all summer in a day

Someone on television has just confessed their love to a girl named Taeko. There's lot of crying and shouting. I'm not sure what drama I'm watching, but my comprehension level of Japanese has increased probably 10-20% in the last two weeks.

Everyone else is hiking to a coin laundry. I've already done laundry. So I'm taking a few minutes to make sure nothing imploded while I was away.

Oh, one anime-related thing. The short film at Ghibli about the runaway boy from the future who grows his own planets in a small flower pot is probably *the best* anime short film and maybe one of the best short films I've ever seen. I nearly cried like a little girl. It was that good. It's everything I love about the form, with the added bonus of stunning originality and technical ability.

I *highly* recommend that any visit to Japan include the Ghibli museum. The most heartbreaking thing is that they only let you watch one of the three short films per visit. I picked the one about planets on anime instinct alone. One was about an undersea world. The other had a somewhat off-putting art style.

I also realized there's a difference not only between cultures, but a difference in value sets. Any cursory glance at the cleanliness of the floor of your average rush hour train should be enough to guess that something weird is going on here.

More later. Maybe some contests, too, Since I got lots of extra toys from the Ghibli museum.

edit: Found the title (since I can't read) and apparently it's only showing for two and a half months from December to February.

http://www.ghibliworld.com/news.html

Scroll down to "Hoshi wo Katta Hi". Worth the ticket price alone. Worth double the ticket price. In fact, just about every room is in the museum is worth the ticket price. The whole museum is about the animation process, not really Ghibli films specifically -- which means many of you can basically give a tour of the place without even seeing it first.