Apologies for not updating my blog since I did on the first day of this year. I’m usually on Facebook these days.
One of what I did this year is that I moved out of my house at Fukagawa. The rental contract was expiring at the end of July, and I had to choose whether I renewed it to keep living there or terminated it and found a new house. I decided to move to another place. I lived there for four years and was satisfied with life there, but at the same time, I thought I should change my life to change myself.
I found a new house at Oji, about 10km north of Tokyo’s city centre. This neighbourhood is a beautiful area developed in the 14th century, with its fresh verdure and sometimes called “Richmond in Japan” because people in central Tokyo often have made a one-day trip to this area since the Edo Era, similar to holiday-makers in London who visit Richmond.
I, together with my car, removed to the new house in the middle of July. Monthly fees for the house and the garage dropped comparing with the ones at Fukagawa, which was closer to the city centre. It’s more than three months since the removal, and the new life here is very nice.
Today I went for a walk to Kiyosumi Garden, within a 15-minute walk from my house, because it was a sunny Japanese Thanksgiving Day and I wanted to get out of my house.
Kiba Park is within a few minutes’ walk from my house. Various events are performed almost every week. 家の近所の木場公園では、毎週のように何かしらイベントが行われています。
Two weeks ago there was Oedo mikoshi matsuri (mikoshi festival) with tens of mikoshis. 2週間前には、「大江戸神輿祭り」があって、おみこしたちがいーっぱいでした。
And, Koto Kumin Matsuri (Koto Ward citizens’ festival) was hold last weekend. There were many booths where staff members sold foods and items from all over the nation as well as foreign countries life Philippines, Bangladesh, Peru and more.
Last month I was very busy with moving out of my house at Nerima-ku, Tokyo, because I had thrown my own car in May and I wanted to live where it was closer to downtown Tokyo and more convenient to live with public transportation only. As I got a bonus in June and I had enough money to move out, it was time for action.
The new apartment where I started to live is at the Fukagawa area, Koto-ku. It's been a renowned neighborhood for almost 400 years located only within 5km east from Tokyo station. Plus, according to Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department's web site, these areas have relatively lower crime rates than other major areas of Tokyo. It's 22 sq. meters wide with 1 bedroom+kitchen+bathroom. Its monthly cost is 90,000 yen. It's more expensive than that of the apartment where I'd lived before, but totally I have to pay monthly as much money for the new house as for my former one, because now I don't have to pay for parking lot anymore!
I got a key of the new apartment on August 1 and had all of my luggage and furtiture moved into it on August 3. For the first few days I felt uneasy as if I had stayed in a hotel room, but living for one week I feel to be accostomed day by day. The next thing I want to do would be to buy curtains, a brand new mattress, a tall bookshelf, a chest with drawers, and more, to make my rooms more comfortable.
Japan is turning into a really sick country. According to media, a 25-year-old man this afternoon hit the people walking on the streets at Akihabara with his truck, jumped out of it and stabbed the people there at random with his survival knife, causing death to as many as seven people until now. The killer was arrested on the spot, saying he was “sick of life” and wanted to kill whomever he saw. CNN.com: At least 7 dead in Tokyo stabbing spree Japan Probe: Stabbing rampage in Akihabara: 7 people killed
Similar attacks have happened increasingly for years. On the same day of 2001, Mamoru Takuma broke into elementary school classrooms and stabbed eight students to death in Osaka. Two months ago a young man suddenly attacked the people walking around the railroad station, killing one and injuring many. Wherever you are, you can be a victim of such kind of crimes here, because this country has plenty of such kind of “sick-of-life” young people with no hope for the future, and such people may cause such kind of stabbing sprees to strangers or kill themselves with hydrogen sulfide.
I wonder if it is the best choice or not for me to keep living in this sick country. If I were more skilled in English and business skills and I had more money, I could move to the U.S. or another better country and settle there, rather than being scared of crimes happening every day.
The town of Nerima, Tokyo, where I live for seven years, is home to Japanese animation, or anime. Nerima has had one of the biggest anime studios, Toei Animation Company, as well as more than 90 intensive anime-related companies since Japan’s first anime film was aired in 1958. World’s famous animes such as Dragon Ball series, One Piece, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Sailor Moon series, has been created in this place.
The Nerima Ward government hosted today an anime festival, Neritan Anime Project in Oizumi, around Oizumi Gakuen station of Seibu Railway, to which Toei Animation Company is close. Leiji Matsumoto, one of Japan’s famous manga-anime artists and a resident of the Oizumi neighborhood, was invited to the festival. One of his works, the Galaxy Express 999, was a great anime series popular among many Japanese kids in 1980s. For those of you who don’t know this manga, the story of it is set in a space-faring, high-tech future, where mechanized people with “machine bodies” are pushing humanity towards irrelevance and extinction. A street urchin, Tetsuro, wants an indestructible machine body, giving him the ability to live forever. While machine bodies are expensive, they are supposedly given away for free on the planet Andromeda, the end of the line for the space train Galaxy Express 999. He meets up with a beautiful woman, Maetel, who is the spitting image of his dead mother. Maetel offers him passage on 999 if he will be her traveling companion. Tetsuro agrees. Another notable character is the strict, mysterious alien conductor, that sometimes gets involved in Tetsuro and Maetel’s adventures. (See Wikipedia) The Galaxy Express 999 was first published in 1978, so this year is the 30th anniversary.
Today Matsumoto was appointed a “one-day station master” of Oizumi Gakuen station. He settled near the station when he was 25 years old, and created the wonderful manga and anime works in Oizumi. The ward government and the Seibu Railway company granted such a honorary position on him for his long-year contribution to this neighborhood.
He said through his speech, that his habitation in the Oizumi neighborhood was destiny. When he came to Tokyo from his birthplace, Fukuoka, he just “happened to” start living there. One day when he walked around his house he found a former resident of Tomitaro Makino, a Japan’s well-known botanist. At that time he began his manga artist career through his first work focusing on entomology. Matsumoto felt as if he had been lead to live near Makino, as a person working with wildlife.
When it comes to destiny, I happened to begin reading his Galaxy Express 999 comic books just two weeks ago as well as Emma, when I did not know about this festival. I think that perhaps it is also destiny that I read this comic these days and come to the festival today.
Anime is now not only a maniac hobby by otakus, geeks or nerds, but is one of Japan’s important industries today. As Japan’s economy has been in recession for many decades and its technology is becoming less cost-effective, anime industry may be a great messiah for the future Japanese people.
練馬区主催で、「ねりたんアニメプロジェクト in 大泉」というのが今日、大泉在住の漫画家・松本零士氏を招いて西武線の大泉学園の駅近くで行われています。松本零士氏は「銀河鉄道999」で有名な漫画家で、「銀河鉄道999」は80年代の子供ならこの漫画を知らない人はいないというぐらい有名な作品です。若い人たちのために説明すると、「銀河鉄道999」は高度技術文明が栄え、「機械の身体」を持った人々が人間性を失っていっている未来の宇宙を舞台にした作品で、星野鉄郎という少年が不滅の機械の身体を手に入れることで永遠の命を求めていますが、機械の身体は高価で、ただ惑星アンドロメダに行けばそれをタダで手に入れられるといわれています。惑星アンドロメダは銀河鉄道999の終着駅であり、そのため鉄郎は銀河鉄道に乗りたいと思っています。鉄郎は、亡き母の面影を残した美しい女性メーテルと出会います。メーテルは、鉄郎にもし自分と一緒に来てくれるなら999のパスをあげると言い、鉄郎は同意して、999での旅が始まります。999では、鉄郎とメーテルの旅にかかわる厳格で不思議な車掌さんを交え、物語が展開していきます。
