Mother's Theory 1.1: (date unofficial) The Japanese are taking over. (Amended 10.03) Using anime and games.

I'm beginning to see some sense in that theory.

If you pause and think about it - and it shouldn't take too much thinking about it to realize this - the Japanese are creeping their way into American, Canadian, and slowly Mexican society and forcing their culture upon us. And we accept it, and even embrace it.

Their choice of weapons are subtle ones, but immensely more effective than a nuclear bomb or machine gun would ever be.

First and foremost there are the games. How many games can you think of that aren't from Japan? While yes, they do exist, that ratio is so much more in favor of Japanese games. Or asians ones, at least. Featured in this game is an art style many relate to 'Anim�,' more specifically Japanese Anim�.

Tune in to Cartoon Network from 5 - 7, or something like that, and encounter an entire line-up of action-oriented cartoon shows - 99.9% of which are Anime shows. Tune in on the same channel again at 10, and you'll end up watching another line of more mature cartoons on the 'Adult Swim' lineup. This time there's less anime, but it's still there. Cartoon Network itself even shows anime regularly - more Totally Spies, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Pok�mon.

Then we get to manga. Many of the anime shows you can find on TV have comic book counterparts. Of course, they're more commonly referred to as 'graphic novels,' or, if you're also an obsessed otaku bent on getting the vocab right, manga.

As anime seeps into our mall stores, so do the soundtracks to those popular shows. Featured on these soundtracks are J-Pop/Rock singers (Gackt, for one...), so there they are again, handing us yet another piece of their culture.

I've seen several anime movies within the past two years. I can rent Blue Seed, Metropolis, NGE, and countless other anime titles from my local video store. Sam Goody, back when it was still in business, had an entire section dedicated to the growing anime section - and it wasn't entirely Sailor Moon, DBZ, Pokemon, Zoids, and YGO. For the record, it wasn't entirely Hentai, either.

All this having been said...

It is EASY to find anime-crazed otakus on the 'net who want nothing more than to go to Japan (myself included). Japan is creeping into our soceity, training generations of kids, and whisking them off to their home island. Soon the entire world will be a mass of yellow mouse craving people, all walking around eating sushi and pocky, wearing their hairs in the most unusual colors and styles, worshipping Gackt in privite shrines built just for him.

I'm telling you. It will happen. And we are helpless to stop it.

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Today I drank seltzer that was blessed by a Rabbi.

Again.

My Jewish life is twice blessed.

My Jewish life is complete.

... It's really too bad I'm Christian.


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