I was going to buy myself the entire Akira series as a Christmas present, but I was out this afternoon with money in my pocket and decided to make it an It's Saturday Present instead. This is one of the all-time manga greats, probably known to many of you from the incomprehensible anime that was based off it. I've read the first few volumes in English translation, but obviously the Japanese is preferable. Also, Japanese consumer products did me a grevious wrong with my broken-down CD player, a wrong so heinous that it required 2000 pages of manga to fix it. I didn't just want this series; I deserved it. Each of these volumes is as big as my torso and could easily be used as body armor the next time I am in a high-pressure hostage situation where gunfire is likely. Of course, I had no idea whether or not I would be able to read a single page of it, but I figured that buying the whole series in a shot was the only way to get all the goodness all at once, and I was right. I spent a fair amount of the day reading the first volume and just finished it before I started writing this. Mmm... Akira goodness. It's like somebody mixed up a crazy cocktail of drugs, psychokinetic powers and violence and shot it directly into my brain. It's great. And as it turns out, most of the manga is dialogue between uneducated street toughs, so the Japanese is incredibly easy. Woot.
Tonight was the rugby world cup final between Australia and England, and though I couldn't care less about rugby, its world cup, or who wins it, I went with the Aussie girls to an Irish pub in town to support the Team Down Under as an honorary Aussie. As far as the game goes, it was predictably enough a bust, as I can't stand more than twenty minutes or so of any sport, especially on TV, not to mention that loud drunken sports fans aggravate me in the best of circumstances. Still, rugby is far more interesting than American football and takes less time, so I was definitely thankful for that. In the end, though, it was all worth it because I got to try my first Guinness, which as it turns out is tasty and delicious, like drinking a loaf of black bread. It's funny that I enjoyed it, because in America I always hated beer, but ever since I came to Japan I've realized that there is little better than a nice glass of beer with a dinner out to settle the stomach. I think there are turnstiles at customs that zap you with beer-loving rays when you enter the country; they have them in Germany too, but they are set so high that they vaporize small pets and the weak.
- Gyaa! I'm give up
Naka-ku, Hiroshima
JAPAN