The simple fact that I'm Japanese quickly became one of my greatest advantages as an aspiring writer. I started paying attention to my motherland as a repository of story ideas. I looked at things differently when I went back home, honed my story-finding skills, and launched my own blog, TokyoMango. I got major Japan-related assignments from magazines, consulting gigs from print and radio outlets, and a book deal. It was really strange for me, because all I thought I was doing was telling people about the place I came from. One thing was clear: Weird Japan sells. It's an almost guaranteed success for book publishers and major traffic bait for blogs.

Being majime (too serious) is not cool in Japan; likewise it is important for voyeurs of Japanese culture to recognize that most everything pop-culture-y that is exported to the West comes at us with a wink. If you're all up in arms about it, then maybe the joke is on you.

On the outside, guys like Sal9000 (the guy who married his DS girlfriend) and Nisan (the guy with the body pillow girlfriend) may seem "weird" or "crazy." But they've really just found creative ways to toy with amorphous concepts like love and romance that complement their own unique lives.

via boingboing

A very interesting post about modern Japanese culture and why it's not so weird as some might think.

Personally, I'm gearing up for a trip to Japan hopefully within 2 years, and while I'm fairly open-minded, I'm going precisely because it's so different. I'm not disgusted by a lot of the weird Japanese things, neither am I obsessed. I'm just in awe. I also want to go to Russia, comrade!

I'm going to be writing some anime-related posts over at timmaughanbooks.com, since he's going on vacation in the new year, and it's easy to see that his website gets far more traffic than this blog. Hopefully I'll clean my act up a bit more on this blog, since I always write better when it's for someone else. I'm very informal on this page, and I think that's why I like doing it.