In November I shall start working in Japan for one year as French and Spanish teacher, in Osaka. Now, I almost find myself in the same circumstances as when I opened this blog, in 2007. Serendipity.
Having Osaka in my horizon again, today I tried to remember what was the first thing that raised my interest for Japanese culture. The first little, tiny, mini, micro seed.
At first I thought my first contact had to happen when I started the Japanese language course in Malaga, in 2001, to complete my Translation studies. However, this was just a consequence. Today I remembered something that came previously.
A song.
Back in the 90′s, in Morocco, we did not have access to Japanese culture that much. However, through TV satellite channels, I used to watch MCM, a French music channel similar to Mtv. One day, they broadcasted a music video form a Japanese movie. And then, I think that the first thing that raised my interest for Japanese culture, as far as I remember, was that song and its music video, extracted from Mamoru Oshii’s movie Ghost in the Shell. I was 16 or 17 years old, and this video, the theme, the song, had a great impact on me, considering I was starting to use the Internet.
Reincarnation by Kenji Kawaii
It had such an impact that, a few years later, when I was living in Paris back in 2004, I still remember when I convinced my German friend Annette to go and watch the premiere of Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. The quality of the graphics and motion of that movie still amazes me nowadays, considering it was produced in 2004:
So here is a little tribute to this movie through my blog. Possibly the first thing I heard/saw that raised many questions about Japanese culture, in my little head.
If you have not seen these movies and you like animation, you may give them a chance, because they are classics. You may need to watch them twice, since both refer to very interesting and hot topics, in a very deep way.
Pure food for deep thought about humans and technology. And the first one was made 16 years ago, mesdames et messieurs.
Je suis pleine de bonheur pour toi. Tu suis le bon chemin. Je t aime.