A few more notes from Gina

I seem to be getting a few complaints about using too many Japanese phrases in my stories. I had no idea it was so annoying, my only excuse is I'm just writing what comes into my head at the time. I'll restrain my wayward brain elves, and let you enjoy the story without the Japanese lessons. LOL I kind of thought it added something to the story, but I am outvoted, apparently.

I think there's something about reading the manga that does that to me, it's much more "Japanese" in feel and art style, cultural references, everything. I prefer it to the anime actually, and I tend to base my characterizations, language and visual impressions upon it. I haven't even seen the whole series in anime version, but I've read all the mangas several times.

I'm also a big fan of the Zatoichi live action series, which is in Japanese with subtitles, (no dubs, I don't like dubs) so I think I'm bleeding over into that a bit in my thoughts as I write, too. Listening to all that Japanese is sticking in my fevered brain, it seems. (I even found myself dreaming partly in Japanese phrases the other night, weird! I won't tell you I was doing in the dream, although there was a samurai with a BIG sword. LOL I will tell you it was um exciting.)

In case you never heard of it, Zatoichi a series about a blind ronin and his adventures wandering around shogun-era Japan, and the similarities to RK are there, although Zatoichi is much more gritty and realistic, has a lot of typically earthy toilet humor, too. (Jokes about peeing on people "accidentally" are hilarious to the Japanese so there's usually some of that.)

Japanese humor is unexpectedly earthy and even nasty to many Americans, in view of their extreme social politeness most of the time; it can seem weird (although there's nobody on earth ruder than a drunken group of Japanese men). But, it's just a different culture with different social taboos and influences than ours. Growing up with that influence as I did, many people find my own sense of humor a bit gross and my almost total lack of bodily self-consciousness a bit odd. I always forget how embarrassed about bodily functions and sex some people can be.

Frankly, although the RK Anime is good in many ways, it's been sanitized and over-edited for my taste. Rurouni Kenshin is NOT a kid's show, which is what you might be led to believe from Cartoon Networks showing of it. It's a comic for teens and adults, mostly male oriented, with lots of swearing, blood, and guts. I'm SOOO pissed at Cartoon Network for interrupting the RK Anime in the middle of a story arc, can you tell?

I hope their legs grow together! They did that with Inuyasha, too, the fiends, another Anime that they over-sanitized and edited to death. (Inuyasha's favorite thing to call his enemies in the original is "f**ker" and he calls Kagome "bitch" a lot, he's not very sweet and cuddly, really, rabid fangirls, he's quite angsty and vicious at times). I'm going to choke them all to death slowly with Sesshumaru's man-boa- cloak thing if he'll loan it to me. (It says in the manga it's a fur cloak, so I'm going with that, okay?) I bet he would loan it if I told him I was going to murder some puny annoying humans who had dissed his magnificence with it.