Culture of Japan

I did kind of need a role to fill, but I also, again, wanted to be true to the character and to, to speak of like the pulling the thread, the thing I kind of like really pulled with Slade is like, he uses a katana.

So I was like, what if he's just a weeb? What if he loves Japanese, you know, what if that extends beyond just the use of the katana and that he's, so that hence like his obsession with anime and anger when Lena wants to watch anime with, with dubs instead of subs and all that kind of stuff.

So, you know, So I think Deathstroke is definitely probably the character I took the most liberties with.

So explain to me the Artemis Fowl reference, because you'll have to forgive me here.

And then we just throw Batman in and have them in there.

And then we, but yeah, so it was very much like, all right, we need to like, it's like the slasher thing of like, all right, we can just set up the cabin before the guy with the knife comes in and starts metaphorically stabbing everyone or in this case, throwing batarangs.

And it was a really nice way, too, I think, to set up some of the characters' own personality traits, right? Because you're leaning into that element, the Japanese element with Slade and kind of, you know, the meditation thing.

And then you have the gardens, you know, one is structured, one is not.

Wow.

Way to insult the Japanese culture.

If you go

up and pant somebody from behind, you have to ask their permission first.

In particular, it's common for fish to be left to slowly suffocate after being pulled out of the water.

After Safe Red Singer's essay, he started looking more deeply into the subject, and he found a traditional technique used by Japanese fishermen that involves putting a spike through the fish's brain to quickly kill the fish.

This is called ikejime, and many people believe that besides killing the fish more quickly, this technique also makes the fish meat last longer and taste better.

Saif started his company, Shinkai, to try and figure out how to turn Ikejime into an industrial process, to use technology to build a machine that can be used on fishing boats to kill fish quickly rather than let them suffocate slowly.

Right.

And so you're sort of down this rabbit hole and you find this.

It's a kind of manual, very artisanal, traditional Japanese method.

Right.

At first I used to wonder what she thought about, but afterwards I knew that at such times she did not think, she only felt.

I have some pictures of her as she was then, dressed in a gown of some quaint blue and white Japanese material, with her white throat bare.

I was just going to catalogue her charms, but it seems indelicate to describe a woman point by point like a horse that is for sale.

I have some other pictures of her too, as she appeared to me one hot summer when I was painting a picture by the river, and she used to come down the towing-path to watch me work, and sit beside me on the grass for hours together, talking, reading aloud, reciting, or silent, according to her mood, but always interesting.

But several others stood on the ground against the cabinets.

The walls were painted some dark color.

A Japanese screen was drawn across the door, and beside it was a hard, narrow settee, covered with dark green velvet.

Books were piled upon it, and heavily embroidered foreign stuffs, and near it a number of Japanese drawings stood on a stand.

Death isn't always separated from life, it's woven into it.

Japan has thousands of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, and these traditions have shaped the way Japanese people relate to memory, ancestors, impermanence and the natural world.

And perhaps that's one of the first things you notice as a visitor.

You don't necessarily have to go looking for places of remembrance.

And that too is kind of immortality.

Not immortality of the individual, but of something the individual carries for a while, before passing it on.

Which brings us to one of the great ideas running through Japanese culture.

Mujo.

Yep.

And I have not watched a huge amount of like old classic Japanese cinema.

Maybe watched a little bit more like back 20 years ago when I was studying Japanese cinema in general.

And even I am like, oh, I can like see these gestures and it's like, I remember this dude, like the way he scratches the back of his head, like they actually, like there's a slack jawed kind of way he does things like, oh, it's like they actually really did nail this.

And all the character animation is excellent.

It's set in Japan.

And so I've just really enjoyed researching Japanese etiquette and scenes and settings and all of that.

So that's been really fun.

And then after that, I have an idea for a contemporary fiction.