General Japanese Culture Thread

Basically, it's Coconut Superpowers.

edited 25th Jun '14 7:29:18 AM by TheHandle

My reaction to the concept and phrasing of Coconut Superpowers.◊

I love this site.

Most of what I do know about Japanese culture is from BEGIN Japanology and Japanology Plus episodes (the latter is just a tweak on the former's format; they also added a short segment called "Plus One" for Matt Alt)...and I'm about to watch the Japanology Plus episode on Akihabara. lol

Peter Barakan (the show's host) is one of the more obvious signs of Japan's uh...fascination with the British. They seem to love him instantly lol. Goes without saying that the NHK is modeled heavily on the BBC. lol

edited 26th Jun '14 4:14:20 AM by entropy13

And the Germans. And the French.

lol when they were talking about otaku, the drawings accompanying the "5 main types" are of the decidedly comedic style, ala Crayon Shin-chan.

The Japanese and the Germans became friendly even before WWII. The Japanese government was extremely impressed with Prussia (the predecessor to modern Germany) and how they soundly defeated the French (whom the Japanese had previously admired) during the Franco-Prussian War. It was Prussia, in fact, that advised Japan to turn to militarism to strengthen the country.

And that's why they followed Germany's advice and had the fellow island nation of Britain as inspiration.

You can trace whichever European power Japan was emulating that week in the Empire's military music. This came from a British phase:

edited 26th Jun '14 7:45:59 AM by Achaemenid

LMFAO.

"Whose side is Japan on?"

"At the moment?"

edited 26th Jun '14 8:34:11 AM by KingZeal

The admiration for Prussia wasn't confined to military matters, the early Japanese university system was also pretty explicitly modeled after the German universities of the late 19th century/early 20th century. But then again Germany pretty much had the best universities at the time, so not a bad choice really.

Actually, it was the same with the Political System — there's a reason their Parliament is called the Diet.

The US similarly went through a phase of mimicking other countries' setups in various ways. IIRC, the US Army was modeled after the Prussians until the Franco-Prussian War, after which they reorganized it to flow along French patterns. Nowadays I think we just do whatever the hell we feel like doing, if we're aware of any particular doctrine to be following.

I would assume after World War II we became the doctrine aside from Communist bloc countries and some former French and British colonies.

I don't believe there are many who would want to imitate the US education or healthcare systems...

For military, i mean.

Japan enters the era of smartphones and 'dumbwalking' — The smartphone has arrived, despite Japan being somewhat late adopters of the technology.

Japan is quite weird with phones. I never understood why they loved their clamshell phones (this was during the era of Nokia's undisputed dominance, with the 3310, then 6610, 7210, etc.).

OK, the headline of the article is a bit misleading. They've had smartphones in Japan (Android and iPhone) for years now. I had a Sharp Aquos smartphone for a couple years that had a great screen and was waterproof, but could have used some better battery life. Once you enable the English language display for the phone, it also has the occasional charmingly bad English.

Some of them are very weird in distinctly Japanese ways, like the phones that double as pocketable HDT Vs with a little extendable antenna.

Being a kendo fanboy (though I'm trying to get back to it again), I'll post this video I found.

From a personal point of view, it boils down to two reasons - low cost and affordability combined with high endurance and punishment stamina; you could literally throw one at a brick wall and still come back with a perfectly functioning cell phone.

I've even seen a small handful of clamshell Android phones out here.

I was there a little over two years ago, and clamshell "keitai" were still the big thing. All the functionality of a smartphone, just in a very different form factor.

I like the Japanese taste in phones. I remember visiting a big Japanese outlet mall in Fukuoka and being astonished by how awesome their consumer electronics were. The shinkansen is pretty epic too - the food's actually half-decent, unlike aircraft.

I still think the finest achievement of modern Japan is those little train thingies in restaurants that deliver your sushi.

Quite. As You Know, the British Government seem to like the idea so much that they've asked Hitachi to make the trains for their version^note  Personally, I think there's a fair few Japanophiles in the Conservative Party and in their advisors, you know...

edited 20th Jul '14 2:34:02 PM by Greenmantle

Oh how I wish we had shinkansen over here. It would definitely cut down on gas and the like (or would it?).

On another note, I was just looking up whaling and the like. What are your thoughts on Japan's methods, which have generated lots of controversy?

Also, who here as been to Japan? What was it like?

edited 21st Jul '14 5:17:57 PM by LDragon2