Anniversary of Japan’s Foundation

Today is 建国記念日 (Kenkoku-kinenbi). In English, “Anniversary of Japan’s Foundation” or “National Foundation Day”.

In theory, people are meant to reflect on their love of country and what it means to be “Japanese”.
In reality though, hardly anyone does anything special on this day. Many generations ago, it may have been different…but today, it’s just seen as “a day off” to most people.

You can see Japanese flag hung from street lights and also on the front grill of city buses…but that’s not particular to this holiday—that’s done on every national holiday in Japan.

アキラ

Yesterday was a holiday here in Japan. Called 「建国記念日」 (“National Foundation Day“).
(Click here to see my short FAQ about it.)

My wife, kids and I went to a カラオケボックス (Karaoke Box) and had lunch there.
After that we stopped by the DVD rental shop and picked up a couple more episodes of the American TV series “Prison Break“.
We’ve been watching a few episodes every month since last November.
We’re enjoying it.
We’re up to episode eight of season two….don’t tell me how it ends. 😉

We also rented a DVD that I wanted to watch…「毎日どっきりvs出川」.
It a show in which a celebrity here in Japan is chosen and the cast of the show play elaborate practical jokes on that celebrity every day for a month.
It was a funny DVD…but not as good as I expected.

Also, this post is titled 「アキラ」 (“Akira“) because I heard that America plans to make a live action movie remake of the Japanese anime titled 「アキラ」 (“Akira“).

The anime is about a motorcycle gang in Tokyo in the future.

Hollywood doesn’t really have a good track record of remaking Japanese anime into movies.
So, I wonder how this one will turn out.
(Click here to see the post about Japanese movies remade by Hollywood…some done well and others not.)

By the way, if you’re in Tokyo now, it’s forecast to snow tonight and tomorrow. So be careful if you go out tomorrow. (If it snows, it’ll probably only be a little bit though).