Friday, October 30, 2009

Animate (the 3rd floor -2-)

Rubber keyholders and a plastic casing with Moe factor.

Strike Witches keyholders.

A stuffed toy Miyako from Hidamari Sketch and stuff.

Goods with characters printed on, which are from a weekly magazine called "JUMP"

Do they turn girls on? I don't know really.

I like to write about anime because it's now an important part of our culture, and above all I like it. You might think Japan is full of anime fans and that you will see lots of anime characters in public. And sure, I think you will see more Moe posters in Japan than in other countries. But in reality ordinary Japanese people don't know much about anime, and it is rather on the Internet that we often see Ayanami and Aska from Neon Genesis Evangelion anime.

The former ruling political party planned to build a national anime and manga hall to attract tourists from abroad, but it met strong opposition from the public. I understand some people didn't like the idea because the plan would use taxpayers' money to construct the facility. But I guess the public might not want foreign people to see our country as anime heaven.

Even though we can get anime magazines and manga so easily in Japan, people who are not interested in anime don't like to see nerds or otaku. The main reason why the national anime and manga hall plan is going to be scrapped would be that most Japanese people, especially adults, deny anime without knowing there are many good anime.

But I think as new generations replace the old ones one by one, anime will start to be accepted by more people. The reason? The Gundam robot displayed in Tokyo this summer attracted not only kids but their parents who are in their 30s or 40s.