: WHAT THE FUCK IS WITH KATAKANA

eccecorinna:

dainochild:

pochamarama:

I’m usually pretty accepting of writing systems but WHO DECIDED THIS SYLLABARY WAS A GOOD IDEA, JUST LOOK AT THIS SHIT AND HOW SIMILAR SOME KANA LOOK

フ and ワ <— Okay I guess that’s not too hard to tell them apart

ラ and ヲ <— Uh… getting…

night-birds:

Poulpe Fiction (via Petit Page)

fromjtoz:

NO YOUTUBE FUCK YOU

PUT IT BACK

Hey if you’re in Canada, you should definitely try to make to NMFT. (Click the picture for a redirection to the site, which includes more information) 

It’s an affordable show with 4 groups that definitely vary musically. For some, it’s really a once in a life time chance to see these groups perform. Spread the news to anyone you think may be able to attend!

May 18 Toronto @ The Rivoli

May 19 Toronto @ The Rivoli

May 21 Montreal @ Divan Orange

May 23 Vancouver @ The Waldorf Hotel

torayot:

heroin-e:

A hen’s den: sigh why afp why

pudentilla:

heroin-e:

did you really need to put on faux-kimonos

isn’t there anything more interesting and creative you can do than mine other cultures for yr costumes

i don’t even know WHAT that is oh my gods

your band might be super talented and whatever BUT UGH

afsljfdlksjflsdfjsdklf

BUT….

ah! a fellow student of japanese. 

point conceded: Japan was, indeed, never actually colonized by the West. however, in the long history of Orientalism and yellowface, Japan + the Japanese are unfortunately just as much on the receiving end of it as other East Asian countries + people are as minorities in not-East-Asia. 

yes, Japanese people do also have a tendency in some parts to blend different cultures in their fashion sense (or just generally be really clueless and racist. like the different Gundam robots). it happens. some of it is also very problematic, and it is a true thing that happens. but as it is, the subject of my eye-rolling was afp and her continued appropriation of random cultures.

Japanese people who have spent their lives in Japan, it’s true, probably don’t care much about white people wearing kimonos. that’s because in Japan, they’re the majority, and white people are minorities. i suspect, however, if you asked some Japanese-American people it might be met with a different reaction. i imagine being ‘konnichiwa’d’ all the time even when you speak English is annoying enough over the long term that yet ANOTHER image of someone “dressing up as a geisha” is enough to inspire lots of visceral reactions. god knows i want to punch someone every time they scream KONNICHIWA at me. 

because, that’s kind of what this image is. it’s someone dressing up as another culture, or even just approximating that culture - but hey, it doesn’t matter, because we’re all equal and here to share, right? (it reminded me greatly of this painting, which is just kitschy and crap. i don’t care if it’s Impressionist. a Japanese lady from that period would have been horrified, probably, at the way it’s being worn in there.) they’re not even actual kimonos, per-se, just random approximations of them dressed up with collars (where the fuck are those collars from anyway - it looks like a very bizarre combination of Burmese/Thai costumes, Indian bindis and ‘Oriental’ white fans). 

but about the kimono itself: as it happens, from what i know, kimonos are to be worn on special occasions like Coming-of-Age and whatnot. they are ridiculously hard to put on, and there are certain specific ways to wear them (e.g. putting it on properly so you don’t get mistaken for a corpse) good-quality ones are really fucking expensive. a nice, nice kimono is expensive, well-made and probably becomes family heirlooms. so despite the fact that they have no religious significance, they must be fairly special items, right? so why should kimonos be treated with the amount of disrespect they are here in this photo? 

it makes me, as an ethnically-Chinese person who also gets glossed over as ‘Japanese’ by people who don’t give a fuck about such distinctions, extremely uncomfortable when i see something like that. if i wore a proper kimono - and god knows i would NOT unless my Japanese friends begged me to and even then - i might get compliments, but i would also be perceived as a stereotype, especially in the ‘West’ here. and then i could take that kimono off, and i would still be seen as an ‘Oriental’, along with all the baggage that comes along with it. afp takes off the kimono and goes back to being ‘normal’ and default ‘white’. afp’s whole shtick is but one of a very long history that continues even today of yellowface. it might seem like such a small thing - it’s just a kimono! - but when you have all these incremental actions that take place on a wide scale in white culture, it becomes more than that. it leads to a world where there are lots of people who don’t know what the difference between China, Japan and Korea is and don’t care to. and so forth. 

there are certain contexts in which white people wearing kimonos might be alright, like if they were at their Japanese friends weddings and were specifically asked to wear them. even then, i would still be very wary of those sorts of things. i would seriously side eye those white people. and i sincerely doubt that afp in this photo shoot in a very odd bastardization of a kimono, accompanied by band members in what i can only describe as a very strange and probably extremely offensive mishmash of ‘Asian’ traditional garb is one of those contexts.

so while the kimono might not have ‘religious’ significance or whatever, it’s still really, really uncool for a white person to be wearing it in the way she does. anyway. i can’t personally condone afp’s latest antics in cultural appropriation and general fuckery, of which there are enough examples (Native American headdress, Evelyn Evelyn, the Margeret Cho onstage faux-Katy Perry thing, to name a few off the top of my head). 

Flory nails it.

Also, to reinforce her point that wearing kimono properly is difficult… I have read that a lot of Japanese women generally take classes if they want to wear kimono themselves, if not hire the kimono and someone to dress them in it.

This is because kimono say a lot about you as a woman (I do not know enough about people who are not women who wear kimono to make any kind of comment on their fashion). It has many social messages depending on how you wear it. You will wear different kimono, and wear this kimono and its accoutrements differently, according to:

• Whether or not you are alive;
• How old you are;
• Your social status;
• Your marital status;
• Your profession (geisha wear different kimono to housewives);
• The type of event you are attending;
• The particular part of the season you are in right now;
• The sort of personal taste and refinement you want to present to other people;
• And probably many other things. 

Ideally, a good quality kimono is silk, which is often hand-painted or dyed and requires extensive hand-sewing. A complete kimono outfit with accoutrements (underrobes, sashes, ties, padding, socks, shoes, hair accessories, bag) can cost in excess of USD 20,000 or GBP 12,316. This will change according to the formality of the event.

Note that kimono is different from yukata, which is generally what I’ve seen non-Japanese people wearing at Japanese cultural events. It’s a more informal garment. But it still doesn’t mean you can wear it willy-nilly like a corpse or that you’re not being creepy if you wear it and and you wish you were ~*really Japanese kudasiiigghhh*~

Neither I nor Flory are Japanese so we can only presume to say so much on this subject. But, well, if I saw some random white performer wearing my cultural garments, I would just… I dunno. They are not garments with a religious significance, but it is still culturally significant. To wear chut thai is different than wearing chut farang. If I were to be in the UK wearing a sarong or chongkraben outside the house, people would immediately think I am a FOB and accordingly treat me with the huge amounts of shame and degradation that are wrongly heaped on immigrants. Or they’d congratulate me on ~*getting in touch with my roots*~ because I’m so earthy and wholesome like nam pla. Either way I’d definitely not be perceived in the same way if I were to be in jeans and a t-shirt.

(which is a damn shame because sarong are comfy as…)

About Utada Hikaru….

naturaltheartist:

She is not just Hikari, Simple&Clean, Passion, and Sanctuary. She is so much more and I wish people would see that. I like love Kingdom Hearts as much as the next person, but I see Hikki and KH as two totally separate things.

Her Discography:

album:

• Precious - [Cubic U] (US Promo Version)~1998
• Precious - [Cubic U] (Japanese Version)~1998
• First Love~1999
• Distance~2001
• DEEP RIVER~2002
• Utada Hikaru SINGLE COLLECTION VOL.1~2004
• EXODUS~2004
• EXODUS (UK Release)~2005
• ULTRA BLUE~2006
• HEART STATION~2008
• This Is The One (American Release)~2009
• This Is The One (Japan Release)~2009
• Utada The Best~2010
• Utada Hikaru SINGLE COLLECTION VOL.2~2010

Japanese Singles:

• Automatic / time will tell
  Movin’ on without you
  First Love
  Addicted To You
  Automatic / time will tell
  Wait & See ～リスク～ (~Risk~)
  For You / タイム・リミット (Time Limit)
  Can You Keep A Secret?
  FINAL DISTANCE
  traveling
  “光” (Hikari)
  SAKURA ドロップス(Drops) / Letters
  COLORS
  誰かの願いが叶うころ (Dareka no Negai ga Kanau Koro)
  Passion
  Be My Last
  ぼくはくま
  Keep Tryin’
  Flavor Of Life
  Beautiful World / Kiss & Cry
  HEART STATION / Stay Gold

I have all of these :3

floppola:

大日本人 - Big Man Japan

Since I’m currently studying abroad in Japan, I thought I woud share one of my favorite so-bad-it’s-funny Japanese movies.

This movie is a pseudo-documentary about a middle-aged Japanese man who moonlights as a fifteen-story tall hero called “Big Man Japan.”

It’s worth a watch if only for the bizarre ending sequence.

but

its supposed to be comical in that bad way

generic-blog-for-generic-people:

MIDORI - ちはるの恋