People keep finding the Golden Kamuy doujin I nearly wrote a full story about but I'm afraid I lost steam for it when the depression of having to go back to my home country kicked in........
Just some majorly irrelevant thoughts below for my experience over in Japan, but anyway - I truly hate to be the guy who's like "omfg place, japan, is so much cooler than (place, home country)! i should move to japan!!" but the way that all of the niche-r hobbies I enjoy are more accessible and more widely recognised in jp.... all while having better living standards.... oh buddy...
SUUUPER LONG POST AHEAD,
If I end up being the cringey adult man in somebody's life who seems to be "(thing), Japan", so be it - I'm not blind to its issues, i just happen to have a lot of aligning interests with things that exist in an accessible manner over there, and i like that everyone minds their own business. like that its safer, having grown up in an extremely unsafe area. plus the language itself is really fun to learn and nice to listen to
when I tell you being over there made me feel like I was being torn apart by the desperate need to create??? I'd be walking around enjoying myself and then go "hahaha!!! I'm having so much fun. wait. im so jealous of people that are drawing right now. i need to go to the apartment RIGHT NOW and DRAW I have so many IDEAS!!" and ended up drawing on every single train ride when I had a seat to sit on...... guh... I'd be dead tired coming back to the cramped Tokyo apartment with my friends but id still sit on the bed and draw until my eyes felt like they were falling out (even if I was drinking 200 yen soju with gang)
Here's a pic of my destroyed ass sketchbook that was empty in the beginning of our trip... mind you I also drew in my iPad a shit ton
Tokyo really felt more depressing than I expected it to, though... Especially Akihabara. I hated that place. It probably encompasses a lot of the things I disliked about being in Tokyo, with the girls lining the streets in maid outfits they clearly were tired of standing in, handling old men to cafes and shit while another girl was on a call leading them away— it rubs you wrong, idk. It was so hot out too, I couldn't help but feel bad. There was other stuff but anyway,
I think the nature spaces and temples were some of my favourite places. The museums and whatever were nice but I think all the parks were the highlight of the trip for me.
Anyway, when we were in Osaka, things felt more alive! Felt less constrained. We were there for a short time. Minō park, obviously, was another favourite experience of mine... We met a friendly older man and his wife at the temple on the way up towards the waterfall. The conversation was as follows.
(In Japanese.)
Him: "Where did you come from?"
Me: "My parents are both Russian, but I was born in Ireland (Ai-Ru-Ran-Do). We're here on a trip..." etc
Him: "Hoooh! Finland? (Fin-ran-do?)"
Me and my friend, confused: "No?"
Him: "Hmmm.... Britain? (Igirisu?)"
Me and my friend, looking at each other like ???: "uhhh, no, no, close by though! Ireland..."
And so on.
We, almost a year later, realised he must have heard us say "Island". Rather than, "Ireland". He thought our asses were trying to make him guess.
I shot up in bed one night thinking about this.
I really felt so sad I didn't get the maple leaves on the way in or out though haha.
So yeah!
Basically I just wanted to get this out because I was thinking about the doujin I was gonna write over there...
When I got back to my home, I arrived late at night and was faced with annoying, anti social behaviour on public transport on the way back that's so so common, and I felt so bitter and defeated that I came to a stark realisation a week or so after the vacation depression cleared up: my ass has to go back 😭
Since then, I've been plotting my escape from where I am while anxiously eyeing mega-quake alerts. It's not like there's not other countries I've been to that I liked, there ARE... Actually honestly I'm just gonna stop that train of thought right there.
Ugh, it frustrates me that I even feel like I have to justify wanting to leave to go over there. So many influencers and judgemental pricks who influence my hesitance to just go all in and have a reason to keep going... And I say it like that BC it fr is that serious, TO ME, TO ME IT IS THAT SERIOUS.
If I can live somewhere and see independent artists thrive every day, I feel like I can draw forever. Where I am now, it's stifling. Sometimes environment really does make a difference...
Never been to a place where I felt like my art and my experimentation with crafts could possibly belong and now that I have, I want to cry thinking about how unexpected the joy I got from experiencing the small-artist wins i saw in japan was, how jarring it was... I cried a lot when I got back, and I cried on the plane too lol. I'm so stupid sensitive.
ANYWAY if you stuck around to read my fattest, longest ramble on this blog, thanks! I think! Let me know what you think of any thoughts contained here if you feel like there's anything that stuck out to you
