Hana: SICK :/

Sorry for the lack of posts :/

Rin's busy with her new job (yay Rin!) and I've had a hideous infection and been in bed most of the week. I'll update whenever I'm well again, but I have nothing to write for now...

Sorry!

Hana: Aku no Kyouten - Lesson of the Evil -

Apologies for the lack of posts all week, Rin moved out of her father's home and is getting some things sorted out. She got a job, too - congrats, Rin! 

Anyway, today's post is again about Japanese movies.

悪の経典 Lesson of the Evil was originally a book written by 貴志祐介 Yuusuke Kishi, the author of a series called 新世界より Shinsekai Yori (From the New World) which was then turned into an anime. I liked both original novels, and when I heard Lesson of the Evil was made into a film, I really couldn't resist, despite the amount of essays I should be writing right now.....

The book is about a high school teacher called Seiji Hasumi (AKA Hasumin to the students) who is very talented and popular among teachers, students and parents. However, he is also a psychopath - he lacks the ability to emphasize, and when things go wrong for him, he would do anything to set things right for his benefit, until he decides things have gone too out of control, and makes an unbelievable decision.

The genre itself is a thriller, with a few bloody scenes towards the end. I'm not entirely sure of the rating so I'd say it was probably a 15+, but there's no 'jumpy scenes' typical to horror films, so you should all be okay.

The main character of course is Hasumin, who is an English teacher. It must be strange to think that a Japanese man would teach English at a Japanese high school, but it happens a lot of the time.

It stars 伊藤英明 Hideaki Ito who was in the J-drama Buzzer Beat.

I'm sorry the image quality isn't great, but I hope that gives a small taster of what the movie might be... maybe.

You can watch the film here with Japanese audio & English subtitles.

Enjoy♪

*Update* Hana: Sea Life Aquarium Date *Update*

Happy St Valentine's Day to you all!

Have you heard of Sea Life Aquariums? It's the world's biggest chain of aquariums, all over USA and Europe. There's one in a town nearby where I live (about 1hr40min bus journey, or 25mins by train). I've not been to any aquarium since I was maybe about 6 or 7? so I am very much excited to visit one this Valentines Day.

The great thing about aquariums is that it's fun for all ages. There are varieties of creatures there, all unique and beautiful. Some aquariums even have a petting section where you can touch sea urchins and other small creatures. In the one I'm going to, there is an interactive rock pool where you can touch starfishes and little crabs.

Plus, it's CHEAP. If you book the tickets online in advance, you get a huge discount. This means that you can plan a whole day at the aquarium even with a low budget. 

These are some of the images I found on the Sea Life Brighton website:

(These images do not belong to me)

I would highly recommend a visit to the aquarium this Valentine's Day. It's dark with mysterious, dim lighting so it's very intimate, and the sea life is breathtaking. 

If you're single with no date, why don't you head over with a group of friends? And, if you're feeling brave, you can invite out your crush, too. 

For the first time in forever (song) I'll be spending the day with my boyfriend, doing something totally romantic: Building pillow forts, watching Avatar (James Cameron, not A:TLA), eating take away food and going to the aquarium. 

I hope everybody has a happy Valentine's Day ♡

***

So, I don't usually do updates but I had such a good time and took some pretty good photos (if I say so myself), I just thought I'd share some with you all!

The Sea Life Brighton was a lot smaller than expected, but the displays were still pretty good.

A giant crab that looked tasty (sorry)

Little turtle

Fishy

Tropical fishies

Derpy catfish

Lazy starfish

Some evil looking thing

Nemos

This happy little fella made my day ♡

She was called Lulu

Yellow fishy

Jellyfish. This one was floating the wrong way up, not sure if that's how it's supposed to be, but he swam with his legs up.

The mighty searhorse

Sting Ray - there was a tunnel you can walk through where the wall/arched ceiling were all made of glass, so you were walking through a giant tank. There were many different species there, including sting rays, sea turtles and sharks among varieties of fish.

When the stingray swam overhead in this tunnel, you could see it's little face. Sometimes the mouth was open, so it looked like he was smiling at us as he swam overhead.

Lots of little Dori's

And uh, some turtle-loving going on here. I mean, sure, it was Valentine's Day, after all.

This was taken from above the giant tunnel-tank. There was an area where you can sit and watch the tank (I presumed they would do talks/some kind of shows there) and a glass bottom boat where you could see the creatures in a boat, with a Sea Life worker explained stuff about the creatures inside.

This guy looked so shocked

And an octopus. They put human children toys in the octopus tanks because - and I didn't know this - octopuses are intelligent. We didn't get to see them play with these human toys but it was kind of cute.

Anyway, photos over. Thanks again for reading! 

Rin✿ Mixed race tag

I saw a video on the internet

called the "Hapa Tag", and I though that it would

be really fun to do that! However, I've also learned that

the word "hapa" is very cultural appropriative, so I've renamed

it as the "mixed race tag"!

Anyway, I hope you find this interesting♪

Q) What races/nationalities are you?
Which do you identify more with?

A) I'm French from my mother, and then on my dad's

side I have a Spanish/Japanese mixture. My dad's mother is Japanese, but his dad was only half Japanese, and half Spanish, though I don't know much about French or Spanish culture. I'm also American in nationality. I personally just identify more so with "mixed" than just one race; but if I had to choose, I would be more comfortable identifying as Japanese. However "mixed" causes less conflict, so I usually go with that.

Q) What race do get told you look more like?

A) I definitely get told I'm more White, which can get irritating on many occasions. I think the only people who've been able to tell I'm mixed are people who've grown up around other mixed race people, honestly.

Q) Are you accepted?

A) Generally, yes. I do have some difficulties, but I have it more
on the easy side of life as far as being accepted. As long as I don't vocally mark myself as different, generally no one pays me a second glance.

Q) Do you speak more than one language?

A) I speak Japanese as well, though not on the level I'd like to,
Hana is 100x better at it than I am, haha. I didn't start learning it until I was a little bit older, because my aunt didn't speak English very well. I also only live in an area where there's only one other Japanese person, and I really have no business to be speaking with an old guy, so it's not very often I practise it, either, though I'm hoping I can improve a little with time.

Q) Do you have any traditions?

A) I don't really have any traditions, my mum/dad never really
got in to anything like that; Christmas trees, Thanksgiving, etc. were not really celebrated farther than having a turkey and giving presents. Decorations and get togethers never really happened much, since my mum's family aren't my biggest fans, and the only person that speaks to my dad any more is really my aunt, who lives in Urayasu. Once she started visiting more regularly, though, I got a bit more tradition/culture than I had before (I'm actually really close to my aunt now).

Q) How are you treated in your school/work setting?

A) Well, when I was in school I was bullied a lot,

sometimes because of being mixed, sometimes not. When I was in the US, I got a lot of the "White girl weeaboo who wants to be Asian" bullying, or the "ching chong" kind of things. For the most part it wasn't as bad as the other things. In Japan, sometimes I got remarks from people, but it stopped pretty quickly after the people there realised I understood what they were saying. I had maybe one or two girls who hated me because I was mixed, but I generally didn't have to deal with that because I wasn't their idea of an exotic mixed girl, so no one was really jealous enough to make comments like other girls in Japan who are mixed get.

✧

That was all the questions I saw, but I hope it was still sort of interesting!

I'm hoping I can actually write about things people would be more interested to hear about next month when things calm down a bit. I'm also going to an Anime Convention next month, so I can't wait to write about that as well♪

xx Rin

Hana: Keitai Kareshi - Mobile Boyfriend -

Happy Friday! I hope the first Friday of February has treated you well ♡

In Japan, there are mobile novel sites/apps dedicated for people writing original stories. Some stories get really famous and are published, and occasionally they are made into movies.

携帯彼氏 Mobile Boyfriend is one of those stories found on mobile novel sites. 

The basic plot: 

Mobile Boyfriend is an app where you can create your ideal boyfriend and exchange messages on  a daily basis to move the 'Love Gauge' up and down. However, rumours begin circulating that if the Love Gauge reaches either 100% or 0%, the player dies under mysterious circumstances.

After her class mate Mayumi's suicide, shocked Satomi (Umika Kawashima, 9nine) and Satomi (Aki Asakura) begins to find out the truth behind their friend's death, and comes to the conclusion that Mayumi's virtual 'Mobile Boyfriend' Riku is somehow related to it. 

I'm not good at summing things up, and I didn't want to spoil anything... so that is all you get from me about the story.

It's not your typical bloody gory Japanese horror like 呪怨 The Grudge, but I did find the concept of having a mobile boyfriend that could kill you kind of creepy.

Here are some screen shots from the movie:

Umika Kawashima is just so adorable ♡

You can watch the whole film on YouTube with subtitles here.

I think non-horror movie fans could enjoy this too.

There are sequels to this, and I hope to write about it one day!

Have a nice weekend, and see you next Friday ♡

Rin✿ Make up?

Hello, everyone!
I apologise for my blogs always

being extremely late, I've been busy,

as well as had a cold (^^;

It snowed last night, and the temp

is about -27c here, so it's not doing

anything good for my health (><)

Anyway, moving on!

I decided to put make up on while

I'm sick, and see how decent I could

make myself look.

First, I used BB cream on a clean face~

And then I move on, and fill in my eyebrows a little~

I start my nose contour (I'm working on making it better)

and highlighting!

All in all, so far, I still look pretty sick...
But that's also attributed to the lighting, too.

 Anyway, then is the eye liner!

I think once the eye liner is on, I start to look a little

better! (^^) I'm pretty sure I could go out and not scare

little children, now :P

Then I put on some lip gloss c: Right now,

I use pink gloss because my clear one is all out.

And last, I put on my false lashes!

They're really important, because otherwise my eyes

look kind of weird! (><) As I'll show you the difference.

So, since I'm done with make up,

shall I show you a before and after?

Unfortunately the lighting is much darker on

the second one, because I had to move around.

Anyway, it's not too bad! In the second photo,

you can't really tell I'm sick c: So I'm happy♥

I also took some photos later on!
Yay for selfies♪

No one's more photogenic than my puppy,

haha♪ Actually my other puppies are quite

pretty on camera, too (:

See you next time!

xx Rin

Hana: Setsubun Bean Throwing Day

Hey everyone! It's the end of January, and I thought I talk a little bit about a day called 節分(Setsubun), or 'Seasonal Division', happening on the 3rd of February.

It's the day before the beginning of the spring, and we celebrate it by doing something called 豆まき(Mame maki), or 'bean throwing'.

The oldest male in the household (or headmale... usually fathers or grandfathers if they're up for it) wear a 鬼(oni) demon mask, while the rest of the household throws 福豆(Fuku mame) 'fortune beans', which are roasted dry soybeans, at the masked-man, chanting: 鬼は外、福は内(Oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi) 'Demon out, luck in". 

The demon is chased out of the house this way, and once the demon is banished, everybody in the household eats the beans. The amount varies from person to person, as you are only meant to eat the same amount as your age. 

This is mainly done in households with younger children and kindergartens, as it is a fun activity for the children. Around this day, children usually spend time making masks of demons for displays or for their fathers to wear. It is supposed to drive the bad things out of the house and bringing good luck in for the coming spring.

It was the highlight of my kindergarten days, as one of the teachers would dress up as a scary demon. It was usually the teacher we didn't like, so you can imagine why throwing the beans at them would be entertaining Ψ(｀▽´)Ψ

Anyway, this is the end of my post. I'm not sure if there are roasted soybeans available in your area, but if you can find them, it's certainly recommended that you try... it's fun (for everybody, but especially the kids) as long as you tidy up the beans you throw on the floor （*^_^*）

It's a good way to start the spring, in my opinion anyway ♡

Have a nice weekend, and see you next Friday!!