Woke up this AM at 7:00, still haven’t totally shaken off the ‘lag. But that’s ok, I guess, because back in the US I feel like fried shit if I try to wake up earlier than 8:30 or so.

Anyway, today Orie is visiting friends in Maebashi (the capital city of Gunma), and I’m chilling out today with Eikichi at his place. His younger sister Miho just had a baby (a girl named Kokoro), and is doing the thing they do in Japan, where the mother returns home to her family for 1-3 months while the father lives by himself (or with other kids if they have them, not the case here with my cousin). The mother gets to relax and learns to take care of the baby while her family supports her and takes care of her. It’s an interesting phenomenon, and even career mothers and the like are expected to take off from work for quite a while before returning.

At Eikichi’s home (where he returns from Tokyo every once in a while), there lives his parents Yoko and Mikkyo. His father (now a grandfather) used to be like a super-yankee. Basically, a rebellious youth gang leader (but not about violence and drugs, more like about riding motorcycles, living outside the system, sticking it to the man, being a nuisance, etc). Now he’s totally a grandpa. A grandpa who still goes to hard rock/punk concerts, but he’s totally in “grandpa mode” now. Eikichi’s grandparents (who own the farmland and the house) also live with them. Wonderful people. They lived through the great war, which can do weird things to one’s concept of the enemy from back then (my grandmother used to go on and on about “the Japs” and how “they killed our boys”), but they totally love having me over. It’s really cool how people can overcome their surroundings. Anyway.

Now Eikichi and I are eating Japanese snacks and watching some anime he brought. Right now we’re on episode two of KAIBA (”Memory”). Joushua Neuman, this one is one you want to get your fucking mitts on. The anime style is REALLY weird, like the old-school style childish “Astro Boy” style of design and animation. But the story is 110% Shock:. Surreal as hell, all about this world where people have ther memories stores on little cylinders, and can trade them into new bodies, edit their memories, etc. Meanwhile there appear to be creatures that eat memories… now we’re on a side-story about a girl on some kind of generational ship, and is being interrogated for being a “memory smuggler”. It’s all not making too much sense now, but that’s apparently the point: the more you watch, the more it becomes clear. Eikichi’s seen all the episodes but the last two, and even he says there’s a lot that is left unexplained or up to the viewer’s imagination. I can’t tell if it’s “awesomez” or not yet, but it’s really quite interesting to take in. It really feels, aside from the visual qualities, like an action-y Greg Egan novel-made-anime.

Later today, Orie and I are going shopping again: There’s more culture to get my fix on (music, games, books, etc).

(UPDATE): Watched episodes of Paranoia Agent and Seto no Hanayome as well. We were going to watch Princess Tutu but he didn’t have the first disk with him. I told him about my friend Matt and our Anime Nights once a month, and Eikichi said that he’d love to meet Matt some day, it sounds like their tastes match a lot.

I loved Seto no Hanayome (The Bride from Seto (Sea)). It’s a comedy about a girl who is a mermaid, her engagement to an average kid, and her family (who are all gangsters) who are both trying to keep them together (for the sake of the girl), and tear them apart at the same time (because the father decides that he doesn’t want his little girl to go away with another man). Many Ls were OLed.

We decided to pack it in early to get ready for the next day, hiking in Oze.