Tsunami characters

Tokyo-based author and translator Matt Alt has a post up today on Altjapan about the history of anthropomorphizing tsunamis in Japan.

Japan has a long history of using cute mascot characters in situations that can surprise Westerners. In fact, quite often the more terrifying or distressing a situation, the cuter the visual description of it becomes on official posters here.

This may sound counterintuitive or even a little condescending at first, but when you start thinking about it, it makes perfect sense. Whereas, say, photos of damage or devastation would probably cause people to avert their eyes, this sort of presentation lures people into actually reading the sign -- particularly children, as tsunami education needs to start early.

Of course, there's no way to know how many lives public-service campaigns like this saved in the 3-11 earthquake and tsunami. But similar to the ancient stone tsunami-warning markers found dotting the countryside, these cute characters are another example that natural disasters are never far from the minds of people in Japan.

(via Sean Bonner)

• [Anonymous]

  Related: http://www.google.com/images?q=!gimages+ponyo+waves

• [teapot]

  According to Japanese mythology, thrashing, subterranean catfish are responsible for causing earthquakes:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namazu_%28Japanese_mythology%29

  That’s why I was amazed to see cute, smiling catfish adorning the emergency signs on major arterial roads in Japan:
  http://muza-chan.net/aj/poze-weblog/emergency-road-sign-suginami.jpg

  It gets even more ridiculous when you meet this smiling candy character:「うんちくんグミ」”Unchikun Gumi” (aka Little Mr. Poopoo gummy)
  http://www.excite.co.jp/News/bit/00091094109566.html

• [Kieran O’Neill]

  Are they really calling it the “3-11″ earthquake?

  As if “9-11″ as a name wasn’t enough of a slap in the face to the rest of the world who don’t use the backwards American date format.

  • [Cocidius]

    The official Japanese term is Higashi Nihon Daishinsai, East Japan Great Earthquake. I think Japanese use “3-11″ when talking in English, obviously as a reference to “9-11″, as an event of similar significance. Matt Alt is American, I think, so uses the term common among English speakers in Japan. (I would highly recommend Matt’s AltJapan blog.)

    While Europeans tend to use day-month arrangement, I have noticed that in other places, including Japan, there is no fixed arrangement. This can be confusing.

  • [Anonymous]

    The Japanese date format is YYYY/MM/DD, so 3/11 makes perfect sense. :)

• [TomDArch]

  It’s worth understanding some context: essentially EVERYTHING in Japanese graphics gets anthropomorphized! One of my favorites was a yellow diamond warning sign for the potential of rocks falling onto the road. While the airborne, falling rocks weren’t anthropomorphized, the car silhouette at the base of the hillside had circular headlights with pupil-dots that were looking up at the falling rocks with a distinctly worried look!

• [betatron]

  I think many OSX users would be surprised to find “The Great Wave of Kanagawa” in their preferences-> desktop pictures -> apple-> art. the wiki on it is very interesting.

• [mrclamo]

  Those houses look like they are really looking forward to being destroyed!

• [adamnvillani]

  As if “9-11″ as a name wasn’t enough of a slap in the face to the rest of the world who don’t use the backwards American date format.

  Considering that the 9/11 attacks occurred in the United States, I’m not sure what your problem is with using the American date format. How dare we slap the face of the world by using our own language!

• [chrisbachmann]

  Probably better than the alternative… though that would have been awesome in a different way.

• [Anonymous]

  Don’t the Japanese have a culture that believes that objects have a spirit? It seems to be embodied in respect for nature and craftsmanship. The trees, the rocks, the wind, the waves, the radioactive cloud are all to be respected, or they will awaken and kick your ass.

• [gwailo_joe]

  The waves might smile.

  Not all the houses. . . .

  And when’s the last time you seen so many trees on a Japanese coastline?

  Wrong.

• [gwailo_joe]

  Ahh. . .let the stalwart domiciles grin.

  And many a mountain tree fights the coastal elements. . .

  Curse you Planet with your great shakes and floods and various disruptions!

  May good will and camaraderie allow Nihon-jin to restore some kind of life semblance…

  No hate.

• [hdon]

  Latest game by Keita Takahashi: “Katamari Tsunami!”

• [tsunami_kun]

  That picture is for a typhoon warning, how many earthquakes have high wind events that go with them?

  In fact, one of the main problems with the Fukushima plants breakwater defenses was that they were only designed to stop single sets of typhoon waves and not a full Tsunami ‘tide’.

• [Shay Guy]

  That reminds me, I’ve still got six episodes of Paranoia Agent to watch.