Welcome to AnimeNation Welcome Thread for the Welcoming!!!

[radiator123]

I’ve been watching the original series of Evangelion. I forgot since my hiatus from anime more Evangelion movies have come out. I watched the first Evangelion movie and have been trying to watch the second one. Not sure if I like the movies or not.

I’ll have to refresh my memory on the Evangelion series before discussing it right now I’m only four episodes in. I have been tempted to pick up the manga as I stopped reading it back in 2010.

As for FMAB I think I’d have to refresh my memory. I should clarify that was the newest anime series I’ve watched way back in 2010-2011. I do remember preferring Fullmetal Alchemist to Brotherhood as Brotherhood is very much a shonen which I’ve never been a huge fan of.

Haven't watched the Rebuild of Evangelion movies myself, but I heard that the first two follow the series more-or-less, before the last two movies deviate wildly. As for FMAB, I agree that it does have a shounen feel to it, but it's one of the better shounens that I've watched. I do plan on watching the original series to see how it differs in story and tone.

Anyways, hope to see you around!

[Nutmeg]

If its not too much trouble that would be great thanks!

Send me a DM with your original username. I'll sort it out for you... or try to.

[Greboruri]

Hello. I'm not actually new here. I joined sometime in 2006 but left for some reason that I cannot remember! I am kind of a Twitter refugee (or X or whatever hairbrained idea the owner of that site has today...) and I'm trying to find another place really.

I first came across Japanese pop culture in 1980 on Australian television with Battle of the Planets (English dub of Gatchaman), Monkey! (UK English dub of the live action / tokusatsu series Saiyuki) and Star Blazers (English dub of the first two series of Yamato). I loved all of those shows when I was a kid. As the 1980's progressed, I also discovered Nitto and Arii's plastic model kits of Crusher Joe and Macross robots and spaceships which for some reason had made their way into local hobby shops. I also discovered Kow Yokoyama's Maschinen Krieger (aka SF3D) model kits, but they were insanely expense for a 12 year old and I only ever bought one. I also discovered Robotech somewhere in the mid 1980's, but the schedule for the series was a bit all over the shop and we moved towns, so I only managed to see a few episodes, though I was intrigued with the concept of a city inside a massive transforming battle ship.

Next time I came across any Japanese pop culture was on SBS TV Australia with subtitled screenings of the anime / live action hybrid Twilight of the Cockroaches, the 1954 Godzilla and Godzilla vs Biollante in 1993, all of which I loved and was the first time I had seen a Godzilla film. Around the same time Ultraman Towards the Future (Ultraman Great) was broadcast late at night on Nine Network Australia, which I watched each week.

In the following year I moved from the country town I was in to Canberra for work and discovered "Manga Videos" (i.e. anime released by Australian company who had the licence for UK company Manga Entertainment releases) and I sort of fell really hard into that world. I went to local anime club, somehow ended up running the club with a friend, helped with another club at another university when that one folded, helped run an anime convention, had two defunct websites dedicated to two anime franchises and few defunct blogs, wrote for a website or two, wrote for a fanzine once etc.

I did slow down and not do a lot of fandom related stuff in the mid 2000's. However around 2011 I picked up a flyer at a Japanese film convention about "anime tourism", then happened on a website dedicated to buying doujinshi in Japan and how to get there. I did some calculations and realised I could afford to go and that it was pretty much doable. So since 2012 I have been six times, traveling as far north as a bit above Sendai and as far south as Kumamoto. Last time I went to Japan, I finally saw the cherry blossoms which I always wanted to see. I was absolutely determined to see them so I figured out when the earliest ever blooms were and the latest ever blooms were and used those dates as my travel dates. However the pandemic hit and I had to delay it until March / April this year and my holiday ballooned into a month long trip, mostly in the Kanto region, but also to Kansai, Fukuoka, Yamanashi, Tochigi, Kanagawa and Fukushima regions.

In my travels over the years I did a lot of anime and tokusatsu related stuff like AnimeJapan (twice), Wonder Festival, Comic Market (never again, especially in summer...) and the Nipponbashi Street Festa. I also went and saw the Osamu Manga Museum, Ishinomori Manga Museum (museum for mangaka Shotaro Ishinomori), Eiji Tsuburaya Museum, the Ghibli Museum, the Bandai Museum, several full sized robot statues (three Gundams, Tetsujin 28, half scale Scope Dog from Votoms, Macross Valkyrie VF-25 at Tokyo Skytree), saw Toyosato Elementary School (K-ON! pilgrimage), rode the Evangelion Shinkansen and a lot of one off exhibitions and visits to landmarks or statues.

Probably my favourite anime are Patlabor, Cardcaptor Sakura, K-ON!, the original Gundam TV series, the original Space Battleship Yamato series, the original Gatchaman series, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Escaflowne, Love Live! Sunshine!! and Dirty Pair. Recent favourites have been Free!, Revue Starlight, Ya Boy Kongming!, Suzume, The Deer King, Gundam Cucuruz Doan's Island, Violet Evergarden and Dororo (2019). However I tend to not watch a lot of new stuff and am so far behind on what is out now. My favourite genres tend to be mecha and magical girl.

With tokusatsu my all time favourites are Ultraseven, Ultraman Gaia, the 1990's Gamera trilogy, Kamen Rider V3, Red Barron, the original 1954 Godzilla, anything by Keita Amemiya especially Zeiram and Garo, Shin Godzilla and Masaaki Tezuka's Godzilla films.

Finally I really got into Japanese music more than decade ago. Favourites include J-Pop trio Perfume, noise punk trio eX-Girl, independent shoegaze band Spool and defunct shoegaze inspired underground idol group ・・・・・・・・・ (aka dots or Dots Tokyo) and their follow up group Ray. I'm sort of now delving into the Shibuya Kei genre with artists like Kahimi Karie and Keigo Oyamada.

Anyway, sorry for the long introduction...

[AnnaLovesAnime]

Hello. I'm not actually new here. I joined sometime in 2006 but left for some reason that I cannot remember! I am kind of a Twitter refugee (or X or whatever hairbrained idea the owner of that site has today...) and I'm trying to find another place really.

I first came across Japanese pop culture in 1980 on Australian television with Battle of the Planets (English dub of Gatchaman), Monkey! (UK English dub of the live action / tokusatsu series Saiyuki) and Star Blazers (English dub of the first two series of Yamato). I loved all of those shows when I was a kid. As the 1980's progressed, I also discovered Nitto and Arii's plastic model kits of Crusher Joe and Macross robots and spaceships which for some reason had made their way into local hobby shops. I also discovered Kow Yokoyama's Maschinen Krieger (aka SF3D) model kits, but they were insanely expense for a 12 year old and I only ever bought one. I also discovered Robotech somewhere in the mid 1980's, but the schedule for the series was a bit all over the shop and we moved towns, so I only managed to see a few episodes, though I was intrigued with the concept of a city inside a massive transforming battle ship.

Next time I came across any Japanese pop culture was on SBS TV Australia with subtitled screenings of the anime / live action hybrid Twilight of the Cockroaches, the 1954 Godzilla and Godzilla vs Biollante in 1993, all of which I loved and was the first time I had seen a Godzilla film. Around the same time Ultraman Towards the Future (Ultraman Great) was broadcast late at night on Nine Network Australia, which I watched each week.

In the following year I moved from the country town I was in to Canberra for work and discovered "Manga Videos" (i.e. anime released by Australian company who had the licence for UK company Manga Entertainment releases) and I sort of fell really hard into that world. I went to local anime club, somehow ended up running the club with a friend, helped with another club at another university when that one folded, helped run an anime convention, had two defunct websites dedicated to two anime franchises and few defunct blogs, wrote for a website or two, wrote for a fanzine once etc.

I did slow down and not do a lot of fandom related stuff in the mid 2000's. However around 2011 I picked up a flyer at a Japanese film convention about "anime tourism", then happened on a website dedicated to buying doujinshi in Japan and how to get there. I did some calculations and realised I could afford to go and that it was pretty much doable. So since 2012 I have been six times, traveling as far north as a bit above Sendai and as far south as Kumamoto. Last time I went to Japan, I finally saw the cherry blossoms which I always wanted to see. I was absolutely determined to see them so I figured out when the earliest ever blooms were and the latest ever blooms were and used those dates as my travel dates. However the pandemic hit and I had to delay it until March / April this year and my holiday ballooned into a month long trip, mostly in the Kanto region, but also to Kansai, Fukuoka, Yamanashi, Tochigi, Kanagawa and Fukushima regions.

In my travels over the years I did a lot of anime and tokusatsu related stuff like AnimeJapan (twice), Wonder Festival, Comic Market (never again, especially in summer...) and the Nipponbashi Street Festa. I also went and saw the Osamu Manga Museum, Ishinomori Manga Museum (museum for mangaka Shotaro Ishinomori), Eiji Tsuburaya Museum, the Ghibli Museum, the Bandai Museum, several full sized robot statues (three Gundams, Tetsujin 28, half scale Scope Dog from Votoms, Macross Valkyrie VF-25 at Tokyo Skytree), saw Toyosato Elementary School (K-ON! pilgrimage), rode the Evangelion Shinkansen and a lot of one off exhibitions and visits to landmarks or statues.

Probably my favourite anime are Patlabor, Cardcaptor Sakura, K-ON!, the original Gundam TV series, the original Space Battleship Yamato series, the original Gatchaman series, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Escaflowne, Love Live! Sunshine!! and Dirty Pair. Recent favourites have been Free!, Revue Starlight, Ya Boy Kongming!, Suzume, The Deer King, Gundam Cucuruz Doan's Island, Violet Evergarden and Dororo (2019). However I tend to not watch a lot of new stuff and am so far behind on what is out now. My favourite genres tend to be mecha and magical girl.

With tokusatsu my all time favourites are Ultraseven, Ultraman Gaia, the 1990's Gamera trilogy, Kamen Rider V3, Red Barron, the original 1954 Godzilla, anything by Keita Amemiya especially Zeiram and Garo, Shin Godzilla and Masaaki Tezuka's Godzilla films.

Finally I really got into Japanese music more than decade ago. Favourites include J-Pop trio Perfume, noise punk trio eX-Girl, independent shoegaze band Spool and defunct shoegaze inspired underground idol group ・・・・・・・・・ (aka dots or Dots Tokyo) and their follow up group Ray. I'm sort of now delving into the Shibuya Kei genre with artists like Kahimi Karie and Keigo Oyamada.

Anyway, sorry for the long introduction...

Hi Greboruri! Nice to meet you and welcome back! I'm mostly on Twitter when I AM online, too nowadays! Most of the time, I'm really busy offline and get back online in the evenings.

[radiator123]

Hello. I'm not actually new here. I joined sometime in 2006 but left for some reason that I cannot remember! I am kind of a Twitter refugee (or X or whatever hairbrained idea the owner of that site has today...) and I'm trying to find another place really.

Thanks for the awesomely detailed re-introduction, and you've been part of AN for nearly two decades now! It's quiet here nowadays, especially over weekends, but there are still a few dozen of us left who are active to varying degrees. AN is now funded by active members, so it should be around for as long as they're around. Recently, we were taken over by RightStuf (with an influx of members from their forums) for a while (their banner is still on the front page), but we soon got our independence back. There was a couple of years where we struggled to raise funds, but John and Gene came in clutch by auctioning some of their animanga collection.

I first came across Japanese pop culture in 1980 on Australian television with Battle of the Planets (English dub of Gatchaman), Monkey! (UK English dub of the live action / tokusatsu series Saiyuki) and Star Blazers (English dub of the first two series of Yamato). I loved all of those shows when I was a kid. As the 1980's progressed, I also discovered Nitto and Arii's plastic model kits of Crusher Joe and Macross robots and spaceships which for some reason had made their way into local hobby shops. I also discovered Kow Yokoyama's Maschinen Krieger (aka SF3D) model kits, but they were insanely expense for a 12 year old and I only ever bought one. I also discovered Robotech somewhere in the mid 1980's, but the schedule for the series was a bit all over the shop and we moved towns, so I only managed to see a few episodes, though I was intrigued with the concept of a city inside a massive transforming battle ship.

Wow, it sounds like there were a whole lot more anime being shown on Australian TV in the 80s and 90s than in the UK where I grew up. Which makes sense given that Australia is in much closer proximity to Japan (I believe a lot of schools teach Japanese?). To my knowledge our TV networks didn't show Battle of the Planets, Monkey!, Star Blazers or Robotech. There was a corresponding lack of model kits in local hobby stores, which focused more on things like train kits and lego sets.

Next time I came across any Japanese pop culture was on SBS TV Australia with subtitled screenings of the anime / live action hybrid Twilight of the Cockroaches, the 1954 Godzilla and Godzilla vs Biollante in 1993, all of which I loved and was the first time I had seen a Godzilla film. Around the same time Ultraman Towards the Future (Ultraman Great) was broadcast late at night on Nine Network Australia, which I watched each week.

Godzilla films were aired over here too, although sadly I didn't pay much attention to them. I don't remember seeing any Ultraman though. To be honest, I was ignorant about anime and Japanese culture in general until my late teens, when I got into anime in earnest. But I abandoned anime for a long time when I started working, due to lack of time and motivation.

In the following year I moved from the country town I was in to Canberra for work and discovered "Manga Videos" (i.e. anime released by Australian company who had the licence for UK company Manga Entertainment releases) and I sort of fell really hard into that world. I went to local anime club, somehow ended up running the club with a friend, helped with another club at another university when that one folded, helped run an anime convention, had two defunct websites dedicated to two anime franchises and few defunct blogs, wrote for a website or two, wrote for a fanzine once etc.

That's hardcore - coincidentally, Suiko Eiji also helped to run a local anime club and an anime club at uni when he was growing up in the States. Guess this is quite a common trajectory for big anime fans. I did hear about Manga Entertainment having an Australian branch back in the day. I've been to Canberra before and remember going to the Australian War Memorial there, as well as seeing some cockatoos flying around the streets.

I did slow down and not do a lot of fandom related stuff in the mid 2000's. However around 2011 I picked up a flyer at a Japanese film convention about "anime tourism", then happened on a website dedicated to buying doujinshi in Japan and how to get there. I did some calculations and realised I could afford to go and that it was pretty much doable. So since 2012 I have been six times, traveling as far north as a bit above Sendai and as far south as Kumamoto. Last time I went to Japan, I finally saw the cherry blossoms which I always wanted to see. I was absolutely determined to see them so I figured out when the earliest ever blooms were and the latest ever blooms were and used those dates as my travel dates. However the pandemic hit and I had to delay it until March / April this year and my holiday ballooned into a month long trip, mostly in the Kanto region, but also to Kansai, Fukuoka, Yamanashi, Tochigi, Kanagawa and Fukushima regions.

In my travels over the years I did a lot of anime and tokusatsu related stuff like AnimeJapan (twice), Wonder Festival, Comic Market (never again, especially in summer...) and the Nipponbashi Street Festa. I also went and saw the Osamu Manga Museum, Ishinomori Manga Museum (museum for mangaka Shotaro Ishinomori), Eiji Tsuburaya Museum, the Ghibli Museum, the Bandai Museum, several full sized robot statues (three Gundams, Tetsujin 28, half scale Scope Dog from Votoms, Macross Valkyrie VF-25 at Tokyo Skytree), saw Toyosato Elementary School (K-ON! pilgrimage), rode the Evangelion Shinkansen and a lot of one off exhibitions and visits to landmarks or statues.

That's incredible! Which city was your favorite? This is the first time that I've heard of anime tourism, but it makes a lot of sense given how many international anime fans there are and how many anime are based in real locations in Japan. I remember hearing about the Eva Shinkansen and thinking it'd be cool to ride in it - looks like it's closed down now. But I guess riding in a regular train with a cassette player on loop is more faithful to the series . I've only been to Japan once (Tokyo and the nearby city of Mishima) and only did a tiny fraction of the stuff you did. Did go to the Ghilbi Museum and had a blast looking at animation cels, learning more about the behind-the-scenes stuff, and seeing the life-size model of a Laputian Heavenly Trooper. But the food in the cafe was meh and the place was rather small.

Probably my favourite anime are Patlabor, Cardcaptor Sakura, K-ON!, the original Gundam TV series, the original Space Battleship Yamato series, the original Gatchaman series, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Escaflowne, Love Live! Sunshine!! and Dirty Pair. Recent favourites have been Free!, Revue Starlight, Ya Boy Kongming!, Suzume, The Deer King, Gundam Cucuruz Doan's Island, Violet Evergarden and Dororo (2019). However I tend to not watch a lot of new stuff and am so far behind on what is out now. My favourite genres tend to be mecha and magical girl.

That's a solid list there; the Patlabor movies, CCS, original Gundam compilation movies, Escaflowne, and Violet Evergarden are ones I've seen. I like mecha but tend to go for shounen rather than magical girl. Haven't seen a ton of new stuff either because I only got back into anime recently during the pandemic, to alleviate boredom and stress. Hope you managed OK during the pandemic, especially with the many lockdowns. Violet Evergarden ended up being one of my favorite series - I loved the way it tackled loss and grief, not just the sad aspects but the way in which they can make people grow and become more appreciative of life. Apart from that, I liked A Silent Voice, a movie by KyoAni that I thought did a great job of tackling mental aspects. Also watched the latest Gundam series (Witch from Mercury), which was the first to have a female protagonist. Some people say it has similarities with Revolutionary Girl Utena, but I'm not sure how true this is.

With tokusatsu my all time favourites are Ultraseven, Ultraman Gaia, the 1990's Gamera trilogy, Kamen Rider V3, Red Barron, the original 1954 Godzilla, anything by Keita Amemiya especially Zeiram and Garo, Shin Godzilla and Masaaki Tezuka's Godzilla films.

Finally I really got into Japanese music more than decade ago. Favourites include J-Pop trio Perfume, noise punk trio eX-Girl, independent shoegaze band Spool and defunct shoegaze inspired underground idol group ・・・・・・・・・ (aka dots or Dots Tokyo) and their follow up group Ray. I'm sort of now delving into the Shibuya Kei genre with artists like Kahimi Karie and Keigo Oyamada.

Have barely seen any tokusatsu, but I do remember having fuzzy memories of Kamen Rider and Godzilla. In terms of Japanese music, most of what I've listened to are connected to anime that I've watched, so I'm unfamiliar with the artists that you've listed there. Recently I got into the music of Hiroyuki Sawano, whose music often has a grand feeling to it and pumps me up. Joe Hisaishi is also one of my favorites.

[Goddy]

Hello. I'm not actually new here. I joined sometime in 2006 but left for some reason that I cannot remember! I am kind of a Twitter refugee (or X or whatever hairbrained idea the owner of that site has today...) and I'm trying to find another place really.

I first came across Japanese pop culture in 1980 on Australian television with Battle of the Planets (English dub of Gatchaman), Monkey! (UK English dub of the live action / tokusatsu series Saiyuki) and Star Blazers (English dub of the first two series of Yamato). I loved all of those shows when I was a kid. As the 1980's progressed, I also discovered Nitto and Arii's plastic model kits of Crusher Joe and Macross robots and spaceships which for some reason had made their way into local hobby shops. I also discovered Kow Yokoyama's Maschinen Krieger (aka SF3D) model kits, but they were insanely expense for a 12 year old and I only ever bought one. I also discovered Robotech somewhere in the mid 1980's, but the schedule for the series was a bit all over the shop and we moved towns, so I only managed to see a few episodes, though I was intrigued with the concept of a city inside a massive transforming battle ship.

Next time I came across any Japanese pop culture was on SBS TV Australia with subtitled screenings of the anime / live action hybrid Twilight of the Cockroaches, the 1954 Godzilla and Godzilla vs Biollante in 1993, all of which I loved and was the first time I had seen a Godzilla film. Around the same time Ultraman Towards the Future (Ultraman Great) was broadcast late at night on Nine Network Australia, which I watched each week.

In the following year I moved from the country town I was in to Canberra for work and discovered "Manga Videos" (i.e. anime released by Australian company who had the licence for UK company Manga Entertainment releases) and I sort of fell really hard into that world. I went to local anime club, somehow ended up running the club with a friend, helped with another club at another university when that one folded, helped run an anime convention, had two defunct websites dedicated to two anime franchises and few defunct blogs, wrote for a website or two, wrote for a fanzine once etc.

I did slow down and not do a lot of fandom related stuff in the mid 2000's. However around 2011 I picked up a flyer at a Japanese film convention about "anime tourism", then happened on a website dedicated to buying doujinshi in Japan and how to get there. I did some calculations and realised I could afford to go and that it was pretty much doable. So since 2012 I have been six times, traveling as far north as a bit above Sendai and as far south as Kumamoto. Last time I went to Japan, I finally saw the cherry blossoms which I always wanted to see. I was absolutely determined to see them so I figured out when the earliest ever blooms were and the latest ever blooms were and used those dates as my travel dates. However the pandemic hit and I had to delay it until March / April this year and my holiday ballooned into a month long trip, mostly in the Kanto region, but also to Kansai, Fukuoka, Yamanashi, Tochigi, Kanagawa and Fukushima regions.

In my travels over the years I did a lot of anime and tokusatsu related stuff like AnimeJapan (twice), Wonder Festival, Comic Market (never again, especially in summer...) and the Nipponbashi Street Festa. I also went and saw the Osamu Manga Museum, Ishinomori Manga Museum (museum for mangaka Shotaro Ishinomori), Eiji Tsuburaya Museum, the Ghibli Museum, the Bandai Museum, several full sized robot statues (three Gundams, Tetsujin 28, half scale Scope Dog from Votoms, Macross Valkyrie VF-25 at Tokyo Skytree), saw Toyosato Elementary School (K-ON! pilgrimage), rode the Evangelion Shinkansen and a lot of one off exhibitions and visits to landmarks or statues.

Probably my favourite anime are Patlabor, Cardcaptor Sakura, K-ON!, the original Gundam TV series, the original Space Battleship Yamato series, the original Gatchaman series, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Escaflowne, Love Live! Sunshine!! and Dirty Pair. Recent favourites have been Free!, Revue Starlight, Ya Boy Kongming!, Suzume, The Deer King, Gundam Cucuruz Doan's Island, Violet Evergarden and Dororo (2019). However I tend to not watch a lot of new stuff and am so far behind on what is out now. My favourite genres tend to be mecha and magical girl.

With tokusatsu my all time favourites are Ultraseven, Ultraman Gaia, the 1990's Gamera trilogy, Kamen Rider V3, Red Barron, the original 1954 Godzilla, anything by Keita Amemiya especially Zeiram and Garo, Shin Godzilla and Masaaki Tezuka's Godzilla films.

Finally I really got into Japanese music more than decade ago. Favourites include J-Pop trio Perfume, noise punk trio eX-Girl, independent shoegaze band Spool and defunct shoegaze inspired underground idol group ・・・・・・・・・ (aka dots or Dots Tokyo) and their follow up group Ray. I'm sort of now delving into the Shibuya Kei genre with artists like Kahimi Karie and Keigo Oyamada.

Anyway, sorry for the long introduction...

Welcome! Please stick around and post. I promise we don't bite.

I'm sure we probably crossed paths at some point; I've been here since '02 and was under goddessofanime.

[TsukuyomiMagi99]

Greboruri

Welcome back, I am relatively new here. It is always an honor to meet a hardcore anime fan and Japanophile. No need to apologize for your re-introduction, it was an impressive read. I look forward to reading more of your posts.

[Greboruri]

Thank you for the warm welcome TsukuyomiMagi99, Goddy, AnnaLovesAnime and radiator123!

Thanks for the awesomely detailed re-introduction, and you've been part of AN for nearly two decades now!

I used to buy a lot of stuff from AN when they were still a shop and still have the DVDs of Risky Safety with the collector's box and Miami Guns. I sort of miss message boards. Somehow it is less chaotic than social media. Honestly only been on the message boards here maybe a dozen times in two decades...

Wow, it sounds like there were a whole lot more anime being shown on Australian TV in the 80s and 90s than in the UK where I grew up. Which makes sense given that Australia is in much closer proximity to Japan (I believe a lot of schools teach Japanese?). To my knowledge our TV networks didn't show Battle of the Planets, Monkey!, Star Blazers or Robotech.

It's really odd as there was a lot of anime released on VHS in the UK in the 1980's, but not a lot on TV. Monkey! was dubbed and broadcast on the BBC in 1979, only once though! The BBC also broadcast Battle of the Planets about the same time according to website I found. There was a lot of anime on TV here in the 1960's, plus stuff like Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot and The Samurai (Onmitsu Kenshi), the latter which was insanely popular. In the 1970's there was lull, then more stuff in the late 1970's through to the mid 1980's, then another lull until the early 1990's.

They started teaching Japanese in schools the year after I left high school!

I've been to Canberra before and remember going to the Australian War Memorial there, as well as seeing some cockatoos flying around the streets.

There are big flocks outside my workplace in the park feeding, on occasion with smaller flocks of Galahs. I now work not too far from the War Memorial, though it's a lot closer to Old Parliament House.

That's incredible! Which city was your favorite? This is the first time that I've heard of anime tourism, but it makes a lot of sense given how many international anime fans there are and how many anime are based in real locations in Japan. I remember hearing about the Eva Shinkansen and thinking it'd be cool to ride in it - looks like it's closed down now.

I like Osaka because it's like a laidback Tokyo and far less busy. But I really like the little towns outside the big cities and would like to live out there if I had no choice but to live in Japan (not really fond of their work culture to say the least...). The only issue with those little towns is waiting for trains. A couple of towns I went to last time the trains only ran once an hour. The line Toyosato is on is a private railway which didn't use the cashless travel cards most other railways do in Japan. It was weird buying a paper ticket and the station wasn't manned when I got to my destination. I liked Kobe as well, extremely friendly city. I think I have done Japan over, just about seen everything I wanted to. Maybe one more trip for Sapporo Snow Festival and that's it. What probably disappointed me about Japan last time was a lot of my favourite shops had downsized considerably or shut up shop completely since I had been there last. Shibuya was a big disappointment last time, especially the Mandarake store (Tower Records is still my favourite shop there though). At the very least Kanransha (Ferris Wheel) and Mandarake Mania Kan in Nakano Broadway are still operating and sell a ton of movie programs, movie and TV press kits and movie flyers which make up the bulk of things I collect now.

The Evangelion Shinkansen was amusing. It was operating when I went, so I figured out where it went and did the leg from Hakata to Hiroshima as I was working my way back from Fukuoka to Tokyo. The slowest shinkansen I've ever been on because it stopped at every single station along the line. At every single station, a ton of people on the platform were taking photos of it, but not getting on. The unreserved car was decked out in a Evangelion design. I remember seeing this poor "salary man" looking guy in a suit, literally the only passenger in the car, sitting there slightly annoyed as there was a constant stream of fans taking pictures of the seats and interior. There was an enclosed smoking area in the rear of the car with pictures of Kaji and Ritsuko smoking on the glass separating the sections. A young woman in her 20’s with her boyfriend was in the car while I was taking photos and kept pointing to the picture of Ritsuko, and excitedly kept saying “Rit-chan! Rit-chan!".

Hope you managed OK during the pandemic, especially with the many lockdowns.

It wasn't too bad. I think I went a bit crazy working from home as I found it really hard to separate work from home. It just blended into one. I sort of need the psychological effect of commuting to separate in my mind work from home, if that makes sense. I mostly work at work now, with the very occasional work from home day.

In terms of Japanese music, most of what I've listened to are connected to anime that I've watched, so I'm unfamiliar with the artists that you've listed there.

I think one of the issues is that Japanese music labels really aren't interested in expanding their artists out of Japan. Pretty much the only ones which gain any traction are artists like Babymetal and Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, mainly for their "weirdness". I only got into Japanese music because there was a TV show on here called SBS Pop Asia more than a decade ago which I discovered by accident one day. It was mostly K-Pop, but there were a number of Japanese artists including Perfume which were more dance than pop at times. I got into the the two underground idol groups and Spool only because I was searching on Youtube for more mainstream shoegaze acts. I found a few more acts since than, but there is a lot bland pop music out there which drowns out the more interesting stuff.

[radiator123]

Thank you for the warm welcome TsukuyomiMagi99, Goddy, AnnaLovesAnime and radiator123!

No probs, and a belated Happy 50th Birthday to you! Hope you had a good day celebrating and/or chilling.

I used to buy a lot of stuff from AN when they were still a shop and still have the DVDs of Risky Safety with the collector's box and Miami Guns. I sort of miss message boards. Somehow it is less chaotic than social media. Honestly only been on the message boards here maybe a dozen times in two decades...

Large-scale social media is too crowded and fast-paced for me - I like to go slow, ruminate on what I've read, and then post something substantial in response. Granted, AN nowadays is rather too slow even for my liking, but it's still preferable to large-scale social media for me. I've become more active over the last few years on AN and try to swing by once a day and make a few posts.

It's really odd as there was a lot of anime released on VHS in the UK in the 1980's, but not a lot on TV. Monkey! was dubbed and broadcast on the BBC in 1979, only once though! The BBC also broadcast Battle of the Planets about the same time according to website I found. There was a lot of anime on TV here in the 1960's, plus stuff like Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot and The Samurai (Onmitsu Kenshi), the latter which was insanely popular. In the 1970's there was lull, then more stuff in the late 1970's through to the mid 1980's, then another lull until the early 1990's.

They started teaching Japanese in schools the year after I left high school!

Yeah, it is odd, but I guess it's because cultural ties between the UK/Japan are weaker than those between Australia/Japan or US/Japan, largely due to historical and geographic reasons. The British Empire meddled in China with the Opium Wars and ended up colonizing bits of it, but didn't reach as far as Japan. So this meant more Chinese immigrants and the creation of Chinatowns in the UK, but not Little Tokyos like those in the States. Was looking at some numbers and it seems like American-Japanese, Australian-Japanese, and British-Japanese make up about 0.5%, 0.2% and 0.1% of the respective populations. But probably these numbers don't tell the whole story about cultural ties. America is big in the consciousness of the Japanese public because of WWII and subsequent occupation, whereas the British Army did fight in the Pacific theatre but were largely confined to SE Asia. Compared with the UK, Australia is in much closer proximity to Japan, as mentioned before, and there's probably a lot more trade and business between Australia and Japan. Which also explains why Australian schools started to teach Japanese - pity that you just missed out!

There are big flocks outside my workplace in the park feeding, on occasion with smaller flocks of Galahs. I now work not too far from the War Memorial, though it's a lot closer to Old Parliament House.

Galahs I've seen on TV but not in person. To be honest, I'm not used to big parrots like those and am irrationally afraid of them pecking me with their large beaks. Am more comfortable around birds like pigeons and songbirds. Cool that you work near the War Memorial and the Old Parliament House, the latter which I didn't go to. I remember it was around April/May when I visited, because somewhere along the way I ate an ANZAC biscuit around ANZAC day.

I like Osaka because it's like a laidback Tokyo and far less busy. But I really like the little towns outside the big cities and would like to live out there if I had no choice but to live in Japan (not really fond of their work culture to say the least...). The only issue with those little towns is waiting for trains. A couple of towns I went to last time the trains only ran once an hour. The line Toyosato is on is a private railway which didn't use the cashless travel cards most other railways do in Japan. It was weird buying a paper ticket and the station wasn't manned when I got to my destination. I liked Kobe as well, extremely friendly city. I think I have done Japan over, just about seen everything I wanted to. Maybe one more trip for Sapporo Snow Festival and that's it. What probably disappointed me about Japan last time was a lot of my favourite shops had downsized considerably or shut up shop completely since I had been there last. Shibuya was a big disappointment last time, especially the Mandarake store (Tower Records is still my favourite shop there though). At the very least Kanransha (Ferris Wheel) and Mandarake Mania Kan in Nakano Broadway are still operating and sell a ton of movie programs, movie and TV press kits and movie flyers which make up the bulk of things I collect now.

Seen a few documentaries/vlogs on Osaka and I do seem to remember a guide on "James May: Our Man in Japan" saying that Osaka is less formal and stuffy than Tokyo (or words to that effect). Also seems to be the place to go for street food. I can see how the trains running so infrequently outside big cities can be frustrating, especially if you're short on time and want to move around to different places at a reasonable pace. At the same time, I think it's something that I might actually enjoy as it could bring some peaceful moments where I can just sit around idly watching the world go by, like a moment of Ma (間). A few of us were talking about places we'd like to go in Japan in a previous thread, and Hokkaido cropped up a few times due to its natural beauty, preservation of culture, and the Sapporo Snow Festival. I think the Snow Festival would be very interesting, but not sure I'd like the cold! It's a pity to hear about shops downsizing or shutting down, but understandable given the lower footfall during the pandemic, and is something that's replicated in many other countries. I remember going to a Uniqlo in Shibuya (this was around 2016 before the pandemic), but not the Mandarake store. And yeah, the general workaholic culture in Japan sounds pretty severe, and so I'd only work there if I found a place which bucks the trend.

The Evangelion Shinkansen was amusing. It was operating when I went, so I figured out where it went and did the leg from Hakata to Hiroshima as I was working my way back from Fukuoka to Tokyo. The slowest shinkansen I've ever been on because it stopped at every single station along the line. At every single station, a ton of people on the platform were taking photos of it, but not getting on. The unreserved car was decked out in a Evangelion design. I remember seeing this poor "salary man" looking guy in a suit, literally the only passenger in the car, sitting there slightly annoyed as there was a constant stream of fans taking pictures of the seats and interior. There was an enclosed smoking area in the rear of the car with pictures of Kaji and Ritsuko smoking on the glass separating the sections. A young woman in her 20’s with her boyfriend was in the car while I was taking photos and kept pointing to the picture of Ritsuko, and excitedly kept saying “Rit-chan! Rit-chan!".

The young woman sounds like a big fan of Ritsuko... like Maya! Wonder why Misato wasn't there. Would be perfect if there's a picture of Shinji sitting in a corner and listening to music. Can see why the salaryman would be annoyed at how slow the train was going and the amount of people taking pics, but then what does he expect when boarding a Shinkansen decked out with artwork from a popular anime series. It sounds like a really cool ride, especially for somebody who used to be a big Evangelion fan like me. Although I'm not keen on the Rebuild movies and have avoided them.

It wasn't too bad. I think I went a bit crazy working from home as I found it really hard to separate work from home. It just blended into one. I sort of need the psychological effect of commuting to separate in my mind work from home, if that makes sense. I mostly work at work now, with the very occasional work from home day.

Glad to hear that it wasn't too bad, but I hear you about how working from home can make it feel like work is taking over life. I was working from home continuously for like two years... initially I found it difficult to cope, especially with the lack of human contact (I'm not a social person but before the pandemic I did value some kind of contact). Curiously though, over time I realized that I could adapt and ended up enjoying not having to deal with people in general, and now am finding it hard to go back to what I was like pre-pandemic. Like yourself I also work hybrid now, but only 2/3 days in the office.

I think one of the issues is that Japanese music labels really aren't interested in expanding their artists out of Japan. Pretty much the only ones which gain any traction are artists like Babymetal and Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, mainly for their "weirdness". I only got into Japanese music because there was a TV show on here called SBS Pop Asia more than a decade ago which I discovered by accident one day. It was mostly K-Pop, but there were a number of Japanese artists including Perfume which were more dance than pop at times. I got into the the two underground idol groups and Spool only because I was searching on Youtube for more mainstream shoegaze acts. I found a few more acts since than, but there is a lot bland pop music out there which drowns out the more interesting stuff.

I used to know someone who went to Japan to work and he was the one who made me aware of Babymetal and Kyary Pamyu Pamyu. There's no Japanese music breaking into the British charts as far as I can remember, nor any acts coming on TV to perform. This might be linked to the lack of cultural ties mentioned earlier, and maybe it's also because the BBC tended to be quite conservative. Same for K-pop (apart from Gangnam Style, if you can call that K-pop) or any kind of East Asian pop. But now there's Youtube and that has allowed me to explore more Japanese music. I think pop from any country is going to have a lot of generic tracks because it's in the populist nature of the genre, but among these duds there are interspersed really good and innovative ones. Hikaru Utada is an artist that I've enjoyed listening to recently. An older artist I've been following for a while is Miyuki Nakajima, and I believe my interest stemmed from hearing one of her tracks on a plane (probably Hoomu Nite or On the Train Platform, which gives me the vibe of someone taking a train in one of those little towns that you visited).

[Greboruri]

No probs, and a belated Happy 50th Birthday to you! Hope you had a good day celebrating and/or chilling.;

Thank you. It is a bit weird reaching five decades. Wasn't sure I'd reach the end of my 20's at some points. Could not conceive getting this old really. At least I feel relatively healthy. I think moving on from my old job into something a whole lot less stressful really helped in that regard.

Large-scale social media is too crowded and fast-paced for me - I like to go slow, ruminate on what I've read, and then post something substantial in response. Granted, AN nowadays is rather too slow even for my liking, but it's still preferable to large-scale social media for me.

It's weird on twitter for example where there is sort of a lore where people know a certain meme or whatever and literally no one outside of twitter knows what hell it is. The only thing I'm using twitter for now is the art from Japanese artists, which sort of ramping up now because Comiket is next weekend and people are showing off what they have to sell.

Yeah, it is odd, but I guess it's because cultural ties between the UK/Japan are weaker than those between Australia/Japan or US/Japan, largely due to historical and geographic reasons. The British Empire meddled in China with the Opium Wars and ended up colonizing bits of it, but didn't reach as far as Japan. So this meant more Chinese immigrants and the creation of Chinatowns in the UK, but not Little Tokyos like those in the States. Was looking at some numbers and it seems like American-Japanese, Australian-Japanese, and British-Japanese make up about 0.5%, 0.2% and 0.1% of the respective populations. But probably these numbers don't tell the whole story about cultural ties. America is big in the consciousness of the Japanese public because of WWII and subsequent occupation, whereas the British Army did fight in the Pacific theatre but were largely confined to SE Asia. Compared with the UK, Australia is in much closer proximity to Japan, as mentioned before, and there's probably a lot more trade and business between Australia and Japan. Which also explains why Australian schools started to teach Japanese - pity that you just missed out!

I think a lot of it is what you've said. Also I lot of television programs back in the 1960's through to the 1990's were just imported from US distributors, so we got just about everything, including English adaptations of Japanese stuff. There was this big influx of Japanese migration to the US in the late 19th and early 20th century to the US, over 400,000 people, but I'm not 100% what the cause of that was. In Australia I think the bubble economy in Japan in the 1980's caused a lot of migration (and purchase of real estate) to Queensland mostly. When the bubble burst, they just stayed. I note that Japanese hamburger chain Mos Burger has restaurants exclusively in Asia outside of Japan, except for three which are all centred in Brisbane or the Gold Coast (in Queensland). I remember in the 1990's there was such a massive push for high school students to learn Japanese. Even Kinokuniya opened up a small shop in Sydney in the mid 1990's to cater for Japanese language books. I still don't know why this all happened. Sure they are a big trading partner, but I don't remember why there was such a focus on them. Considering our closeness to Indonesia and how many tourists go to Bali, why isn't Indonesian taught instead?

Galahs I've seen on TV but not in person. To be honest, I'm not used to big parrots like those and am irrationally afraid of them pecking me with their large beaks. Am more comfortable around birds like pigeons and songbirds. Cool that you work near the War Memorial and the Old Parliament House, the latter which I didn't go to. I remember it was around April/May when I visited, because somewhere along the way I ate an ANZAC biscuit around ANZAC day.

Cockatoos, Galahs and Corellas are mostly harmless. Cockatoos can be a bit destructive (and noisy) but generally won't go near humans. Magpies are the worst though in spring. They are very protective of their young and will swoop you repeatedly, peck you on the head as they swoop. Once I was swooped and pecked on the head and the rotter drew blood. If you just stare at them and walk at a normal pace out of what they perceive is their area, that'll stop any attacks, but they are sneaky and will swoop without warning. I'm not sure about Anzac biscuits. I've never enjoyed them! Very much something my grandmothers would cook.

Seen a few documentaries/vlogs on Osaka and I do seem to remember a guide on "James May: Our Man in Japan" saying that Osaka is less formal and stuffy than Tokyo (or words to that effect). Also seems to be the place to go for street food. I can see how the trains running so infrequently outside big cities can be frustrating, especially if you're short on time and want to move around to different places at a reasonable pace. [...] It's a pity to hear about shops downsizing or shutting down, but understandable given the lower footfall during the pandemic, and is something that's replicated in many other countries. I remember going to a Uniqlo in Shibuya (this was around 2016 before the pandemic), but not the Mandarake store. And yeah, the general workaholic culture in Japan sounds pretty severe, and so I'd only work there if I found a place which bucks the trend.

I think the entire Kansai / Kinki area, not just Osaka, is far more laid back. Maybe Kyoto isn't and that is due to the tourists. It was way too busy when I went last time. Food is such a big thing in Osaka. You have all the all the restaurants with very elaborate signage in Dotonbori, but I also noticed restaurants with really elaborate signage in Umeda where I stayed in 2017. There was also a Taiyaki place on the way to the train station from my accommodation and a Yakitori place downstairs.

I loved Shibuya when it was more active; Tower Records, Mandarake was better stocked, the best Book Off in the city, a great second hand clothes shop next to it, great record shops like RECOfan and a ton of independent record stores. A lot of that stuff seemed to start shutting down around 2017 or so. But I think the pandemic really killed most of it. The issue seems to be that the government really didn't support businesses and even though there were no lockdowns as such, it killed a lot of businesses unnecessarily.

A lot of the issue with Japanese business culture is they just want to do things the same way as they have always done business. A lot of that interlinks with why the economy is in the doldrums and socially you could suggest things aren't rosy either.

Although I'm not keen on the Rebuild movies and have avoided them.

I didn't really understand why they decided to launch the project as I think it was only just a decade after End of Evangelion (which I was never a fan of, just way too nihilistic and depressing in the end). I guess it was Anno's way of asserting his control over the franchise as there was some issues with him and Gainax (Some of the credits in the remastered Evangelion TV series blu-rays have Gainax's name striped off). The film series feels like it is shot for shot of the TV series until we get half way though the second movie. I loved the third film because it was so different and interesting and everyone else just seemed to despise it! The fourth and final film kind of baffled me in the end. I wasn't sure what it was trying to say at times and some of the imagery was a bit, shmaltzy is the only way I could describe it. The ending was far, far more positive than End of Evangelion and I really, really liked that part of it. What amused me was how the fandom somehow developed amnesia in terms of the third film and hailed the fourth film as a work of genius. Very strange project as a whole. Not sure if it works as one cohesive story when watched from start to finish.

Glad to hear that it wasn't too bad, but I hear you about how working from home can make it feel like work is taking over life. I was working from home continuously for like two years... initially I found it difficult to cope, especially with the lack of human contact (I'm not a social person but before the pandemic I did value some kind of contact). Curiously though, over time I realized that I could adapt and ended up enjoying not having to deal with people in general, and now am finding it hard to go back to what I was like pre-pandemic. Like yourself I also work hybrid now, but only 2/3 days in the office.

I think I have only worked one day from home this year! But I don't like open plan offices as I cannot concentrate when the noise gets too high (not much of an issue now as the work load is considerably lower in my new job), but also I don't have a really suitable place to work at home. But I think now days it's a lot easier to find some sort of balance between the two.

There's no Japanese music breaking into the British charts as far as I can remember, nor any acts coming on TV to perform. This might be linked to the lack of cultural ties mentioned earlier, and maybe it's also because the BBC tended to be quite conservative. Same for K-pop (apart from Gangnam Style, if you can call that K-pop) or any kind of East Asian pop. But now there's Youtube and that has allowed me to explore more Japanese music. I think pop from any country is going to have a lot of generic tracks because it's in the populist nature of the genre, but among these duds there are interspersed really good and innovative ones. Hikaru Utada is an artist that I've enjoyed listening to recently. An older artist I've been following for a while is Miyuki Nakajima, and I believe my interest stemmed from hearing one of her tracks on a plane (probably Hoomu Nite or On the Train Platform, which gives me the vibe of someone taking a train in one of those little towns that you visited).

I know Perfume toured the UK twice I think, plus a local independent distributor released their albums on CD and concerts on DVD there until recently. Also I recall Masaaki Sakai touring the UK about a decade and half ago I think. Not sure why, maybe there is an older Japanese diaspora living in the UK? I had MTV Japan and Space Shower TV in my accommodation back in March and April this year. I was really surprised at how bland and generic a lot of the music was that the big Japanese music labels were pushing. Not a lot of variation to be honest! When either station would do a two hour block of 1980's or 1990's music, it was so different. It was still pop music, but far more varied and interesting. I noted the K-Pop they played was far more varied too.

Youtube and streaming have really changed how people listen to music and have made a lot of Japanese music more accessible, especially older stuff. This is why there is a resurgence in what people term as City Pop (i.e. 1980's idols and J-Pop). You used to have to pay ¥3,000 for an album, which was more like AU$50 when you ordered it from you local record shop. No one was releasing Japanese music in the west except for indie stuff like Shonen Knife, The 5.6.7.8's, Cornelius in the late 1990's or Seiko Matsuda's one English language album attempt to crack the US pop market in the very early 1990's or Pink Lady's short lived surprise popularity in the US in the late 1970's. It was extremely hard to hear any Japanese music outside anime until recently.

Miyuki Nakajima is new to me. I'd never heard of her until now. From that era I got really interested in Yoko Oginome, Chisato Moritaka and Wink, but most of them are more late 1980's era. When you hear their back catalogue, you can sometimes get whiplash as the record company tries to reinvent them, especially when they go from slow tempo ballads in the mid 1980's to more dance orientated tracks in the late 1980's and then very polished 1990's style production later on.

[radiator123]

Thank you. It is a bit weird reaching five decades. Wasn't sure I'd reach the end of my 20's at some points. Could not conceive getting this old really. At least I feel relatively healthy. I think moving on from my old job into something a whole lot less stressful really helped in that regard.

Good to hear that your current job is much less stressful than before and that you're relatively healthy. The 20s was a time when I felt rather aimless and unmotivated, but I clung on and reached 41 earlier this year.

It's weird on twitter for example where there is sort of a lore where people know a certain meme or whatever and literally no one outside of twitter knows what hell it is. The only thing I'm using twitter for now is the art from Japanese artists, which sort of ramping up now because Comiket is next weekend and people are showing off what they have to sell.

Wonder if many Japanese artists have started to use AI or not, what with the current issues over copyright. Didn't know that twitter had exclusive memes like that... guess forums have their own little memes too, based on unique histories. For example, on AN we have had a few members who gained notoriety in various ways.

I think a lot of it is what you've said. Also I lot of television programs back in the 1960's through to the 1990's were just imported from US distributors, so we got just about everything, including English adaptations of Japanese stuff. There was this big influx of Japanese migration to the US in the late 19th and early 20th century to the US, over 400,000 people, but I'm not 100% what the cause of that was. In Australia I think the bubble economy in Japan in the 1980's caused a lot of migration (and purchase of real estate) to Queensland mostly. When the bubble burst, they just stayed. I note that Japanese hamburger chain Mos Burger has restaurants exclusively in Asia outside of Japan, except for three which are all centred in Brisbane or the Gold Coast (in Queensland). I remember in the 1990's there was such a massive push for high school students to learn Japanese. Even Kinokuniya opened up a small shop in Sydney in the mid 1990's to cater for Japanese language books. I still don't know why this all happened. Sure they are a big trading partner, but I don't remember why there was such a focus on them. Considering our closeness to Indonesia and how many tourists go to Bali, why isn't Indonesian taught instead?

Yeah, we had a fair amount of stuff imported from the States too, from cartoons to live-action series. A fair amount of stuff from your country too, notably soaps like Neighbours and Home & Away. I'm not sure why the immigration rate from Japan to the States was so high during that period... Japan ended its policy of self-isolation in the middle of the 19th C, so maybe this sparked a lot of immigration over the following decades. That's interesting how a lot of Japanese migrated to Queensland during the 1980s - guess that's the most developed part of Australia. I've eaten at Mos Burger before while traveling in East Asia, but haven't noticed it in other regions. I guess the focus on Japan, as opposed to other countries like Indonesia and Thailand, is because Japan is seen as a more developed country that has more business opportunities. Tourism is important in countries like Indonesia, but typically tourists don't need to speak the native language. Indonesian is probably a much easier language to learn than Japanese, because it uses Latin script. Given that China is now Australia's biggest trading partner, it'd make sense to learn Chinese over Japanese, but I guess there are concerns over China's government. I remember that your former PM Kevin Rudd knows Chinese.

Cockatoos, Galahs and Corellas are mostly harmless. Cockatoos can be a bit destructive (and noisy) but generally won't go near humans. Magpies are the worst though in spring. They are very protective of their young and will swoop you repeatedly, peck you on the head as they swoop. Once I was swooped and pecked on the head and the rotter drew blood. If you just stare at them and walk at a normal pace out of what they perceive is their area, that'll stop any attacks, but they are sneaky and will swoop without warning. I'm not sure about Anzac biscuits. I've never enjoyed them! Very much something my grandmothers would cook.

Corvids can go on the attack if they feel threatened and I've heard of crows attacking people, although I've never had any problems with them or magpies. Sorry to hear about the one that bit your head - sounds like you need to wear a helmet to be safe in those areas! Never heard of a parrot attack though. Also remember seeing lorikeets and they were pretty. I used to keep budgies and so have a soft spot for them, but there aren't any wild ones in city areas. Yeah, the Anzac biscuits I ate weren't tasty, and I gathered they were made more from a practical viewpoint, from ingredients that won't sour so easily when the biscuits are sent to the battlefield.

I think the entire Kansai / Kinki area, not just Osaka, is far more laid back. Maybe Kyoto isn't and that is due to the tourists. It was way too busy when I went last time. Food is such a big thing in Osaka. You have all the all the restaurants with very elaborate signage in Dotonbori, but I also noticed restaurants with really elaborate signage in Umeda where I stayed in 2017. There was also a Taiyaki place on the way to the train station from my accommodation and a Yakitori place downstairs.

Probably anywhere outside of Tokyo and Kyoto is substantially more relaxed . It could be the tourists in Kyoto that make things hectic there... the city survived much of the bombings during WW2, so it's got more preserved areas like temples that tourists love. I remember reading about certain anime characters speaking in a Kansai dialect and believe it's rougher than a Tokyo dialect. The Dotonbori area looks familiar and am pretty sure I've seen it in some vlogs, including one where a dude was eating at a takoyaki place. Also remember seeing a taiyaki in a vlog, but not sure if from Osaka. It looks like a fun snack.

I loved Shibuya when it was more active; Tower Records, Mandarake was better stocked, the best Book Off in the city, a great second hand clothes shop next to it, great record shops like RECOfan and a ton of independent record stores. A lot of that stuff seemed to start shutting down around 2017 or so. But I think the pandemic really killed most of it. The issue seems to be that the government really didn't support businesses and even though there were no lockdowns as such, it killed a lot of businesses unnecessarily.

At the start of the pandemic, there was speculation as to why Japan had so few infections, with some proposing that it was because they had better etiquette. But then infection rates increased like they had in other countries, which must have spooked people from going out, especially with so many elderly citizens. Plus, I think physical music shops are going out of fashion anyways due to downloads being available. The worst hit areas were retail, tourism and catering, and I have to be thankful that these aren't areas I ended up working in. Pity that the Japanese government didn't do more to help local businesses stay afloat, although they had to balance that with making sure healthcare facilities were adequate.

A lot of the issue with Japanese business culture is they just want to do things the same way as they have always done business. A lot of that interlinks with why the economy is in the doldrums and socially you could suggest things aren't rosy either.

Yeah, I've heard many aspects of their business culture are quite traditional and perhaps antiquated in the modern era. For example, a rigid hierarchy that could discourage healthy debate, the drinking with colleagues after work (nomikai), and presenteeism. Much has been said about the Lost Generation that appeared when the bubble burst, and how this generated disillusionment among many young people. This together with societal expectations on getting a job and getting married may have promoted the rise in hikikomori.

I didn't really understand why they decided to launch the project as I think it was only just a decade after End of Evangelion (which I was never a fan of, just way too nihilistic and depressing in the end). I guess it was Anno's way of asserting his control over the franchise as there was some issues with him and Gainax (Some of the credits in the remastered Evangelion TV series blu-rays have Gainax's name striped off). The film series feels like it is shot for shot of the TV series until we get half way though the second movie. I loved the third film because it was so different and interesting and everyone else just seemed to despise it! The fourth and final film kind of baffled me in the end. I wasn't sure what it was trying to say at times and some of the imagery was a bit, shmaltzy is the only way I could describe it. The ending was far, far more positive than End of Evangelion and I really, really liked that part of it. What amused me was how the fandom somehow developed amnesia in terms of the third film and hailed the fourth film as a work of genius. Very strange project as a whole. Not sure if it works as one cohesive story when watched from start to finish.

Didn't know that Anno had a spat with Gainax, and that could be a factor why he decided to launch Rebuild so early. But I also think that Anno just had a hard time letting go of Evangelion, and it remained a passion project that he wanted to revisit with his new studio Khara. The first movie did sound very much like a remake of the early episodes from the original series, but like you say things deviated dramatically by the time the third film came along. I did give in to temptation somewhat and saw the final few minutes of the fourth film on Youtube a while ago, and yeah - completely different vibe to the ending of EoE! It further reinforced the idea that Evangelion is a reflection of Anno's state of mind at various points in his life, and that internal consistency of the plot in Rebuild with the original series and EoE isn't a big deal for Anno. Fans are often fickle, especially anime fans.

I think I have only worked one day from home this year! But I don't like open plan offices as I cannot concentrate when the noise gets too high (not much of an issue now as the work load is considerably lower in my new job), but also I don't have a really suitable place to work at home. But I think now days it's a lot easier to find some sort of balance between the two.

The office I'm in is open-plan and the noise levels can get too high for my liking. But usually I can tolerate because people do need to talk from time-to-time and they don't really have anywhere else to go to do this. So long as they don't have conversations spanning hours. WFH has its own challenges, and the noise level nowadays is actually higher because of nearby construction.

I know Perfume toured the UK twice I think, plus a local independent distributor released their albums on CD and concerts on DVD there until recently. Also I recall Masaaki Sakai touring the UK about a decade and half ago I think. Not sure why, maybe there is an older Japanese diaspora living in the UK? I had MTV Japan and Space Shower TV in my accommodation back in March and April this year. I was really surprised at how bland and generic a lot of the music was that the big Japanese music labels were pushing. Not a lot of variation to be honest! When either station would do a two hour block of 1980's or 1990's music, it was so different. It was still pop music, but far more varied and interesting. I noted the K-Pop they played was far more varied too.

Perfume is quite a recent band, so perhaps it's not too surprising that they've toured the UK given that anime and J-pop are increasing in popularity. But Masaaki Saki is a golden oldie and I've no idea where his UK audience is coming from. I guess there must be pockets of British-Japanese people somewhere. Casting my mind back, I remember there was a place called the Yaohan Plaza that I used to frequent as a teenager, mainly for the arcade that it had. Yaohan was a Japanese retail group and the plaza had Japanese-related stores like a bakery selling melon buns. So maybe there was a British-Japanese community nearby. But the place where I grew up had a much larger South Asian community. In the UK, "Asian" often means "South Asian" rather than "East Asian".

As for recent J-pop sounding bland and generic, I wonder if that's because labels are just going for bands that resemble previous big-hitters, and this selection process has narrowed down the variety. Whereas the 1980s/90s could have been a more experimental phase where the general indicators of commercial success were not so set in stone. Having said that, I was listening to playlists of top-10 songs in the UK charts from the 1990s and a lot of them sound bland and generic, as I had remembered. So maybe there's a random element as to the variety and quality of songs in a particular era.

Youtube and streaming have really changed how people listen to music and have made a lot of Japanese music more accessible, especially older stuff. This is why there is a resurgence in what people term as City Pop (i.e. 1980's idols and J-Pop). You used to have to pay ¥3,000 for an album, which was more like AU$50 when you ordered it from you local record shop. No one was releasing Japanese music in the west except for indie stuff like Shonen Knife, The 5.6.7.8's, Cornelius in the late 1990's or Seiko Matsuda's one English language album attempt to crack the US pop market in the very early 1990's or Pink Lady's short lived surprise popularity in the US in the late 1970's. It was extremely hard to hear any Japanese music outside anime until recently.

Miyuki Nakajima is new to me. I'd never heard of her until now. From that era I got really interested in Yoko Oginome, Chisato Moritaka and Wink, but most of them are more late 1980's era. When you hear their back catalogue, you can sometimes get whiplash as the record company tries to reinvent them, especially when they go from slow tempo ballads in the mid 1980's to more dance orientated tracks in the late 1980's and then very polished 1990's style production later on.

Pink Lady is a band that I became aware of while posting on AN, as it's one of ThePhillyFlash's favorite bands; the others are all new to me though. I just saw a video of Yoko Oginome's Dancing Hero and that was definitely a dance-like track, which reminded me a bit of Madonna for some reason. Mariya Takeuchi is another artist from that era which I've come across. With respect to changing musical styles, this happened with Nakajima too, with evolution from ballads in her early days to pop and rock songs later on. It's hard to find her songs on Youtube though as her management team does a good job getting them removed... can still hear them on bilibili, but they have this annoying pop-up sign-in prompt after the first minute of every video.

Yeah, Youtube has really expanded the market for J-pop and K-pop to Western ears, although there remains a lack of bilingual singers that could be mega-popular. Utada is bilingual and has achieved commercial success in the States and Japan.

[Greboruri]

Good to hear that your current job is much less stressful than before and that you're relatively healthy. The 20s was a time when I felt rather aimless and unmotivated, but I clung on and reached 41 earlier this year.

I think what I needed was a mentor to guide me through my 20's. I moved away from my family to work in a large city and was left to my own devices, which maybe wasn't great. And I sort of found people to be a bit cliquey and I've never been a drinker and I had undiagnosed Asperger's syndrome (which wasn't diagnosed until I was in my early 30's). I enjoyed the 1990's for sure, but maybe I think with the right kind of understanding friend group and someone older and wiser to guide me, could of been a whole lot better.

Wonder if many Japanese artists have started to use AI or not, what with the current issues over copyright.

I have seen lots of examples on Pixiv, but six fingered freaks and whatnot and extremely generic looking stuff. I think for the most part a lot of Japanese artists steer clear of it.

I'm not sure why the immigration rate from Japan to the States was so high during that period... Japan ended its policy of self-isolation in the middle of the 19th C, so maybe this sparked a lot of immigration over the following decades. That's interesting how a lot of Japanese migrated to Queensland during the 1980s - guess that's the most developed part of Australia. I've eaten at Mos Burger before while traveling in East Asia, but haven't noticed it in other regions. I guess the focus on Japan, as opposed to other countries like Indonesia and Thailand, is because Japan is seen as a more developed country that has more business opportunities. Tourism is important in countries like Indonesia, but typically tourists don't need to speak the native language. Indonesian is probably a much easier language to learn than Japanese, because it uses Latin script. Given that China is now Australia's biggest trading partner, it'd make sense to learn Chinese over Japanese, but I guess there are concerns over China's government. I remember that your former PM Kevin Rudd knows Chinese.

I think you might have hit that on the head in regard to Japanese migration. Mos Burger is pretty good, but I preferred going to Freshness Burger which is similar burger chain. I think I didn't go to either last time. I was going to have one meal at GoGo Curry, but I never got the chance to and there wasn't one near my accommodation. I'm not sure if I'd call Queensland developed, especially in the 1980's with Joh Bjelke-Petersen running the state like a despot. I felt it was really backward looking during that time. But there was so much development up there on the Gold Coast, which I felt should have been an example to other states of how not to develop costal regions! Australian relations with Indonesia and China can be really rocky, especially with China, but it depends on which party is in power.

Sorry to hear about the one that bit your head - sounds like you need to wear a helmet to be safe in those areas! Never heard of a parrot attack though.

I was just unlucky that time. Some cyclists tie a bunch of cable ties to their helmets so they have bunch of spikes on top of their head to ward off attacks, but it doesn't actually work. If you just look directly at them and walk at a normal pace until you are out of their territory, they won't attack.

I remember reading about certain anime characters speaking in a Kansai dialect and believe it's rougher than a Tokyo dialect. The Dotonbori area looks familiar and am pretty sure I've seen it in some vlogs

I think the version of the Kansai dialect you hear in some fictional media is a complete exaggeration. I've heard people speak in a similar fashion, but it didn't sound too bad to my ears. When I went to Hiroshima I really noticed how different the local's accent was. Dotonbori is pretty much the entertainment district of Osaka. Lots of restaurants with elaborate signage and the famous Glico running man sign, which was never lit up when I went for some reason.

At the start of the pandemic, there was speculation as to why Japan had so few infections, with some proposing that it was because they had better etiquette. But then infection rates increased like they had in other countries, which must have spooked people from going out, especially with so many elderly citizens. Plus, I think physical music shops are going out of fashion anyways due to downloads being available. The worst hit areas were retail, tourism and catering, and I have to be thankful that these aren't areas I ended up working in. Pity that the Japanese government didn't do more to help local businesses stay afloat, although they had to balance that with making sure healthcare facilities were adequate.

I think the government really screwed up with the pandemic. They didn't really test too many people unless they were hospitalised, so the stats were really skewed. Not handing out money to businesses and individuals really didn't help. Unlike other developed countries were the suicide rate plummeted during the pandemic, Japan's rose sharply (after a decade of decline) with a lot of female suicide. Think that was pretty telling of how things were going. The music industry was still pretty reliant on CD sales until recently. I mean Tower Records in Shibuya still exists, with seven floors of CDs and vinyl with the eighth floor being an event space. In April I got off on the wrong floor and went into the K-Pop floor and that was packed with teens and young women and I could almost not make out to the floor below! But a few of the smaller Tower branches have closed recently, I found it really hard to get the blu-rays I wanted last time I was there and a lot of the book stores have shut down. In 2018 I noticed K-Books was books in name only. I used to get a lot of illustration collection books from them. Also Toranoana shut down a couple of years back, which not just bad for doujinshi but the manga industry as well.

Didn't know that Anno had a spat with Gainax, and that could be a factor why he decided to launch Rebuild so early. But I also think that Anno just had a hard time letting go of Evangelion, and it remained a passion project that he wanted to revisit with his new studio Khara.

I think it was initially get some money into the studio. Besides Evangelion and the Japan Animator Expo project, his other major projects are live action remakes of tokusatsu titles.

I guess there must be pockets of British-Japanese people somewhere. Casting my mind back, I remember there was a place called the Yaohan Plaza that I used to frequent as a teenager, mainly for the arcade that it had. Yaohan was a Japanese retail group and the plaza had Japanese-related stores like a bakery selling melon buns. So maybe there was a British-Japanese community nearby. But the place where I grew up had a much larger South Asian community. In the UK, "Asian" often means "South Asian" rather than "East Asian".

I think there is a fairly sizable Japanese diaspora in the UK, close to 70,000 or so. I always found the UK terminology of Asian to be odd. I would go, no, these people are from the sub continent, not Asia. I would have this argument with my supervision who was from New Delhi about what parts of the world Asia covered.

As for recent J-pop sounding bland and generic, I wonder if that's because labels are just going for bands that resemble previous big-hitters, and this selection process has narrowed down the variety. Whereas the 1980s/90s could have been a more experimental phase where the general indicators of commercial success were not so set in stone.

I sort of wonder if a group like Yellow Magic Orchestra were around today, would they even chart? There are interesting groups like Wednesday Campanella hitting the top 30, but with them I feel they have become far more pop and commercial after the departure of their lead singer KOM_I a couple of years back. I used to really liked them because they were off kilter and KOM_I was a real free spirit kind of person who spat out these strange lyrics. A feel like a lot of groups on the charts are just variations of Mrs. Green Apple who make some of the most inoffensive, generic, dull music I have ever heard.

Pink Lady is a band that I became aware of while posting on AN, as it's one of ThePhillyFlash's favorite bands; the others are all new to me though. I just saw a video of Yoko Oginome's Dancing Hero and that was definitely a dance-like track, which reminded me a bit of Madonna for some reason. Mariya Takeuchi is another artist from that era which I've come across.

I hadn't really heard too much of Pink Lady's music until I got a copy of of this EP that one of my favourite bands, eX-Girl, released under the name Punk Lady. It was an EP of Pink Lady songs done in their own style. Some of Pink Lady's songs are great. I especially like their take on the Village People's In The Navy. I do love Yoko Oginome's stuff from 1985 onwards. The earlier stereotypical early 1980's idol stuff, not so much. I haven't looked into Mariya Takeuchi too much besides that massive Plastic Love song that seems to set off the City Pop cult. She seems to be one of those artists that has had a long career and metamorphosised to suit listeners tastes over the years.

[radiator123]

I think what I needed was a mentor to guide me through my 20's. I moved away from my family to work in a large city and was left to my own devices, which maybe wasn't great. And I sort of found people to be a bit cliquey and I've never been a drinker and I had undiagnosed Asperger's syndrome (which wasn't diagnosed until I was in my early 30's). I enjoyed the 1990's for sure, but maybe I think with the right kind of understanding friend group and someone older and wiser to guide me, could of been a whole lot better.

Agree that people can often be cliquey and it's hard to break into an established group of friends, or remain in a friend group if the unspoken rules and norms become too restrictive. Drinking isn't something that holds great appeal to me - don't really like the taste of alcohol or the way it clouds people's cognitive ability. Finding a mentor in a new place is difficult because in my experience people tend to be busy and they aren't willing to spend much time knowing someone from scratch. When I started moving to other cities to work, in my mid-20s, I did hang around some groups of people but never got that close to them before drifting apart... it's like the closer I got, the more we realized how different we actually are and to make progress required a willingness to understand and respect the roots of these differences, which proved to be a bridge too far (including those who proclaim to be champions of minority viewpoints, or maybe they just champion the ones in vogue). About your diagnosis, did that come about because you thought you might have Asperger's Syndrome and then went to a doctor to have it confirmed? I heard that there are probably a lot of people on the spectrum who are undiagnosed.

I have seen lots of examples on Pixiv, but six fingered freaks and whatnot and extremely generic looking stuff. I think for the most part a lot of Japanese artists steer clear of it.

Looks like there is substantial skepticism about the use of AI among Japanese artists, which I think is good because for me art is supposed to be the direct expression of an artist's thoughts and feelings, and these are diluted by use of a computer program.

I think you might have hit that on the head in regard to Japanese migration. Mos Burger is pretty good, but I preferred going to Freshness Burger which is similar burger chain. I think I didn't go to either last time. I was going to have one meal at GoGo Curry, but I never got the chance to and there wasn't one near my accommodation. I'm not sure if I'd call Queensland developed, especially in the 1980's with Joh Bjelke-Petersen running the state like a despot. I felt it was really backward looking during that time. But there was so much development up there on the Gold Coast, which I felt should have been an example to other states of how not to develop costal regions! Australian relations with Indonesia and China can be really rocky, especially with China, but it depends on which party is in power.

Freshness Burger is new to me, but its name suggests it's going for the "healthier burger" niche like Mos Burger, in contrast to the McD's and Burger Kings. To be honest, I'm a trashy eater and still regularly eat at McD's... old habits die hard. Was looking at the website for GoGo Curry and they also have some stores in the U.S., with a bunch in New York. Bielke-Petersen sounds like he would have been mates with Margaret Thatcher. I think the Great Barrier Reef is off the Queensland coast, so a lot of development has probably been centered on reef tourism. Went diving near Gladstone once and the reefs there seemed to be in better shape than reefs along Cancun, which is a hotspot for tourist and associated development. Environmental regulations are probably quite strict in Australia relative to other countries, and the sparse population helps to prevent over-exploitation. But it sounds like the Gold Coast is somewhat like Cancun. Yeah, can imagine that foreign relations blow hot-or-cold depending on who's in power. Don't know much about Indonesia apart from that it's a massive country and tourism is big especially in Bali (where terrorist bombings took place in 2002). I imagine that culturally it has substantial overlap with Malaysia, which I have been to.

I was just unlucky that time. Some cyclists tie a bunch of cable ties to their helmets so they have bunch of spikes on top of their head to ward off attacks, but it doesn't actually work. If you just look directly at them and walk at a normal pace until you are out of their territory, they won't attack.

Spiked helmets is hardcore! But magpies are smart and probably know how to avoid them while getting in a good peck elsewhere. It seems like magpies won't attack people who look like they're not doing anything that could be interpreted as suspicious, in terms of harming the chicks.

I think the version of the Kansai dialect you hear in some fictional media is a complete exaggeration. I've heard people speak in a similar fashion, but it didn't sound too bad to my ears. When I went to Hiroshima I really noticed how different the local's accent was. Dotonbori is pretty much the entertainment district of Osaka. Lots of restaurants with elaborate signage and the famous Glico running man sign, which was never lit up when I went for some reason.

Fiction tends to exaggerate things for effect, so what you say about fictional representatives of the Kansai dialect being exaggerated makes a lot of sense. Probably a lot of people only have a mild accent, with only a small proportion speaking in a pronounced way. I recently watched the anime film Josee, the Tiger and the Fish, which was set in Osaka - the protagonist Josee had strong Kansai-ben and I remember hearing some non-standard phrases, with the other characters having mild accents. Probably accents in Japan are most difficult to understand in rural areas. I know Glico from their pocky sticks and the Glico running man image rings a bell, but didn't know that it's shown on a large neon sign in Dotonbori. Apparently Glico's first product was a candy that was billed as giving lots of energy, thus the connection to an athlete.

I think the government really screwed up with the pandemic. They didn't really test too many people unless they were hospitalised, so the stats were really skewed. Not handing out money to businesses and individuals really didn't help. Unlike other developed countries were the suicide rate plummeted during the pandemic, Japan's rose sharply (after a decade of decline) with a lot of female suicide. Think that was pretty telling of how things were going.

That's odd how the Japanese government only did testing on people who were hospitalized with COVID, because the virus underlying the disease can spread via asymptotic cases... it sounds like they just ignored the scientific advice. Later during the pandemic, home-testing kits became available in many countries and maybe this encouraged more people to do testing at home in Japan. But maybe hard to collect data on this due to Japan's strict data privacy laws. Sad to hear about the sharp rise in suicide rates during the pandemic, and the lack of help from the government probably contributed to this.

The music industry was still pretty reliant on CD sales until recently. I mean Tower Records in Shibuya still exists, with seven floors of CDs and vinyl with the eighth floor being an event space. In April I got off on the wrong floor and went into the K-Pop floor and that was packed with teens and young women and I could almost not make out to the floor below! But a few of the smaller Tower branches have closed recently, I found it really hard to get the blu-rays I wanted last time I was there and a lot of the book stores have shut down. In 2018 I noticed K-Books was books in name only. I used to get a lot of illustration collection books from them. Also Toranoana shut down a couple of years back, which not just bad for doujinshi but the manga industry as well.

Yeah, I think you're right that although CD sales have dropped over the last decade and are falling behind streaming, CD sales still make up a substantial proportion of revenue. There's something about owning a physical copy of something that consumers still value. Didn't know that K-pop is so big in Japan... glad you made it out alive from under the dangerous mass of K-pop fans! I remember being at Akihabara about 5 yr ago and ending up in a manga store with a number of floors and lots of doujinshi, which might have been Toranoana. But I gather a few Toranoana stores have closed down now, including the one you mention.

I think it was initially get some money into the studio. Besides Evangelion and the Japan Animator Expo project, his other major projects are live action remakes of tokusatsu titles.

Ah, so it's related to the time when Anno was transitioning to his new studio Khara, and probably there was a lot of haggling over the rights to Evangelion. I've heard about Anno's tokusatsu work, such as his live-action adaptation of Cutie Honey; however, I haven't seen them. Anno also directed the anime series Kare Kano, the first episode of which I watched.

I think there is a fairly sizable Japanese diaspora in the UK, close to 70,000 or so. I always found the UK terminology of Asian to be odd. I would go, no, these people are from the sub continent, not Asia. I would have this argument with my supervision who was from New Delhi about what parts of the world Asia covered.

It is weird how "Asian" in the U.K. refers mainly to the Indian subcontinent rather than the Far East. Probably because there are a lot more immigrants from the former settling in the UK than the latter (about 5% vs. 1%). Geographically, both regions are part of Asia, so technically "Asians" should include all of them. Where I grew up in London was near Southall, which has a large South Asian population.

I sort of wonder if a group like Yellow Magic Orchestra were around today, would they even chart? There are interesting groups like Wednesday Campanella hitting the top 30, but with them I feel they have become far more pop and commercial after the departure of their lead singer KOM_I a couple of years back. I used to really liked them because they were off kilter and KOM_I was a real free spirit kind of person who spat out these strange lyrics. A feel like a lot of groups on the charts are just variations of Mrs. Green Apple who make some of the most inoffensive, generic, dull music I have ever heard.

Mrs. Green Apple did one of the intro songs (Inferno) to Fire Force, a series I was interested in watching... but haven't heard any of their other songs. Pop nowadays seems much more commercialized and glitzy than it was in the 1970s/80s, with a big focus on image. The boy/girl bands that popped up in the West during the 90s proved that big money can be made on the back of good-looking band members singing generic songs. I just listened to two of Yellow Magic Orchestra's songs (Rydeen and Tong Poo), and it seems like they do EDM that has a hint of 8- and 16-bit videogames. They sound pretty good to me because I was into videogames from that era, but I'd imagine the music would be a hard sell to younger generations. Also just listened to Seven Lucky Gods, a recent song by Wednesday Campanella and not sure what to make of it - it felt like a satire of how gods like that have been commercialized and used in things like photoshoots, but it might just be a fun song with no deeper meaning.

I hadn't really heard too much of Pink Lady's music until I got a copy of of this EP that one of my favourite bands, eX-Girl, released under the name Punk Lady. It was an EP of Pink Lady songs done in their own style. Some of Pink Lady's songs are great. I especially like their take on the Village People's In The Navy. I do love Yoko Oginome's stuff from 1985 onwards. The earlier stereotypical early 1980's idol stuff, not so much. I haven't looked into Mariya Takeuchi too much besides that massive Plastic Love song that seems to set off the City Pop cult. She seems to be one of those artists that has had a long career and metamorphosised to suit listeners tastes over the years.

That's cool how Pink Lady did a cover of In the Navy, and is probably another reason why ThePhillyFlash likes them so much (he was literally in the navy)... eX-Girl is a new band for me though. The only song I've heard from Takeuchi is Plastic Love, but she's still active and must have been versatile to be successful across all those decades.

[Goddy]

Youtube is how I got into Babymetal