Japan 2020

I’ve been to Japan in 2006, but due to circumstances I didn’t have a nice time there (you can’t get a refund over a relationship’s break up). So, it has been my dream to go back there again and do it the proper way this time.

Japan

The plan for now stands: a few days in Tokyo, travel to Osaka with the shinkansen (bullet train) and then spend the last leg of the trip in Tokyo again. From Osaka we will do day trips to Hiroshima and Kyoto.

Hiroshima is a must for me and my boyfriend as we want to visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. I am a great admirer of Tsutomu Yamaguchi, the man who survived both atomic bombs, and the work he has done to advocate for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

There is going to be a lot of firsts for me this trip. First time on the shinkansen, first time to Osaka, Hiroshima and Kyoto. The last trip I spent two weeks in Tokyo, then I missed a lot of stuff because the place is huge. That’s why we’ve made a list of what we’d really want to see this time . Hopefully we won’t overload ourselves by trying to fit everything in those two weeks.

The countdown has started and I can’t wait for it to be the day that we depart for our Japanese adventure.

AliExpress – Dollfie Dream clothes 1

It is always hit and miss with AliExpress when purchasing stuff for dolls. Dolls I will never buy on Ali, as most of them are recasts.
Recasts happen when somenos purchases a doll from a sculptor and then copies it for anyone who wants to have it cheaply, selling it for a much lower price. Usually the quality is inferior and.. well.. the design is stolen. So no dolls bought on Ali for me.

For other stuff like doll clothes and shoes, you’ll sometimes find good quality on there. Lately I’ve noticed people reselling stuff from Ali on Etsy for a higher price. Heck, I even saw people resell a toilet bag bought on Ali for €2 for €9,95 on Bol.com. It’s not against the law but it is annoying, especially when you find out the quality sucks afterwards. So with doll clothes I am a bit cautious when buying for the first time from a new seller I discovered on Ali. Losing €10 on a skirt for a doll that looks terrible isn’t a complete waste of money.

It is quite hard to find fitting clothes for my Smart Doll and Dollfie Dream as they have anime features, extremely long legs, tiny waists and sometimes huge breasts. I try to keep the chest size small or medium, as I really don’t like the big ones, unless I can cover it up with clothing. My normal SD clothing doesn’t really fit my anime style dolls as they are too wide and sometimes too short. So slowly I started building up my Smart Doll and DD clothing collection. First try out was with WAW Dollhouse and from them I bought an inexpensive skirt that costed me €10,01 in total including shipping.

Skirt
Skirt WAW Dollhouse

I am surprised by the quality of this skirt. The fabric feel sturdy to the touch and the finish in brown stitching is done neatly. It has two functional pockets and the final finish was done with a overlock machine. For this type of quality I would have gladly paid more for this skirt. For the record, I have spent over $100 on a single outfit for dolls.

Overlock finish
Overlock finish
Suits my DD nicely
Suits my DD nicely

The waist is a bit wide, but I cover it over with t-shirts or sweaters. The store had two versions: the white with blue stripes that I bought and a darker denim. The darker one goes on my next to-buy-list along with a few other items now that I tested the seller. All and all I am very happy with my purchase and will definitely shop there again.

Jojo Rabbit

The movie was released in 2019 in other parts of the world but we had to wait until 2020 for a Dutch release. Luckily for me not a lot of spoilers on Twitter for this movie compared to The Rise of the Skywalker, looking at you fanboys. I was hooked when I saw the trailer, being a fan of Taika Waititi’s work since the release of ‘What We do In the Shadows’. The best way to treat Hitler’s legacy is to put it to shits with a dose of satire.

The movie follows Jojo, a boy who joins the Hitler Jugend in order to become a man and who often has conversations with his imaginary friend: Hitler. Mind you, he is 10 years old so they way Hitler interacts with him is portrayed kind of childish.
His initiation with the Hitler Jugend is during a camp led by Captain Klenzendorf, a washed up officer who was removed from the front because he has only one good eye left. The older members of the Hitler Jugend see that Jojo is a bit cowardish during the training exercises and force him to kill a rabbit with his bare hands. When Jojo fails to do this he is nicknamed Jojo Rabbit, the cowardly boy. In a last act of desperation to show everyone he is brave, Jojo steals a hand grenade of the captain during a training exersice and throws it with all his might. Sadly the grenade bounces off a tree and lands right next to him, sending Jojo to the hospital.

After rehabilitation Jojo is left in the care with Captain Klenzendorf to do menial jobs to support the Reich by collecting metal, posting draft letters and distributing posters to keep morale up for the citizens. His mother doesn’t want Jojo to be inspired by the nazi’s and keeps her hopes up for the end of the war, with the Germans losing. One day Jojo comes home before his mother and hears a noise upstairs. Hidden behind the walls he finds a Jewish girl, who has been allowed to life there by his mother. Torn between his loyality to the Reich and his love for his mother, Jojo is confronted with his image of the world and the choices he has to make.

While the movie is portrayed as a satire, the harsh reality of the ruthlessness of the nazi’s was also shown, with the execution of traitors of the Party. Jojo keeps thinking he is a nazi, while actually he is just a boy whose head been filled with propaganda.

After my boyfriend pointed it out, I have to admit he is right about this, all the funny bits of the movie were all in the trailer which was a bit of a shame. But a real shout out to Scarlett Johansson and Sam Rockwell’s characters. Scarlett Jo showed the real shine I have been missing since ‘Lost in Translation’. She really portrayed the loving mother and kept her son in the dark of the dangerous work she did.
Sam Rockwell as Captain Klezendorff was a very surprising roll, he already knew the war was ending in a loss and struggling with his own feelings as a gay person. Just keeping up appearances and playing an important role saving Jojo’s life.

Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! – Ep.1 The Greatest World!

After being on anime hiatus for a couple of years, I am slowly getting back in to the flow of watching it again. I got myself a Crunchyroll subscription and started binge watching series again. And sometimes you find something new like Keep Your hands Off Eizouken which was released on the 5th of January. So that’s fresh off the boat.

In 2016 the manga was released by Sumito Ōwara and finally came to life as an anime in 2020. A live-action adaption will be released in the third quarter of 2020 in Japan. The story follows three high school girls as they pursue their dream to create their own anime.

One of the main girls of the series is Midori Asakusa who has been hooked on anime since a very young age and is intrigued with how it’s made. Upon entering high school her love for anime has turned into an obsession in creating concept art and turning her school into a stage for her anime. She is hesitant to join the school’s anime club as she is bad with dealing with crowds, but her friend Sayaka Kanamori convinces her to go to the screening.

At the screening they encounter a girl who is being chased by Men In Black. She takes Asakusa’s hat as a disguise, but her pursuers see through it and give chase. Kanamori recognises the girl as the famous model Tsubame Mizusaki and the two girls see it as their duty to save the damsel in distress.
Mizusaki is eventually cornered by one of the Men In Black, men who have been hired by her parents to keep her from joining the anime club. Asakusa uses the stage trap door to detain the MIB and the three girls make their escape.

Mizusaki and Asakusa find out that they share the same passion of creating an anime, with Mizusaki designing the characters and Asakusa giving them a background. Kanamori is interested as she smells the money they can make of it. Together they will create their adventure.

I was scrolling through the new releases on Crunchyroll when this anime caught my eye. The opening theme has a catchy weird tune that I like and the style of drawing is refreshing. I completely get Asakusa & Mizusaki’s way of fan-girling over anime and both characters are very passionate about their dreams. Always good to follow your dreams. And then you have Kanamori in contrast, she is totally not interested in the visual concept of anime, only in the monetary value of it. She’s almost like a producer that sees the monatary value of a good serialisation.
An interesting premise was build for the first episode and I have to admit I am hooked for more. Sadly that means I have to wait another week for a new release 😉