For the past several articles, I’ve talked about a trope in anime that I called “the token foreigner”, and as we have seen there are several different types of portrayals of non-Japanese characters in Japan-centric cartoons. They’ve ranged from absolutely horrid to mostly harmless to full and well-developed characters. My purpose in writing these articles…
Coming from its Japan-loving counterpart “weeaboo”, a “westaboo” is one who is obsessed with Europe or America/American Culture/Cartoons/Comics etc. and assumes everything made in the west is superior to everything else in the world. Characters in Japanese anime that use western imagery, culture, or language despite not having anything to do with said countries can sometimes…
Welcome to part two in my series of articles about “The Token Foreigner” seen in Japanese animated shows. Last week I defined what exactly is a “token foreigner”, and I left off talking about the use of non-Japanese characters as antagonists or rivals in anime. This week I’ll be focusing on a special category…
As I have probably mentioned before in previous articles, I live in Japan. I am originally from America, but came to Japan to work as an assistant English teacher. Living in Japan has been great, and I truly enjoy it here, but I would be lying if I said there weren’t downsides to being one…
(I did not forget. I just pressed play on the next episode of Trailer Park Boys. I am not sorry.) Five years. 365 days, but five times of that. An avalanche of minutes, hours, weeks, memories, and times that I shampooed my hair twice during a single shower because the act has become so automatic that…
It was a big year for Rooster Illusion: we dove headfirst into the salty depths of podcasting and explored long-form writing in addition to our continued ass-kickery in the realm of more traditional movie and show reviews. Our second annual March Madness bracket was a success, in that a bunch of you guys voted and…
Three years. Wow. What a ride. We’ve taken life a quarter mile at a time, and now WE’RE ALL GODDAMN ROCKSTARS. Thanks for reading, you’re the best (hi, Mom, Happy Mother’s Day, you really are the best!). Last year saw a lot of changes. The site got a makeover—the montage was to die for, I…
