So today, 3 February, is the day that Setsubun (節分) is celebrated in Japan. Setsubun is also known as the bean-throwing festival, although the literal translation of the term is something a little closer to “seasonal division”, and it is celebrated yearly on the 3rd of February as part of the haru matsuri (spring festival).

In earlier years, Setsubun was treated as something similar to a New Year celebration, and for this reason was accompanied by a ritual meant to cleanse and drive away evil and disease from the household, and bring good fortune for the new year.

The ritual was known as makemaki (豆撒き, bean thowing) and has its origins in a Chinese custom that was introduced to Japan in the eighth century. It involves throwing fortune beans – either out the door, or at a member of the family dressed as an oni (usually the head of the family) while shouting “Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!” (Demons out! Luck in!)

Lum's also an (alien) oni. Although I wouldn't mind her staying ...

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Okay – my plans for the year post comes a little late, but I still thought I’d share some of what I have planned for 2012, and of course, here’s to hoping a lot of it comes to fruition. A little warning though – this post is going to be a blend things from Animated Meanderings and some personal stuff, since especially over the course of 2011, my life and the existence of this site has started to become more intertwined.

This trend looks to be continuing over the course of 2012 … but let me not get too far ahead of myself – jump ahead and keep reading :) Read the rest of this entry »

As someone that works full-time, studies part-time and lives in a country that’s far removed from the general doings of the anime universe, it becomes tricky to both keep up with developments and still write full on posts about it. So, I’ve decided to do slightly more regular posts with a summary of recent happenings.

I’m going to try and do this on a weekly basis, but I make no promises – it’s going to get done as and how I have time. I’ve also noticed that videos embedded in the actual post don’t make it through to the e-mails, so if you want to see them you’ll have to visit the full post.

While I am based in South Africa, I do try to make things as relevant to a broader audience as I can (and I hope I’m succeeding to some small degree); however, some of the news is going to be specific to the region. Feedback is always appreciated though – so please sound off in the comments or get hold of me directly via the contact form, Facebook, or Twitter.

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So news broke earlier this week that the word kawaii had made its way into the Oxford Dictionary, joining other previous Japanese-only words such as tsunami, bokeh and otaku. Another minor victory for anime-fandom around the world, and much silly dancing and cheering commences.

But then, I took some time out of my hectically packed dancing and cheering schedule in order to apply some logical thought to this, and I had to ask myself a question: But why?

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(source: culturejapan.jp)

It may come as no surprise to a lot of you – but Japan is struggling a bit at the moment. After the twin disaster of the Tohou quake and the near meltdown of the Fukushima Nuclear plant, Japan has lost a lot of the revenue it gains from it’s tourism industry – rather understandably, a lot of foreigners are a little shaky about visiting what may now be regarded as a pretty dangerous part of the world.

A little unfairly in my book.

Of course, I doubt these are the only reasons; one has to keep in mind that the world economy is a little shaky at the moment, and folks aren’t quite as keen to spend their hard-earned cash. The Japanese government though, has come up with a scheme they hope will turn things around a bit. Read the rest of this entry »

Mitsuki - now a year old

Anyone remember her? The cute thing in the picture?

Probably not, right?

Last year, 10 August, was the day I revealed, for the first time, the mascot character for Animated Meanderings, although she was unnamed at that point. If you need to refresh your memories, head on over to this post. :)

With a little bit of input, mostly on the Facebook page, I decided after a few days to give her the name Mitsuki – but developments have pretty much frozen at that point. Which is why I decided to give Mitsuki, as her first ever birthday present, a slightly more complete profile.

That being said, it’s not 100% complete yet, but I have no intention of leaving things completely static from this point forward; I’ll continue working on the character as time goes by, rounding out her personality and, who knows, creating some additional characters to keep her company.

Here is the link to Mitsuki’s full character profile – which has all the juicy details – but I’m going to give a brief summary here:

Mitsuki, as the picture suggests, is not completely human – her father was human but her mother is a Kitsune. Due to her father passing away shortly after her birth and her mother being forced to depart the human realm, Mitsuki has ended up in the care of an elderly monk at a local shrine – who, despite his complete lack of experience with children of any sort tried his best to raise Mitsuki well (apparently he owed Mitsuki’s mother a favour or two). Read the rest of this entry »

Anyone who tried visiting the site over the past two days may have noticed a general failure to appear. While I was momentarily convinced that there was a giant conspiracy behind and/or the server hated me, after a great deal of back and forth between myself and my hosting provider we discovered that one of the databases had decided to play nasty.

I have no idea what the root cause was, but happily everything seems to be running as it’s meant to.

Other than that, the domain will be migrated to a new server in the near future – for reasons of storage and bandwidth usage; it will also enable me, hopefully, to host my own AMVs on the site (when I get around to making them one day). The shift should be more or less seamless, so the majority of you won’t notice anything, but just in case there are some glitches that will be the likely reason.

I’ve been quiet recently, for the simple reason that I’m currently working on Mitsuki’s (my mascot character) character profile, which I’ll be making live soon on what will be her first birthday. Any input, of course, will be welcome :)

See you all then.

I had a completely different post scheduled for today – but I figured this particular event deserved a little more prominence.

Japan was hit by an earthquake this morning (about 3pm JST/8am SAST) – which was first reported at 7.9 magnitude, but later upgraded to 8.9. This has been followed by numerous aftershocks – and two hours down the line some of the folks I follow on Twitter are still reporting aftershocks.

The east coast has also been hit by a large tsunami – at this point there is some pretty major damage; among others Sendai Airport has been completely flooded and shut down as seen on a live feed from Japan – which showed people clustered on the roof of the building awaiting rescue. The same feed also showed fires raging in residential and industrial areas

Most of my contacts in Japan have reported that they’re okay, but the first few reports of deaths have started filtering in, although the Japanese government has already mobilised emergency services.

Japan is located on the so-called “Ring of Fire” – an arc of seismically active zones that stretch around the Western Pacific Rim.

I hope you all join me and Animated Meanderings in our thoughts and prayers for the Japanese people.

Al Jazeera has a more detailed report on the earthquake here.

Today is the 3rd of March, which makes today Girl’s Day in Japan. The actual day is known in Japan as Hinamatsuri, or in English, the Doll Festival – Matsuri is Japanese for festival, and Hina is the name given to the particular type of doll that typically gets displayed on the day.

Hinamatsuri is traditionally a day during which families pray for the health and happiness of their daughters, and the day is marked by the daughters setting up displays of the Hina dolls (hina ningyou). The dolls are dressed in the traditional clothing of the Japanese imperial court of the Heian period.
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While I’m still busy motoring my way through the Winter 2011 Anime release schedule – the second part in the series is nearly done – we are rather rapidly approaching Christmas – so I thought I’d get into the spirit a little.

So – staying in tune with the overall theme of Animated Meanderings – here is Hatsune Miku’s version of Silent Night – sung in both Japanese and English. Enjoy – and seasons greetings all :)