After years of contemplating a career in writing and then going to university to pursue said career, I am finally starting a blog!
This act of blogging, I am assured by most of my university lecturers/ journalist know-it-alls, is a must have for anyone who is serious about writing – to make a prescence for themselves on the interwebs. But while I love reading blogs, I had trouble pin-pointing one topic in which I am obsessed with, as all my favourite bloggers seem to be with their chosen topic.
I pondered and debated until I though back to myself a few years back when I was doing my undergraduate in Japanese Studies, I was rightly obsessed! I loved everything about Japanese culture; I like anime, J-pop, furos and cherry blossoms, as well as the war in the pacific, the yakuza and Japan’s self implosion as it sped along into the future. I took in the good and the bad, EVERTHING was interesting.
With this blog I hope to bring to readers a certain voyeuristic look at Japan and the idiosyncratic practices embedded in everyday Japanese culture. This won’t be about the over the top absurdities which many associate with J pop culture such as tentical porn, nope, this will be about Japan as experienced by an everyday observer.
I will leave you here with a welcome present – “ponponpon”, the chart topping single by blogger, model and all round Harajuku girl Kyary Pamyu Pamyu which has clocked more than four million views on Youtube in two months. It’s fun, colourful, insane and randomly jammed packed with cute and strange things, and perfectly representative of youth culture in Tokyo.
Love, from Tokyo 