New adventures at a Japanese immersion school, and the end of Doraemon as we know it

My son has officially finished the third grade, and will be beginning his new adventure next month, at an experimental school in which half the lessons are taught in English, half in Japanese The new school is coming together nicely, and we attended the orientation on Sunday, meeting the teachers and finding out which class our son will be in. It was our first time inside this completely new facility -- which looks like it was designed by the Ikea company, not exactly something you expect when you go to a Japanese elementary school. Because a partial immersion school funded with public money is such a bold project, it's attracting a lot of media attention, and there were TV cameras everywhere, recording footage for future broadcasting on the news. Since I'm the only American parent in the entire school, I stand out even more than I usually do in my daily life here in rural Japan. When we met our son's new homeroom teacher, who's also from the States, I asked him some questions in Japanese, and the cameras were there to record it all: there's nothing more interesting than two gaijin speaking Japanese to each other. During the orientation, many parents were buzzing about a new product that security company Secom has released, a portable GPS device that makes it possible for parents to see where their children are, and to send a signal that they'd like a Secom employee to go pick up their child if they're worried about them. A number of recent incidents, including the kidnapping/murder of a girl in Nara in November of last year, have made parents and teachers especially aware of the potential dangers that lurk out in the world.

The end of an era has been reached: voice actress Nobuyo Oyama is finally retiring after over a quarter of a century of performing the voice of Japan's most famous anime character, Doraemon, the nekogata robotto ("robot of cat type") who comes from the future to help keep his friend Nobita out of trouble. The show has consistently been ranked as the favorite anime of all time by the majority of Japanese viewers. In addition to Oyama, the voices for Gian, Shizuka, and Nobita himself are retiring. The final episode with the original cast aired last week with emotional farewell messages by the voice actors.

We hope everyone had a Happy Easter. Like Thanksgiving, St. Patrick's Day and Superbowl Sunday, Easter is one of those special days that are easy to lose track of when you're a gaijin living in Japan -- it's just a lot harder to be aware of these special events when living in another country. This year we had a rather traditional Easter, however, thanks to my mother coming from San Diego. She brought Easter chocolate and baskets and dye to color eggs with. My kids had loads of fun enjoying some American traditions in Japan.

Here are today's "really cool products" that I thought were especially noteworthy. Note: the J-List links below may be for adult products and should probably be considered "not safe for work." To see all the J-List products, check out J-List or the JBOX.com updated products link.

	E Treasure -- Yuko Ogura. The "teasure" in the title comes from takara, which means treasure, and for some reason comes to mean collecting rare photographs of cute idols back when they were obscure. Just as every manga artist in Japan started out drawing doujinshi, every famous singer or actress in Japan had a "sexy bikini idol" phase. This is a nice photobook with trading cards for Yuko Ogura's fans.
	Kogepan Mouse Pad. Kogapan means "burned bread," and what's what he is: bread that got burned at the bakery, and so none of the customers wants to buy him, the poor guy. This is a mousepad featuring this character.
	An Office Lady's Repayment. "OL" in Japanese means Office Lady, and it's the actual term you use to refer to a full-time female employee in a company. (The version for men is "salaryman".) Here's an H manga that's actually well done -- the turns and twists of how this lowly company employee ends up getting "return favors" in sexual form by all the ladies in the office is quite cool.
	Mashinen Krieger vol. 2. There's modeling, and then there's modeling. While my son and I like to put together Gundam models (we suck at it, but it's fun), this stuff is so well done you can't really think of it as the same thing at all. These are original creations, with lots of cool lunar walking mechs and suits, by master modeller Kow Yokoyama.
	Totoro *Knitting* Doll -- Neko Bus. I have one regret about these "knitting plush toys" Sun Arrow has come out with this year: they're too hard to find, and we can't seem to reorder them, so they disappear once they're sold out initially. This is a very stylized toy, and very well done, too, since Sun Arrow never does anything poorly.
	Japanese Sake Brand "Scissors Bag". Here's something cool: a handy bag that you can put on your belt or wear over your shoulder. Since these are what barbers in Japan use to hold their scissors and other tools, they're called scissors bags in Japanese. They come embossed with logos of famous sake manufacturers, like Shirayuki in the case of this one.
	Figures of Happiness. I do believe this is the best-ever G-Collections dating-sim game -- it's got a great story with dramatic elements, death, love, sex, and regret. It's got a long story that's very satisfying. And it's got some of the best designed characters to come along in a long time too -- while I like the main character Minamo, can you believe how cute Mao and Kokoro are? Man it'd be cool if they were real...