Yes, I speak Japanese.

Hopefully someone else can answer your Pokemon question since I don't really play those cards/computer games or watch any anime.

Yes, I've been to Tokyo several times, and it is an incredible sprawling city where you don't need ( or want to own) a car and can experience just about anything, but I don't really like big cities.

I had never heard of the Ganguro girls, but that kind of outlandish makeup is probably not seen outside a few super-freaky districts of Tokyo.

Most women have super nice artistic painted-on or glued-on pedicures.

Many young women wear false eyelashes. Some wear over-sized contact lens as well.

Heavy make up is not uncommon, but it's usually tastefully done.

Most women wear mid-thigh skirts and stockings or skin tight slacks with ankle boots that have platform heels.

Men wear dark suits and business shoes or, for a more casual look, cotton slacks and a button down shirt and some funky shoes.

At any given time, approximately 1/4 of the population is wearing Crocs or a knock off of Crocs. Not counting teenage students who are wearing their school uniform (sailor for jr. hi, black chinese style for high school, oxford prep for private schools) and loafers or white sneakers.

Yes, nearer to the mountainous areas you can sometimes see racoons (tanuki), weasels (itachi), and deer (shika).

@ Markus-Aurelius - Sunrises are important to Japanese people. I sometimes see groups of twenty somethings who have stayed up/out all night on their group dates waiting to view the sunrise before going home, and older folks often get up and go for a walk at sunrise, and a lot of Japanese people gather at rivers and temples on January 1st to watch the first sunrise of the year.

But I've never heard anyone talk about the Japanese flag in any way related to the sun rising. Rather, they compare it to a staple of the boxed lunches (o-bento), a sour pickled plum (umeboshi) in the middle of a square box of rice, called hinomaru (circular sun).

@ Oskvion - Weather in Japan is near freezing in the winter and up to about 90 in the summer with humidity. The climate includes a full four seasons with about 6 months of beautiful weather, although it does rain at least once or twice a week year round.

@ Markus-Aurelius - Yes, I kind of figured that was the flag you had in mind, but that is a flag from the expansionist period of World War 2. It's not a flag anyone flies today anymore than the Confederate flag or the flag of Nazi Germany get flown . Still looks cool on headbands, though, huh.

@ Trats-Romra - I'm glad you liked the temple photos. (I assume those are the ones you are referring to.) I'm not a great photographer and those were taken rather quickly with a digital camera several years old while I was out on a run, but it's hard to take a bad picture with that kind of scenery. The cherry blossoms help a lot, too.

As for the big eyes of manga, the two explanations you gave pretty much tell the whole story, although the desire for bigger eyes might be slightly more of the core reason.

@ Darkcub - Almost as much as I love the black beans that get served with my burrito, mi amor. Don't ever lose that swagger, El Bandido.

@ Mystigryx - It's rare, but yes, you can still use them and some people do.

this morning I ran to a nature trail (18 minutes to get there) and enjoyed a hike through the mountains. What a wonderful to start a Sunday!

I go into a major city on Sunday afternoons. There is an underground mall that extends below the city for miles and miles. The subways are even lower down. It's really quite amazing.

In addition to all the normal sports, we play a lot more hand ball (the one like soccer) and badminton, and kendo (wooden sword dueling).

Baseball is the #1 pro sport followed by soccer at #2. Sumo is culturally important but not actually all that popular.

@ Dragneel-Wiki - See that's TV, where people are just trying to be weird and amusing.

@ Wavara - Cats as pets are probably slightly less popular in Japan where people are more fastidious about the inside cleanliness of their homes.

Here's a weird thing about Japan - the prominent display of women's undergarments.

I'll give you an example. I went shopping at a mall yesterday, and as I was riding up the escalator from the first floor to the second floor of a department store, the first thing that greeted my eye at the top of the escalator was a sextion (intentional misspelling) of women's undergarments and lingerie titled, get this, "Exciting Space".

Now many American malls have department stores and a Victoria's Secret, but even those stores pruriently place the undergarments section back in some corner out of view. Not so in Japan. There are many stores that sell nothing but ladies undergarments, all with prominent displays of what can only be described as "only-in-your-dreams, Sweetie" type outfits that cannot be considered to be the kind of thing any women would normally wear other than for a date at a Love Hotel.

Indeed, most of these items seem designed more to be seen than for more practical considerations. One imagines (or perhaps it's better not to) young Japanese women preening in front of the mirror each morning admiring their matching "kawaii" bra and panties with their bright designs of flowers, hearts, or Hello Kitty characters frolicking across their (scant) curves.

(Sigh) Yes, gender roles are quite a bit different over here in ways both better and worse.

For reasons I cannot fathom, the leopard pattern is a particularly popular design on women’s clothing and accessories. Whereas in the USA it is considered somewhat trashy, it has a sexier appeal here in Japan.

In fact, while riding the train this morning, I noticed a woman with a leopard pattern tattoo on her forearm. I’d say there was a 50-50 chance she was a prostitute since she was also wearing large dark glasses (another “tell” for a “woman of low repute”).

Tattoos are not exactly rare in Japan, but they carry a much higher social price tag. Public bath houses and hot springs will not allow you in. A visible tattoo will also exclude you from most jobs. Therefore, the decision to get a tattoo is a de facto decision to practically drop out of mainstream society. Tattoos are the visual domain of Yakuza and their girlfriends, truckers, and other fringe type occupations.

Ironically, temporary peal-off tattoos are common, as are stockings that make your legs appear to have tattoos. Just don’t ever get drunk enough to get the real thing!

Unlike China or some other Asian countries, dragons are not part of Japan's historical mythology. There are just part of popular culture in general.

@ Sonosuke

In my very first fan-fic of the ۞ The Dragon Princess ۞ Chronicles (http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/83077) the story called “A New Life”, I had my Dragon Princess character marrying a prince in another dragon kingdom. This introduced the idea of multiple kingdoms of dragons.

Later I expanded on this idea in 13 - Dragons and Drakes [The Dragon Princess journeys home and finds a war brewing among the dragon tribes.] (http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/83077#comment-793127)

Bascially, the Dragon Princess comes from the kingdom of Avalon, tying her in with the guild name and deceased lover Lionheart.

An excerpt from that story states:

Her kingdom was a race of dragons known for the benevolence, but not all dragons were so. Some were of a more violent, some would say evil, nature. They had to be prepared for wars against other tribes, like the Drakes of Astoria and Wyverns of Tulikaar. These were the three main tribes of land dragons - all fearsome fighters, skilled in all the arts of war. There were also Wyrm dragons who lived underground, Serpentine dragons who lived in the sea, Jormund dragons of the frozen North. But all dragons were united in one way – they all loved treasure, which they also loved to hide in their lairs and guard from would be thieves.

Every culture has things that seem strange to people from outside that culture, and seems to have way more than their fair share of these.

Bizarre culture point #1

Let’s talk about vending machines first. Although you may have heard weird rumors about the variety of things you can buy from vending machines, 95% of them sell drinks, including alcoholic beverages. Most of the other 5% are cigarettes.

The thing is, they are everywhere. They are in train stations of course, buy also shopping malls, in front of convenience stores, and some are in remote countryside areas wired up to the powerline running overhead.

The drinks aren’t cheap, either - $1 to a $1.50 for a bottle or a small can.

Bizarre culture point #2 (which is related to #1)

You can’t drink and walk in Japan.

This makes no sense whatsoever, since people walk and do plenty of other things at the same time, mainly play with their phone. Also, you get off the train at your local station, but a drink, and enjoy it on your wlk home, right? WRONG!

Nobody ever does this in Japan. Apparently it is the height of rudeness to drink or eat while walking. You can stand and drink or even eat and drink at a train station ramen shop, but walking is culturally taboo. I can’t figure it out . . .