YoooOOOO~~~!
Lately I've been feeling like I should experience Culture, since I'll only be here 2.5 more months. The Golden Week beach trip to Shirahama was really fun. So this weekend I was doing things!
On Friday I went to a Noh play in Nara. It was an outdoor stage lit by two bonfires. It looked really pretty, but for the two older men especially I could not understand what they were saying. The woman's face mask didn't help make things clearer either. There was a kid who said some lines sometimes--really cute. Sometimes I could catch phrases, but then I would lose the thread. And when I was trying to listen to the dialogue, the drums and the "Yo~~!"s kept going on the background, making it hard to hear. Also there was like zero action. Everyone just stood there and said their lines. There were long music breaks that were kind of boring. But listening to the dialogue and chanting and drums and flute as a kind of music, it was very effective. All worked together to convey emotions and drama effectively.
On Saturday I went to a Takarazuka play again with one of the former students who took me before. It was REALLY packed, so though she worked hard to get me a ticket, she had to stand and watch herself (like 3 hours). The show was Elizabeth (雪組） and it was AWESOME. Most of the problems with the previous shows I watched were script problems, so with a great show like this that's already a success, they were able to shine. Death was SO HOT. Jesus. And when he kissed Rudolf it was like the hottest thing ever. Male-male kisses in Takarazuka are like the epitome of awesome. I understood most of it, but a few places I didn't quite get the motivations of everyone so I'd like to watch an English version to compare. But like I saw pictures of the German version in the omiyage store there, and everyone was so ugly! In Takarazuka's production everyone was hot like burning yes. I *like* 雪組. The ones I saw before were 花組. The singing and dancing was top-rate here, lots of pretty harmony executed well, and the otokoyaku voices, especially Death and Luigi, really sounded masculine. There was like a middle school 修学旅行 group to see it--I guess because it's "historical," or maybe just because it's a famous show. But I thought that was kind of funny. Better living through crossdressing! And there were members of 月組 in the audience to watch this production, so my former student friend was happy to get a chance to see them near to where she was standing.
Also before the show started I went to an accessory shop in the theater, and they had SO MANY clip-on and screw-on earrings. I was in heaven. I only ended up getting 3 pairs, but they're really pretty and each was only like 1200 so I was happy. Yay earrings! Earrings are really hard to find! Talking to my former student was fun, but talking in Japanese for so long was kind of tiring. Good practice though! Her family is so funny. Her mom is like a GIANT Takarazuka otaku, like fanatic, and also loves SMAP and KimuTaku. And her sister LOVES Takarazuka, actually wants to enter the Takarazuka high school (though it's a long shot) and is a KATTUN maniac. And my student and I bonded over Yamapi and were discussing his new drama.
Then on Sunday I went to Monkey Mountain in Kyoto with a friend. It's a mountain where there are lots of monkeys. Medium-size ones with stumpy tails. And they are very adorable. And there's a little house with barred walls where people go inside and the monkey hang off outside and reach their hands in for treats. The baby monkey's hand was SO SOFT and his little fingernails so soft and cute. His face was wrinkled like an old man. The grooming rituals and monkey socializing were fun to watch. Yay. We went to a nearby shrine too, and that was pretty.
While waiting for the train on Sunday I was browsing some magazines in the bookstore, like the TV guide--just insanely gay pictures of KTTUN. Oh, boys... Lately I've been watching a lot of JE boy footage--concert and variety clips, etc. They're just so *adorable* and pretty and purposefully gay. I think a big reason why I like them is to see the valorization of such (viewed through Western eyes) "unmasculine" behavior. It's even worse when they *try* to be manly. Hahhahaha. But to see them sexed up and prostituted at such a young age makes me uncomfortable. Recently I was watching the NEWS in nurse uniforms clip, where Koyama and this tiny tiny like 12-year-old junior go around molesting and flipping up the skirts of the "nurses." So wrong! So hot! Such prostitution! So hilarious! Afterwards, the NEWS members were telling Koyama he was being too sexy/perverted with them. Hah, NO SUCH THING. The general JE boy bonding, and senpai-kouhai bonding is ADORABLE. But I do feel uncomfortable like watching clips of young KimuTaku shaking his ass in an outfit that is obviously copied from the cliched look for gay male prostitutes. (I love him shaking his ass when he's older though, because he still maintains those JE boy twink habits, and it's great to contrast that with his MANLY image nowadays. It's so funny that he's like the manliest of them all. It's strange to think about how there's no American analogy to the popularity and pervasiveness of SMAP (and JE) in Japan, especially when you see those odd dances and *bizarre* costumes...) And I heard a rumor (which may be a total lie, as all my gossip about JE) that Kame's first kiss was sacrificed on the altar of art as a screenkiss for Sapuri. No girlfriends, no privacy, no childhood, slaves to Johnny with no real world job skills--I feel bad for them! But not bad enough to stop watching... The guilt might actually make it more entertaining...
Dude you guys, speaking of KimuTaku, the Hero movie is coming in September! Of course as soon as I leave. ::sadface::
On Friday I went to a Noh play in Nara. It was an outdoor stage lit by two bonfires. It looked really pretty, but for the two older men especially I could not understand what they were saying. The woman's face mask didn't help make things clearer either. There was a kid who said some lines sometimes--really cute. Sometimes I could catch phrases, but then I would lose the thread. And when I was trying to listen to the dialogue, the drums and the "Yo~~!"s kept going on the background, making it hard to hear. Also there was like zero action. Everyone just stood there and said their lines. There were long music breaks that were kind of boring. But listening to the dialogue and chanting and drums and flute as a kind of music, it was very effective. All worked together to convey emotions and drama effectively.
On Saturday I went to a Takarazuka play again with one of the former students who took me before. It was REALLY packed, so though she worked hard to get me a ticket, she had to stand and watch herself (like 3 hours). The show was Elizabeth (雪組） and it was AWESOME. Most of the problems with the previous shows I watched were script problems, so with a great show like this that's already a success, they were able to shine. Death was SO HOT. Jesus. And when he kissed Rudolf it was like the hottest thing ever. Male-male kisses in Takarazuka are like the epitome of awesome. I understood most of it, but a few places I didn't quite get the motivations of everyone so I'd like to watch an English version to compare. But like I saw pictures of the German version in the omiyage store there, and everyone was so ugly! In Takarazuka's production everyone was hot like burning yes. I *like* 雪組. The ones I saw before were 花組. The singing and dancing was top-rate here, lots of pretty harmony executed well, and the otokoyaku voices, especially Death and Luigi, really sounded masculine. There was like a middle school 修学旅行 group to see it--I guess because it's "historical," or maybe just because it's a famous show. But I thought that was kind of funny. Better living through crossdressing! And there were members of 月組 in the audience to watch this production, so my former student friend was happy to get a chance to see them near to where she was standing.
Also before the show started I went to an accessory shop in the theater, and they had SO MANY clip-on and screw-on earrings. I was in heaven. I only ended up getting 3 pairs, but they're really pretty and each was only like 1200 so I was happy. Yay earrings! Earrings are really hard to find! Talking to my former student was fun, but talking in Japanese for so long was kind of tiring. Good practice though! Her family is so funny. Her mom is like a GIANT Takarazuka otaku, like fanatic, and also loves SMAP and KimuTaku. And her sister LOVES Takarazuka, actually wants to enter the Takarazuka high school (though it's a long shot) and is a KATTUN maniac. And my student and I bonded over Yamapi and were discussing his new drama.
Then on Sunday I went to Monkey Mountain in Kyoto with a friend. It's a mountain where there are lots of monkeys. Medium-size ones with stumpy tails. And they are very adorable. And there's a little house with barred walls where people go inside and the monkey hang off outside and reach their hands in for treats. The baby monkey's hand was SO SOFT and his little fingernails so soft and cute. His face was wrinkled like an old man. The grooming rituals and monkey socializing were fun to watch. Yay. We went to a nearby shrine too, and that was pretty.
While waiting for the train on Sunday I was browsing some magazines in the bookstore, like the TV guide--just insanely gay pictures of KTTUN. Oh, boys... Lately I've been watching a lot of JE boy footage--concert and variety clips, etc. They're just so *adorable* and pretty and purposefully gay. I think a big reason why I like them is to see the valorization of such (viewed through Western eyes) "unmasculine" behavior. It's even worse when they *try* to be manly. Hahhahaha. But to see them sexed up and prostituted at such a young age makes me uncomfortable. Recently I was watching the NEWS in nurse uniforms clip, where Koyama and this tiny tiny like 12-year-old junior go around molesting and flipping up the skirts of the "nurses." So wrong! So hot! Such prostitution! So hilarious! Afterwards, the NEWS members were telling Koyama he was being too sexy/perverted with them. Hah, NO SUCH THING. The general JE boy bonding, and senpai-kouhai bonding is ADORABLE. But I do feel uncomfortable like watching clips of young KimuTaku shaking his ass in an outfit that is obviously copied from the cliched look for gay male prostitutes. (I love him shaking his ass when he's older though, because he still maintains those JE boy twink habits, and it's great to contrast that with his MANLY image nowadays. It's so funny that he's like the manliest of them all. It's strange to think about how there's no American analogy to the popularity and pervasiveness of SMAP (and JE) in Japan, especially when you see those odd dances and *bizarre* costumes...) And I heard a rumor (which may be a total lie, as all my gossip about JE) that Kame's first kiss was sacrificed on the altar of art as a screenkiss for Sapuri. No girlfriends, no privacy, no childhood, slaves to Johnny with no real world job skills--I feel bad for them! But not bad enough to stop watching... The guilt might actually make it more entertaining...
Dude you guys, speaking of KimuTaku, the Hero movie is coming in September! Of course as soon as I leave. ::sadface::