Japan Is Doomed

OK, this is a scary post. Matt and I just waved off this year’s volunteers, they fly back home to the UK today and another set of volunteers come in September.

I remember leaving last year. I just need to look at my post about it to remember everything. The flat is as clean as it was when we left last year, all the goodbyes have been said, the copious amount of bye-bye alcohol consumed… it’s like stepping back in time a year. Only without the guy from Back To The Future.

But of course, this has bad implications. Rather than being the super cool ‘Last Year’s Volunteers’, we have turned into the much worse ‘Volunteers from two years ago’, or at least we will in a few weeks. Furthermore, the next set of volunteers have a ‘Mike’ as well, the third in three years, so I turn from ‘Old Mike’ into ‘Oldest Mike’. 古くなりたくない！

But of course, there’s good news too. Meeting the new volunteers will be exciting, and of course I’m still in Japan until September 25th of this year so I still have plenty of time to explore. Matt is here for a year for study so it really, really is just like the good old days. Except we’re a little taller, a little poorer, and even more sunburnt.

(For those wondering ‘why is he writing all this nonsense, where did my funny go?!‘, I’ll do a new Translation Station in a day or two…)

Translation Station is a new series of videos I’m doing, where I take typical Japanese TV, then replace the speaking with my own script. It’s great fun to do and I’m hoping to recruit a few other people to do episodes as well.

The first episode is about Ainori. On the show a group of Japanese people get on a pink bus and travel around the world. Basically when one of them falls in love with another, they confess their love. If the other person accepts them, they go back to Japan together. If they don’t, the person who asked goes back alone.

As I said this is the first episode and I had no idea how hard it is to switch between accents quickly. Next time I promise it will make even less sense. The volume is a little bit low sometimes too. Sorry about that.

Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea (崖の上のポニョ,)

So yes, the other day I saw the new Studio Ghibli film (maker of Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke and My Neighbour Totoro, which I reviewed) I liked it, but I honestly don’t think it’s up to par with his usual films, to be totally honest.

It’s much more of a kiddy movie, with no violence at all, and no really ‘evil’ characters (other than a grumpy grandmother, but she’s hardly evil like the demons in Mononoke).

Anyway, I thought I’d do my full review as a video, so here it is;

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Zzz….

In other news, we are currently having torrential rain here. It’s horrible, it seems when it rains the Japanese walk even slower than usual. As if that is even possible.

Just when you thought I’d given up on videos altogether!