11.. Arts and Entertainment in Japan

Japanese modern arts and entertainment, I think that should be video games!

Some Japanese game companies have made great video games and these games have been played all over the world.

I want to write about the "Final Fantasy"series as an example.


This is a promotion video of the latest work. I choose this game series for today's theme because Japanese game's graphics have a certain prestige in the game industry and the Final Fantasy is very famous both for the graphics and for the stories.

The stories are a little complicated.

I read on the internet that Square-enix (the company that makes this game) meant the stories to be made into movies from the very beginning. Such movie-oriented scenario made a big hit.

The best seller (http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Final_Fantasy) of Final Fantasy in Japan is the FFⅦ. It was the first 3Dwork of Final Fantasy series, and the graphics quality of FFⅦ impressed the world and boosted sales. This innovation gave a new meaning to Japanese entertainment and modern arts.

10..Politics in Japan -looking for jobs!-

The world economic crisis hit japan and as a result many Japanese lost their jobs. This problem affects young students, too.

Last week I went to a job fair held in KyoseraDome Osaka.

Currently, I am job hunting. At the job fair, students from many universities were visiting company booths and listening to explanations from the recruiting companies.

I saw a lot of students who approached the representatives and tried to give a good impression to them.

I was impressed by the passion they put in finding a good job and also by their fear of becoming part-timers or, worse "freeters" (Japanese English: Free-timers).

For more about this theme, look at the picture on the left. I took this photo at a small bookstore near my house.

All these in the book shelf are recruit books for students, full of suggestions on, for example, how to pass a job interview, how to write a good resume, and also drills for an employment examination.

Most of my university friends have, at least, one of such kind of books.

These days in Japan, it is not so rare anymore to hear about companies who suddenly cancel the unofficial acceptance of students as their new employee. Of course, KGU students might face this problem, too.

I think that I will see many news about the issue until I graduate.

9..Religion in Japan

Religion in Japan. It was an interesting theme for me to research.

Describing Japanese religion iｓ difficult because Japanese people embrace aspects from many religions, like, for example, getting married in a christian church or welcome the new year in a buddhist temple or a shintoo shrine.
However, many Japanese people tend to feel spirits in everything, what is known as Animism.

For example, I rememered a shrine dedicated to several gods, so I went there again for my research. It was in Kyoto, near Kyoto University.

The shrine is called Yoshida jinjya. As you can see in the cite, the shrine was established for four guardians originally but in the Muromachi era, the founder of Yoshidashintoo, Yoshida Kanetomo said that Yoshida jinjya was home to various kinds of gods. So, I took some picture there.

The above one is a shrine named "Kaso jinjya", dedicated to the god of sweets. The other one is "Sankei jinjya" dedicated to the god of cooking.

I found that both Kaso and Sankei shrines are very similar.
At the Sankei jinjya's photo, you can see many standing poles.The names of all the companies who donatied the founding to build that shrine are carved on the poles.

The amount of poles portray Japanese faith in Animism.

8..Gender in Japan~japanese women as powerless people~

Do you know what these photos are?

The first one is the board of Hankyu train's platform where it says women should line up there to board the women's coach. The second photo is the timetable of that coach. This train runs only on weekdays.

This system started in 2001.
Why was this system implemented? What does this train system implies?

It portrays that Japanese women can not protect themselves because of their weakness.

Japanese women are powerless...such image comes from their long long sexual discrimination history.

Check this cite. http://www.womeninworldhistory.com/essay-04.html

As you can see, Japanese women were treated as if they were inferior to men and this image exists still now. The "Ladies only" train was invented because there are many women who are under threats from the gropers. It is rare in Japan that woman scold at man who touch her.

My friend, who had such dreadful experience told me that when the man was touching her hip she couldn't say anything. In addition, she was raised by her parents as a traditional Japanese girl, so, she didn't know well how to defend herself. She feels that this train system is helpful.

My friend Shoko, on the other hand, said that she doesn't mind when a man is in the lady's coach and it could be that he didn't notice it was a women only train. Other passengers don't seem to mind, either. She doesn't need such a kind of train. She insisted that women should be stronger, and we can do that.

"Ladies only" train was invented for Japanese traditional women and it works well.
However, this system gives an opportunity to rethink about Japanese women's position at the same time. Will we see the women's coach in Japan ten years from now?

7..Sumo Wrestling

'Sumo' ('Sumo' wrestling) is one of the major Japanese traditional sports and known as the national sport.

For more information about 'Sumo' check this site.

http://www.sfusd.k12.ca.us/schwww/sch618/japan/MartialArts/Japanese_Martial_Arts.html

There are many foreign fans of 'Sumo', like my Mexican friend who is a fan of Takamizakari and Kitazakura (both are 'Sumo' wrestlers).

So, what makes people from overseas to be fasinated by this Japanese sport ?

This time, I picked up 'Sumo' as a topic and asked my friend why he likes sumo.

He said that 'Sumo' is very interesting because 'Sumo' is a sport in which strengthness, inteligence and ceremonial aspects are mixed together.

Actually, when you go to 'Sumo' games you will see some events before and after the match.
For example, the 'Sumo'wrestler is scattering salt in this photo.

Purging with salt the field and pray for his own safety, is one of the traditional rites in 'Sumo'.

Every wrestler shows an original performance when they scatter the salt, which is very interesting an funny. It is said that 45kg of salt is spended a day at this performance.

When one 'Sumo' match is over, both wrestlers bow. Through this bow the defeated seems to be accepting the strength of his rival.

My friend likes this scene because for him, it shows the sportsmanship which is inside 'Sumo'.

In addition, I found some interesting items . Look at photo at the right. These are 'Sumo' wrestler cards. There is the wrestler's picture in the front side of the cards and their profiles at the back side. It is interesting that the Japanese national sport, 'Sumo', is approaching people in such a unique way. In my opinion these cards helps to make people getting much more familiar with 'Sumo' and this could lead to increase the number of 'Sumo' fans.