For days and nights, I've been living in this Japanese music playlist. It is awesome, and like all things good on youtube, enjoy it before it's gone. (Yes, I'm an odd one who likes the theme songs of Animes I've never watched, and enjoys the sound of songs I can't understand.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdPwvBJiQJY&list=PL10DF0C2A128E3AD9

Too long pointless rambling GO!!

(I've come to the realization my raw thoughtstream is interesting and probably not documented enough... much of what led me to the point where this is psychologically possible began with an obsession with remixes of Bad Apple!! last summer, leading to learning much about Tohou and Cirno and Hatsune Miku and Vocaloids that would be fascinating in its own right, but... water under the bridge.)

...it began as setting the mood for developing a Japanese RP character. Search "J-Pop" on youtube, see what comes up, listen to it for inspiration... it was surprisingly good. I just didn't want to turn it off... or go to sleep... and when I sleep, I dream of the music. (Yes, sometimes, I just dream a song is playing, no visuals or anything else... it's always a random happy song. ^^)

...perhaps predictably enough, after listening to this stuff for 100 hours, I've learned a word or two.

"Yozora" is the night sky. There are different words for the sky at different times of day. And I feel quietly validated... the quiet night is something I enjoy. I can look out at the Void above and have a pretty new word just for that.

Putting "...no Uta" at the end of a title means "Song of..." "Kaze no Uta" is "Song of (the) Wind".

I can say that "Yozora no kaze" is something I've enjoyed.

"Kimi to" means "With you".

"Kimi" then means you, but it's the familiar you, the one used in love songs. English used to have a familiar you, it was the "thee" and "thou" from Shakespeare and the King James Bible. (As always, pronouns in Japanese are dangerous and using one in a different context will get you hanged.)

"to" means "with" and it can just sit dangling at the end. Like the way kids these days say "Can I come with?"

From these few facts one starts to get a sense of how alien Japanese grammar is compared to European languages. Sure, I knew this from badly translated video games like the All Your Base meme, but now it hits home.

The equivalents to linking words like "of" and "to" and "with" run the reverse, the arrows of meaning point the other way around. To speak Japanese, I'd have to think differently from the get-go.

Some words are Japanified versions of English. There's as much stealing from English here as English steals words from other languages.

Google Translate has stumbled on simple song titles. Most do not have translations of their lyrics. There is no substitute for learning the language.

...and as always, when working with foreign media, I feel and urge to do just that. Songs in German, movies in Polish and Russian... at some point I want to learn that language, that culture... just to fully enjoy the thing I'm listening to.

Sure, if I keep this up, I'll eventually have the vocabulary of one weebawoo... but I don't care. I realize that Anime fans are the butt end of many a joke, but let's face it. I'm a Furry. I don't give a fuck what the haters think.

...after listing to this music 24/7, I tranced into the following revelation:

To immerse oneself in the (pop) culture of another land is not an invalid lifestyle.

Some Anime fans completely immerse themselves in the language and culture until they're annoying to others. They're buying into the pop culture of another country, and blind to the fact Japan isn't as fun as its self-image, in the same way living in America isn't just like being in a Hollywood action movie.

I get it. I can see the psychological trap the hardcore Anime fans fell into. I can see why these people would get on your nerves. I think your nerves are too delicate.

Then I realized... we're already immersed in Japanese culture. (Why America has this love affair with Japan I have no idea...) When I took breaks from this music, it was to play Pokemon. My parents play Mario Kart every day. Among the college-aged, watching an Anime is just another form of media alongside music and video games. Manga have exploded here when the American Comic Book industry went astray, and teenagers have this way of gravitating to what's genuine, what's real, what's fun.

It's not even new. I grew up with Voltron, Transformers and Robotech being thrown into the mix of American cartoons on Saturday Morning like G.I.Joe, the original My Little Pony, and Looney Toons. The toys for those shows were Japanese, too, and clogging the aisles at Toys R' Us. The first fight of the Console Wars was between Nintendo and Sega, not an American contender in sight.

Japan is one of the few countries with such a well-developed pop culture, it can compete with Hollywood. You could completely buy into that pop culture, live a life watching nothing but Anime, playing nothing but Nintendo, listening to nothing but J-music.

It's not any more or less valid than having your hobby be the pop culture of any other country, French, British, Korean, and yes, American. Different things appeal to different people and it's perfectly plausible the mood, style, images, and sounds of one culture's media will resonate with some folks in a way the others don't. It doesn't have to be one's own culture.

to like the things we like needs no justification. This stuff is good, that is reason enough.