[merylsilverburg]

Originally Posted by kupoartist

I have to say though, a Girl who likes Shonen is generally accepted rather more than a Guy who likes Shojo This just reflects the way society works as a whole. Girls liking Guy things is fine, but Guys liking Girl things is malignant and wrong. Perhaps not quite to the same extent as normal social movements, but only because 9/10 people have no idea what the difference is between Shojo and Shonen. In fact, I think we'll find that our Western defintion is different in itself to the Japanese.

Sadly, the factors you mentioned are mostly by Western-standards. In Asian countries (but I think particularly Japan) it's acceptable for guys to like shoujo series or to like "cute" things; I mean, guys over there in Japan even hang cutsie cellphone charms off their phones...so I'm thinking liking a certain shoujo wouldn't be a huge issue, especially with the popular male and female fanbase for series like Fruits Basket and Honey and Clover.

I think the acceptance of males getting in touch with their feminine side is fine because that was the way their cultures was historically. Just look at the operas/theaters performances where men had to play female and male parts since women weren't allowed to perform in such things (and this applies to Asia in general, I think, since the Taiwanese also had this same rule back then). I don't remember where I read this from, but apparently there is also a saying/belief in Japan where they say males are lovelier than females and/or can be the "perfect" female. I don't know why there is such a saying, but I think it's because they believe the males possess the perfect elements that females only partially possess (kinda like the whole Adam and Eve story where woman was created by Adam's rib...thus, females are partially perfect while males are completely flawless). Of course, this could really be a silly saying in a male-dominant country, but who really knows unless you're a natural-born Japanese, eh?

Originally Posted by Hylas

But meryl, is cooking a sport in Japan? For real?!

I didn't mean it that way but, like kupo said, that cooking/food is taken very seriously in Japan so they devise clever/strange competition or "sports-like" shows based on the idea of cooking. While kupo has an example of this with the warrior chefs in the One Piece anime, I've seen a couple of live-action shows on Japanese channels...one is on the NHK network called Dotch? Cooking Showdown (Which? Cooking Showdown) where tasters gather together and form 2 teams based on which of the two dishes featured on the show they prefer. After finding out the special/fresh/rare ingredients going into these dishes, they recast their vote for the final win. The winning team gets to eat the dish while the losers don't get any. There are other battle shows and many, many cooking shows in Japan, so this explains my sports-like reference to Yakitate Japan!. Oh, I forgot, there is also the famous "Iron Chef" series (not the stupid "Iron Chef America" version) on the Food Network.