Stress is very high in Japanese society, absolutely. In public, most Japanese repress their feeling and act so neutral that it appears they have no emotion at all. We met a Japanese man while in Japan who said, "The way to get to know a Japanese person's true personality is to get them drunk," which made a lot of sense to me after observing Japanese culture for a month.

I don't think you act that differently in the meetings, Mark. While in Japan, 2 of our roomates were from Europe: one from Italy (in his 40's) and one from Sweden (he was 19). The Swede had excellent English, knew a lot of languages, and was very outgoing and friendly-- he knew his American and video game pop culture even down to the slang. With the Italian, there were a lot of differences, a lot because of age, arguably; he tended to keep to himself and when he would talk, he would ramble for 30 minute diatribes about life and cooking (he was a professional chef), which were very interesting.

I would argue that Americans often talk a lot and are very loud and on the whole aren't very tolerant of other cultures. When we came back from Japan, we were in an airport going through the security check and everything was relatively silent. Suddenly, someone cut in line. A few people started shouting at him, "Hey, you asshole, you cut in line!" The line cutter in question responded with, "I gotta catch up with my friends." A minor round of grumbling circled around the room and we realized we were back in the USA.

But back to the topic... ;)

Mr. Custard is right about Toriyama too; he is probably the best known manga artist in the world. His art is arguably more Western than other Japanese artists, particularly in the Dragon Quest series, because you have the Asian manga/anime style faces wearing European armor, casting spells, and so on.

I quite enjoy the Slime from Dragon Quest. He holds a special place in my heart because Dragon Quest I was my very first RPG and there's something about the innocence and cuteness in the expression that makes it a monster you almost don't want to kill, but you have to in order to progress in the game. How could something that cute be so deadly?

The link to the Douwe Dabbert character reminds me a lot of the artwork in the classic 80's David the Gnome show, which were based on some European art books (David the Gnome, not Douwe Dabbert).

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=- Mat Tschirgi =- Armchair Arcade Editor
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