Okay, Star Ranger PMed me, saying he didn't know what I was talking about, and was eager to hear the tale. And I'm not 100% sure it's been told HERE just yet, soooo....
Preface: The thing to keep in mind about Japanese culture is that they take uniformity to the extreme in that everyone must be mediocre. You do nothing to stand out. With the exception of entertainers (although they do get pranked quite viciously in order to keep them humble), doing anything that draws attention to yourself is frowned upon.
Anyhow, this was just after my GF and I had visited Fuji-Q Highland Park. Before we left, we hit up the park's Warner Bros. Store, where they sold all kinds of Looney Toons memorabilia, as well as DVD collections of the cartoons, all Japanese subtitles.
Naturally, I snagged a few, because I knew my GF and I were of a type. See, the Japanese have something similar to what we had as kids - the traditional Saturday morning cartoon marathon with super-sugary breakfast cereals. Only theirs happens on Sundays instead.
We didn't get a chance to watch them until about a week later. We were on a short date and didn't really have time to do much, so we stayed up in the HUGE Starbucks in the Yokohama train station. I whipped out my laptop, plugged in the headphone splitter, and we sat down to enjoy the show.
Mariko was absolutely FLOORED. See, the Japanese are very fond of our iconic mascots, but most of them have never sat down to actually WATCH this stuff. She was completely unprepared for what she saw. She was almost literally ROTFL, because she could barely stay in her chair - to fall off meant that she'd miss the next gag! That day, her mask of uniformity in public cracked, and she couldn't care less as she learned exactly why we Americans so dearly love our cartoon icons.
Preface: The thing to keep in mind about Japanese culture is that they take uniformity to the extreme in that everyone must be mediocre. You do nothing to stand out. With the exception of entertainers (although they do get pranked quite viciously in order to keep them humble), doing anything that draws attention to yourself is frowned upon.
Anyhow, this was just after my GF and I had visited Fuji-Q Highland Park. Before we left, we hit up the park's Warner Bros. Store, where they sold all kinds of Looney Toons memorabilia, as well as DVD collections of the cartoons, all Japanese subtitles.
Naturally, I snagged a few, because I knew my GF and I were of a type. See, the Japanese have something similar to what we had as kids - the traditional Saturday morning cartoon marathon with super-sugary breakfast cereals. Only theirs happens on Sundays instead.
We didn't get a chance to watch them until about a week later. We were on a short date and didn't really have time to do much, so we stayed up in the HUGE Starbucks in the Yokohama train station. I whipped out my laptop, plugged in the headphone splitter, and we sat down to enjoy the show.
Mariko was absolutely FLOORED. See, the Japanese are very fond of our iconic mascots, but most of them have never sat down to actually WATCH this stuff. She was completely unprepared for what she saw. She was almost literally ROTFL, because she could barely stay in her chair - to fall off meant that she'd miss the next gag! That day, her mask of uniformity in public cracked, and she couldn't care less as she learned exactly why we Americans so dearly love our cartoon icons.