so new and unpredictable. This was not only a facet of being a foreigner in a new country and learning the culture; in such a huge metro area as Greater Tokyo, there really are masses of new things to learn and see every week. New exhibitions open, new department stores go up, some particularly strange new variant of a local snack is introduced; there are concerts, free live shows, street markets, festivals, and all manner of other new experiences.


I am happy to say, though, that on the whole I am pretty content living back in Australia. For many months after returning from Japan, I really longed to go back; it took me over a year to begin to enjoy life here again and start to think of here as 'home' again. I think it wasn't only because I'd loved Japan; it was the fact that I'd gone away and was thinking of the world as full of potential places to live or travel to; this made it hard to settle down again.

Saying 'no' in Japanese

When I first when to Japan - and to be honest, even now, a little bit - one of the unexpected difficulties for me was learning how to say 'no'.

I don't mean that in a figurative sense. I mean literally, I didn't know how to say 'no'.

In English, 'no' is used in a lot of different situations.
'No, thank you.'
'No, that's not correct.'
'No! Stop that!'

If you study Japanese, you will very quickly learn the word いいえ ('iie'), 'no' (or a more casual 'uun', a sound you will soon pick up if you go to Japan!). However, if you reply with 'iie' in every situation where you'd use 'no' in English, you will sound strange and sometimes even rude.

For example, if someone asks you if you want more food, or if you want a carry bag, you don't say 'iie, arigatou' for 'no thanks'. That is a literal translation from English, but it would sound weird. Rather, you could say 'kekkou desu', which is more like 'I'm fine'. Less politely, 'iranai', which means 'not necessary' (I don't need it).

For situations where something is not good or not okay, you can use 'dame'. This is also what you hear parents say to their children. 'Dame!' 'No!'

If you want to express frustration with 'no!!' or 'oh no!', exclamations like 'iya da!' or 'yabai' would be more suitable.

If you want to say something is not correct, you can say 'chigaimasu' (it's wrong/different). Or you can mirror back the verb the first person asked you. For example, 'dekiru?' ('can you do it?'), 'dekinai!' ('no, I can't!'). These are often, but not always, preceded by an 'iie' or 'uun'.

If you are refusing a request or saying something that might be awkward for the other person, it's also common to avoid an outright 'no'. 'Sore wa chotto...' ('that's a bit...') or 'muzukashii desu ne...' ('that's a tough one...') or various other vague statements or excuses. This is a famous aspect of Japanese culture, the unwillingness to bluntly say 'no'.

If someone thanks you and you want to say 'no, no, it's nothing', you can say 'iie, iie'. You can also use 'iie' to deny praise ('iie, tondemonai' 'oh no, not at all').

And in some cases, you can even say 'hai' ('yes') where we would say 'no' in English. Japanese and English negative questions function differently. For example, in English, you answer negative questions like this:

'Don't you like it?'
'No, I don't like it...'

But in Japanese, you match the tense of the question in your answer.

'Don't you like it?'
'Yes, I don't like it...'

It's difficult, isn't it! I've used a mixture of polite and casual Japanese on this page. As you can see from this list, although 'iie' is often used, it is often followed by another word, and in many cases, is not used where we would use the English 'no'. So it can take a little while to pick up when to use which answer in the real world. ^_^