April 19th, 2004
108233481019242067
Flashes of Nara / Love Hina
There are moments where I feel a surge, or a ghost; instants where my consciousness is suffused with an overpowering rush of recollection, like an unexpected wave over a sand dollar drying in the sun. I lose all awareness of my previous train of thought, and I sense I am at a time before, as if my eyes just opened in a yellow, sunny room with an eternity of precedent. These possessions of the heart far exceed the common phenomenon that merely tugs at one or two of my senses, they envelop my cognitive mind so seamlessly I involuntarily draw a sharp breath from the cold shock. Apparition precedes willful retrospect, and I see it as a sign, a chemical message: that my soul is pining for an adjustment in the orientation of my perspective.
I dreamed of Nara the other day, the sun so bright through the curtains of my danchi. I was half-sitting up on my futon, and in an instant counted every blade of grass and ragweed that grew like a jungle along the tarmac sidewalks. Ten seat karaoke bars and the scuffing sound of tiles below my feet in Takanohara station. The small shopping town and all the worn, hundred yen coins I put into the UFO catcher to collect a string of character keychains. I bought Midnight Cowboy on VHS, and borrowed a VCR from work to watch Joe Buck on his own adventures in promiscuity and exploration of a culture so foreign and different from his small town conceptions. Tatami is a grace, and simply walking upon it causes my head to spin with piety… conveyor belt sushi bars, impossibly low doorways, following maps in cities with no clear numbering systems, hiking over a mountain sparsely populated by the elderly and wandering monks, those infinitely wiser in their soy and silk reverence than I may ever hope to attain through a lifetime of self-humiliation.
Wo, how have I come so far and what does my life mean now? Is it no longer an experience? Am I insulated? There are so many roads I wish to straddle, but my knees grow weak and I may fall on the urban turnpike with exits more than forty miles apart.
…
After finishing Trigun last week, I have decided to wait on starting a new title and revisit Love Hina. Though what many would write off as “basic otaku” fodder, I draw a deep meaning from the series. It was the first Japanese show I watched, fansubs obtained through broadband while in my first year at the ETC. Though admittedly the some of the visuals and gags pander to sex-starved male youth, the underlying meaning of the story and the intentions of the characters are simple, pure, and idealistic. Keitaro steadfastly wants to get into Tokyo University (the Harvard of Japan), for a better life and to keep a childhood promise made fifteen years ago. He fails again and again miserably, but despite the beating he takes from his clumsiness (and the other characters), he perseveres, looking to beat the odds and achieve a better life. Everyone is well-intentioned, though frequently not true to themselves, suppressing that which exists most naturally inside of them. Such is learning, such is life.
Aside from the thematic elements of the show, it has sentimental value for me, as it echoes and mirrors my own struggle against impossibility to get to Japan and into game development. It brings back so many starry-eyed observations and rose colored daydreams, writing the names of all those fanciful destinations over and over in my notebooks. Now here for nearly a year I consider myself lucky to be not jaded, not disappointed, and not feeling let down by a country and culture that seemed such an ivory tower in that issue of Wired that started it all. Quite the opposite, in fact… I am all the more emboldened to expand my passion and learn with innocence and no prejudice, to redouble my efforts into absorbing all I can of this beautiful world, and having it enhance the latent beauty inside.
