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Josiah's Japan Travelogue #2
Part 3: March 2011
Part 2: February 2011
Tuesday (the 1st): Matsuyama

You know, I really thought I'd have time to get a PV strip or two made but these last couple of days have been busier than I thought. I haven't even been keeping up with my Japan blog or the King of the Forums contest as much as I should. But at least I'm keeping this travelogue up to date. Hopefully new PV strips will resume on Friday...assuming I have time and that my Friday night hotel has internet access...

Oh, one last thing. I made a couple of small additions to Monday's travelogue entry that I forgot to talk about last time. Nothing major but, if you're curious, they're near the end.

Tuesday (the 1st): Matsuyama
I left Takamatsu bright and early and took a shinkansen along the northern coast of Shikoku to Matsuyama, which is pretty much on the other end of the island. The ride was nice. Lots of pine covered hills and tiny towns, along with occasional glimpses of the ocean and some little islands.
Anyway, Matsuyama is the second largest city on Shikoku though, like Takamtasu, it's a bit sleepier than comparable cities on Honshu. While there are a couple of train stations, the main way to get around is by trolly. I stowed my backpack in a locker, got a map, then walked off towards Matsuyama Castle. Set on a forested hill right in the middle of the city and surrounded by a big moat, it's pretty hard to miss. I ended up hiking up the back way since the main path was all the way on the opposite end of the park. While it was raining a bit at first, it fortunately stopped right about when I reached the castle. Though it's not as old as some of the castles I've seen (parts of it burnt down and were rebuilt at various times over the last several hundred years), it's still pretty old and it's a very nice castle. Naturally, I got some good views of Matsuyama from the tower and they had some interesting items on display inside like these old flutes used in Noh plays and this small screen painting. And look at this wood. See how it fits together like a puzzle? In the old days, Japanese carpenters used to connect boards and beams that way so they'd fit together securely without nails (Japan did have a traditional type of nail, but building without them made things simpler). The castle also had a spot where you could try on a suit of samurai armor. It's not the easiest thing to put on (it took a while and I needed to ask a Japanese woman for help with one of the shoulder guards) but it's not very heavy and doesn't restrict movement much. It lacks the near full coverage of traditional European armor, but fighting with a katana was always more about speed and movement than fighting with a broadsword.
On my way out of the castle, I stopped at a souvenir shop on the grounds. It looks like the local specialty product is all kinds of citrus (especially various types of mikan). Certainly a big change from udon.
To save money, I skipped the cable car and walked down the hill. That put me right at the start of the city's big shopping arcade so I strolled through there for a bit looking for a place to eat lunch, before finally settling on a small curry restaurant. Here's an interesting sign I spotted while there. I've talked about pachinko before but did I ever mention that many of the machines are themed around popular TV shows, movies, or the like (anime included)? Well, check out the big new pachinko theme. Yeah, pachinko themes tend to be way behind the times. Maybe because they like to attract an older cliental? This sign, on the other hand, is the name of a drug store.
Anyway, when I was done I retrieved my pack and caught the trolly for Dogo Onsen, the part of the city where my hotel is. As a note, the trolleys make this loud buzzing noise when you get on. The first time I heard it I thought I'd gone in the wrong door or something but no, it's perfectly normal. But, as you may have guessed, Dogo Onsen is a hot springs area. Japan's oldest, in fact. It's also famous as the setting for the novel Botchan (a classic Japanese novel about a young man from Tokyo who moves to the area to work as a teacher). There are many Botchan themed things in the area such as the clock in this photo (BTW: that's a foot onsen next to the clock). Every hour, the clock has a rather impressive display of animatronic characters in scenes from the novel.
The other famous thing here is Dogo Onsen Honten. While the building is "only" around 120 years old, Japanese people have been using the springs for somewhere around 3000 years. Aside from being a favorite location of the hero of the novel, I heard it also served as the inspiration for the bath house in Spirited Away. Due to its fame, the area surrounding it has filled with hotels and a touristy little shopping arcade.
My first stop was my hotel to check in and drop my stuff off but then I went to give the baths a try. Actually, I went twice (I returned a second time after supper to check out the second set of baths) but I'll just talk about the whole place now. Dogo Onsen Honten has several different options (and pretty much no English anywhere). For a few hundred Yen you can get into the normal baths on the first floor (which is what I did first). If you need to rent a towel and soap, that's another 50 Yen or so. These baths seem to mainly be used by the locals. There's two pools, both the same. For the full experience, you should go with the 1200 Yen package. For that price you get to change into a Dogo Onsen yukata (Japanese robe) and use the lounge and bath on the second floor. The second floor baths are similar to the ones on the first floor but a little smaller and a little nicer, plus they include a towel, soap, and shampoo. I actually visited over supper time and had the place to myself for a bit so I snuck a picture. Hard to see with all the steam though... You also get tea and rice crackers while you're lounging, access to a display of onsen related artifacts, and a tour of the Botchan memorial room and Yushinden. If you want to go really fancy, a 1500 Yen actually gets you access to a nicer lounge and a private bath on the third floor, but I didn't do that. Anyway, the Botchan room is a little room up on the third floor dedicated to the man who wrote the novel while Yushiden is a whole wing of the bath house (the green roofed area in that overhead photo from the previous paragraph) exclusively for visiting royalty. It includes a bath, lounge, meeting room, etc. Unsurprisingly, it doesn't get a whole lot of use (just several times since it was built) so it's mostly for visitors to stop in and admire the elaborate decor. Overall, it's worth a visit for the atmosphere and history, though keep it mind that the building is over 100 years old you don't get the fancy baths, multitude of pools, and the like that you'll find at many newer onsens.
After my bath, I walked around a bit trying to find this one shrine that was mentioned in my tour book. In the end, I think I found every shrine and temple in the Dogo Onsen area except that one... I eventually gave up and went back to my hotel to learn more about Noh. See, it's a pretty fancy hotel (though I got a good deal on my room) and they even have a Noh stage. Sometimes professional Noh troops come and perform there. It's the off season now, but they had a little one man demonstration and the guy also gives a tour of the stage and dressing rooms and explains a bit about how Noh works. The Japanese was a bit difficult, but I got to try on a Noh mask and play a Noh drum.
Then it was out to grab a quick supper and try the fancier baths at Dogo Onsen Honten (which I already talked about), and back to the hotel to get some work done on my computer. I also decided that I really should give the hotel's onsen a try so I headed down for a quick soak before bed. Turns out that they've got a very nice set of pools which are open nearly 24 hours a day.

Wednesday (the 2nd): Ozu and Uchiko
Since I finished my list of Matsuyama sights yesterday (other than that one shrine I never found), today I headed off to check out some nearby towns. First stop, Ozu. It's a little town in the hills that doesn't make it into many tour books. The main attraction is Ozu Castle, but it's a bit of a walk from the station. On my way there, I was approached by an older Japanese woman. Turned out she's studying English conversation as a hobby and wanted to practice. Since we were both going the same direction, we chatted for awhile as we went (to be nice, I avoided Japanese and spoke to her in simple English), so that was kind of fun.
The castle itself is a recent reconstruction of the main tower (most of the original castle burned down long ago). What makes it interesting is that instead of just building a modern building that looks like a castle from the outside (which is what most modern reconstructed castles are), they actually rebuilt it using authentic period materials, tools, and building techniques. Aside from a few modern updates (such as electric lights and fire extinquishers), it's pretty much an exact recreation of the original tower, which is pretty cool.
When looking at a map of Ozu, I noticed an area marked as having a lot of old buildings so I decided to check it out next. While the street in question wasn't at all touristy, it did have quite a lot of old houses. And, while I was wondering around there, I stumbled across Ozu's other attraction, a very pretty old house and garden built by a wealthy merchant. It wasn't all that big but the whole place was extremely picturesque.
That about wrapped it up for Ozu so I caught a train for my next destination, the town of Uchiko. It's a pretty little farming town surrounded by hills/mountains. In addition to produce, it's famous for its old buildings. Since it was around lunch time, I put the touring on hold for a bit and headed to the fresh foods market, sorta a permanent farmers' market. This isn't the best time of year for fresh produce (and I wasn't about to lug a bunch of stuff along on the rest of my trip) but the tour book said there was a really nice restaurant there which served food made from local ingredients. It was a little on the expensive side (though not horribly so) but I've been eating pretty cheaply on this trip and the food was great, featuring lots of little salads and vegetable dishes using local produce. I also stopped by a gelato stand nearby and got a mix of sakura, satsumaimo, and barley (which was surprisingly good).
After lunch it was time to start touring. Uchiko has a long street lined with old buildings, some of which are museums and others are stores. Some sort of cherry drink is made there (not bad but rather sour) but there were a lot of other products for sale too. There not nearly as many souvenir shops are many of the similar areas I've visited, but it was a very nice area. As I walked, I stopped in a couple of small gardens and checked out the wax museum. No, not wax figures, just wax. Turns out that Uchiko was once famous for its wax, which was made from the berries from a certain tree. In the late 1800's and early 1900's, Uchiko wax was even in high demand in Europe and North America. The rise of paraffin wax, however, effectively killed the business and from what I heard there's only one person in the town who still makes wax the traditional way.
At the end of the old buildings, I came to Koshoji Temple. It's a large old building and is famous for the number of monks who used to live there. But I was more impressed by the rather new looking Buddha statue they have nearby. I've seen plenty of sitting Buddhas and standing Buddha's but this was the first sleeping one and it's pretty big too.
On the way back to the train station I stopped at two places I had passed earlier on my way to lunch. The first was a neat little museum in an old house that uses animatronic models and little sound bits (all in Japanese) to show what life was like in the area a couple hundred years ago. And the second was an old kabuki and bunraku theater. While it wasn't all that different from the kabuki theater I saw at Kotohira, they had a few items on display like these geta (Japanese wooden sandals) with extremely high platforms and a bunraku doll (note that it's around four feet tall).
Finally I headed back to Matsuyama, got a quick supper at the shopping arcade, and took one last hot springs bath at my hotel. Tomorrow I'm off to yet another location, but in a rather different way...

Thursday (the 3rd): A Long Bike Ride
Since I stayed up rather late Wednesday night finishing my travelogue update, I ended up setting out a little later than I originally planned. At the station, I spotted this Anpan Man (a popular little kids anime) train. Basically, trains like this show up every now and then when one company buys out all the ad space and plasters it with stuff for a single show or item. On the train, I ended up sitting with a guy from Switzerland who is semi-retired and likes to backpack around different countries. Seems like I run into a lot more Europeans in Japan than I do Americans. I guess it is a shorter flight for them...
Anyway, I haven't said where I was going. As you should know if you've been reading my travelogue entries this week, I've been spending some time on the island of Shikoku. Well, there's a few different ways to get between Shikoku and Honshu (Japan's main island). One of which is a road that crosses over six smaller islands in the Seto Inland Sea. There's a bus that crosses the entire thing and people can drive it if they have a car, but it's also a popular bike route. Basically you rent a bike at one end and return it at the other (or, if you don't want to go the whole way, at one of the other rental shops along the route). The entire thing is around 70 kilometers (about 43.5 miles). My tour book said it takes around 7 hours and I figured that, like the book's walking times, that estimate was a bit on the high side so I could probably finish in 5 or 6. Didn't quite work out that way but let's start at the beginning.
I began in the town of Imabari, which had the smallest train station I've seen yet. From there it was a twenty minute walk (clearly marked, fortunately) to Sunrise Itoyama, the bike company. I rented a 21 speed bike, picked up a map, and headed off. As a note, I left the rental place at around 10 AM (I'd originally planned to get there closer to 8:30 but, as I mentioned, I really needed some sleep) and had until 6 PM to get the other end of the route before the rental agency there closed for the day (they have longer hours in the summer).
I left Shikoku behind almost immediately and headed across a long bridge with some great views to Oshima Island. Oshima, like all the islands on the route, is fairly small and hilly with lots of trees and a small town. The bike route was pretty obvious for the most part (there's a lot of signs though there were a few confusing spots) and all the islands featured recommended, intermediate, and advanced routes (the intermediate and advanced routes are alternate routes or detours that are either longer or more strenuous than the recommended route). Oshima Island was one of the longer stretches of the trail and it had some ship yards and quarries. I also ran into a set of odd statues, especially considering that they were just sitting out in front of a couple of ordinary looking houses. Eventually I reached the next bridge and was off to Hakatajima Island, which looked a lot like Oshima. But I wasn't there for long before moving on to Omishima Island. At this point, I started to encounter a lot of citrus groves of various sorts. It didn't take me too long to reach the bridge to the next island, but I wasn't ready to leave just yet. I stopped for a quick lunch and then passed the bridge and followed the intermediate trail to Oyamazumi Shrine, which my tour book highly recommended. Only problem was that it added a good 12 kilometers (round trip) to my total and that was around when the last few days of near constant walking and stair climbing stated to catch up with me. While I was ok when going downhill and on flat areas, even fairly mild inclines would leave my legs burning and the fact that I was wearing a very heavy backpack certainly wasn't helping matters.
The shrine itself wasn't all that amazing (though it did have some of Japan's oldest trees). The treasure museum, however, was worth the trip. Especially since it specialized mainly in old weapons and armor, which I always like to see. No pictures were allowed though. One of the most unusual pieces I saw was a set of samurai armor made for a woman. Despite all the female warriors you see in anime, as far as I know that was pretty rare in actual Japanese history. I'm not sure who the armor was made for, but they had a statue of her outside.
Returning to the bridge, I crossed over to Ikuchijima Island, which was another of the longer stretches of the trail. Fortunately, it was a very pretty island with easy to follow paths, lots of mikan (a type of Japanese orange or tangerine) groves, and some nice views. It was also mostly flat, which was good since inclines were giving me quite a lot of trouble. Plus this was the first time I'd been on a bike in probably six months or more and it's easy to forget how much those seats can hurt...
With two islands to go, I crossed to Innoshima Island. My tour book had mentioned that the part of the route nearer to Honshu wasn't as nice, and it was right. While all the previous islands had been very scenic and featured good bike paths, Innoshima was more industrial and the trail wasn't nearly as good or easy to follow. I was also really starting to worry about the time. That side trip to the shrine had taken awhile and I was having to get off and walk my bike up most hills, which was slowing me down. In my current condition, I didn't think I could make it all the way across by 6. Around 5:30, I reached one of the drop-off points and decided to just call it quits there (a good choice as it started to rain a moment later). In the end, I biked something like 72 kilometers (around 45 miles) and had only around 16 to go until the end. If I hadn't taken the detour to the shrine, or didn't have the backpack, or hadn't pushed my legs so hard during the last few days, or just had another hour, I would have been able to make it to the end no problem but the combination was just too much.
Fortunately, a nice cab driver helped me catch a bus to Honshu. Unfortunately, Onomichi (where the route ends) isn't as close to Hiroshima as I'd been led to believe so I found myself with a nearly 90 minute train ride after an already long bus ride. In the end, I didn't reach my hotel until around 8:30 and I hadn't even eaten yet so there really wasn't time to catch up on things or look around the city. Still, it was a cool day and I'm glad did the bike route, despite the problems I ran into at the end.

Friday (the 4th): Miyajima
Miyajima is one of Japan's "three most scenic spots". While I never got the chance to go before, it's near Hiroshima so I was able to work it into this trip. Anyway, Miyajima is a fairly small island in the Seto Inland Sea. It's mostly covered with heavily forested mountains, except for a single small town on the side facing Honshu. Getting there from Hiroshima requires a half hour train ride followed by ten minutes on a ferry. During the ferry ride, I got my first look at Miyajima's most famous landmarks, the Otorii Gate and Itsukushima Shrine. And yes, they are sitting in the water. But more on that in a minute...
One of the first things I noticed after disembarking is that, like Nara (see my April 11th entry), Miyajima has a lot of tame deer that like to wander around the town. Unlike Nara, however, there were signs around telling your not to feed or touch the deer (seems they wish the deer were a little less tame). Since the deer don't get fed by people as much, they weren't nearly as pushy as the Nara deer, but they would tend to follow anyone with food. They were also a little on the noisy side, for deer anyway, which means they were still pretty quiet. Have you ever heard a deer? They don't bray or moo or anything like that. They make this soft wheezing squeak, kind of like a quiet kitten or a broken squeaky toy.
Anyway, a short walk along the coast gave me a closer look at the Otorii Gate and Itsukushima Shrine. Both are around 1200 years old (though the gate is rebuilt every 150 years or so, probably due to water damage since it's made entirely of wood). In fact, many of Miyajima's various shrines and temples were founded long before people started to live on the island and it wasn't until workers and priests started moving there to tend to them that the town was formed.
I got lucky and arrived at Itsukushima Shrine right when the tide was at its highest, which is really the best time to see it as it almost seems to be floating on the water, as does the Otorii Gate, which you can see clearly from the shrine. Water aside, the shrine is still very picturesque with long walkways, hanging lanterns, a noh stage, and a nice orange and white color scheme. And, of course, it's the perfect spot from which to photograph the Otorii Gate, which is really "the" thing to do on Miyajima.
But while Istukushima Shrine and its famous gate as the most popular things to see on Miyajima, they're hardly the only ones. As I left the shrine, I found myself right by Daiganji Temple (as a quick reminder, shrines are Shinto and temples are Buddhist). They had a rather large and impressive wooden statue of a guy with flames and a sword inside the building, but I wasn't allowed to photograph it. The nearby treasure museum didn't allow photographs either, but they had some really neat old scrolls and other items.
Next, I headed to the nearby folkcraft museum, which is inside the former home of a wealthy merchant family. The museum featured a very diverse collection of old items relating to Miyajima's history and traditional crafts (from water buckets, to combs, to elaborately carved wooden plates and trays). There was also a set of model boats designed to look like the ones used in a big music festival that takes place on Miyajima every summer (and has for hundreds of years). Fortunately, a lot of the signs were in English so I was able to learn about another local summer festival which involves a bunch of young men racing to swim over and grab a ball hanging from the Otorii Gate. Supposedly, the ball grants a year of good luck to whoever manages to get it. There was also an interesting display about a major battle that took place long ago when a general lured the enemy forces to Miyajima and defeated them with far fewer troops in a very clever ambush. Oh, and I can't forget this guy. He's the priest who invented the rice scoop (I suppose Japan always had rice scoops of some kind but this guy created the design that is used all over Asia today (legend has it that a goddess showed him the design in a dream). Because of this, wooden rice scoops are a very popular local souvenir.
Speaking of rice scoops, Senjokaku (a massive unfinished shrine nearby) has a little shrine inside it dedicated solely to them. Though it's more famous for its five story pagoda.
This seemed like a good time to get lunch, so I headed back towards the main part of town. On the way, I noticed that the tide was going out, causing the water level around Itsukushima Shrine and the Otorii Gate to drop considerably. But I only took a quick look before coming across a very nice shopping arcade full of souvenir shops, restaurants, and snack stands. The world's largest rice scoop is there as well, just in case you have a really really really large bowl of rice. I started out looking for a restaurant but ended up running across one good looking snack after another so in the end I decided I didn't really need a full meal after all. When it comes to food, Miyajima has several specialties. There's grilled clams (or maybe oysters, I couldn't tell), long fried strips of various types of seafood and/or vegetables, and (the one that I was most interested in) manju. Manju are little buns or pastries stuffed with something (usually azuki bean paste). You can get them all over Japan but Miyajima's are unique in that they're shaped like maple leaves and they're supposedly the best ones in the country. It seemed like about every third store had manju. The most common flavors were azuki, cream, and chocolate but most stores had some special ones as well. I also saw lemon, green tea, apple, cheese, chestnut, satsumaimo (Japanese sweet potato), and even takesumi (well, the takesumi was in the bun, the filling was azuki). At only 80 or 90 Yen a piece, they made for a great snack but there were also gift boxes you could get to give to your family, friends, or co-workers (in Japan, it's polite to return from vacation bearing specialty snacks for all of the aforementioned people). I'm not sure if Miyajima's manju are the best in Japan or not but they were pretty good. Though, if plain manju aren't enough there are a few shops that, for 150 Yen, give you a cup of barley tea and a deep fried manju on stick. And yes, while it's not particularly healthy, they're even better that way. I didn't just eat manju though, there were some really good steamed beef buns and other things too.
By the time I'd left the shopping arcade, I was finishing the last of my manju (while being trailed by a persistent deer) and had seen all the major attractions in the town. But that didn't mean I was finished on Miyajima. While a lot of visitors to the island don't do much other than visiting Itsukushima Shrine and the Otorii Gate and buying some manju, there's quite a lot to see on Miyajima's tallest mountain, Mt. Misen. I was originally planning to hike up but after yesterday's 45 mile bike ride (not to mention all the walking and climbing the days before), I decided to just do it the easy way and take the cable car. I did, however, hike to the cable car station (instead of taking the free bus) and only bought a one way ticket (figuring that I could easily handle a hike down the mountain). Actually, I'm kinda glad I took the cable car. First, I saw this shop on the way there where you can actually buy giant wooden statues of various Japanese mythological figures like you see in some of the shrines and temples. Not that I got one, of course, but it was still cool to see. Plus the views from the cable car were pretty spectacular and from the platform at the end of the ride I was able to get some great views of the Seto Inland Sea (and make good use of my camera's panorama mode).
From there, it was still a one kilometer hike up to the top of the mountain. Towards the end of the trail I reached Mt. Misen's most famous temples, Misen Hondo and Reikado. The interesting thing about Reikado is that it contains the Eternal Fire, which is supposed to have been kept burning continuously since the temple's founding around 1200 years ago. Legend has it that water boiled over the fire can cure various illnesses and couples who stare at each other across the flames are destined to form an eternal bond.
Continuing on, I passed a lot of big rocks (which reminded me a little of Colorado) before finally reaching the summit of Mt. Misen. There I found a viewing platform and a snack stand (with a couple of deer waiting hopefully outside). Since I didn't see any roads, I guess the lady running the place has to hike there from the cable car every day. That'd be some commute... I got some more nice pictures from the viewing platform. And, for the heck of it, I decided to try a 360 degree panorama. I wasn't expecting much but it came out a lot better than I thought it would. Just keep in mind that it's a 360 so it's meant to wrap around.
As I was about to leave, a monk showed up and blew a strange looking horn (to mark the hour, I think). After listening to him, I started walking down the mountain, stopping at a few little shrines along the way. I saw some signs warning about wild monkey but, unfortunately, I didn't actually see any.
By the time I got back down to the town, it was low tide. Itsukushima Shrine is a little less picturesque without all the water underneath it. However, people really seem to like walking out to the Otorii Gate. A lot of them were trying to stick coins in the barnacles on its base. For luck, I guess. There was also a group (locals, I assume) out a bit further gathering shells or shellfish or something like that.
This seemed like a good time to check into my hotel so I retrieved my backup from the coin lockers at the ferry dock and made my way over there. It was a nice hotel, and I ended up with a twin room again, but I have to say that the hotels I walked past on the beach front looked really fancy (and really really expensive). In addition to checking me in, the guy at the desk gave me a map listing which restaurants were open late, which was nice since the majority of stuff on Miyajima seems to shut down at around 5 when most of the tourists start catching the ferries back to Honshu. I headed back out almost immediately to grab some manju (as a gift, not to eat) and get supper (nothing special, just a rice bowl) then hung out in my hotel room for a while sorting through all the pictures I'd taken.
But the day wasn't over quite yet. I'd heard that they light up the Otorii Gate at night so I headed out at around 9:30 (high tide again) to get a look. Itsukushima Shrine was lit up as well, though not nearly as much so it wasn't very easy to get a good photograph. The gate, however, did look really nice in the dark.
And that was it for my big trip. The next morning I took a ferry back to Honshu and then rode a shinkansen to Tokyo. Hard to say which was my favorite day (tough call between Miyajima and my first day in Takamatsu) but the whole trip was great and I'm really glad I went, despite the expense. I loved both Shikoku and Miyajima and hope to go back sometime.

Sunday (the 6th): Hanging Around Tokyo
Did I ever mention that Starbucks here in Japan has seasonal sakura (Japanese cherry blossom) drinks? I tried the frappuccino about a week back out of curiosity. It was pink and tasted a bit like flowers and something else...white chocolate maybe? But anyway, moving on...
Having just gotten back from my trip, I didn't really want to do anything big today, especially since I still had some things to catch up on, but I didn't want to stay in my apartment all day either. In the end, I visited the Oikeibajou flea market (since I haven't been there for a couple months) and swung by Nakano for a bit after that. I enjoyed myself, but there wasn't anything too exciting to talk about. I did take one picture, but only one. This ice cream stand is in the basement of Nakano Broadway. There's actually a place on the third or fourth floor that has more flavors, but this one is notable for the sheer amount of ice cream you get for your money. If you look at the plastic cones you can see that there's several different sizes. At a regular ice cream place, 250 - 300 Yen will buy you the smallest one (or maybe something a little smaller). At this place, you can get the smalls and mediums for 200 - 300 but a mere 390 Yen will get that enormous eight flavor cone on the far right. If you're curious, it contains vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, coffee, grape, black sesame, green tea, and azuki (red bean) and is about as much ice cream as you'd get in 6 - 8 normal cones. From what I saw, it actually holds together fairly well (being soft serve, you can press it down a bit better than regular ice cream) and seemed to stay frozen long enough to eat. But that's a huge amount of ice cream for one person to eat in a single sitting so it's probably better to bring someone to split it with...

Wednesday (the 9th): Preparing to Move On
There's only a couple weeks to go for my current teaching position (my last day is the 24th). Time certainly has flown. Narashino #1 Junior High is a nice enough school and I like the kids and the staff members that I regularly interact with, but I won't be staying on. I got good recommendations from both Heart (the company that hired me) and the Narashino Board of Education but said BOE is rather on the cheap side and the contract they offered for the next school year isn't very good (if I was lucky and did little if any touring I'd probably manage to break even). Even my coordinator at Heart recommended that I turn them down (which is unusual since it's his job to make sure the position gets and stays filled). While losing a bit of money was ok my first time in Japan (when I was mainly after the experience) and for the past three months (as a fun and interesting way to pass the time until my book's release), I can't keep doing that indefinitely. Heart offered me a different position near Narita but it's a little further out than I'd like and the salary, while decent, isn't particular great either, so I probably won't accept. While I do enjoy English teaching, I don't particularly want to make a career out of it. At best, it would be a backup choice. If I'm offered a job with a really good salary I'll seriously consider it, since I think a couple more years here would improve my Japanese to the point where I'd be fairly fluent, but otherwise I really want to do game design and/or writing (regardless of where that job my be).
Though, it could be fun to be a travel writer... Would anyone be interested in "An Otaku's Japan Travel Guide"? Or maybe an expanded non-fiction novel version of my travelogues? Just a couple ideas I've been kicking around for potential future projects...
So what's next? Well, I'm currently looking for a new job (both in Japan and the US) though I've been too busy to apply to a large number of US companies yet. My parents are coming to Japan a little before the end of the month and I've moving out of my apartment in early April. We're going to do some touring and then, if I don't have another job in Japan lined up, I'm planning to return to the US in mid April and either start a job (if I find one before I return) or continue my job search (which'll be cheaper and easier to do from there). I'm not going to give up on Japan entirely (though I'm still not sure I'd want to live her permanently) as my visa is good through February next year and I can move back pretty easily if I find a good job, so I'll keep an eye out for new openings and we'll just see what happens...

Friday (the 11th): Earthquake!

Friday (the 11th) Earthquake!
I actually wrote the below RJC earlier and that was going to be it for today since it's been a quiet week...but yeah that changed. If you haven't seen the news, Japan was hit by an 8.9 earthquake, the largest one to hit the country in recorded history.  It also caused massive tsunami in many parts of the country. Fortunately for me, the epicenter of the quake was in Northern Japan. The city of Sendai (which I've visited twice before) was hit pretty hard. The Tokyo area, however, just got shaken up a bit. I was in the teachers' room at work when the quake hit. At first, everyone was just like "Oh, it's an earthquake." Little earthquakes happen enough in Japan that they aren't really a big deal. But this one just kept going and getting stronger... The rest of the teachers ducked under their desks so I did the same. I actually wasn't too worried. It was bad, but I didn't think it was bad enough to bring the building down and I was right. It was certainly the worst earthquake I've experienced by far but the worst it did to the school was knock some things off shelves and chip the concrete in a couple of places. Still, I probably should have been a bit more worried. Maybe I've been on too many thrill rides...
After the quake died down, the students and staff evacuated to the sports field and waited for a while to see what would happen. Most of the kids didn't seem too worried, though there were a few that were crying. After a while, the kids were given permission to go back into the building, get their things, and call their parents. Right about then the biggest of the aftershocks hit (with progressively smaller ones happening throughout the rest of the day), which immediately sent them all scrambling back out. But it wasn't that bad compared to the quake itself so, before long, everyone was heading back in. The kids were sent home early and, though I stayed around for a little while to watch the news and help straighten up, the other teachers kept telling me I could leave so I finally did so.
It was then that I ran into a problem. It seems that the quake knocked out some power lines, causing all the trains in the area to be shut down indefinitely. Kind of a problem since that's how I get to and from work every day. For a while, I joined a bunch of other people and waited around the station in hopes that the trains would start up again but I eventually got bored and decided to walk to the next station to kill time. Unfortunately, trains weren't running there either (I later found out they were shut down all across this part of Japan) so I kept walking. And I wasn't the only one. With the trains down, the roads were gridlocked as far as I could see and the sidewalks were all crowded as well.
After a bit I ran across a kaitenzushi restaurant where you order from touch screens and get your sushi delivered by a little train like the one I went to in Ushiku. While I was still thinking that the trains would be running again soon, I had missed lunch (nothing to do with the quake, it was a scheduling thing) and wasn't sure when I'd get back to my apartment so I stopped in to get some food. After that I walked to the next big station and used the map on my phone to check my progress only to find out that my apartment was a whole lot further away than I'd thought. So I decided to wait for the trains again. So I waited, and waited... And then they decided to shut down the station entirely. That was a clear sign that the trains probably weren't going to be starting again any time soon so I quickly assessed my options. There were buses, but they had massive lines and most only cover small local routes so getting back to my area would be really complicated. Plus, with the way traffic was locked up, I doubted they'd be making much progress anyway. Ditto with taxis (which were all taken anyway). I was kinda tempted to get a hotel room but I figured that it really shouldn't take me that long to walk back so off I went again.
It was the same story all the way. Train stations and bus stops were packed with stranded people, the sidewalks were packed with people who didn't want to sit and wait, and the roads were packed with cars. I didn't see any serious earthquake damage though, which was a good sign, and I eventually made it back to my apartment several hours later (which is why today's update is late). In total I walked around 11.2 miles, carrying my backpack the whole way. I was originally thinking about doing some hiking on Sunday but after this I think I've had enough walking for a week or two.
So long story short, I'm fine (though sore from carrying my backpack for an 11 mile walk) as is everyone I know and there wasn't really any serious damage is this part of Japan. Though I hope that the areas that were hit hard are able to recover quickly.

Random Japan Comment: Japanese Music
Japan has many types of music so I'm not even going to try to give any sort of complete overview right now. But here's brief summaries of Japan's more popular music types.
Classical: Actually, in Japan the term kurashikuru (classical) often refers to the European classical music that we're all familiar with. Japan, however, has a lot of classic music of its own. Traditional Japanese music makes use of traditional instruments including the shamisen (a three stringed guitar like instrument that makes twanging sounds), various types of flutes, and taiko drums (large drums played with thick sticks). Unlike European classical music, which was usually written for a full orchestra, a lot of old Japanese music was written for a single instrument (or possibly several people all playing the same instrument).
Enka: Enka is an older style of Japanese music that's still fairly prominent although it's not nearly as popular as it was forty or fifty years ago. Enka songs can best be described as slow mournful ballads with a very Asian feel to the music.
J-Pop: J-Pop is a sort of catch all term for modern music that isn't rap, heavy rock, or another clearly defined genre. Most J-Pop songs are done by various idol singers (young men and women who have highly successful but usually fairly brief careers) but there are larger more established groups as well. Since J-Pop is a pretty broad term, there's quite a lot of variety to be found in the music both in terms of style and content. Though the cliche J-Pop song is fast, happy, energetic, and sung by a girl (or group of girls) in a high pitched voice. The lyrics are often fairly positive and cheery (though that's certainly not always the case as there's some excellent moody and haunting J-Pop), with common subjects being love, friendship, food, nature, and doing your best. What you don't have a lot of songs about are the two topics that seem to dominate the modern American music scene, sex and violence.
K-Pop: K-Pop is basically the South Korean equivalent of J-Pop. Recently, a number of K-Pop groups have become very popular in Japan. I haven't gotten into K-Pop (not yet anyway), so I really can't say much more about it.
J-<whatever>: Personally, I never could tell exactly where to draw the line between rocky J-Pop and pure J-Rock. But J-Rock is pretty much what it sounds like. It seems to me that you have more male singers in J-Rock than J-Pop, but I could be wrong about that. There's also J-Punk (fairly similar to Western punk music only in Japanese and a bit less dark) and J-Rap (which I usually can't stand, though that's my normal reaction to rap in general so...). Those are the more popular ones but you can pretty much stick a J in front of any major music style and find it here in Japan (with the possible exception of country).
Foreign Music: By foreign I mean non-Japanese, of course. Aside from the aforementioned K-Pop, quite a lot of the major American and European bands are fairly popular here. The Beatles especially are huge but quite a lot of Japanese kids know Taylor Swift and Hanna Montana as well so there's a pretty wide spectrum. Though while just about everyone in Japan is familiar with all the major J-Pop bands, their knowledge of foreign bands tends to be limited to just a few of the most popular ones.
Soundtracks: Believe it or not, soundtracks are actually very popular in Japan. Part of it may have to with many video games and TV shows featuring original theme songs recorded by famous J-Pop groups. But I think the heart of the matter is that the background music in many anime and video games is just really good. When I think about American soundtracks, only a handful really stick out (some Disney musicals, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, etc). Perhaps this is just my opinion but it seems like in most American soundtracks the music isn't really meant to stick out or stand alone, just to provide a nice background for the visuals. So, when listening to it by itself, it becomes rather uninteresting. A lot of Japanese composers, on the other hand, work to to ensure their music not only fits the scene but can also stand quite well on its own. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that soundtracks, especially for anime and video games, are huge in Japan. And, like the anime and games they're from, the music is extremely diverse.

So that's a quick overview of Japan's major music categories. And my own preferences? Well, here's a breakdown of my music collection (which almost fills my 30GB MP3 player).
Classical (European): 10 discs - 10.5 hours
While I like classical well enough, I didn't actually buy any of these but was given them at various times.)
Comedy: 33 discs - 29.4 hours
This is primarily parody music like Weird Al and Allen Sherman though I have a few straight up comedy CDs as well.
Religious: 40 discs - 29.5 hours
The vast majority of these are parodies and quite a lot were done by a single Jewish band (Shlock Rock) that I kinda grew up listening to.
US Oldies (60's and 70's Rock): 91 discs - 36.4 hours
Actually quite a lot of those discs only contain one or two favorite songs I purchased online (hence the relatively low playing time). Aside from Shlock Rock, I listened to quite a lot of oldies music growing up, primarily due to my dad's influence. And, actually, the majority of my oldies music is from his CD collection. When driving back in the US, the oldies station is still what I listen to 90% of the time. Favorite groups include The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys, and Simon & Garfunkle.
Modern US Pop & Rock: 41 discs - 5.5 hours
As you can probably tell by the playing time, I only have one or two songs from the vast majority of those discs. Actually, I only have three complete albums. The thing is, while there is some current American music I really really like, it's very rare for me to find an album, or even a group, with more than one or two good songs. Evanescence accounts for two of those three complete albums though the second one was a bit of a disappointment. Of the rest, Coldplay, 3 Doors Down, Kelly Clarkson, and Keane all have several songs I like instead of instead of just one like most of the others.
Movie Soundtracks: 9 discs - 6 hours
Two discs are actually the Final Fantasy Advent Children soundtrack (which could almost go under Anime or Video Games instead), and I've got Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog, and one random single. The rest is actually Disney soundtracks that I got in Japan because there were really cheap and have a few songs that I really like.
J-Pop: 35 discs - 19.3 hours
This is a mix of single songs (purchased from the Japanese iTunes store) and full albums that I've picked up in Japan. Note that this is just straight up J-Pop CDs since I give anime and game soundtracks (many of which include a lot of J-Pop) their own categories. Adding them in would up the play time considerably, as you'll soon see. Favorite singers/groups include: Angela (not Angela Aki, though she's good too), See-Saw (and/or their lead singer Chiaki Ishikawa), AKB48 (see my January 26th entry), Gackt, and Miku Hatsune (who I may do a RJC on next week).
Anime Soundtracks: 54 discs - 30.5 hours
There's some single songs in there but most of these are either singles CDs (see my January 29th entry) or full albums that I've gotten in Japan. While I have some complete soundtracks, the majority are vocal collections which mean they just have all the voiced songs from the series without all the plain background music tracks.
Video Game Soundtracks: 258 discs - 257 hours
I've got a couple of single songs but almost all of my collection is made up of complete albums (many containing 2 - 4 discs). As you can probably guess, they're what the majority of my spending money goes towards when I'm in Japan, though I did get some for free with various games. About 99% of them are from games made by Japanese companies both since not many US made games get soundtrack releases and because there aren't very many US games I actually want a soundtrack for. Square Enix (and especially Final Fantasy) dominates my collection though I've got a lot of music from various Konami, Capcom, and and Nintendo games as well (along with a lot miscellaneous other stuff).
Misc.
I do have a few other random things in my music collection like some little kids songs I used when teaching elementary school English and a fairly lengthy lecture series but the things I listed above are the main categories.
So that's my collection. It's kinda weird to think that I have over 400 hours of audio on my MP3 player... Too much? Maybe. But then again, I've listened to it all (except for a few recent purchases that I haven't gotten to yet) and I've listened to quite a lot of the tracks multiple times. There are a few albums that I've not overly fond of that I either got for free or picked up on an impulse because they were really cheap but overall I really do like most of the music I have. And, as you see, Japanese music clearly dominates. And, well, I guess that's it. I'm not really driving at some big point here, I just felt like talking about music today.

Saturday, Sunday, and Monday (the 12th - 14th): After the Quake
It's been several days since the quake. Trains started running again on Saturday, albeit a bit inconsistently, so I was able to get to services. Sunday I mostly hung out, worked on stuff, and watched the news. Today (which I got off since school was canceled), I did some errands in Tokyo. So how are things here?
Well, as I previously said, Tokyo wasn't hit bad. No major damage or anything. Walking around the city, you can't even tell that there was a quake. That said, things are certainly more subdued than normal. The trains still aren't running quite on schedule and a few lines aren't running at all, there's fewer people about, and a number of stores have been closed (not due to damage, just giving employees a chance to recover mentally from the looks of it).
Some of the northern coastal towns and cities, however, are in really bad shape. The quake itself didn't do all that much damage but the resulting tsunami devastated some areas. If you'd like to donate to help the relief efforts, you can find a list of trustworthy places here.
If you pay attention to the news, you may have also heard about the issues are some of Japan's nuclear power plants. Basically, while they properly shut down in response to the quake, the tsunami knocked out the backup cooling systems for some of them. At this point, the only real problem is with some reactors at the Fukushima plant. Despite the doom and gloom headlines (alarming news sells and the anti-nuclear crowd is really playing this up), things are ok for now. It could be days before they have the reactors entirely cooled down and there were some small hydrogen explosions there (which were expected and didn't damage the reactors) but for now it's looking like things will be ok. Even in a worst case scenario (which is looking less and less likely), it probably won't, affect a large area. But it's certainly keeping everyone on edge.
So yeah, that's how things are. I'm going back to work tomorrow so we'll just see how things go.

Tuesday (the 15th): Graduation

Today was the graduation ceremony for the third year students at my school. This wasn't my first Japanese graduation ceremony (see my March 21st entry) and it was fairly similar to the previous one. Fortunately, despite some issues with the trains (the line I usually take to work wasn't running) I managed to make it to work on time (barely) and was dressed up and ready for the ceremony. Not that I had anything to do except sit there though. The ceremony was rather solemn (no parents cheering when their kids went up on stage to get their diplomas or anything like that). Aside from handing out the diplomas, there were speeches from the principle, various other staff members, and a couple of students. There was also several songs. A couple were done by only certain groups of students but most were done by the whole school. And wow, these kids can sing really well. I'd like to see someone try to get all the students in a US school to sing together like that... Other than the singing, the only other thing that really stuck out was the slow floaty walk the kids escorting the flag did. I'm not quite sure what was up with that...

And that's all for now. If I do end up having to leave Tokyo in a hurry (either for the US or, if things look really bad and all the planes are booked, southern Japan) I might not have internet access for a little while. If there's no update Friday morning, check back later in the day or on Saturday. I'll update as soon as I can.

Josiah

Wednesday (the 16th): Current Status
It's hard to believe how much has changed since Friday afternoon... Anyway, I'm still fine and Tokyo seems to be retuning to normal. At the moment all of the problematic nuclear reactors have safely brought under control...except the ones at Fukushima 1. While the headlines still make things sound a lot worse than they are, I can't say that I'm not worried. It seems like every time they just about have things under control there something else goes wrong. The latest problems are with fires near some pools where they store unused fuel rods. They're worried that the water in the pools may start to evaporate. Seems like that would be a fairly easy problem to deal with but apparently that area is currently difficult to access. The first fire also caused a brief (several hour) spike in ambient radiation readings in Tokyo and the surrounding areas. Fortunately, despite the high percentage increase, even in the worst area (which is much closer to the reactors than greater Tokyo), a year of exposure would still leave you within the range of radiation that the average person is exposed to in a year just through normal life. And, within several hours of the spike, levels were back down to near normal. Not that you could tell that by reading the headlines or half the news articles...
Finding out the actual numbers was a relief, since the headlines freaked me out at first. I'm definitely a bit on edge and, at my father's prodding, I packed most of my stuff so I can be ready to head south or to the airport in very little time if necessary. Though I still don't think it'll come to that. The reactors are slowly cooling down and everyone except the big anti-nuclear groups agree that, even in an absolute worst case scenario, which would be nuclear rods melting entirely (which will hopefully be prevented) and then melting their way through their containment chamber (which wouldn't necessarily happen), the steam that would be released would be nothing like Chernobyle's radioactive ash. But, as I said, there is still danger and I am worried. It doesn't help that, as I was writing this, we had enough earthquake (it was only a 4, fortunately, so it didn't even knock anything over) and a rather sudden wind storm has sprung up. Neither is serious, but they certainly contribute to the "everything is falling apartment" mind-set...
My parents' planned trip to Japan (which was already on somewhat shaky ground due to the rolling blackouts and train delays caused by the quake and tsunami) has been called off for now. They might try again later this year in summer or fall when things have calmed down if are was no serious radiation problems.
My own plans have changed as well. Originally, if I didn't have another job lined up, I was going to return to the US in mid April with my parents to continue my job search. Since that's not going to happen, I was thinking of just keeping my current airline ticket, which is for the 30th. However, my parents (especially my dad) are really worried and want me to leave sooner so I changed it to the 25th (the day after I finish work).
As I previously mentioned, I haven't ruled out leaving sooner if the situation escalates, though I have very mixed feelings about doing so (though I only have 5 work days left). My company and apartment place wouldn't be happy, of course, but the main thing is that I don't want to "desert" my students and friends here. Yeah I'm not exactly an indispensable member of the staff of anything but still... I was pretty nervous this morning but, when I was teaching a class and saw how much fun the kids were having and how glad they were that I was here, I calmed down a lot. Then again, unless thing start improving really soon my dad may have a nervous breakdown if I don't leave within the next day or two...
Ugh, seems I'm constantly revising this post as I write it... There's some more worrying news that came through a moment ago. It's not confirmed yet but it's possible that the power company pulled out all its staff, including the emergency crew cooling the reactors. If they really did that... I just don't know anymore.... For a while it really seemed like everything would be fine but now it's looking iffy again...
And another update. Things have calmed down for now and the crew is back on site though the whole situation still isn't looking good. My dad is really insistant that I head back to the US ASAP... My company said they, while they'd like me to stay, given the situation they're ok with me leaving early. In the end, I agreed to do if my dad could get me on an earlier flight and he did so it looks like I'll be leaving for the US tomorrow evening. I'm not at all happy about this. It's a really lousy ending to what has otherwise been a great stay in Japan, but this is hardly an ordinary situation. I have a lot more to say but my emotions are really scrambled right now and I have a lot to do to get ready so I'll wait until I'm back in the US. Hopefully everything will work out and I'll be able to return to Japan (at least for a vacation) in the not too distant future...

Thursday (the 17th): An Early Ending
In my previous post, you probably noticed that I was wavering back and forth a lot between whether it was better to stay in Japan or leave early. And you also know that I ended up leaving. While I was always fairly certain that the situation at the Fukushima nuclear plants would be resolved and that, even if something went wrong, Tokyo wouldn't be in any real danger, I couldn't say either of those things for sure and spending so much time following the news (which tended to make things sound a lot worse than they really were, especially in the headline), not to mention the occasional aftershocks from the earthquake, were really leaving me on edge. In the end, I had decided to stay in Japan at least until the end of my teaching contract but when the situation at Fukushima briefly escalated on Wednesday my dad was really freaking out and insisting that I return. In the end I prayed about it and said I'd go sooner if he could move my ticket up. Surprisingly, he actually got me a seat on a flight leaving the next day so that was that...
I'm not particularly happy that I left when I did. It was rushed, I was supposed to teach for several more days yet, and I never got a chance to say a proper goodbye to my students or my friends in Tokyo, which I feel really bad about.
Naturally, I'm disappointed as well. I had originally been planning to stay in Japan another month. Not only did I not get to do the big trip with my parents at the end, I had to skip the rest of my planned day trips and I never got to got to Odaiba, or do karaoke, or visit my favorite stores and restaurants one more time. But I really can't complain much seeing all the destruction the tsunami caused in some of those northeastern coastal villages. The death toll just keeps rising... Remember, if you'd like to donate some money to the relief efforts, you can find a list of trustworthy organizations here.
But I might as well talk about my trip back. Wednesday evening and night was a frantic mix of packing, sending e-mails, and cleaning my apartment. I had been planning for my parents to bring me an extra suitcase but I managed to cram all my stuff into my two suitcases and my backpack plus a medium sized box I had on hand. Lugging everything to the train station Thursday morning wasn't easy and, since I was worried that one particular line might be shut down (turned out it wasn't) I ended up taking a slightly roundabout way to the airport but in the end I made it ok.
My dad had heard on the news that the airport was a madhouse with everything trying to get out of the country but that was a pretty serious exaggeration. It was a bit crowded and there were a handful (but only a handful) of people camped out inside, but it wasn't any worse than what you'd see around holiday times here in the US. Actually, most of the lines were probably a decent bit shorter than what you'd see around holiday time. It didn't take me very long to check in (once United actually opened their counter anyway) and I only had to wait several minutes to get through security (had I known it wouldn't take long, I wouldn't have been in such a hurry to get through). Fortunately, only one of my suitcases was overweight. Unfortunately, while the fee for overweight suitcases used to just be $25 or $50 (that's what I paid last time when I returned from Japan), they've raised it a lot and that single suitcase cost me $200. Unfortunately, there wasn't much I could do except pay.
After I was through security, I walked around a bit, looked in the stores, and get some soba for lunch (my options were limited since the majority of the restaurants in the airport are outside of the terminal). I also figured that I should get something to read since my PSP wouldn't last the whole way back. I ended up getting an English copy of Botchan, which you may remember me mentioning back when I visited Matsuyama (see my March 1st entry). I'm not entirely sure why the people of Matsuyama are so proud of the fact that Botchan is set there as, with the exception of Dogo Onsen Honten, both the city and the people living there are portrayed very negatively. It was a pretty good story though.
My flight itself was packed, though not entirely full (further debunking the headlines claiming that everyone was fleeing Japan). It was surprisingly fast as well, taking only 8 hours to travel to Narita airport to San Francisco. After which it was a bit of waiting and a couple of shorter flights to get back home to Colorado. Fortunately, all my luggage made it without any delays or missing items and that was that. It felt strange to return so rapidly and there wasn't much in the way of reverse culture shock or anything (I was only over there for around two and a half months). I'm just sorry that it had to end this way.
So what next? Well, although I was originally planning on staying in Japan for a while longer, now that I back in the US I might as well start looking for a new job. I'll primarily be focusing on game and writing related jobs in the US but there's a few Japan jobs I'm planning to apply to as well so we'll see what happens... Even if I don't end up working in Japan, I'd like to go back again soon for a vacation since I didn't really get a chance to wrap things up before leaving. My parents want to reschedule their canceled Japan trip once everything there has calmed down so we'll see what happens.

A Couple More Random Japan Comments
Well, my Japan travelogue is pretty much finished (for now) but there are a couple of Random Japan Comments I had planned that I never got the chance to do so here they are. Both are about a couple of more recent Japan related interests of mine which ended up being the focus on many of my shopping trips.

Random Japan Comment: Visual Novels
Visual novels are a type of video game that's quite popular in Japan. Unfortunately, very few are released outside of the country so the genre is mostly unknown in the rest of the world. Visual novels (also known as sound novels), as the name suggests, are sort of like books that you read on your computer or game console. However, there are some important elements that set them apart from ordinary e-books. First off, visual novels feature background illustrations for the various areas in which the story takes place, which are displayed behind the text. There are also illustrations for the important characters. While the characters usually aren't animated, they have quite a lot of poses so they can react to whatever is happening the story. Many visual novels also have a number of CGs (high quality fully drawn images) which are shown to emphasize certain scenes and an animated movie or two. And, of course, there's the sound. Visual novels have a full set of background music and sound effects to further enhance the experience.
So you've got a book with a a whole lot of illustrations, sound effects, and a full musical score. But that's not all. What's special about visual novels is the stories themselves. They actually have a lot of similarities to the old Choose Your Own Adventure Books. Like CYOA, they're written in first person perspective. Though, unlike CYOA, the hero isn't "you" but a clearly defined character with his/her own name and personality. Like CYOA, most visual novels present you with a number of points throughout the game where you can choose between two or more different options with the story changing based on your decisions. But while CYOA books feature rather short and simplistic stories, the stores in visual novels are as long and complex as those in the best regular novels. Or even longer, since they have multiple branches and endings. My favorite visual novel, Fate/Stay Night has a higher word count than the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. And, of course, you won't get the full story without playing through all the different major branches.
In Japan, visual novels are generally created by small teams and often begin as hobby projects (with the creators of more popular titles going on to form official companies). As such, they're mainly released for the PC though more popular ones are often ported to various consoles later on. Many go on to inspire anime and manga as well, some of which you may be familiar with such as Fate/Stay Night, Kanon, and Higurashi. Unfortunately the anime and manga tend to simplify the stories a bit. Luckily, there's some great fan translation patches out there for some popular visual novels (including Fate/Stay Night and Kanon), though you need a copy of the original game in order to use them, which can be hard to come by outside of Japan. There's also a couple of companies (such as MangaGamer) which have started releasing officially translated versions of visual novels though, sadly, many of the best titles are still Japanese only.
So how did I get into visual novels? Well, last time I was in Japan I saw a ton of merchandise for Fate/Stay Night. I didn't know what Fate was at the time, but I liked the character design and it was so popular that I wanted to know a bit more about it so I did some research online. That eventually led me to Fate's excellent English patch so I decided to give it a try. The story completely blew me away so I began looking into more visual novels and by the time I returned to Japan this year, I had a long list of games I wanted to track down copies of.
Unfortunately, a rather large portion of the visual novel market is devoted to "adult" games that are more about sex than plot. Even a lot of the more story focused visual novels include a couple of token sex scenes (though many are later rereleased in all-ages versions as well). Unfortunately, most stores in Japan put all computer games (or at least all visual novels) in the same section, which also tends to be right by the often massive porn section (see my February 13th entry) so finding the story based visual novels I was looking for was a rather strange experience, to say the least. In the end, I did find everything on my list but I have to wonder about people who would buy some of the other things I ran across over the course of my search. A lot of the more "adult" oriented visual novels seemed like fairly sincere love stories (though with some rather graphic sex scenes), but some looked plain disturbing and are nothing I particularly want to talk about, especially on this site.
So anyway, visual novels are great but searching for copies of them in Japan can be a bit disturbing... In closing, here's quick list of my top three visual novels. As a note, while Higurashi has an official English release thanks to the aforementioned MangaGamer, Fate and Kanon require copies of the Japanese installation discs and fan made English patches (which I link to below).

1. Fate/Stay Night: Shirou Emiya is a seemingly ordinary high school student who is secretly practicing magic in hopes of one day becoming a hero who can protect others like his adopted father. When the appearance of a mysterious female warrior draws him into the battle for the legendary Holy Grail, a magical relic said to be able to grant any wish, he rises to the challenge. Not to claim the grail, but to protect the unknowing townspeople from the other far more ruthless competitors.
Fate has many memorable characters and a deep multi-faceted story which delves into a number of thought provoking themes. It's remained on of Japan's top visual novels for the past seven years for a reason and makes for an excellent introduction to the genre.
2. Higurahi When They Cry: Keiichi's family recently moved from the hustle and bustle of Tokyo to the peaceful mountain village of Hinamizawa. He quickly adapts to life there, thanks primarily to his new friends, a lively group of girls who make up the school's unbeatable game club. But when a visiting photographer is murdered, Keiichi begins to discover that Hinamizawa may not be such a peaceful place after all. And there are many who would kill to keep its dark secrets hidden...
Higurashi is unusual for a visual novel in that you can't make any big decisions or change the plot. However, the creepy mystery/suspense story more than makes up for the lack of interactivity and is sure to leave you guessing right up until the epic final chapter.
3. Kanon: Yuichi recently moved in with his aunt and cousin to attend high school in a snowy mountain town. Over the course of the following month, he meets a number of different girls, none of whom are quite what they seem. As he grows closer to them, he begins to discover that there may not be such a thing as a "happily ever after" ending.
Kanon has a lot more romance than Fate or Higurashi but it's hardly the kind you'd typically find in anime or romance novels. While the cast of characters is often quite a lot of fun, the main plot frequently becomes very serious and depressing. But even so, it makes you determined to go on, wishing against all odds for a happy resolution. As to whether or not that wish is granted...you'll just have to play it and find out.

Random Japan Comment: Hatsune Miku
So who is Hatsune Miku (or Miku Hatsune if you want to say her name English style with her first name first)? She's a Japanese J-Pop singer...sort of. She's got an enormous amount of songs out there but a few of the more popular ones are: The World is Mine, Last Night, Good Night, and Levan Polka. Though she covers quite a lot of different styles so if none of those are your thing you may want to pull up a few more of Miku's songs. Chances are you'll find something you'll like. One of my personal favorites is Magnet, which is a duet she does with Megurine Luka, another Volcaloid singer.
But what's so special about Miku? Well, you may have noticed that all the videos I linked only feature computer generated characters. To be specific, they're from the Project Diva games on the PSP and PS3 (which are sadly only available in Japan), a series of music games which feature Miku and some other Volcaloid singers. But anyway, those digital characters are the real Miku and Luka. More or less anyway. Miku, Luka, and all the other Volcaloids are computer programs designed to act as singers (though they are created using voice samples from actual singers). If you have the software and know what you're doing, you can make them sing pretty much any song you want (though they're generally designed with a specific language (usually Japanese or English) and vocal range in mind). Miku isn't the first Vocaloid but she was the first one to be given a clearly defined character which really helped her catch on in Japan. Thanks to her, Vocaloid music has become very popular there. Much of it is created by amateur and indie groups and posted on Nico Nico Douga (a Japanese web site similar to youtube). If a group's songs get popular enough, they may get an actual album deal or have their music included on a Vocaloid compilation CD. And this isn't just a couple of albums either, a lot of music stores in Japan have a fairly sizable Vocaloid section.
I got interested in Miku through Project Diva. I love music games and a friend of mine had recommended it a while back so I picked up a copy soon after arriving in Japan. Not only is it a pretty good game, but I really liked a lot of the songs, which led to me becoming interested in Miku herself and other Vocaloids as well (mainly thanks to Project Diva 2nd, which features several other Vocaloids in addition to Miku). I never did get any Vocaloid software (I thought about it, but it's not exactly cheap and would likely take a while to learn), but I can really see the appeal in having a virtual singer (or even an entire group of singers) you can use any time for anything.
Personally, I'd kind of like to see a Vocaloid anime starring Miku and the others... And it could happen too. Vocaloids, and Miku in particular, are very popular and there's already a lot of merchandise and a manga series (though it's more focused on random gags than plot). The fact that she doesn't really exist didn't even stop Miku from holding from a concert complete with real musicians and a few of her Vocaloid friends. I'd love to go to one sometime. Aside from the fact that I like a lot of the music, how often do you get to see a hologram in concert?
You're probably thinking that something like this could only happen in Japan and you may be right but Miku has quite a lot of fans on her English facebook page and they're working on an English version of Miku herself so you never know...

Part 2: February 2011




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