General Japanese Culture Thread

^I'm reminded of Kamikaze Girls, where one of the female leads' whole quest at the start is to find a famous embroiderer to do her coat up better than anyone else's.

Edited by RedSavant on Sep 10th 2018 at 3:20:00 PM

A discussion on another site about the Excuse Plot of a hentai doujinshi^note Brief summary: an honors student's gyaru girlfriend is blackmailed by a sleazy janitor with a recording of the two teens having sex, forcing her into cheating on her boyfriend with said scumbag. brought up a very important question about Japanese culture that I want to confirm here: How much truth is in the idea that a Japanese high-school honors student with very good prospects for getting into a prestigous university will have his social life and the aforementioned prospects more or less ruined by having the fact that his secret girlfriend is a gyaru with a Dark Skinned Blond look and is rock-bottom when it comes to her grades be outed to the public?

Edited by MarqFJA on Sep 27th 2018 at 8:55:42 PM

You mean would a partner from a percievedly unusual background mess with his life in general? Good question. I wouldn't be surprised if it made life difficult due to pressure from parents and peers, but that's hardly unique to Japan.

Edited by TerminusEst on Sep 27th 2018 at 12:31:05 PM

Not just "perceivedly unusual background", but "of much lower social status" (bad academics, social rebel, presumably low-middle-class family background).

And sets Japan apart from many other countries in the developed world is its obsession with social conformity, saving face, and things of that nature. This, I believe, would be an important factor in answering my question. It's a fact that Japanese schools (and probably universities, too?) still heavily stigmatize students who are "disruptive" by coming to school with blonde/bright-colored hair — even if it's natural rather than bleached — and treat them all as delinquents just for that "offense".

Intimate relations in school is what will hit him harder than the actual dating part. Social pressure will probably attempt to make him break-up to save face if it becomes public, and things will continue on normally. The girl is in a more vulnerable position there.

Which is not exactly something unique to Japanese culture.

What if him initiating the break-up is a non-option for him, i.e. he'd willingly sacrifice a prestigous future in order to stay with his girlfriend (whom he probably intends to marry either way)?

Dude, it's porn. Not only that, it's rape-by-blackmail porn. Please take it with some salt.

Also, the kids got taped having sex at school. Yeah, that's probably a black mark of sorts. Not as much as rape-by-blackmail, but I can see a real hoity-toity prestigious school making a problem out of it.

Any school would probably expel them frankly.

I am glad some one said it, I wanted too but I was biting my tongue to not offend....

Social class is a lot more malleable then it used to be as long as your not living in some place like Osaka... the most your going to get is distaste from your elders, and pressure to break up its not going to keep you from getting into a university.

....

The bigger problem would be like stated would be the whole... doing that at school thing, not only are they doing it at school.... there under age.

Hell, they’d face about the same kind of punishment in America too in that hypothetical situation

1st joint survey planned for Japan's largest ancient tomb

Oh wow, they're actually looking into it? I hope there are some outside observers; as far as I know, the general academic consensus is that the interior of the tomb is likely to be, to use the scientific phrase, "Korean as fuck", and given the current state of international politics I'm not sure I would put it past the Japanese government to surreptitiously tip any identifiably Korean artifacts into the bin during their survey.

That’s ... depressing

Like I’m laughing but I’m dead inside

That has been long since admitted, even Akihito said that he had Korean descent through Emperor Kanmu. The Kofun period saw significant Korean and Chinese migration, to the point you can find kofun in Korea. However, by the time they were built you'd have Yamato living in Baekje, being a collection of groups including Chinese and Korean descendants IIRC, not just one unified polity. A lot of early clans were also Chinese and Korean in origin.

The IHA has been protective as hell as the early emperors like Nintoku are legendary and there's little verification about them. They don't like people messing with the traditional imperial narrative. However, preservation is also their job, so I suppose they negotiated some form of deal.

Edited by TerminusEst on Oct 16th 2018 at 1:03:18 AM

Are relations between Japan and South Korea that bad? (Not counting North Korea for obvious reasons.)

Depends on the subject. On a general level, things work out, but the legacy of Imperial Japan is so strong that it poisons the waters to some degree. Pragmatism keeps the thing afloat if nothing else. Moon's and Trump's friendlier attitude towards North Korea is really grinding at Abe.

The Japanese right-wing view of national chauvanism basically despises Koreans, and any suggestion that Korean or Chinese were a significant part of the development of Japan tend to get you censured pretty hard. Even Akihito was disparaged for saying he had Korean descent.

Edited by TerminusEst on Oct 16th 2018 at 1:09:05 AM

Japan and Korea have historically had bad relations. But then, most of East Asia has historically bad relations with each other. Present day relations between East Asian countries are informed by this.

Edited by M84 on Oct 16th 2018 at 4:07:50 PM

In a weird way, it's such a formalised dance it keeps things predictable and stable. Until recently.

It hasn't been an easy time for East Asia. North Korea vacillating between warmongering and claiming to want peace (especially since their nuke testing mountain collapsed), South Korea having an impeachment, Abe flirting with bringing back Japan's military, and Xi Jinping hellbent on out-Maoing Mao in terms of making an impact on China's identity...

You're implying that anything said by the Imperial family bears any relationship to the Imperial Household Agency's agenda.

Touché. What I meant was that regardless of what IHA says, it has little bearing on reality. Pretty sure the Kanmu connection was in some historical record. Can't remember which one though.

Regardless, I am a bit surprised that they'd allow this though. Makes me wonder if they were forced into it due to preservation concerns or if people finally managed to convince them.

Edited by TerminusEst on Oct 16th 2018 at 3:02:16 AM

I, for one, sincerely hope it's primarily the Imperial family who have been pushing for this (under the valid guise of preservation). They could do with the success.

Because anything that lets them spoke the IHA's wheels and wake them up to the C21th (and reality) even a little makes me giggle. That family are the ones most imprisoned by the bastards. It's a lovely Gilded Cage, I'm sure. But.

Edited by Euodiachloris on Oct 16th 2018 at 2:20:58 PM

It wouldn't mater at all, the IHA has contorl over the royal family, not the other way around... No mater what they say the IHA has no reason to listen.

There are some exceptions, for example they did listen on the abdication issue. Somewhat unusually, they directly challenged Abe and the LDP on it (not publically obviously), fighting in Akihito's corner. They also allowed NHK to break the story considerably in advance.

One of the few things the Emperor can choose or dismiss at leisure (IIRC) was the Grand Steward and other functionaries of the Agency. Wouldn't be surprised if over time thanks to Crown Prince Naruhito's influence, they'd mellow out due to staff changes. But this is speculation.

Edited by TerminusEst on Oct 16th 2018 at 10:27:05 AM