Arashi’s Amateurish Guide to Japanese Life and Culture and How it Applies to Fanfiction

[Mike1984]

Are you talking about the scene in UBW where you catch Rin looking at the Matou house and she forces you to hide in a super tight alleyway with her? I'd definitely call that foreshadowing.

Well, that's the most obvious bit, yes. There are others, though.

[Arashi_Leonhart]

Section III: City Life

One thing I want to start with is that Fuyuki at least is based very much on actual locations in Japan, primarily in Kobe. This is not uncommon, as many anime series have locations that are painstakingly replicated from real-life locales, some simply for the hell of it (Index/Railgun, Madoka) and some because they are specifically located there (Haruhi Suzumiya takes place in Nishinomiya, an area between Kobe and Osaka, Durarara!! takes place in Ikebukuro district of Tokyo).

On that, I’ll direct you to an anime pilgrimage blog that covers the FSN locales…

Locations in Kobe
Weathercock House
More locations

Wards and Districts: Cities are generally divided into wards and districts that, much like suburbs of major Western cities, are rather like their own large communities within a large community. Wards are autonomous communities with their own interior government like each individual town or city has, while districts are, like in a town, a division of the population in some fashion. Tokyo for instance is divided into 23 wards, and each ward has a number of districts. Many of these districts are areas that specialize or are known for certain things, as you might be familiar with Akihabara—the hangout of anime and game otaku—or Shibuya—a fashionable youth culture area—and the like. Fuyuki is divided into at least two neighborhoods, Shinto and Miyama, and Miyama seems to be made up of two districts that separate the traditional housing from the Western housing. Fuyuki is not implied to be large enough to have separate wards.

Prefectures: Japan is divided into government-run prefectures, analogous to a county or province in other countries. The division of the prefectures is a holdover from the switch from the feudal system the Japanese still used in the late 1800s to the industrialized government they became; before, these prefectures were areas overseen by samurai daimyo.

If we place Fuyuki where Kobe is, it would be in the Hyogo Prefecture of Japan, between Tottori and Okayama to the West, Kyoto and Osaka to the East. However, Kobe is much larger than Fuyuki is implied to be.


Public Transportation: Unless you don’t pay any attention to Japanese media, you ought to know that trains are the primary mode of transportation for the average Japanese person. Many neighborhoods are named for their train stations, in fact, and a lot of things to do are usually found around them. One thing that might come up is that Japanese trains are extremely punctual and even a minute or two delay are pretty bad—to the degree that suicide by train now costs surviving family members money to make up for the delays caused by the death. A Japanese person in America often expects that the trains and public transport runs as efficiently as it does in Japan, so if you know of a Japanese person planning a trip based around public transport, you might dissuade them of that notion.

Taxis are not like some of the Western perception: taxi drivers know the cities they operate in intimately and do not need directions themselves. Additionally, taxis are VERY clean, to the degree that some even have shoe racks in their trunks or center consoles to put your shoes into and replace with a slipper for the duration of your drive in one, like a portable genkan. They do not smell of random food and cigarettes like in New York. Their doors are also automated, so foreigners beware you’ll get your hand smacked by a door if you try to go open it yourself.

Also, Japan is a left-side-of-the-road country, unlike the Americas and a lot of the rest of Asia.


Private Transportation: If you’re thinking of making a character use a car, think twice about how rich they are. Having a car in Japan is an extreme symbol of status because it is extremely costly to have a car. Firstly, licenses are fairly expensive. More importantly, though, every few years, cars go under vigorous government inspections that cost the owner a lot of money and if the inspection finds even miniscule problems, you are required to go and fix and/or replace the parts responsible. Many families in Japan instead just sell their car after a few years so they do not have to undergo a costly inspection and buy a new car instead, figuring if they’re going to spend the money anyway they might as well go new. This means the return rate on cars in Japan is HUGE; it is well documented that in countries such as Afghanistan after the UN moved in, where vehicles are sometimes hard to come by, Japan provides hundreds of used vehicles to businesses and aid groups for extremely cheap prices and these cars are usually only a few years old and have no outright problems.

So, if you have a Japanese youth come to a Western country and they take a look at your eight year old car that only has a few scratches and a messy interior, do not be insulted if they seriously pose the question “Will that even run?”

I’m not sure what the laws on motorcycles are, though I believe they also go through rigorous inspection. Mopeds and other smaller scooters operate on bike laws, I think. Also, highways are tolled in Japan.


Shopping: Just like in the West, there’s a rabid war going on between large corporations and small family-run businesses. Many of the corporations are Japanese-based still, though and you do not see a Starbucks or McDonalds every three blocks like you do in America.

Note: Burger King went out of business in Japan during 2001, and only reopened in 2007. Isn’t it sad, Saber Alter?

Note 2: Mos Burger is fucking delicious.

Department stores can be really different than the Western department store: each level is itself something of an autonomous business with separate cash registers and whatnot. Each level tends to specialize in different things, and going into a department store really means you can get all of your shopping done in one location, as one level may be a grocery while the next may be clothing and the next garden supplies and so on and so on. Even specialty department stores are like this; I had a friend venture into an anime-related one in Akihabara, and he described how with each level, he slowly got more and more poor: dvds on top, games next level, figurines next, clothing next, ect. He said that the logical conclusion should have been Yakuza at the bottom level to deal with the significant debt you’ve managed in your trip through the store.

Store clerks in Japan are also generally expected to be fairly knowledgeable on what they are selling and the sort of things they have in inventory, even if you are shopping in a bigger department store.


Police: Especially in small communities, police are very helpful. A police officer will know a neighborhood streets and businesses like the back of his or her hand and know the names of most of the residents. If you are an outsider, they often make right for you to see if you are lost or need assistance and to double-check and make sure you aren’t there to cause trouble. Police boxes, kouban (usually Romanized koban) are small police stations in a neighborhood that a couple of officers are stationed at, and going there for anything from getting directions to looking for lost and misplaced items is a good bet. Calling 110 on a Japanese phone gets you the police, 119 emergency services.


Post Office: The Japanese post office, first off, is privatized as of 2007, so it differs from American postal services. Anyway, the post office offers more than just postal services and one can use it to pay bills and even as a pseudo-bank where you can keep a savings deposit and whatnot. The guys in Honey and Clover go about sending the main character money via the post office, and said character also goes to a post office to withdraw money while on a trip.


Public Baths: Mentioned in the home entry, public baths are essentially large furo bathhouses for people that don’t live in a place with a furo. One thing worth mentioning is that tattoos, usually associated with the Yakuza, are believed unsightly or upsetting to the Japanese, so you can actually get banned from public bathhouses if you have obvious tats.


Toilets: Okay, gotta talk about them. First, you have a variety of toilets, from squat toilets to the standard toilet or urinal. Another is the super toilet, which a lot of modern Japanese houses and some public locations have. These things include any or all of the following: massagers, seat warmers, air conditioners, play music, anal-cleaning water jets, and automatic lid closure. One of my classmates in Japanese class basically said that the entire trip they took was worth just going into the airport restroom and using the toilet.

A lot of household toilets also have a sink atop the tank, so as to save water: you wash your hands with clean water, which then goes into the tank and is used in the flushing of the toilet. No water is wasted.

Another thing that the Japanese have is the Otohime, lit. “sound princess” but a parody of the turtle goddess Otohime. It makes white noise to cover the sounds of using the toilet itself for privacy sake, since the Japanese house is small or the public restroom is, well, public.


Keitai: The Japanese mobile phone. I’m going to bring this up because it really is a different culture to even the West. Firstly, pretty much modern keitai technology was introduced in 1999 in Japan and exploded right off the bat, so it is relevant to the canonical time period that Tsuki and FSN take place in. Yeah, it wasn’t as big then as it is now, but it was a surge so fast that it quickly became second nature to the culture. Flip phones are the most prevalent.

Keitai in Japan serve much of the functions we have in the West, only they often did it years before it was ever popular in America or whatnot. While texting itself is not popular in Japan, a form of it that is more akin to email is, as one does not send texts to a phone number, but to an email address. Mailing has pretty much become a primary function of the keitai since not every Japanese can afford a computer and internet service, so they use their keitai instead. On that, internet services and various forms of social networking existed in Japan in some form or another by 2001, which is when 3G service in Japan became commercial.

Keitai are obviously banned in classrooms, but students still use them to mail and whatnot, sometimes just holding them under the desk and feel-typing without looking at the phone at all. Of course, a phone ringing in class is even more egregious a problem than in the West where you have widely varying opinions on it. It’ll just get the phone confiscated in Japan: see Lucky Star. It is rude to talk on the train or at a movie theater, though mailing is fine.


Squatters: I don’t really have a place to put this, though honestly it could come up when wandering around I guess. The Japanese squat. It might seem a little strange, but, when loitering, a Japanese person is just as likely to squat like a Baseball catcher as they are to lean against something or pace. Some even do it when eating, and will remove their shoes and sit up in their chairs L-style. Not quite as common, but it isn’t unheard of. Anyway, you can see some kids doing this in Clannad when Tomoya and Tomoyo wander into a “bad part of town,” Kazehaya does it after clearing up a misunderstanding in Kimi ni Todoke, and maybe images of people like Shizuo from Durarara!! doing so make a little more sense now.

Related to the feet-up-in-chair thing, just like with shoes, things that are on the ground are considered “dirty” and things that one usually handles do not go onto the ground. My Japanese teacher often pointed out how university students leave their bags on the ground at their feet during class and would then be just as likely to pick them up and put them on a chair or on a desk or table, and her sensibilities ran counter to that. Things that are where the feet go do not go where one sits or has their hands and arms at unless they are either cleaned or somehow protected, usually. You might have noticed that Shirou works on the floor of the shed as opposed to a desk or table, but he spreads out a cloth to act as a rug there. I’m pretty sure he also would normally take his shoes off before getting onto said cloth.


I'm sure there's tons more I could talk about, but I'll stop there for now. Maybe eventually I'll go into more detail about specific stuff like the different kind of trains and whatnot.

[Pata Hikari]

What's Mos Burger

[Arashi_Leonhart]

What's Mos Burger

Japanese fast food chain.

[Pata Hikari]

I see.

The Japanese take on burgers must be interesting.

[Sherrinford]

As always, worth reading.

Thanks, Arashi.

[Mike1984]

Private Transportation: If you’re thinking of making a character use a car, think twice about how rich they are. Having a car in Japan is an extreme symbol of status because it is extremely costly to have a car.

Erm, what?

According to wikipedia, Japan has more cars per person (over one for every two people) than this country (Britain) does. True it's not on the same level as the US, but it doesn't seem to be as uncommon as you're implying.

[Arashi_Leonhart]

I never said it was uncommon. But it is a status symbol. In America, it's actually economically important to have a car since there's not a lot of ways to commute unless you live in Manhattan or the like. The middle class Japanese have it for the sake of having it. Most that have a car commute to work on the train or on a bike.

Edit: In fact, rent the film Shall We Dance? and you'll see the guy in it vigorously waxing his car while at the same time riding a bike and the train to work.

[Mike1984]

Well, this country is intermediate between the two. Most people own a car, but a large proportion (especially in big cities) commute by train or bus. But, there are still a substantial number who commute by road too. However, cars are often used for long-distance journeys, and also to go visit friends etc.

[mangafreak7793]

Well, this country is intermediate between the two. Most people own a car, but a large proportion (especially in big cities) commute by train or bus. But, there are still a substantial number who commute by road too. However, cars are often used for long-distance journeys, and also to go visit friends etc.

This is true but I think cars are often used more for vacations then going to work since the trains and mikes are more convent in the narrow roads that are in towns and city streets.

[shiningphoenix]

This is true but I think cars are often used more for vacations then going to work since the trains and mikes are more convent in the narrow roads that are in towns and city streets.

since the trains and mikes are more convent

mikes are more convent

Mikes are Convents?

[mangafreak7793]

Mikes are Convents?

Oops...

I should really spell check.

I meant bikes are more convient.

[Arashi_Leonhart]

Also, that bit on wikipedia is misleading, as it says motor vehicles includes things like freight vehicles and buses. Passenger cars actually accounts for something like 320 per 1000 in Japan.

[Mike1984]

This is true but I think cars are often used more for vacations then going to work since the trains and mikes are more convent in the narrow roads that are in towns and city streets.

I'm talking about Britain here, not Japan. In Japan I would imagine that that is indeed the case much of the time.

Also, that bit on wikipedia is misleading, as it says motor vehicles includes things like freight vehicles and buses. Passenger cars actually accounts for something like 320 per 1000 in Japan.

Well, OK, but even so it's not exactly low.

[Arashi_Leonhart]

Also relevant on owning a car.

[Arashi_Leonhart]

Section IV: The Church Executors and Ryuudou Monks

Shinto: The national “religion” of Japan. I use the term “religion” very loosely though, as it is not really one by the Western conception. Shinto is an inherent part of the Japanese culture and trying to separate one from the other is virtually impossible. Everything from common turns of phrase in the Japanese language to regular practices—like the traditional method of bathing—are tied to Shinto beliefs.

Shinto (lit: “Way of Gods”) is a mix of belief in respecting all things and the regular practice if certain traditions that retain the Japanese ideal that one is not above nature, but a part of it. Kami, usually translated as “god”—though again, it should not be confused with the Western perception that word brings—is inherent in all things, and one should thus respect all things, from the kami in stones and the ground to the more common Western perception of kami in spirits such as Amaterasu, one of the founding deity figures in Japanese mythology. The Japanese believe in an infinite number of kami (one might hear the term eight million, though idiomatically that number is meant to represent “endless” numbers), which is one of the reasons “god” is a very loose definition. This also might explain why you have “origins” in the Nasuverse, as one might consider concepts as kami; additionally, the anthropomorphizing of Akasha into a spirit residing within Ryougi might also be comparable.

Note: replacing “god” with “kami” when swearing or whatever really doesn’t work. Saying “Oh kami!” or “Oh kami-sama!” is about as stupid as you can get. A character crying that say, in the middle of sex, is about as n00bish a “translation” as you can get. Again, kami is not literally “god” in the same way Westerners think of the word; you could probably draw a better parallel to The Force in Star Wars than a specific deity.

As one is not a “follower” of Shinto so much as a cultural “practitioner,” it can be hard to compare to other religions. Shinto is in many ways compatible with other religions because it does not preclude the belief in a higher being or a different set of god(s), since that all still falls within the scope of kami. As such, there is a great mixing of Buddhist and Shinto traditions, but even many Japanese Christians and Muslims and whatnot for the most part still follow traditional Shinto practices.

Too, even straight-Shinto Japanese are fairly loose in their belief, since the general “worship” of kami is not required. Japanese merely go to Shrines to ask for favors or good luck, and that’s it; there is otherwise no sort of regular practice one must engage in. If you watch anime or read manga, it is fairly common to see characters go to a shrine and pray (throwing coins in a box, pulling on a cord to ring a bell, and clapping in prayer) which is standard practice at New Years and for major events in life such as high school entrance exams. Otherwise, the amount of religious practice varies depending upon person, family, region, and whatnot.

A good example of how embedded Shinto is that a foreigner can understand, you need to look no further than crosswalks. At major intersections in cities, there is often a tune that plays when you are allowed to cross. The tune that plays is a children’s song, “Toryanse,” which is about safely crossing dangerous areas to visit a shrine to pray for a child’s continued good health.

Festivals are also a Shinto tradition that are inherent in the culture, though I’ll cover that more on the seasonal entry.


Buddhism: Also tied up into the Japanese culture, though maybe a little more comparable to Western religious ideas since Buddhism actually aspires toward an afterlife in ways Shinto does not. Probably because of that, Buddhism is generally associated with death and afterlife issues in Japanese society.

This gets a little iffy in Nasuverse, as it implies that Buddhist monks once upon a time reached a level comparable to magi due to states of enlightenment and emptiness or something; also, the whole idea that the Ryuudou monks are descendants of a tradition where a dragon taught one such monk martial arts. Kinda weird Buddhists…though, I suppose Issei is one weird dude.

Admittedly I don’t know a lot about Buddhism, so I don’t have as much to say about it. Like Shinto, it is integrated into the culture fairly deeply, as burial rights are often done in a Buddhist manner and Obon, a major holiday in Japan, is a Buddhist tradition. Kiritsugu is, in the anime, implied to be given a Buddhist funeral (which involves a picture at the center of a small shrine kept inside the house, sometimes along with the ashes of the body, though these ashes are also as frequently buried at a cemetery as well) even though it is probably safe to assume he was non-religious. Buddhist shrines for deceased family members are often kept in a traditional Japanese house.

Again, to understand the integrated nature: “Temple” 寺 is in the kanji 時 for “time” because Buddhist priests were the ones that measured time of day and set off bells to signal the hour.


Christianity: Touched on by info about the Tohsaka family. Christians during the Warring States period and after were persecuted, and hidden Christians like Tohsaka’s ancestor went underground with their beliefs. This would’ve been until the Meiji Restoration in the late 1800s when freedom of religion was once again recognized. And yes, hidden Christians were specifically Catholic; the Portuguese traders that came to Japan in the 1500s included Jesuit missionaries.

Christianity is a real minority religion in Japan—pretty much any other religion is too—though there are the occasional churches dedicated to it. Christians were in fact fairly integral to Romanizing the Japanese language for Western use, and the story of the Christian martyrs that died early in Christian persecution is fairly well known. The building that the Fuyuki church is based on is in fact dedicated to said martyrs and was for a time the only Western-styled building that was considered a national treasure.

Christmas in Japan is just about the only recognized Christian holiday, and it has almost completely lost all religious meaning, even more than in the West. Again, I’ll talk about that more in the seasonal entry.

[Alulim]

Hooray~



Characters shouting 'Kami!' is a pet peeve of mine. Indeed.

[Techlet]

At major intersections in cities, there is often a tune that plays when you are allowed to cross. The tune that plays is a children’s song, “Toryanse,” which is about safely crossing dangerous areas to visit a shrine to pray for a child’s continued good health.

[Arashi_Leonhart]

Also part of the lyrics to Unmei no Wa from live-action Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. Let me pass, let me pass...

[Techlet]

I see what they did there.