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The Not-So-Future Problems of Cloud Content
Despite Google pulling the plug on Stadia, cloud gaming or gaming as a service continues to be the direction the gaming, movies, and anime (and manga for that…
Sitting Down to Tea with Sakuraco
Tea has a long history of being a part of high-culture in England and in Japan. Sakuraco offers tea-for-two subscription boxes that combine elements of Western tea tradition…
So You Want to Collect Ukiyo-e?
Ukiyo-e translates to “images of the floating world.” The Floating World refers to the pleasure districts of the Edo period. This was the world of actors, prostitutes, geisha,…
Anime, the Love of Learning, and the Love of Spectacle
In Confessions, Saint Augustine contrasts the love of learning with the love of spectacle. His friend Alypius disliked the gladiatorial games of Rome. One day Alypius’s friends convinced…
What is Moxa?
If you read any Japanese literature or history, you see moxa and moxa treatments mentioned. Basho in his travel writings discusses getting a moxa treatment before he travels.…
What Seppuku Represents
Anyone who knows anything about Japan has heard of seppuku or seen it in a samurai film. Seppuku was a ritualized form of suicide and a judicial sentence…
The Importance of Owning a Blog
If you write or consider writing a novel, you’ve likely ran against the idea of the platform. This creature acts as the steed that carries the author to…
Anime Blogging 101: Writing an Informative Essay
I love writing informative essays. I never know what goodies I will find when I set out to research for an informative essay. Informative essays involve all the…
Anime Blogging 101: Citations, Attributions, and Libel
Citations aren’t bad. I promise. Formal and semi-formal citations are important for anime blogging. Luckily, you don’t have to have every comma and period perfect for blog citations.…
Anime Blogging 101: Using Adverbs and Respecting Readers
Adverbs add detail to verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. Many grammar wonks tell us to cut adverbs unless they are necessary. I mostly agree (see what I did…
Anime Blogging 101: Word Selection
Writing focuses on word selection. English overflows with words. Choosing the perfect word is fun, and it is hard. Some words are tired like awesome, cool, and fuck.…
Anime Blogging 101: Your Voice and Commas
Voice is your unique way of speaking. You use words in ways that make a verbal fingerprint. Verbal ticks like like, um, because, so are as important as…
ChatGPT and Blogging’s Future
This article begins a week of articles that examine blogging tips and other writing information. ChatGPT and other language processing models will shift how we interact with the…
More Than a Married Couple, but Not Lovers
More Than a Married Couple, but Not Lovers begins with a reality-TV premise. Shiori, Jiro, and Akari’s high school has implemented a couples-training practicum, which aims to have…
The Declining Population of Japan
By 2060, Japan will have a population of 86.7 million, from today’s population of 125 million (Yamaguchi, 2022). The population will also grow older. This trend has been…
Do It Yourself!
Do It Yourself! is another cute-girls-doing-cute-things anime. In this one, the girls join a Do It Yourself Club. The main character, Serufu Yua is a complete klutz and…
Bocchi the Rock!
Bocchi the Rock! teems with experimental animation that captures the social anxiety and catastrophizing the anime’s namesake character experiences. It’s a fun ride. Bocchi the Rock! follows the…
Raven of the Inner Palace
Raven of the Inner Palace wowed me on many levels when I gave it a watch. While the animation is stiff, especially compared to the experimental animation of…
Japanese Poems about Winter
I love winter. The cold may be uncomfortable, but it is the night of the year. It calls us to stop and rest and reflect. Although, as the…
Looking Back on 2022
This past year was JP’s 10th. Before I started writing this blog, I struggled to see anything through. I would flit from project to project, from interest to…
The Fox’s Loneliness
This Christmas I will leave you with this short story I wrote. Merry Christmas! I shouldn’t have shown myself, Kitsune thought. Below her perch in the tree, two…
Your Book Won’t be Read
If you’ve considered writing a book, here’s the reality: your book won’t be read. Okay, it will be read by friends, family, and a few others, but becoming…
Tamamo Chapter 1
Below is the first chapter from my newest book Tamamo. If you like what you read, you can buy the ebook or paperback on Amazon. The story takes…
TokyoTreat’s Santa Snackfest
TokyoTreat sent me their December snackbox to review. If you aren’t familiar with TokyoTreat, the company offers a monthly subscription that sends you a themed box of Japanese…
Of Boys and Men
I’ve often written about the struggles of men here on JP. Japan leads the United States and the West when it comes to social problems. This also applies…
Hanasaku Iroha
Anime often does character studies and coming-of-age stories well. Hanasaku Iroha centers on Ohana Matsumae who is sent from Tokyo to live with a grandmother she had never…
Discussing “The Lady Who Loved Insects”
The Lady Who Loved Insects is a charming short story set in the Heian period. The story follows a young noble woman who has intellectual interests, such as…
Facelift and Code Tweaks
After some work, I’ve finished a much-needed layout change and tweaked a lot of background code. Hopefully, it will make JP load faster for mobile readers. Google recently…
JAXA, The Japanese NASA
JAXA, or The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, formed in 2003 with the mergers of the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, the National Aerospace Laboratory, and the National…
Are Fans Entitled?
Steve Shives, a Star Trek YouTuber, released a video titled “Fan Service Leads to Fan Entitlement” where he outlines how catering to fans causes problems. He argues that…
Stranger in the Shogun’s City by Amy Stanley
History tends to represent the voices of men and those in power. Typically, governmental officials, who are most often men, know how to read and write. And those…
Geishas and the Floating World: Inside Tokyo’s Yoshiwara Pleasure District
Geishas and the Floating World by Stephen and Ethel Longstreet examines the history and development of Tokyo’s red-light district of Yoshiwara. The name of the book misleads a…
Parallel World Pharmacy Review
Parallel World Pharmacy takes a different direction from the usual isekai. When medical researcher Kanji Yakutani dies from karoshi, he wakes up to find himself reborn in a…
The Internet’s Spoiler Culture
Every week, some upcoming video game is leaked to the Internet. Either you have an entire ROM (read only memory) drop of the game, or leaks of screenshots…
After-Anime Sadness, Emotion Validity, and Responsibility
My article 5 Ways to Handle After-Anime Depression surprised me with the amount of comments people have posted. Feeling sad or empty after finishing a story that resonates…
Sketching Taoism’s Influence on Japan
Taoism, or Daoism depending on which transliteration system you want to use, like many Chinese imports, mixed with Japan’s culture and the native religion Shinto. Although calling Shinto…
My Top 5 Nostalgic Anime
Nostalgia has a bad reputation online. It is looked down upon because it isn’t objective. I’m sure you’re familiar with the idea of nostalgia goggles: the idea that…
The Value of Calm Silence
Because speech emerges externally from internal activity, whenever you are restless you speak thoughtlessly. You’re apt to be garrulous and flippant, speaking immoderately, talking too much, perhap…
Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun Review
Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun surprised me. As long-time readers know, it’s a rare comedy to make me chuckle. Kaguya-sama: Love is War is one of the most recent surprises.…
Using Anime to Heal
To say the past two years of 2020-2022 has been difficult for many people doesn’t do justice. Many people have lost loved ones, suffered mental difficulties, lost income,…
The Delicate Happiness of “The Guest Cat”
The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide focuses on a childless couple who is adopted by the neighbor’s cat. The novella offers a detailed slice of life set in the…
The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang
The Rape of Nanking covers the destruction of present-day Nanjing City by the Japanese during World War II. The book doesn’t hold back. In several chapters, I had…
No More Wars: the Edo Period’s Final Rebellions
After Japan was unified under Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and finished with Tokugawa Ieyasu, the Tokugawa government declared there would be no more wars. The final war is…
Sugoi Summer – TokyoTreat Box Review
Ichigo, the parent company of SakuraCo and TokyoTreat, asked me to review a TokyoTreat box. If you aren’t familiar with TokyoTreat, it’s a monthly subscription service that sends…
The Nature of Online Piracy
You’ve most likely broken the law by downloading something illegally. In fact, more than an estimated 75% of computers have at least one illegally downloaded file, and 22%…
Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie
Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie addresses interesting themes. Let’s get to them! But first, the summary for those who haven’t seen the anime yet. Not Just a Cutie…
11 Steps to Stop Being an Incel
Incels, or involuntary celibates, are men with an unhealthy view of women and of life. Many, of course, would disagree with that statement. They view themselves as more…
Interviews with Monster Girls, A Review
Interviews with Monster Girls follows a biology teacher named Tetsuo Takahashi as he teaches three demi (or demi-human) high-school girls. He also tries to understand them better, including…
Kaguya-Sama: Love is War Final Season
Kaguya-sama: Love is War shares a lot of similarities with Seinfeld. Seinfeld made a fuss out of nothing, such as waiting to be seated in a Chinese restaurant.…
Kaguya-Sama: Love is War
Kaguya-sama: Love is War shares a lot of similarities with Seinfeld. Seinfeld made a fuss out of nothing, such as waiting to be seated in a Chinese restaurant.…