sore thumb, FY bashing, games, and lepers

Japan is crazy. Japan is schizophrenic. Japan is multiple personalities I don't understand and the country hardly seems to be aware of them all themselves.

Anyways, so one of my labmates, Kazuma, remarked today that my shirt really stands out. Everybody's been staring at me today, but I haven't really given much thought to it, because people always stare at me. I'm Asian, but I just reek of gaijin. Can't help it. Anyways, all my shirt says today is "Osaka Daigaku" (Osaka University), in kanji characters. I live and work here at Osaka Daigaku. Even when I was at MIT I wore lots of MIT shirts and nobody really gave me a second look-over. But here I am at Osaka Daigaku wearing one of their shirts and I don't think it's odd at all. I asked Kazuma why it was strange, and he replied that my shirt had kanji characters.

It apparently is very common for students to wear Osaka University shirts with the name spelled out in English, but for some odd reason it's very odd to be wearing a shirt with the name spelled out in kanji.

Okay Japan, look. I'm wearing a shirt with characters from YOUR OWN FUCKING LANGUAGE! (Well not quite, but close enough.) Let me repeat that in case you didn't get it the first time. YOUR OWN FUCKING LANGUAGE!

I think all I have to say right now is, "GODAMMIT, JAPAN!"

*more head banging ensues now*

Anyways, I met Rhole last night. :D I had to go find her at the JR Osaka station because Umeda is ridiculous to navigate. =_=;; There are still some times when I just can't find my way around, and it's ridiculously frustrating. :D We headed off to Mandarake to buy doujinshi (I got a lot of SnapexHarry for Asphodel), and I refrained from buying a used copy of the 18+ version of Gakuen Heaven. I hope I don't regret that! ^^;;

We wandered around for a bit, talking about life, the universe, and everything until we finally settled down at Gyoza no Osho (a cheap-but-yummy Chinese chain fast food place) and talked about fandom. ^_^ *laughs* We're not as old as they come in the X fandom, but I suppose we're still pretty old in terms of "oldies that haven't dropped off the face of the planet." :D We recounted the good old days of the fandom, mourned the downfall of the fandom (which I can actually trace back to one specific event. Whether it's causation or correlation is still open to debate.), and talked about the wankage that always ensues every 3 or 4 months without fail. Oh X fandom, I could set my watch to you.

We also talked about how Fushigi Yuugi is the horror that WILL NOT DIE even though it really ought to be dead. (I can't believe Yuu Watase is writing the story of the Genbu Seishi. How many times do we have to beat this dead horse, people?) It's one of those shows where you really like it when you watch it, and then within 24 hours of seeing the ending you completely realize what a shitty piece of work that was and you wish you could invent a time machine so you could go back and warn yourself not to waste 24 hours worth of your life on that show. =_=;; *sighs* (It was even more time-machine-creation inspiring than Matrix: Revolutions and Attack of the Clones combined, and that's saying something.)

And yet, somehow we both watched all the OAV series, even the third one which existed only to prove to us that once you think you've hit the bottom, somebody throws you a shovel.

We also talked about good old Weiss, which was my first yaoi fandom. We remember when the days were good there and the fans polite, constructive, and respectful. Of course, we might also have been on crack back then too, but we swear that's the way it was.

Ah, the glory days, my friends. :D

I discovered a new and interesting strategy card game that takes things to the next level, Sangokushi-Taisen. It's a novel cool concept, and were I not totally Japanese-incompetent, I'd try my hand at it. I really wish my clone was here, because he'd definitely know what was going on. And he'd help me get addicted to it. ;_____; *sad* I want my clone here. We have to go to Japan sometime and fanboy/girl over Sangoku things. ._. And play games. And be nerds. And do other unmentionable Japanese things.

Last of all, my friend from ATR, Luv (yes that's his real name) hooked me up with some of his "melodic death metal." I'm not particularly a fan of death metal, but I do like metal. I'm not sure how you really classify the metal that Daisuke Ishiwatari writes, but I'm going to call it "melodic metal."

Anyways, he's a real big metal head (you wouldn't think this, because he just looks like some normal, sweet, Indian guy) and gave me some tracks from these two bands called Opeth and Dark Tranquility. Except for the stereotypical growly parts of the death metal part, they sound pretty decent. Kind of like a mash of A Perfect Circle and growly death metal.

I gave him some of my Guilty Gear tracks to see if he'd like it. I prefer my metal less emo. What amused me the most I think, was that one of the tracks off the Opeth album he gave me is called "The Leper Affinity."

...and now I can't stop laughing inside. This sort of serendipity is trying to tell me someting, but I'm not sure what. X3

EDIT: We just had a massive, lab-wide discussion about my T-shirt. Not shitting you here. A couple more people started observing my T-shirt was weird, and eventually the discussion expanded to the whole lab. o_o;; At least I was laughing too... >____>

We came to the conclusion that:
1) Wearing an Osaka Daigaku shirt while being at Osaka Daigaku (and even in Japan, apparently) is massively uncool
2) Wearing a shirt with kanji or any Japanese characters on it while in Japan is massively uncool
3) It just reeks of "Hi, I'm a foreigner," which is apparently also massively uncool (because according to the people in lab, I'm actually not that foreign-looking)
4) I'm going to blame Destra, who encouraged me to bring this shirt along and wear it. :( That ho.

This might also be the appropriate time to reveal to her, if she hasn't already noticed, "Hey Destra, check your image folder called "DieSkuld." You might be in for a pleasant (or not so pleasant) surprise. :(