Firstly, I guess I should put a disclaimer that if my house catches on fire, it’s my fault for being an idiot… So don’t be an idiot and let your house catch on fire… (why I have to iterate on common-sense is beyond me, but there are people who’d sue others for pouring coffee on their own lap and I’m convinced these people aren’t greedy for money, they’re just an idiot…)
Now with that said, every year when it starts getting cold, I get my cheap coffee table, place futon on top of it, stuff the portable heater underneath it, and make a kotatsu out of it…
You may think it’s not a real kotatsu, but in my opinion, as long as it keeps my legs warm, it’s kotatsu, and my cats thinks so too! If you go shop for kotatsu, you sometimes find the electric heating unit separate from the table too. Now days, you can even find kotatsu for chair height.
Traditionally, we sit on the floor where the kotatsu is with zabuton (which I can do because my house is no-shoes policy – I rather refuse the repairman’s service if they tell me they cannot take off their shoes!) but I guess it makes sense for modern family who prefer kotatsu with chairs. I myself want to lay inside like a kotatsumuri (katatsumuri = snail) and sleep inside…
For those who’s never lived in Japan and think it’s just great to live there, you are nuts! I’m sure there are plenty of cold places in USA, but I hate the cold and it’s miserable. In Japan, traditionally (at least to me I think) in the winter you have two ways to stay warm, either the kerosene heater or electric kotatsu. Both cost money of course, and I remember going to gas stations to buy kerosene as a kid too.
In either case, the goal to save money is to just concentrate on heating where it needs to, unlike the centralized heating units common in USA (I hope it saves money). I love the central heating of my house and I consider myself spoiled. If you have friends in Japan, it’s time for you to brag that you too have central heating and make them envy you *grin*
But when I watch TV, I still think it’s nice to sit inside the kotatsu and watch, fall asleep inside, and so on… For me it isn’t because of tradition or nostalgia, it’s just because my cats and I love the warmth…
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There are few things that are difficult to explain in words to others (in any cultures) unless they experiences it for themselves. For example the Japanese nashi, which you can probably tell the person the color, the shape, and approximate size, but you cannot tell that person how wonderful it tastes. Teruterubouzu is the same way, how do you explain it, or how to make it? It’s easier to show that person how it looks like. Same goes for the rakugaki “へのへのもへじ” it’s hard to explain it unless you draw it.
Well, the other day, I was trying to express in words how unique senkou hanabi (線香花火) are, but I’ve had difficulties explaining the subtle emotions that goes with it when you actually experience it, all the way up to how the anti-climax of it is when it starts to dissipate smaller and smaller and then the cherry drops.
You should find plenty of video of senkou hanabi on YouTube. But if you want to experience on your own, you can buy it from a seller on Amazon.com.
Note: Please do not send me any information or comments about “scanlations”, I didn’t know such things existed until about less than an year ago, and I honestly don’t care for it for multiple reasons.
When I used to live in Los Angeles, I was able to (once in a while) trek down to Little Tokyo and pick up manga at Kinokuniya and enjoy reading it while eating at Curry House… But once I finished reading them, they just stacked up on my shelf and collected dusts. To be honest, I almost rarely re-read them once I’m done.
When I’ve moved out of southern California (job reason), I’ve lost luxury of tachiyomi as well as one of my favorite past-time hobby. I’ve searched the Internet to satisfy my starvation, but all I can find was imported manga translated in English. I’m sure these professionals who translates from Japanese to English does very well (after all, they get paid for their work). But there are things that would probably get lost in translations due to cultural differences. They would have to make sure to make all the audiences comprehend so they’d have to lean towards translating towards their audiences that only understands English.
I am pretty sure I’m only speculating because I’ve never read English translated manga. I’ve seen one of my favorite manga “Slam Dunk” being translated to English once and it made me happy that my favorite manga (and author) is being opened up to broader audiences. It’s something I’ve always wanted to spread my favorite manga to people.
I’ve also seen Jump (or was it Sunday?) that was weekly in English once. I saw it and my face brightened up with nostalgia, then I opened it and saw that it was in English… I was so sad… *grin*
I’ve even visited some of the manga publisher sites in Japan and found that they have online manga, but to my disappointments, they check for I.P. addresses and if the I.P. has been detected that it is foreign (not from Japan) it would prohibit the readers from reading.
I’m pretty sure that I’m fantasizing if I say that “They’d make lot more money if they’d open the door to foreign world for Japanese readers outside Japan”. But I’m sure the audiences are small and they won’t make any money. But they’d be at least collect a lot of money from me, that’s for sure… In any case, I’m pretty sure it has some strong ties to copyright protection. If you’re not familiar, each countries must protect their own copyrights, and they have little power to deal with foreign. The best they can do is notify and request the site to respect their business. I’m pretty sure you’ve all encountered some videos that has been removed from YouTube after the request of the foreign publishers.
About 2 months or so ago, when I was (as always) browsing for some “hope” to read Japanese manga online, I’ve bumped into eBookJapan on my Android app. Before this app, I’ve run in to few others, but they were disappointing because they only sold English translated manga. Again, it makes complete sense because if the publishers in United States takes responsibilities for the readers in USA, it protects copyrights. But when it all comes down to it, it’s all about money (i.e. stop piracy, etc).
I’ve discovered that Amazon.co.jp advertised Kindle books. I thought it would be my savior that would supply my manga addictions. It turns out if you want Kindle eBooks, you end up getting routed to Amazon.com site. In any case, I remember when Amazon.com first turned into online book distributors. People including myself bought books, they made lots of money. I kept buying and buying…
That’s how it felt like with eBookJapan.jp when I first discovered they only sold Japanese manga (untranslated!!!!). Their system is like Kindle in a sense. They have tachiyomi option, which you can read few pages of the manga. If you like it, you’d go back to the site and buy it (it’s not as convenient as the way Amazon Kindle does it because you cannot continue to read buy purchasing, you’d have to go back to the site manually).
Some have complained that the applications do not run unless you have Japanese input enabled. I’ve never had that problem with my Android (both on my Google Dev1 Phone and rooted Nook). I’ve had a little bit of issue with my Linux on the other hand. Their “Trunk Room” and applications can be run from both PC (Windows and Mac) as well as iPhone and Android (they check which hardware version of Android) and if you don’t have the requirements, even if your browser is supported, you’ll not be able to purchase books online.
Their “Trunk Room” is kind of clever but still cumbersome to use. But you’ll get used to it. For example, the transaction is based on purchasing an eBook and moving it to your “Trunk Room”. You can only transfer from Trunk Room to one of your bookshelf. If you want to read the manga on another device, you would first have to upload the book back to the Trunk Room, then download to your *registered* device.
There are times while you are downloading, you’d get network errors, causing the system to get unsynchronized. The system would think that it is now in your bookshelf, and no longer in your Trunk Room, yet you didn’t download completely, causing your book to become in the vapor-limbo state. You would then have to go to your settings options on your device that their server thinks has the book, force the “Synchronization” against their server, so that your device can inform the server that you really don’t have the book in your shelf. It took me a while to figure this out, I had about 2 or 3 books that was in this unreadable state for few days and made me sad *grin*
They are constantly adding new titles to the selections. Although they do not (probably) have rights to publishing on-going manga until it has completely been published (meaning you won’t find “One Piece” or “Bleach”) but I’ve got plenty to catch up on so I don’t mind at all. I’m reading “Deadman Wonderland” (at the time of this writing, they have published up to tankoubon #9) and it was awesome!
There are few I wish I can catch up on or wish they had the request option for but well, I will keep hoping they will get the rights sooner or later. I’ve searched for Adachi Mitsuru but none of his works are published yet *sigh* I also wanted to catch up on reading the rest of “yu yu hakusho” but they didn’t have it either. But they do have recent titles that have turned into anime such as “sora no otoshimono“, or entire collection of “genshiken” (by the way, may I also recommend “NHK ni youkoso” if you liked “genshiken” which they also have – oh and if you liked “NHK ni youkoso”, you may also like “kami no mizoshiru sekai“). They have vast collections from shounen, seinen, shoujo, and even adult/18+.
All in all, I have to watch my budget of making sure to limit myself to how much I buy per month, because if I don’t be careful, they will be taking all my money (but I am tempted to increase my manga allowance fund because I can’t stop reading). I love them, and I hope they will make lots of money and become rich! I am very thankful that they allow audiences outside Japan to be able to purchase. I hope eBookJapan becomes the Amazon.com for the manga distributor for the world! I hope that they reach the point where nobody else will be able to compete with them because they have all the audiences… And I hope I can continue to read many more original untouched manga as it was published in Japanese!
Last but not least, although eBookJapan seems to target phone users (they support both Android and iPhone), I purchased Nook Color just for this purpose (yes, primary reasons I paid $200 for Nook was for this sole purpose!), rooted it so I can install the reader. eBookJapan does have the features that will zoom into 4 partitions (each tap will go to the corners in the flow commonly used to read manga), but it just doesn’t feel right to me. The Nook is perfect for the single page of tankoubon, and it just makes it perfect!
Addendum: Last week, I’ve read something about some announcement of manga publishers in Japan is doing a beta or something to sell in USA (they announced it apparently in San Diego ComiCon). Too late for them! I hope eBookJapan makes all the money!
