My anime convention season is over, and now I’m flying back to Japan. I’m actually posting this update from inside the plane, thanks to the modern miracle of in-flight Internet. What a time to be alive!
One reason anime is interesting as a genre is because of the strong emotions it lets us access as fans, and you probably remember the first time anime made you cry. Whether it’s glorious stories of love found or the bitterness of not being the one chosen, of facing the darkness together or sadness due to death, it’s common for the stories in anime (and visual novels!) to deeply affect fans in ways that mainstream Hollywood could never do. Most fans have a short list of favorite sad scenes: Taiga on Christmas Eve and the Clannad tennis crying scene are two of my favorites. Thinking back, it was the strong story and emotions seen in Space Battleship Yamato (aka Star Blazers) that first called me to anime back in the late 70s…I was amazed that characters could fall in love or die dramatically, which wasn’t supposed to be allowed in animation back in those days. So, what anime made you cry?
One of the most enviable professions for women in Japan is joshi-ana, the female “announcers” (aka newscasters or presenters) who deliver the news and provide commentary during sporting events with elegance. Japanese female announcers are universally loved by all, hailed for their grace and charm as well as their high education and language skills. Predictably, there are joshi-ana otaku who obsess over their favorite announcers, collecting photobooks and calendars of their favorites. (We stock these calendars, too, starting around September.). Many Japanese announcers are haafu, like Christel Takigawa, who is half Japanese and half French. She pretty much single-handedly landed the Olympics for Tokyo in 2020 with her impassioned speech to the IOC in French, winning her the adoration of all Japan. TV announcers are also used to promote products. Once on a train in Tokyo, I noticed a train ad for a brand of toothpaste called To Be White, promoted as “the toothpaste that makes newscasters’ teeth so white.” Should we carry it on J-List?
J-List stocks hundreds of your favorite anime figures, with all the top offerings available. To celebrate the release of the Your Name/Kimi no Na Wa limited Blu-ray set (with full multilingual subtitles!!), Good Smile Company is coming out with Nendoroid figures of the two main characters. Do you want to preorder then? I know I will!
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