The end of Japan month

May is at an end and so is Japan month here on RatCat and Friends. I thought it'd be pretty awesome to see a compilation of all the drawings I've made this month. So here it is (notice that Daruma RatCat now has two eyes):

Not until tomorrow! (but soon) =^o,,o^=

Japanese horror movies

Japanese cinema knows many great and not so great horror movies. Some have seen an American re-makes (the ring, the grudge, to name a few). Somehow when I think about Japanese horror one of the things that comes to mind is long black creepy hair on a creepy ghost or whatever. RatCat is trying out the look.


Tomorrow is the last day of May which means Japan Month is coming to an end. So, until the end! =^o,,~^=

Japanese school uniforms

In Japan it's quite common to have a school uniform. The best known school uniform (for girls anyway) is the sailor uniform. An example:

Apparently one of the reasons the sailor-look was chosen for girls school uniforms, was because it's easy to sew.

Here we have a kogal way of wearing the uniform. Kogal is a youth subculture and the term comes from the Japanese for high school (which starts with ko) and the word gal (as in, she's such a swell gal). Mini skirts and loose socks are one way of kogalling your school uniform.

Finally, here are a few other type of school uniforms.

Until tomorrow! =^o,,o^=

The islands of Japan

Japan is made up of a whole lot of islands (around 7,000 but only 470 are inhabited). The four main islands (from North to South, sort of) are Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu. Of these four Honshu is the biggest. Here are a bunch of RatCats in the shape of Japan (because, why not?):

Until tomorrow again! =^o,,o^=

Karaoke

Karaoke is a compound of the Japanese Kara, meaning empty (same as in Karate, remember), and the abbreviation of okesutora or orchestra. In Japan Karaoke isn't usually done in a bar where you sing in front of everybody who happens to be in the bar, but in a "karaoke box". It's a smaller room that you sing karaoke in either with your friends or alone (if you want) without any other people. Sometimes you get small musical instrument such as tambourines and maracas.

I wonder what song RatCat's singing...or what he sounds like. He usually doesn't talk.

Fairy Princess Mammoth is a little too shy to sing, but he likes to play the tambourine.

Lucy is also a little shy, but she's happy to hold the microphone for Count Slugula.





Do you like Karaoke? Until tomorrow! =^o,,o^=

Mount Fuji

Mount Fuji is Japan's highest mountain and active (!) volcano. It's last eruption was around 1707. Mount Fuji attracts many tourists (Japanese and foreign alike) and has often been the inspiration for paintings, poems, and other types of art. Here we have RatCat enjoying the (somewhat poorly drawn, my apologies, I never draw landscapes...) view of Mount Fuji:

  Until tomorrow again! =^o,,~^=

Dragon dragon ball, dragon ball Z

It's time for some Dragon ball Z! One of the most popular and well known anime. It's the sequel to Dragon ball and continues to follow the adventures of Goku and his friends, family, and frenemies.

One guy that goes from being an enemy in the Dragon ball series to a mentor to Goku's son Gohan, and ally is Piccolo (you might not recognize him straight away in this Evil Space RatCat version, but that's probably because his usual color is green...).

 Here we have Majin Buu (also known as fat Buu). He sometimes changes people into candy and eats them, but he also has a kind, sweet side to him.

Bulma (her natural color is blue) has been a friend to Goku since the Dragon Ball series and often helps with inventing awesome gadgets and space ships and time travel ships and a dragon ball locator and...well...basically without her they would all be dead and Vegeta would have died childless and alone.



Finally, we have the Fairy Princess Mammoth representing the Saiyans. They sure have pointy hair.

A little translation fun fact: In the Japanese version when Vegeta is taking a shower and Bulma gives him clothes to wear he's thinking about fighting Goku and get's very upset with the clothes because he's a warrior and should be wearing armor. In the American version, however, when showering he's thinking about what an enigma females are and get's upset because of the pinkness of his shirt (to quote: "I'm a warrior! Not a bouquet of flowers!").

Until tomorrow! =^o,,o^=

Domo-RatCat-kun

Although you probably never really wondered what a RatCat/Domo-kun fusion would look like, here it is anyway (if you don't know Domo-kun google image him or RatCat's squareness won't make any sense to you):

Domo-kun is the official mascot of NHK, Japan's national public broadcasting organization. Domo-kun can be seen in 30 second long stop-motion movies shown between programs. He also stars in a manga version and countless Domo-kun merchandise is available.

It's a-me, RatCat!

One of Japan's most famous video game characters is-a Mario! He first appeared in Donkey Kong in 1981. Back then he was known simply as Jumpman and was saving his girlfriend Pauline (who got dumped after he became Mario and met princess Peach). Since then Mario (often together with his brother Luigi) has starred in many, many, video games and probably isn't going anywhere any time soon.

Until tomorrow! =^o,,o^=

A bit about Kawaii

I wasn't really in the mood to draw today (it's really warm and it's making me sleepy), so I just made a small RatCat thingy. He's supposed to be kawaii. Kawaii generally means cute or cuteness (although it used to mean something more along the lines of pathetic and weak). Cuteness and cute characters (such as Hello Kitty) can be find all over Japan today. In the 1970s the cute culture began when high school girls developed a new way of writing with round characters, decorated with cute little flowers and stuff (it was pretty hard to read and a lot of schools banned this style of writing). It's also around this time Hello Kitty emerged and became popular. As the children and teens (who all the cute stuff was marketed to) grew up, cute merchandise for adults became wide spread. Anyway, here's RatCat:

Until tomorrow!

Shamisen

The shamisen is a Japanese musical instrument that finds its origin in a Chinese instrument. Shamisen means "three strings" and you guessed right, the shamisen does in fact have three strings (the name would be pretty silly if it didn't)! It's played using a plectrum called bachi (the kitten obviously forgot his...).

Well, that's about as far as my knowledgde on the shamisen goes, so until tomorrow! =^o,,o^=

Gojira!

Gojira, also known as Godzilla, is Japan's biggest, baddest, most famous, mutated monster. The first movie came out in 1954. Here he was pretty mad because something nuclear the people did woke him up/mutated him, so he decided to mess up some buildings and be a symbolic critique on nuclear testing/weapons. He later became friendlier and evolved into a hero who fought bad monsters. In the 80s Godzilla was re-invented as a bad-ass who hates Tokyo. Most recently, like a few weeks ago, a new American version was released (let's forget the other American version, it doesn't exist) starring the biggest Godzilla yet.

Throughout all of the Gojira movies a lot of other monster played a part. My personal fav is Mothra, who is always on the side of the humans. Sure, Mothra larva sound like a locomotive, look like a male body part, and spray white stuff, Mothra is one kick-ass moth-type monster:

Or maybe not so much kick-ass as drag-you-across-the-floor-ass?

Another famous Godzilla franchise monster is Ghidorah, the three-headed monster:

How many of the 28 (this is not counting the American versions) Gojira movies have you seen?

Tea

Tea, in many variations and temperatures, is the most commonly drunk beverage in Japan. It was brought to Japan from China somewhere in the 700s. In the beginning it was a luxury item not available to all. A few hundred years later tea parties became all the rage and the famous tea ceremony has its origins in refined tea gatherings. Green tea is the most common in Japan and besides actual tea you can find many other food stuffs with a green tea flavored variety, such as ice cream and chocolate.

RatCat likes to drink tea to keep warm, to relax, or, before he had any friends, to feel less lonely.

Until tomorrow! =^o,,o^=

Karate

A few days ago we had RatCat sumo and now it's time for another Japanese sport: Karate.

Here we have Evil Space RatCat's minion doing some karate(trying to anyway, he is only a dust bunny after all).





Did you know that karate means empty hand in Japanese? The kara has the same meaning as the kara in karaoke although different ways of writing are used (kanji vs katakana).


Until tomorrow again! =^o_o^=

Lucky RatCat

Here we have a Lucky RatCat! This lucky charm in Japanese is called the maneki neko, or the beckoning cat and is thought to be a good luck charm.
May this Ratcat version bring you good fortune.


Until tomorrow! =^o,,o^=

Sumo

One of Japan's best known native sports is Sumo wrestling. The objective is to push your opponent outside of the ring or to make them touch the floor with a body part other than their feet. RatCat has his game face on.

Unfortunately his body isn't really made for some of the movements involved with Sumo... A for effort?



Until tomorrow! =^o,,o^=

Sakura

Sakura means cherry blossom and is also a Japanese girls name. When the cherry blossoms bloom it's time to go "flower viewing" (ohanami). To go flower viewing basically means to sit below the trees and eat and drink with your friends as you are surrounded by the beautiful blossoms everywhere.





Above: Lucy in a Sakura inspired outfit.
Below: Ohanami

Did you ever go flower viewing?

Until tomorrow! =^o,,o^=

Hello Ratcat

Say hello to Hello RatCat (a RatCat version of Hello Kitty). Hello Kitty (or Kitty-chan) has ruled the world of kawaii (cuteness) since she first appeared in 1974.

The first Hello Kitty looked something like this (of course Hello Kitty has no mouth though). Sitting sideways with her iconic red bow.

Hello Kitty has since then grown to a huge presence in Japan and elsewhere. From stationary to golf clubs, from key chains to wedding dresses. Hello Kitty does it all.


Do you own anything Hello Kitty?

Until tomorrow! =^o,,~^= (<---new blinking RatCat)

Tanuki

One of Japan's best known native animals is the Tanuki (also known as raccoon dog). It often appears in Japanese folklore and you can find Tanuki statues in all sorts of places, such as outside of ramen shops.

These statues usually shows the Tanuki with 8 symbols:
A large hat, a large smile, large eyes, a sake bottle, a book or a promissory note, a big belly, and, finally, a large scrotum. You might notice that the RatCat Tanuki does not have a large scrotum, or any scrotum at all. I tried to draw it, but...well...it looked both ridiculous and horrifying. 

Until tomorrow! =^0,,0^=

Crazy pocket monsters

They're cute and annoying at the same time, you can try to catch them all, and there are about a billion of them. I'm talking, of course, about Japans best known monsters: Pokemon. Video-games, trading cards, anime, manga, and merchandise. Pokemon does it all, and here are some of the RatCat and Friends as different Pokemon.

The minion went all out with this Pikachu look.

You might not recognize him straight away because the colors are different and the BFFB is slightly fatter, but he's Butterfree.

RatCat as Mew

Where there is a Mew, there's a Mewtwo (well not really, but here there is though).

On Facebook I posted a "who's that Pokemon" and you may have guessed it was (RatCat as) Mew:

I might do some more Pokemon later in the month, but for now this will have to do.

Until tomorrow! =^o,,o^=

Some sweet Japanese treats

If sushi is the only food you can think of when you think of Japan you're missing out on a lot of other sweet stuff. Here are a few examples of some Japanese sweet food stuffs:

Here we see RatCat eating a type of sweet bun called melonpan (melon bread). They don't get their name because they taste like melon (they generally don't), but because they kinda look like a melon (kinda...). RatCat's favorite has chocolate chips.

BFFB is eating a butterfly sized Pocky (a type of cookie stick covered in chocolate). It's quite a well known treat and available in many countries other than Japan. A wide of flavors exist, but the chocolate is really the classic Pocky.

Finally we have Count Slugula munching on some, slug-sized, Dango. Dango is a type of sweet dumpling made from rice flour and many flavors exist. Slugula is eating a classic: the hanami (flower viewing) dango.


That's it for today. Tomorrow we'll have some monsters you can fit in our pocket (come on, you know what I'm talking about!). Until then! =^o,,o^=

Lucy's short guide to blood types in Japan

As you may have noticed, Lucy von Fledermaus is a vampire and as a vampire has quite some knowlegde of blood: "In Japan (and some other asian countries) one's blood type is thought to relate to such things as personality and compatibility with others, similar to how astrological signs are regarded in certain other countries. For instance,  type A is thought to be creative,  patient, reserved,  and stubborn. Women's magazines might write about blood type compatibility with a (potential) partner,  and magazines and news papers have blood horoscopes. It's quite uncommon to be unaware of your blood type and profiles for celebraties and even anime and game characters often list the blood type."

...

"My favorite blood type is O"

Until tomorrow! =^o, ,o^=

Relaxing time! Onsen

Onsen is the Japanese word for hot springs and are great for relaxing in (not washing yourself in!). I sure could use a trip to an onsen right now. Lucky for RatCat I've drawn him one:

Until tomorrow! =^o,,o^=

Ninja

Not much to say about Ninjas really. They're fast, secretive, and they like to wear black.

I'm not sure how fast he is, but he does have a sword so...don't mess with him!

The BFFB* is quite happy with his ninja star. He'd never use it to hurt someone though. He probably wouldn't be a great ninja...

Lucy is ready for some silent ninja action.

Until tomorrow! =(^o,,o^)=

*Big Fat Friendly Butterfly

Totoro

Ghibli is responsible for many wondrous anime movies and delights people all over the world. One of Ghibli's most famous creatures is, of course, Totoro! Here's a RatCat version:

 Until tomorrow! =^o,,o^=

Onigiri

Onigiri are rice balls. The classic rice ball shape is actually a triangle-like shape, with a piece of nori (dried seaweed) wrapped around it.

Here we have the RatCat onigiri. I imagine that if you were to try to make an actual RatCat onigiri you could use (vegetarian) ham for the pink in the ears.

Next we have the Fairy Princess Mammoth onigiri, made from brown rice.

Finally, an Evil Space RatCat onigiri. He's not enjoying this at all.

Until tomorrow! =^o,,o^=