Day Twenty-Two

Yesterday (Friday) we went on a class fieldtrip into Tokyo to the National Theatre of Japan to watch a Kabuki performance: "Ya no Ne" and "Fuji Musume." I dozed a bit during "Ya no Ne" (the one featuring the dude with the big hair holding the big arrow), but "Fuji Musume" was absolutely beautiful (featuring the "lady" holding the purple wisteria blossoms who dances elegantly around and around on stage--"lady" in quotes cuz all roles in Kabuki are performed by males).


Sorry couldn't take any pics inside the actual theater. They are pretty strict in making sure all cell phones are turned off so as to not disturb the performance. But here's a pic of this bad ass statue in the lobby of the theater. It looks like the costume on the statue is made of cloth and the wig made of hair, but when you get close up, you realize that the entire thing is made of finely chiseled wood. The pic doesn't do it justice.


Today I hung out with a New Zealander by the name of Haya who lives and works in Japan. We mostly just chilled in Yoyogi park, people watched (esp a cute Japanese boy playing volleyball), and chatted about our experiences regarding--among many other things--dating Japanese guys, being "foreigners" in Japan, being non-white in our respective "home" countries, etc. It was a really great conversation, good company, fun times. We planned to meet up again soon to try out a vegan restaurant somewhere in Tokyo.

Afterwards, I browsed around Kinokuniya bookstore and wandered into the manga section, where I saw this really awesome poster:


If you can't tell, that's supposed to be Buddha and Jesus hanging out together, and the caption above reads "Laughing but saving the world." Basically it's an ad for a recent comic called "Saint Oniisan" (or "Saint Young Men") and the premise of the comic is that Buddha and Jesus are roommates and have adventures in the modern world. I found this to be very very funny, as I tend to find a lot of sacrilegious things very very funny, so I picked up the first of the three issues and am very much looking forward to reading it!

Then I noticed a bunch of signs reading "Boys Love" comics and to my surprise found a large section of homoerotic male-on-male love stories. To make things even more bizarre, the section was only being perused by teenage girls. For some reason, romantic love stories between men (of varying age groups) is a really popular genre of comic books for young women in Japan, otherwise known as "yaoi". I think I will investigate this genre a bit further. As of now, I am content with my sacrilegious Buddha and Jesus comics. Though I may have to venture into the "Boys Love" vampire romance series sometime in the near future. It's a slippery slope I tell ya.

Speaking of vampire loving, a new TV series starts up here next week, called "Devil Love ~Vampire Boy". It looks cheesy as hell, which means it might be really great!