I have not forsaken thee, oh Blog of mine. . .
Lousy health, work pressures, and too many shiny shiny things to read and look at have kept me away. Me Bad!
Sampling a few of the more harmless “trap‘ crossdressing manga out there: Tripeace and Usotsuki Lily. Noted the odd “alibis” for the lads’ “habits”. Questioning gender roles in a society that sees any social role change as potentially dangerous (and has very strong methods of enforcing social roles), but has a tradition of defusing non-mainstream sexuality by turning it into entertainment value, could be a safe way to begin to explore how to work through a complete breakdown in all social roles.
This needs more study. Especially since Genshiken has brought in a reverse trap FTM crossdresser whose tastes would get her nailed as a sex offender in a number of Western countries. Lookout Hato. (aside: while she may be a shout-out to a particular subset of theory-spinning academic fujoshi, there are still no lesbians in Genshiken, or Japan — this of course is a blatant teaser for a later entry)
Stumbled upon a whole slew of good research on gender, identity etc. in Japan / Asia in the Intersections journal. Japan Focus had a few nifty articles on the reality of Japanese high school life, with interesting diversions towards Hikikomori research.
A friend referred me to a precis of a study comparing Japanese Hikis to French shut-ins, which once again made me curse! all locked down internet journals (would it kill you morons not to password access your research????????) Today a bit of the work shows up in the Japan Times.
Having Much Too Much Fun with my new Sony e-book reader: 5 inch touch screen, E-ink.. Goes for days without charging, absorbs news feed from all my fave newspapers and magazines, once hooked to CALIBRE, the open source e-book management software. Have not even installed Sony’s software.. Why bother.. Who needs another DRM backdoor rootkit.
This is the first time EVER! that I have not been disappointed to the point of blind rage by a Sony product. Shit warranties, awful warranty service/ customer support, over priced, thinks-it-is-Apple-has-all-of-Apple’s-bad-habits behavior (MONETIZE THIS YOU FUCKERS!) etc.. Well, all is forgiven, for the next 5 minutes at least.. Love the e-ink! Love the battery life. The touch screen gestures work most of the time. Much more useful than the $80 Chinese android tablet (horrible battery life) for reading ebooks.
It helps that the damn thing was $70 (incl tax + delivery) when bought as a store return on Ebay. And of course, I will never buy an e-book from Sony’s online whatever.
Load it up with Mechademia and kick back.
As for the title: I am pleased to announce Muda-kun’s iron law of J-pop:
The lyrics must include the words Omoide and Kaze.
But perhaps this is already well-known.
HEARTS OF FURIOUS FANCIES 