Tim’s Ramblings

Sounds like a punchline to a really bad joke…

But in fact it’s the entire premise of a new manga (Japanese comic) that has gotten pretty popular the last few months. Volume one is already out with volume 2 supposed to come out sometime this month. I was out with mom buying her a new stereo with my points and stopped by a bookstore to pick up the last 5 volumes of Berserk (I’m caught up now…woo) and picked this up too.

The name of the comic is “Saint Oniisan” which literally translates to “Saint Young Guy” (or “Saint Young Men” as it says on the cover…). “Oniichan” has a few meanings including “big brother” and “a young male” (most of the time in your 20’s and it’s a sad sad sad day when someone calls you an “ojisan” which is a middle aged guy…and yes…I have been called it already…but in my defence it was by a very young child so…I guess to him I’m old…dammit…).

Anyway, the comic follows Jesus and Buddha who decided to take a few months off and come down to earth on vacation. They get a small cramped apartment in Tachikawa (a town on the outskirts of Tokyo) where they have to save up money to pay the rent and is surprised by various things in on earth, mainly in Tokyo. Jesus gets crammed into a rush hour train only to get yelled at by a drunk guy when his crown of thorns pokes other people in the head… Buddha finds out the hard way that the dot on his head really hurts when people push it… Jesus gets really happy when he goes to a convenience store and a few HS girls think he looks like Johnny Depp. So on and so forth.

It’s not laugh out loud funny but it’s still imaginative and at time kind of endearing. The two of them are portrayed as very good friends with Jesus being the more brash and outgoing of the two while Buddha is more quiet and naive. The author admits he really didn’t know much about either religion or the actual characters other than what you hear and learn just in general but it’s still nice without being insulting (well…to most people).

So I made it safely to Japan despite the plane from Cleveland to Newark being turned around due to “an emergency light in the landing gear but nothing to worry about”…and we had to switch planes and go back to Newark only to find out the plane from Newark to Narita had to also be swapped out to do a mechanical “issue”… Eeesh…

Rained all day today. It’s humid…not too hot but sticky…blah. Tomorrow work starts. Gonna be a long week. Packed. Blah….

But the important thing is, mom got a stereo, a new tiny iRiver MP3 player, and a charger for my old Canon camera that she got fixed. I also handed over the paperwork to renew my passport. Tonight I plan on watching some dumb TV, getting with J later to talk about work, and then go to bed early. Yahoo.

So, back to TV :)