Smoke, offering, magazine

This week's entries are for a famous BL magazine, gettin' rid of bugs and one religious related entry.


Comic June コミックJUNE (コミックジュネ)

kayari (smoke to repel insects) 蚊遣り

sonae-mono (offering) 供物

Ah been shoppin'

This week has been a busy one for my pocket book. The damage to my budget to date is as follows.

BOOKS:

Enbutsu Sumiko
Tokyo: Exploring the City of the Shogun

Figal, Gerald
Civilization and Monsters: Spirits of Modernity in Meiji Japan

Jacoby, Alexander
A Critical Handbook of Japanese Film Directors


LIVE ACTION:

Death Note
Kitaro

DOCUMENTARY:

Tokyology vol.1 Pop Culture

ANIME:

Ghost Hunt part 1 ep.1-13
Hellsing Ultimate IV
MS Igloo 2
Ouran High School Host Club part 1, ep.1-13
Yawara! A Fashionable Judo Girl box 1 ep.1-40 (No damage on this one, thanks AnimEigo, you folks are cool.)

MANGA:

Eden v.8-10
Hikaru no Go v.13
Kaze Hikaru v.11
Manga Sutra v.3
Monster v.17
Real v.2
Rose Hip Zero v.4 (Japanese original to look something up)
Switch v.1 - 2

Plus I ordered several books from Japan.

Edo Period Gayness

Today I step away from the series of religion related entries to go a bit more profane.

Specifically I look at male male sexuality in the Edo Period. I would not touch such a subject, literally or figuratively, without a good secondary source. And I found a great one in Cartographies of Desire: Male-Male Sexuality in Japanese Discourse 1600-1950 by Gregory M. Pflugfelder. This is a very interesting scholarly study which I would recommend to anyone interested in the subject.

So the entries this week all have examples from volume 5 of Kaze Hikaru, a great manga about the Shinsengumi (see: The Anime Companion 2 p.86). A manga which I also highly recommend.

So on to the entries:

kagema (a type of male prostitute) 陰間

kagemajaya (kagema tea house) 陰間茶屋

shudō (the way of loving boys) 衆道

Used manga in Berkeley

Occasionally I post on the state of used manga in some shops in Berkeley California.

Moe's Book on Telegraph has added a large amount of titles recently as has Half Price Books on Shattuck. In both stores the shelves are overflowing.

Moe's is about 4 blocks from the University of California Berkeley and Half Price is one block from the Berkeley BART station near The Other Change of Hobbit science fiction book shop, Anime V and Comic Relief.

Also on Telegraph is Shakespeare and Company which has a growing selection.

So check these out for good prices, you may find something you had not checked out as worthy of buying.

Three more on religion

Behind this week's three new entries is part of the way I do these entries. I had planned to do only one religious entries for this week. However that entry led to a second one related to it and at the same time one of the non-religious ones led me to conclude that I would like to write two others related to it. So the non religious one and it's two related entries will be next week and again I have three new religious ones.

Izanagi no Mikoto to Izanami no Mikoto (Izanagi no Mikoto and Izanami no Mikoto) いざなぎの命といざなみの命

mukaebi (welcoming fire) 迎え火

Yomi (Land of Gloom) 黄泉

Building, Concept, Beastie

The three new entries this week include two from Shintō and one supernatural critter you don't want hangin' about.

honden (main shrine) 本殿

miitsu みいつ or 威霊

nue 鵼

Also I revised tegata changing it to sekisho tegata (travel pass) 関所手形 which is what the entry is specifically about. Thank you Ono-san for pointing out the inaccuracies in the entry.

Again I continue focussing on religion with one on the supernatural. I'm going to start going into other areas beginning next week. I shall make an effort to keep adding religious and supernatural entries as I go along as the response to these has been positive.

If you have an area of interest related to Japanese culture that you would like to see more entries for let me know.

You can even suggest specific items you have seen in US released anime and manga, if I have good information on them I'll do a write up. Just don't expect it right away.