Den Den Town Revisited

So last weekend was my second visit to Osaka's otaku heaven, Den Den Town. *ignores the scoffing from those who've been to Akihabara* Purpose? Bored out of my wits on campus To seek out that Giant Gundam shop I can't believe I missed during my first visit (several weeks before). Not that I'm an actual Giant Robot fan or anything, I just had this nagging question in my mind which needed answering: HOW did I miss something so huge the first time around when the place is hardly a few streets long?

By walking on the wrong side of the street that's how ORZ. After asking someone and eventually finding the place, I realized that I had indeed passed by the shop previously... Only you can only see the ginormous billboard from the opposite side of the road *smacks forehead* My (non-otaku) friend who was accompanying me through the rain (the day I chose to go happened to be one of the lousiest in terms of weather) was slightly 'disappointed' because I 'somehow' gave him the impression that we were going to see a real-sized-god-knows-how-tall actual Gundam model towering over the surrounding buildings... (Okay, I admit I sort of had that some illusion in my mind ORZ)

Anyways, some fuzzy handphone pics to make this post seem like it actually has content!

For the fanboys.

Again for the fanboys (sorry fangirls, the BL shots I had turned out to be too fugly)

Obligatory maid pic (Yes, it's a terrible picture that seems to have a random stranger as the focus instead and you can hardly see the hardworking meidos, boo-hoo)

This place neither has melonpan nor that many books (Okay it has a whole 2 floors, since the upper floors were under renovation or something). Yet another one of the many places in this country you can browse for 'wholesome' 'literary and artistic works' while being surrounded by people staring intently at 2D boobies and the latest episodes of whatever's showing this season blaring down at you.

Too blur to actually make out the Minori (not to be confused with Minorin) autographs there. Remind me to actually bring out a camera next time... -_-"

And finally... My sad excuse of the day's 'stash' (and probably the actual reason I made this post :P) - 図書館危機　(Toshokan Kiki: Library CRISIS, like how awesome is that??), the third book in the Toshokan Sensou novel series snagged at a second-hand bookstore for half price (Yes, I'm a pitiful scrooge). It's in pretty good condition really - minus some discolouration on the jacket which I'm willing to overlook. But you know what would make this purchase even more awesome? If I could actually read it without having to look up half the words in each line -_-"

That, and if I actually had the first 2 books in my possession... (total and utter ORZ). Watch out usagijen, I'll catch up to you... Some day!

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Happosai, is that you?

Posted beside the elevator of my dorm. If it's not legible from my fuzzy handphone pic, the notice reads:

Robbery of underwear occurred on 14th May on the 5th floor at Dorm 1.
Please watch out with your laundry and take out them after finishing wash soon.
Thank you for you cooperation.

Office

The 5th floor's fully female, of course. I don't know whether to laugh or facepalm when I read that (and that has nothing to do with the Engrish, it's the first thing I made myself get used to here), since rumours were circulating about the day before about a 下着泥簿 (shitagi dorobou : underwear thief) - which has incidentally become the dorm's most favourite phrase now, lol. Apparently our dorm supervisor even had to make an announcement abut it via intercom to the entire dorm (but I was out at the time so I didn't get to hear it).

Also apparently, the same thing has already happened before recently - on the fully male 4th floor (XD) I guess the guys just didn't want to make as much of a fuss about it, lol ;P
.

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The Trouble with Watching Too Much Anime and Having Japanese Teachers

Despite what it seems, this is going to be a gimmick post :P

So our weekly class schedules have more or less been fixed, and though I'm pretty free to blog on Mondays since I only have class till 12, the rest of the days classes go on till 4, 5, or 6 *shudders*. And 90 minute periods of classes aren't the most conducive when you're as sleep deprived as I am (okay, so maybe we shouldn't have gone for karaoke till 5 in the morning the other day... -_-").


Every day starts out with 3 hours of Japanese SP ('Sentence Patterns') classes where I get to catch up with that boatload of grammar I neglected god knows how long ago, and on Tuesdays we get back to back Japanese Culture and Conversation classes. Ironically, the Conversation class is the only one so far where our sensei speaks to us mostly in English -_-" Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays we have our other 'compulsory subjects' that we need to enter uni. For us Science majors that's Physics, Maths and Chemistry *groans* while Arts majors do Politics and Economics, History and Mathematics (for Business and Economics majors). Future doctors and those doing anything Bio related are probably studying in Tokyo right now (not that I'm jealous of their higher living expenses proximity to Shinjuku and Akihabara or anything... We have Umeda and Den Den Town here=P).

Anyways, point of this post? (Besides making up for the probably lack of substantial posts over the coming days) You know how sometimes when you hear a name you automatically associate it with a fictional character you've seen/read somewhere or perhaps some famous celebrity? (I've not met any Britneys but I do know an Elvis, :P) Take for example, Mickey, or Donald. Okay maybe they're not as common names nowadays post-Disney. What about anime characters then? Of course back home where I seldom met anyone with a Japanese name, it's never been a 'problem', but now...


Today we got our class placement results for Chemistry. Till now, I'm not exactly sure how they're splitting the Iries from the Kotokos and I'll probably not know till those classes start. What concerned me more, was the name of the teacher for our class. What would those who've watched Moyashimon think if they found out that their Chemistry (or Microbiology XD) class was going to be taught by one Hasegawa-sensei? My first thoughts...

OH SHI- (I think most have seen the rest of this infamous (one of many XD) scene in Moyashimon :P If not, do yoursef a favour and go watch it NOW)

Uh-oh... Not looking forward to those lab lessons...

It turns out of course that I need not worry. This Hasegawa sensei's a guy. *phew?* (An Itsuki sensei would've been awesome though :P)



I'll ignore Physics for now since it's not my favourite subject (far from it really) and it seems devoid of anything for my anime addled mind to chew on right now. As for Mathematics, we've not gotten our placements yet since they're still busy giving us bloody placement tests for 3 weeks. WTH, it's like they're more concerned about testing us instead of teaching us when we've not even started classes! Gah.

I took a look at the list possible teachers for Maths though, and I've got to say, I'd be more miffed about all the drawn out testing - if I wasn't too busy being amused at the prospect of ending up in a class thought by a certain Hosaka-sensei...

Talk about 気持ち悪い... (For the full picture...)

DO NOT WANT(?)

Fortunately (or not? XD), after seeing Hosaka sensei first hand, I'm 'glad' to report that he's light years away from what we've seen in Minami-ke. Though, now that I think of it, if you put some glasses on Hosaka senpai, ruffled up his hair more, buttoned up his shirt, and age him a bit, the resemblance is sort of there... OH SHI-

Please don't hurt me 'cos my kanji sucks >.<

And while I'm at it, I might as well mention that we get a different teacher for our S.A. SP classes each day (why? Maybe they're overstaffed *shrugs*). Mondays we're taught by Abe-sensei, lolz. No prize for guessing who popped in my mind instantly. Though our Abe sensei's really quite a funny guy, he's a bit nit picky about how we write our kanji (in fact, the only one of our 5 teachers that is, when they're not marking our kanji tests of course). At least he doesn't fly into rages over my misproportioned characters, thankfully, but then again I've not given him the "Please don't hurt me" look every time I'm asked to go up on the mound board to write something... yet.



Last but not least, each of us foreign students gets a student tutor (usually a local student who's actually studying in Osaka University) to help us with our language and university life here on campus. While I've not met mine yet, (our first meeting is scheduled for Thursday) our class adviser has given us details concerning our tutors in class today, and the one thing I do know about the guy is his name:

_____ Youhei
(I can't just give out a person's family name when I've not even met him, can I?)

Err... Needless to say, I can't wait for our meeting this Thursday... OTL


(Names used in this post been changed to protect their privacy. Oh wait, they haven't. But I guess it's okay when I only reveal half their names? Anyways the rest of it is mostly products of my delusional mind anyhow ;P)

In other news, nominations for The Anime Blog Awards are closing... today? Okay, so I'm rather slow on the uptake. If anyone with an anime blog who hasn't nominated and wants to, you better do it quick since every vote nomination counts/your one vote nomination could tip things in your favourite blogger's favour, etc (or just because it's your obligation as a citizenblogger of the community and that's how democracy works!). If my own nominations didn't turn out to mirror the common denominators of just about every category (except in the 'Most Influential' category where I just tossed in my then personal favourite blogs :P), I'd probably do one of those "why I nominated so-and-so" posts. But instead, you got this :P

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From Osaka with...

Tower of the Sun in Banpaku-kinen kouen Osaka. The wikipedia page contains a bit more than what I needed to know about the origin of its name though...

Perhaps I should find it ironic that I’ve spent my first week in a supposedly technologically advanced country without an internet connection. Thankfully those days are gone and it’s back to my hikikomori-ing I go!... Or so I would like, only I now have to walk out of my room to another building to get that coveted wireless connection… Well beggars can’t be choosers they say.


My first week here in the Osaka University Minoh Campus (just to make things clear that I’m not here on some otaku pilgrimage, it’s actually SRS BSNSS and studying for me here… oh who am I kidding :P) has been memorable for the oddest of things – from the expected language barrier problems (it’s not called moonspeak for nothing… Most locals I’ve met so far are rather reluctant to speak English if at all and would rather bear my broken phrases and wild hand gestures. The most fluent English I’ve heard so far is from the cafeteria lady in our dorm, lol) to the unexpected unsavouries of dorm life (let’s just say you might want to consider it a while before you clean under you’re the bed in your new room...). Many thanks goes to our Malaysian senpais for guiding us through those first few days and giving us the head start we needed in experiencing this very new Japanese university life (quite different from what's portrayed n Moyashimon, fortunately or not). The hanami (flower viewing) at Banpaku-kinen-kouen is of particular note, it would be rather futile on my part to try to put the whole first time seeing a sakura-lined street experience into words, so here’s a couple of choice pics to compensate for that (bear with these though, I’m the kind of shutterbug who knows naught about light exposure and camera settings and whatnot -_-“)

Pink Supervisor?

Okay, after a while they all start looking the same... Photography just isn't my thing -_-"

On the anime front (This being an anime blog after all and this being the land it all comes from), suffice to say a second-hand television (the reception is actually affected whenever I move within the room -_-“) has been a small salvation from the lack of anime from the usual sources. Though I would like to remember my first time watching an actual anime broadcast on Japanese television to be something other than gawking confusedly at the first episode of Macross F which just appeared on screen suddenly as I flipped channels one late night... In the end I spent less time trying to figure out what was going on than the time trying to guess what show I was watching that involved green-haired loli and a woman singing in space. Having never seen anything from the Macross franchise, this wasn’t something I was planning on watching, but again, beggars can’t choose. I told myself the same thing as I watched the premiere of Kirarin Revolution’s third season -_-“ (I can’t believe it’s outlasting Full Moon wo Sagashite!). Also on the new season front, managed to catch Soul Eater which turned out to be a mashup of every shounen anime I’ve ever come in contact with, only with BONES giving it a little Ouran flair (Watch out for them arrows!). I’m crossing my fingers that I don’t miss Toshokan Sensou this week =P As for everything else I’ve missed, thank god for the internet again!

Well that's all for now, a week's worth of anime and blog posts on the Nano aren't going to watch or read themselves. And there's the whole fully settling down absorbing the local culture to do as well...

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