The lack of patriotic songs in Japan, what happened in our prefecture during WWII, and a useful word for Atari fans

The Fourth of July celebration was a lot of fun, a rare treat for me since Anime Expo usually falls across the holiday. I decided to take J-List's manga and photobook-meister Yasu (who was heading home the next day) to see the fireworks over San Diego Harbor, so we headed for the beautiful Coronado Bay Bridge, one of the most famous symbols of America's Finest City. They were great, especially with the accompanying patriotic music on the radio. This led to an interesting study in comparative culture for us: there is no "patriotic" music in Japan, no way to express the love of one's own country through music. The nearest thing Japan has to "America The Beautiful" or "Yankee Doodle" are gunka (goon-KA), dreary military songs that were used to rouse patriotic spirit during World War II, like the famous ditty "Monday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Friday," about a bronzed sailor breathing in the salty sea air as he polishes the guns on his battleship. After the war ended, Japan understandably moved away from these wartime hymns, and now they're exclusively the domain of right-wing nuts who drive around in big loudspeaker trucks blasting the songs in everyone's eardrums (they also play the Space Battleship Yamato theme song from time to time, which always brings a tear to my eye, but for different reasons than they intend). This is roughly equivalent to the KKK taking over "This Land Is Your Land," and I wish Japanese would get upset about it. But if you know anything about Japan, you know their mantra is sho ga nai or "it can't be helped," and thus no one feels the need to change anything.

Speaking of the war, I've always been interested in the experiences of Japanese in my (adopted) home prefecture of Gunma during World War II, and during the months I worked as my city's "Facilitator of Internationalization" (whatever that means), I took the time to look up some local history of those sad years. The end of the war, of course, saw bombing of many Japanese cities, and Gunma was no different. In nearby Ota there's a really long, straight road that's famous because it was the former runway for a major airbase during the war before it was bombed flat, an interesting bit of local trivia. My wife's father was just five when he heard the sound of the B-29's coming to bomb the Fuji Heavy Industries factory in our city -- it was wiped out but rebuilt, and they make Subaru cars there now. Our prefectural capital of Maebashi was bombed on August 5, just ten days before the end of the war, although the city's lone Catholic church miraculously emerged unscathed. Many Japanese were called away to fight in the war, and sadly, many would not come home. Those who did return, like Yasu's grandfather, are considered lucky, and people still hammer off chips of his family grave to share in some of that good luck. Of course, some didn't leave to fight in the war at all, like my wife's grandfather, who faked an injury by jumping off the roof of his house to avoid serving in the army.

If you want to experience the difference between war and peace, check these two movies out. One is the original "Monday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Friday" song:

Then there's a modern ad for the naval SDF:

I'll teach you a Japanese word: atari-mae (ah-tah-ree-MAH-eh), which means usual, common, or spoken as a phrase, "of course!" (Yes, it's the same same atari as the game maker, but if I get into that I'll never get this update finished.) Things that are atari-mae are the obvious facts of life that everyone takes for granted, such as the sky, the earth, and the fact that there are two words for "duck," which are ahiru (the white ducks that are flightless) and kamo (the brown kind that can fly). These obvious facts aren't always so obvious to foreigners coming from languages where "duck" covers all variations of the aquatic fowl, and this can make for some embarrassing moments when we use the wrong word for the wrong bird, making us look like simpletons who don't know as much as a first-grader. Other words that seem specially created to trip foreigners up include the two words for "cold" (samui is coldness in the air, while tsumetai is cold to the touch), and the verbs iru and aru, which mean "to be (in a place)" for animate and inanimate objects, respectively, always difficult to use correctly on short notice.

Interested in learning Japanese? Remember that J-List loves Japan and always wants to promote the study of Japanese all over the world. To that end, we carry cool things like the famous Canon Wordtank electronic dictionaries, the "Genki" line of textbooks and workbooks, monthly magazines that help you study, kanji practice notebooks, kanji study cards and the spiffy Zebra Check Set, a system that helps you memorize anything by highlighting information in a textbook then hiding it with a special film, so you can quiz yourself. Whether you want to learn some Japanese phrases for a trip to Japan, start mastering hiragana and katakana and kanji for enjoyment of manga, or prepare for the JLPT, J-List has got your back!

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.

	Gekkan -- Yukie Kawamura III. Gorgeous photomagazine dedicated to Yukie-chan and only to Yukie-chan.
	Super Anal Collections 3 ~ Mijiri Eros. Fun considering the female body from the back end.
	20 Obedient Maids 4 Hours Collection. Yes, they certainly are 20 obedient maids.
	Binchoutan ~ Clay Color *Preorder*. Binchotan is an extremely cute character that's deep in the realm of "moe." If you don't quite get what she's all about, here's the Wikipedia article.
	BL Style vol. 3. Great new book for yaoi lovers.
	Animage April 2007. Animage is the original anime magazine from Japan, published by Tokuma Shoten, the Ghibli people.
	Insult Fighting Musume 24 ~ Touki Ryoujyoku vol. 24. Great manga dedicated to hot girls in video games.
	The Colors of Japan. Outstanding photobook featuring scenes of modern and old Japan.
	Hello Kitty Kimono Strap with Chirimen Mari ~ Red . Beautiful Kimono themed strap for Hello Kitty collectors.
	MYN114 Tachikomans Tachi-Yellow 1/24 Scale *Wave High Advanced Model* Tachikoma w/Togusa . New Tachikoma variant, kewl.
	Haruhi Suzumiya 1/8 PVC Figure ~ Max Factory. This is the figure, man, the figure everyone's been waiting for. Including me.
	Black Lucky Cat Family (Three Cats) *Sunshine People Style. Bring good luck into your home with these cool Lucky Cats -- never need batteries!
	White Feng Shui Lucky Cat for Avoiding Bad Luck / Northeast. A cool new Lucky Cat for your home or office. Avoiding bad luck has to be a good thing.
	Nori Wasabi Pretz. Delicioous new flavor of Pretz stick snacks.
	Neri-Keshi / Kneading Eraser -- Curry Scented. Curry scented erasers? Wow, we live to bring this stuff to you.
	Dragon Ball Character Strap 3 ~ Full Set (Set of 7). Nice item for DB lovers. Full set of these straps.