Day in the life of a Japanese video series and other videos

[MirKz]

I just watched the one with the lady who does graphics/art for Square Enix and it does look like a dream job. I was amazed with how much time she has to work on art and the general chill pace. From the location she lived in Tokyo to the size of her apartment it looked like she was making a good salary.

I wish I was talented or worked more in the arts growing up. The SE lady and the one guy who makes/designs figures seem like two of the happiest people doing what they love. I know it is very difficult to get jobs in that field though. One of my best friends growing up went to art school and specifically focused on creating graphics for video games and now he is just another real estate agent.

Yeah 100%, both looked like really fun/cool jobs. I too wish I'd worked on art more growing up. Whilst I did draw when I was young it wasn't until I left school that I really deep dived into learning to draw anime style and really enjoyed it. Unfortunately I couldn't find much info online at the time about an art school/drawing course that seemed to have that style in mind so it stayed a hobby and progressed slowly before kind of giving it up.
After watching some of these and the Cyberpunk anime series recently, the flame feels reignited and I want to give it another go though!

Always loved SE growing up (Squaresoft back then) and definitely wanted that as a dream job. Rubi certainly looked to be enjoying herself and I'm super jealous!

The modelling looks good too but nothing I'd pursue!


I think for me as radiator has said, it's the money that comes into it. It's nice having decent income for the toys etc and 'wants' in life. Rather than scrimping doing a job you love and getting paid crumbs or finding it tough in the market. It's a shame. I actually wish I could change my career into something more enjoyable that I love.

[radiator123]

Yeah 100%, both looked like really fun/cool jobs. I too wish I'd worked on art more growing up. Whilst I did draw when I was young it wasn't until I left school that I really deep dived into learning to draw anime style and really enjoyed it. Unfortunately I couldn't find much info online at the time about an art school/drawing course that seemed to have that style in mind so it stayed a hobby and progressed slowly before kind of giving it up.

Anime wasn't so big a couple of decades ago and the Internet was just getting started, so I think those were obstacles in your path towards an artistic career. If you had grown up over the last decade, there'd be more resources for you to make use of.

I think for me as radiator has said, it's the money that comes into it. It's nice having decent income for the toys etc and 'wants' in life. Rather than scrimping doing a job you love and getting paid crumbs or finding it tough in the market. It's a shame. I actually wish I could change my career into something more enjoyable that I love.

The older we get, the more difficult it is to change careers, but maybe we're not too old yet. Rubi herself changed careers and ended up working at SE, although she is about a decade younger.

Yeah, money is the main issue with turning a passionate hobby into a career, if the hobby is something that people don't tend to pay much for. I mean, if a person is Michaelangelo or Mozart, then no problem, but for mere mortals like me, people won't be queuing up to pay for my pieces of art.

I remember former mod Bernard_Monsha faced the same dilemma - one of his passions is paleontology and he was studying towards a degree for that with a view towards working in the field, but in the end decided to do something else when he realized that the pay scale was low, even for people with many years of postgrad study. And I guess one of my passions during my college days was maths, but again there are few employers who'd pay me decent wages to sit down and solve maths problems. A lot of people on my course went on to apply for business jobs that don't really require a maths degree.

[radiator123]

Finished watching the 6-part travel docu-comedy called James May: Our Man in Japan. It charts James's journey from the north to south of Japan, following a similar route to Joanna Lumley and Sue Perkins, two other Brits with their own Japan travel shows.

The comedy was rather hit-and-miss, with some parts leaving me in stiches but others being super-cringey. Overall, I think they tried too hard with the comedy aspects and it'd have been better to put more emphasis on the informative parts, which in isolation were very interesting because James did have a genuine interest in experiencing Japanese culture. I felt the Sue Perkins one, which I saw last year, also tried rather too hard with comedy but at least she had the excuse of being a comedian, unlike James. Also, he really went overboard with his haikus... some are fine, but he must have come up with around 10.

Some highlights:

* In Hokkaido, James visited one of the very few remaining swordsmiths who still produces samurai swords, Korehira Watanabe. One sword takes about a year to forge! The way James held the sword made me nervous and I'm surprised Watanabe let him handle it. James also went octopus fishing and apparently Japan consume about 2/3 of global octopus catch. He also visited a "Yatai", which I believe is some kind of cosy food cart/stall where people crowd together in a little portable hut and eat food.

* James visited some dude who makes robots in his garage, including a giant Gundam-sized robot that can walk about a bit and shoot tennis balls. That was quite fun, but they didn't reveal how much it cost to build.

* In Kawasaki, James took part in Kanamara Matsuri, a fertility festival held at one of the shrines there. It involved carrying a huge model of a penis, which was unique.

* In Kyoto, he was entertained by geisha (geiko) Tomitsuyu, who offered tea and music. She played a shamisen that was partly made out of cat's skin... I wonder if that's the traditional way of making it? Anyway, James enjoyed it, but I've seen highlights of geisha performances in a number of documentaries now and despite appreciating the artistry of it, the performances don't sit right with me because the geisha act too subserviently. I think that would end up annoying me at some point. Also learned that Kyoto is famous for its street food and for its ancient shrines, which were largely spared the bombings in WW2.

* In Osaka, James and his guide Yujiro went to see sumo-wrestlers training, and it was interesting how ritualistic it was because of its Shinto roots. Unfortunately, James didn't have a go and left Yujiro to do it on his own. They also went to Miyajima to see the Itsukushima Shrine, with its famous giant torii (gate from earthly to spiritual realm). Seen the torii before but didn't know where it was from.

* At the end of the trip, James visited a rural village in Shikoku in the south, where the population has declined by an order of magnitude from about 300 to 30 due to people leaving for cities to find work. A local artist decided to make dolls of people who've left and put them around the village, which I thought was a clever idea even though they looked spooky.

[radiator123]

Also, saw the below documentary recently, which was sad but quite interesting. It's about people who go missing in Japan - the jouhatsu or literally "evaporation". Apparently there are around 100,000 of them every year, which is substantial. The documentary explores some case studies that include interviews with some of the jouhatsu and also talks more generally about why people run away.

Saw another vid recently on jouhatsu, from a French news channel called FRANCE 24, as per below. This one was shorter and much less in-depth than the one I had watched nearly 2 years ago. Jake Adelstein made a cameo appearance, a name I recognized due to Suiko Eiji mentioning him in relation to investigating the Yakuza.

Unfortunately, the producers had difficulty tracking down the jouhatsu, so much of the vid was talking about the people who were left behind or general issues. Two of these were the parents of 21-yr old Makiko, who one day left for good. The parents kept her room the way it was the day she left, which must feel creepy - like time stood still as they said. They said it's something that they think about everyday, and it must be mental torture. But I'd like to have got Makiko's side of the story, and she must be suffering a lot too with whether she made the right decision or not. It's funny how the parents don't even draw attention to the problems she might be going through, instead focusing on their own trauma.

Interesting that in Japan, the police won't bother looking for a missing person if they left voluntarily, are not in danger, and don't pose a danger to others. Unlike in other countries like France. Jake was talking about a book called "The Complete Manual of Disappearance", which gave tips on how to evaporate, including writing an appropriate last note so that the police won't bother following up. Private investigators can be hired to look for missing people, but they're expensive at around $500 per day and the success rate is low due to strict privacy laws.

The producers finally interviewed an old man in his 60s at the end of the vid, who has been living as a homeless person in the Kamagasaki area in Osaka. He ran away about 20 years ago after losing his job and getting into heavy gambling debt, at which point he could no longer rely on help from his brother, who was feeling social pressure to dump him. So not wishing to be a burden, he cut all social ties. Sad story that most likely won't have a happy ending. It's good though that there's a pastor in the area helping out the homeless.

[radiator123]

Following up on the conversation a few of us had on the Yakuza in the Bucket List thread, I saw the below video with a former Yakuza member describing his gang life. He's called Yuyama Shinya and looks to be in his 40s or thereabouts. He made it to second-in-command of the boss, his "eldest son". This video was part of a series of other former gangsters from other countries, and the other videos were interesting too, such as a former Triad member and a former Hispanic gang member from California.

Some highlights of the video:

* Yuyama talks about how the Yakuza used to be more violent, but nowadays the focus is more on just getting money.
* He also says that there are a lot of rules (just like Japanese society in general then, ha) like not getting involved in drugs, but some of them are frequently ignored.
* The famous chop-off left-pinky finger punishment stems from the days of the samurai, because this finger was important for drawing a samurai sword. Yuyama did this to atone for lying to his boss.
* There's a strong family aspect to the Yakuza (apart from there being few women), as reflected in how he was treated like a son by his boss. From the other videos, I've noticed that a lot of gangs are very hierarchical and patriarchal, like a surrogate family crossed with a paramilitary group. Can see how this attracts disaffected youths.
* The Yakuza have done some social good such as helping people after natural disasters, but they often want something in return for this from people they've helped - they're not Robin Hood.

[radiator123]

Saw an interesting video (as per below) on life in the Japanese countryside, which I know little about. The video follows a British dude called Rupert who ended up buying and living from a farmhouse in Kyushu (I think Fukuoka), which came with surrounding farmland. He tends animals such as goats, chickens and cats, plants and harvests rice, and collects herbs. One of the herbs is called "mistuba", which makes sense as it has three (mitsu) leaves - I know from anime that yotsuba has four (yotsu) leaves. Rupert doesn't use insecticide, which seems like a risky strategy but works for him. The scenery is very picturesque and I love the quietude of the place - a world away from the hustle and bustle of city life. There was one scene where he was alone right next to a massive lake that looked quite pristine. I like his laid-back attitude and sense of humor (at least on-screen in this short video). Thought he made an excellent point about how machinization has improved efficiency but also takes away something due to it's lack of immediacy. The mozzies are a pain though. And living with some other villagers might lead to over-familiarity.

Disappointingly, the video had few details on how he ended up in Japan, how much his house cost, what kind of stuff he has in his house (e.g., any computers?), how he communicates with other villagers, how he met his wife, and how he learnt farming skills. I get the feeling the creators were overly keen on pushing the "simple, idyllic lifestyle", especially with the cheesy background music. In reality, he probably had to work hard to afford a farmhouse like that - did a little google and apparently a house like that costs on the order of hundreds of thousands of dollars. So not exactly simple living per se with a massive house such as that. Rupert himself remarked that life in the countryside is one of inconvenience, rather than pure simplicity. I also found an old article about him from 2014, and it says that he used to work as a photographer and graphic designer in Japan, before presumably moving to the countryside. The article also says that he helped out on an organic farm in Japan after an invitation from a friend, so perhaps this was where he learnt to be green-fingers.