#penguinhighway — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #penguinhighway, aggregated by home.social.
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Today's #AniAnimal are this dog and the penguins from "Penguin Highway".
今日の #アニアニマル は『ペンギン・ハイウェイ』のこの犬とペンギンたちです。
More info and other AniAnimals at: https://www.anianimals.moe/scene/9jgymHp9NvG1nr90r80Myc/
#Anime #AnimeBird #AnimeDog #PenguinHighway #アニメ #アニメ鳥 #アニメ犬 #ペンギン・ハイウェイ
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Today's #AniAnimal are this dog and the penguins from "Penguin Highway".
今日の #アニアニマル は『ペンギン・ハイウェイ』のこの犬とペンギンたちです。
More info and other AniAnimals at: https://www.anianimals.moe/scene/9jgymHp9NvG1nr90r80Myc/
#Anime #AnimeBird #AnimeDog #PenguinHighway #アニメ #アニメ鳥 #アニメ犬 #ペンギン・ハイウェイ
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Today's #AniAnimal are this dog and the penguins from "Penguin Highway".
今日の #アニアニマル は『ペンギン・ハイウェイ』のこの犬とペンギンたちです。
More info and other AniAnimals at: https://www.anianimals.moe/scene/9jgymHp9NvG1nr90r80Myc/
#Anime #AnimeBird #AnimeDog #PenguinHighway #アニメ #アニメ鳥 #アニメ犬 #ペンギン・ハイウェイ
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Today's #AniAnimal are this dog and the penguins from "Penguin Highway".
今日の #アニアニマル は『ペンギン・ハイウェイ』のこの犬とペンギンたちです。
More info and other AniAnimals at: https://www.anianimals.moe/scene/9jgymHp9NvG1nr90r80Myc/
#Anime #AnimeBird #AnimeDog #PenguinHighway #アニメ #アニメ鳥 #アニメ犬 #ペンギン・ハイウェイ
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YouTube Movies & TV Adds ‘#PenguinHighway’ #Anime Feature Film Streaming http://dlvr.it/TCtT7N
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YouTube Movies & TV Adds ‘#PenguinHighway’ #Anime Feature Film Streaming http://dlvr.it/TCtT7N
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YouTube Movies & TV Adds ‘#PenguinHighway’ #Anime Feature Film Streaming http://dlvr.it/TCtT7N
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Reviews from the Japanese Bookstore
I visited Kinokuniya in Carrolton, TX – what’s supposed to be a Japanese bookstore appears dominated by anime goods. I window shop through the Ghibli house decor and rows of manga and find a single small shelf of book-books in English. They’re assorted translations from Japanese authors, and I’m curious. I grab six books blind, each by a different author, knowing nothing about any of them.
Spoilers ahead! This post is my review.
All links to books are solely for your convenience. I don’t get paid if you click them.
Penguin Highway
Tomihiko Morimi
Amazon LinkPenguin Highway is narrated by a bratty, arrogant ten-year-old, Aoyama, as he explores the suburban neighborhood where he lives, taking detailed notes so that he’ll be an important person when he grows up. When penguins suddenly appear in town, he dives into investigating their origins, uncovering that a lady who works at the dentist’s office is magically creating them, and she doesn’t know how or why.
Aoyama interacts with other kids in his class, and I enjoyed reading them being lively and bratty. Children haven’t learned yet how to fit into a mold and contain their emotions, so in a way, reading about them feels more human.
The narration mostly reports what’s going on without layering on frills of poetic prose, remaining in character to the bratty child telling the story and occasionally popping in with funny descriptions, like a shopping mall being like a space station in the future. I wished that parts of the book could dig in and have more emotional impact, but the child narrator, unable to process his emotions, would instead record them as such. “I made a record in my notebook of how it felt sitting alone at that window, but reading it over now, I don’t feel like it captured those feelings at all. I wasn’t able to reproduce it accurately. I’ve only ever felt like that once in my entire life.”
Overall, this is a cute book. You might like…
-the bratty narrator
-nostalgia of childhood explorations
-the mystery of the penguins
-though the characters are ten-years-old, and behave like ten-year-olds, I would not recommend this book to a kid.Wait For Me Yesterday in Spring
Mei HachimokuHere we have a romance light novel. It’s got an anime cover and a few illustrations inside, and appears to be marketed to teenagers. A while back, I tried some light novels via Amazon but couldn’t get into them—this one, I read quickly to the end. It had nice prose compared to the matter-of-fact style of the last book I read but was not overdone by any means. The book kept me engaged with questions about what was happening. Each page had a little bit more information, and more information meant more questions, so they kept turning.
The plot of this book :
A high school boy, Kanae, comes from Tokyo to visit home over spring break. There, he meets his childhood friend and crush, Akari, and a strange phenomenon takes place. He jumps forward in time to learn that Akari’s brother has died of alcohol poisoning. She tells him that he will live the next few days in reverse order, and at the end, she asks him to save her brother.
As we are learning information Kanae needs to save the brother, we also get Akari’s perspective. She is totally in love with Kanae. She couldn’t bring herself to talk to him all these years, but she’s been working hard and saving up money so that she can go to the same university as him in Tokyo. But her brother is a raging alcoholic, ruining life at home.
When we’ve lived all of the days in reverse order, we’ve learned what kind of person he is. Now the question becomes should he be saved, or they should just let him die?
Some thoughts that I had: Akari’s love for Kanae is supposed to be romantic, but part of me thinks it’s an unhealthy obsession. And yet, it’s also giving her purpose where she’d otherwise be lost, so maybe there’s an age where you need to jump in, take risks and put your faith in love?
I notice that in the west, we have a whole range of drugs available for people to take up and ruin their lives, but in Japan, they mostly stick to alcohol. This book barely skims the surface of the gritty nature of addiction and having a family member with addiction, but I think it’s good for a younger audience.
Good book. Sweet story. Easy to read. Not overly complex.
N.P.
Banana YoshimotoPicking up this book, with the author’s name big on the cover, and the title squished in the corner, I immediately had a question. Is this the person’s real name? Banana? It’s phonetically plausible in Japanese, and I entertained a fantasy of an eccentric hippie couple who named their child Banana, and being fostered in this unusual creative environment, Banana grew up to be a prolific writer, a household name in Japan, with works translated and published all over the world. But a google later, no, as I suspected, Banana is a pseudonym. Even so, I appreciate the creative choice. It probably helped sell books.
Now for the story.
N.P. seems to not have a plot as much as it has an atmosphere. The descriptions are beautiful and ethereal; the whole book written as to put you in a trance. The characters are drawn together by collection of short stories titled ‘N.P.’ These stories were written in English by a miserable Japanese author who killed himself. Anyone who tries to translate N.P. into Japanese has also killed themselves. The characters, though, aren’t doing much and don’t have specific goals to reach. They float through the days of a romanticized, hot summer, learning about each other.
Normally, without a clear plot goals and characters driving the story, my interest fades, and I drop the book. This wasn’t the case for N.P. The poetic writing itself is engaging, and it was short enough to finish in a day. Curiosity and mystery pull the story along as well. I left little stickers on the pages as notating the way the prose flowed so atmospheric and poetic.
You might like this book…
-for pretty prose
-a quick read
-a floating, ethereal feeling-it has a few dark themes, but does not dive into grotesque detail.
I’d like to pause here with a thought.
So far, I have read three quite different books and like them all. But normally, my experince reading books is that I love a few, I like some, and I dislike and drop many others. I used to feel guilty for not finishing a book, but no more. No book is for everyone. Reading can be calming and enjoyable, or it can be a waste of time. If I don’t like it, why keep reading?
So I wondered, why am I enjoying and finishing all these books when in my typical experience, I normally find lots of books I don’t care for.
I suspect some selection bias. Most books don’t get popular enough to be translated into English, so we’ve got the crème of the crop. On top of that, there’s only a small amount of space on the shelf in the bookstore, so they have to utilize it for the best of the best. In that case, searching out translated books in the future may be a way to find some of higher quality.
Back to the books.
Sweet Bean Paste
Durian Sukegawa
Durian is clearly a pen name – ‘Du’ is not a typical sound in Japanese, and who would name their child after the stinky fruit? But there was Banana and now Durian, so now I am wondering if fruit pen names are a trend in Japan.
This book is sweet and endearing. It’s not too long, and the characters aren’t overly complicated making a quick uplifting read. It has the same wholesome atmosphere of an establish-a-coffee-shop and make-friends story. In this version, they’re making dorayaki—two little pancakes with sweet red bean paste sandwiched between them. The main character is a former convict who works at a dorayaki stand to pay off a debt. He isn’t enamored with the job until an old lady with crippled-looking hands comes along and begs to be employed, even at a ridiculously low wage. He worries about her age and that she might scare away customers with her appearance, but he takes her on, and she makes sweet bean paste better than anyone. Their dorayaki stand becomes a hit! They strike up a friendship. He learns to love making dorayaki. She enjoys chatting with the customers and high school girls, remembering when she was their age. It’s all very wholesome and cheerful.
Until as expected, her appearance deters customers, and the success story comes to an end.
Turns out, she had leprosy and until recently, was confined to living in a sanitorium despite everyone there being 100% cured. Upon legally being allowed to be free in society, she dreamed of having a job, but the general public is still scared of disease and don’t want to eat her dorayaki.
How Do You Live?
Genzaburo Yoshino
Out of this selection of books, if I should pick one to recommend you read, this is it. This was a lovely little book all about thinking about ourselves and the world. Google tells me it was originally published in 1937. I would think that 1930s Japan novel would have themes of the country militarizing for WWII, but that wasn’t a part of this book. But if you pick up this edition, do read the notes about how the author was imprisoned by the Thought Police for his anti-Imperialist-Japan opinions.
The story follows a middle school boy, nicknamed “Copper” short for “Copernicus” because he is a big thinker, growing up in 1930s Tokyo. In his daily life between school and meeting his friends, he experiences something, thinks about it, and talks to his uncle. His uncle then writes essays about Copper’s experiences so that Copper, and the reader, can further dig in. Copper’s thoughts followed by the uncle’s essays touch on science, history, sociology, economics, and ethics. It is very well done.
Somebody printed “timeless classic” on the cover, which is so overused to the point that it’s lost its meaning. So, I will explain.
When I read an old book, or a book placed in an historical setting, there are changes in the way characters think, act, or speak that give an impression that the times, the people, and their problems were completely different from now. The past is some weird foreign thing. But in this book, which takes place almost 100 years ago, the thoughts, emotions, and experiences of these characters, and the lessons the uncle wrote in his notebook are relevant and modern. From the observations of economics to the way that bullies strut around and act full of themselves, when I read this book, I felt that these people are no different than the people alive today.
If this book has a weakness, it’s that the middle section is slow before it picks up again toward the end. The experience-thought-essay structure isn’t that of a driven narrative, and when there’s a section without that drive and conflict or a sense of specific direction, my attention dwindles. It is a children’s book and not a difficult read in the least, but still, it sat on my bedside table for a few weeks while I felt more inclined to work on other projects rather than finish it. I do not think that shoving conflict into the middle of this particular book would make it better (it would be way worse), but I take note of the didn’t-finish-the-book phenomenon and its causes. Regrettably, this very good book might be slow for some phone-addicted modern humans. Sometimes reading requires a deliberate act of putting your attention onto something instead of having high-stimulus content pulling it away from you. I think it’s definitely worth practicing.
Love Like the Falling Petals
Keisuke UyamaSpoilers for the whole book ahead:
Misaki and Haruto are a young 20-somethings couple who meet, have a few awkward dates, and fall in love. A third of the way into the book, Misaki is diagnosed with a terminal illness. The disease will make her ugly, so instead of telling her boyfriend she is sick, she breaks up with him and decides to never see him again. She shuts herself off from the world and wallows in misery, dying, until her brother brings back Haruto to talk to her through a closed door where he can’t see her. She briefly leaves to see Haruto’s photo show, and then she dies. It’s sad.
Earlier, I noted that I was surprised that I liked so many books in a row. I was wondering if I could find a book that was top-tier amazing in this pile, after all, the cover to this book is pretty. But finally, I’ve found a book that is not for me.
It may be the subject matter—romanticizing a dying girl can rub me wrong—or that I find myself with little patience for people/characters unnecessarily wallowing in misery. Once I’ve found one thing I don’t like, other flaws I’d otherwise overlook bubble to the surface to irritate me. A handful of typos made it through the editorial process, and a few sentences were awkward translated. Did the characters have any agency, or were they victims the whole time? There’s slightly more to them than I’ve described in this simplified summary, but I felt like I didn’t know Misaki well enough for her to be more than cannon fodder, cheaply killed to make readers cry.
It was still sad. It was mostly well written. It made me think a little bit after reading it.
I wondered about how important appearances are. Very important, even if we don’t like it—people get information about you from just a glance and interact with you and based on what they see—and maybe it’s more important in Japan.
I wondered about my lack of patience for depression and misery. Yes, she’s dying, but when you’re dying, is that how you want to spend your time? Should I be more kind, or is my reaction reasonable? I felt her misery was romanticized, and so I wondered what benefit, and what harm, we get from romanticizing. Does it make healthy readers more comfortable with their eventual mortality? Does it allow readers to feel sad in a small, safe way, by experiencing serious emotions in a fictional story? Does it encourage people to wallow more instead of taking action to improve their lives?
I wondered if it’s good for us to read books that we don’t enjoy so that we can think about it and disagree. Still, if you’re looking for a book recommendation, I’m giving this one a firm no.
That’s all the books!
I’ll end here with a couple of thoughts:
None of these books were overly complicated. For standalone novels, rather than bloated and confusing, I think that simplicity is something to aim for.
They like killing off the female characters. One book would be fine. But, she died in half of these books and tried to commit suicide in two of the others. It’s a recurring theme.
And… I felt like I wasn’t reading American books. I didn’t get that sense after book one or two, but around three and four, the thought is clear.
I don’t know if I can put a finger on what is different. The story structure is largely similar—maybe “story” is universal, or maybe certain structures were propagated through western media. The hot-button cultural topics common in our media largely aren’t there—this much is night and day. Japan doesn’t have the same problems as the U.S. If there are similar topics, they aren’t approached in the same way.
But it’s deeper than this. The content, the way it’s presented, and the way the characters think and act is subtly different. The things we hear and the stories we consume affect the way we think. Our society and culture shape us without us knowing, and somehow, someway, I can feel that in these books. So many of the themes and emotions are universally human, and I find that enjoyable. You’d have to read them yourself.
#bookReview #bookReviews #books #fiction #HowDoYouLive #LoveLikeTheFallingPetals #NP #PenguinHighway #reading #SweetBeanPaste #WaitForMeYesterdayInSpring -
#YenPress Reschedules ‘#PenguinHighway’ #Manga Print Release From Tomihiko Morimi & Keito Yano http://dlvr.it/T7HrTk
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#YenPress Reschedules ‘#PenguinHighway’ #Manga Print Release From Tomihiko Morimi & Keito Yano http://dlvr.it/T7HrTk
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Today's #AniAnimal is this tuxedo cat from "Penguin Highway".
今日の #アニアニマル は『ペンギン・ハイウェイ』のこのタキシード猫です。
More info and other AniAnimals at: https://www.anianimals.moe/scene/8pJcjVfxNr6_NQX3hj-B-XC/
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Today's #AniAnimal is this tuxedo cat from "Penguin Highway".
今日の #アニアニマル は『ペンギン・ハイウェイ』のこのタキシード猫です。
More info and other AniAnimals at: https://www.anianimals.moe/scene/8pJcjVfxNr6_NQX3hj-B-XC/
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Today's #AniAnimal is this tuxedo cat from "Penguin Highway".
今日の #アニアニマル は『ペンギン・ハイウェイ』のこのタキシード猫です。
More info and other AniAnimals at: https://www.anianimals.moe/scene/8pJcjVfxNr6_NQX3hj-B-XC/
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It's OK
2019
editor: Bimyou
anime: Penguin Highway
music: Foster the People - "Helena"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rM4O_1U8SzI
#AMV #anime #PenguinHighWay #FosterThePeople -
Sobre el redoblaje prometido de #PenguinHighway.
Nos comenta Jose Luis de @jonumedia que ya está hecho, está pasando revisión y están esperando que @NetflixES lo incorpore en su plataforma. https://t.co/cMWlbhbzfi
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Finished watching the #anime #PenguinHighway. Very nice animation and graphics, quite funny jokes and very nice penguins.
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#PenguinHighway : enfin, je remercierai @[email protected] d’avoir contribué à nous offrir un été 2019 avec pas moins de QUATRE films d’animation japonaise sortis au cinéma ! Franchement, ce sera un été mémorable, rien que sur ce plan-là ! o/
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#PenguinHighway : bref, un film sympa qui mérite d’être vu. Revu, je sais pas, en tout cas pas pour l’histoire (pour le reste : technique, par exemple, sans doute que oui).
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#PenguinHighway : oh, et je sais pas si c’est censé être un film familial pour tous publics, mais on a quand même des “empoignages par le milieu” à TROIS reprises, quand même (et en gros plan) ! °0°
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#PenguinHighway : après, si vous avez vu le film “Sphère”, vous aurez FORCÉMENT fait le rapprochement en voyant un certain truc qui est le VRAI centre d’intérêt (plus que les manchots eux-mêmes, en fait) de PH. ;o)
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#PenguinHighway : maintenant que le râlage est terminé, le reste : visuellement, c’était très beau. Uchida est aussi drôle et attachant qu’il lui arrive plein de bricoles, mais bon…
Aoyama, à côté, a beau être le MC masculin, il se la joue trop “je serai un super adulte”.
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#PenguinHighway : finalement, pas de malus sur le fait qu’on ne connaît JAMAIS le moindre PRÉNOM des personnages ! AUCUN ! Et vous savez combien je déteste ne pas connaître les noms complets (et au minimum les prénoms)…
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#PenguinHighway : attention #spoiler !
2) Purée, mais c’est QUOI, cette fin à la “Angel Beats!” ??! °0° Et là, pas de scène post-générique “X ans dans le futur”, hein ! Limite, “Kimi no Na Wa” a une meilleure fin sur tous les plans (même si sa fin est toujours aussi bâclée) !
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#PenguinHighway vu ! Bon, déjà, commençons par ce quii fâche : il se prend DEUX points malus (et tombe donc à 8/10 sur MAL). Voilà.
1) Ce sont des MANCHOTS (et c’était CORRECTEMENT écrit dans les ST de l’avant-première, en plus !) !!! 😡
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The penguins were cute.
Morimi really likes mysterious women who work in dentist's offices, huh?
"If you start to feel angry, just think about boobs."