Over the last five days, the news from Japan has been washing over the millions and millions of Japanese people who have not been directly impacted by the forces of nature, as well as those of us fortunate to be living else where on the planet in places that do not experience tsunamis and earthquakes.. We watch the news reports on TV, or look at the newspaper images on the internet horrified; but most of us are unable to not watch, though breaks from watching are an absolute necessity. Since the summer of 2003, I’ve spent a lot of time, reviewing and commentating about the Japanese gravure models. In fact they are the most frequent topic on this website.
But the current situation in Japan has created sort of a block, or an obstacle, that I can’t seem to get around. Even though I have DVDs on hand waiting to be reviewed, and a few more due to be shipped to me within a week, I can’t manage to compartmentalize my thoughts of Japan’s current reality in order to sit down and do a coherent piece on the latest gravure models video images.
Flower Garden B in Biei by Chizuko Yoshida
Rather – I simply can’t focus on the gravure models because today’s Japanese reality is so overpowering.
When we think of the Japan of as recently as a week ago, we can imagine or see the images, be they photos or paintings, of Mt. Fuji, the bullet trains, or flowers, especially the sakura or cherry blossoms. Via the internet, the images have been exported electronically to every corner of the world.
While I won’t call these images ubiquitous, they are at minimum, well known, or have been widely seen.
But the newer images, like the one above, and the last one in this post, are far too powerful to be ignored, forgotten, or to escape from our thoughts
Japan is a country of islands forming an archipelago. Japan is nearly the size of California, however, its population is nearly 4x times greater.
Japan is also a mountainous country which means that most of it’s people live in the flat coastal areas.
This means that for hundreds and hundreds of years, Japan has been a country dependent on the maritime industries like shipping and fishing for not only it sustenance but also its income.
