I had never seen 火垂るの墓 (Grave of the Fireflies) before today, and it's brilliant, extremely sad but more than anything incredibly powerful. Even with the very first sentence, spoken by Seita, being 「昭和20年9月21日夜僕は死んだ」 ("On the night of September 21, 1945, I died" ) and so trying to prepare viewers for what is to come, I still wasn't quite prepared.
If you haven seen it (but most of you probably have), please do.
New level (29) in our Japanese evening class tonight, and we finally reached 敬語 (keigo, honorific language). With some luck and some work, I may soon become a slightly less rude prick in Japanese. 🙏 😅
Melt-Banana are still one of the most fun bands you can ever see live. It's been a little while since I've been at a gig where the sweat was literally dripping from the ceiling. 🫠
Musk telling his followers that they shouldn't visit the UK because he wasn't invited is probably the only useful thing he's done in the last 5 years. I appreciate every one of his followers not coming anywhere near me 😅
(Although I don't expect many of his followers would know where or what the UK is.)
Things to help you feel young: an email from the Swiss embassy inviting you to a webinar on the challenges of returning to Switzerland in retirement age 😅
Just got a ticket to this. I love Yoko Tawada and coincidentally just ordered this book in the original German the other day. Tawada has lived in Germany for many years, and writes both in Japanese and in German, but I have so far only ever read her books written in Japanese, so really looking forward to this (both the book and the event)!
If you're watching 極悪女王 (The Queen of Villains), which I highly recommend even as someone who isn't really into wrestling, this is a great article that provides some really interesting background into some of the characters and All Japan Women’s Pro-Wrestling (AJW).
I thought I recognised 向井秀徳's (Shutoko Mukai, from ZAZEN BOYS and NUMBER GIRL) vocals on this, and turns out he even wrote the song. Typically slightly weird (his weirdness works well together with 大森靖子's weidness), but pretty great 😁
"Dairy companies that produced formula for China’s infants are now developing powdered milks for seniors. Proprietors of preschools and kindergartens are closing those facilities to start senior care centers. A technology firm that made devices for parents to track their young children is now designing products allowing grown children to keep tabs on their aging mothers and fathers."
ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅInquisitive hacker, CTO @ Ipsos Healthcare. Swiss-Brit. Runner. 🇨🇭 🇬🇧 🇯🇵I love cats, japan, books, drums, cooking, tinkering with technology, and am obsessed with (mostly weird, experimental, or noisy) music. 日本語を勉強しています。From Zürich, in London for over 30 years.Profile pic by LINE's AI セルフィーBanner pic my own, taken at 有楽町