Non-Anime related feature articles

[Nintendoll]

Hey all, it's Chelsea here. Some people expressed interest in seeing more culture-related things on the site, and I wanted to see if that was something that a good amount of people wanted to see.

I just wanted to know if there is anything non-anime related that you might want to see features done on. Examples: enka, legends, holidays, Shinto, Kabuki, spotlights on specific musicians, etc.

I guess in some ways it is anime related, since most animes make cultural references that we might not get. I've been watching anime for years but only learned last year in my Japanese class that in Japan, baths at home are not really for cleaning, more for relaxing (you're supposed to one of those hand-held shower head deals to get clean before you get into the bath). Yeah I know, most people already know some little stuff like that but it was news to me.

If anyone has anything specific that they'd like to know about, it would be cool to hear :)

[shinyjam]

err...I guess Shinto since many people don't really know about much about the system when they watch Miyazaki flim, lucky star shine maiden, yugioh monster, touhou, and so on with many many other anime using it.

[PBz0r]

Frankly speaking, I read Japanator because I'm interested in anime/manga, and not so much in Japan as a culture/country. I therefore skip most of the stuff that's not anime-related, though I can still be interested in, let's say, art, and read up on the life and works of Hiroshige. But again, it's not the reason I visit the site.

Having said that, from your examples I'd be most interested in learning about Shinto somehow. Not even in relation to anime, I think it's very interesting and on top of that, I feel I really don't know anything about it. On the other hand it's also something uniquely Japanese so I suppose it'd fit the site's theme.

Apart from that I don't care for centuries-old theater that much and I'm only interested in holidays when it means I don't have to go to school. :P