South Korean Blogger Tells Of How He Knew Japan Aside From Government Influence.

In my efforts to bring you stories featuring Sailor Moon from Asian Media, I thought this was a good one to share for the weekend! Readers will have to forgive us because one of our staffers is just beginning to learn Korean and the majority of this comes from web translation (but we did compare it back to what the original news article said). Yuko Hashimoto wrote an interesting editorial for Searchina News highlighting an essay that she found on a Korean Blogger's site. The blogger's name is Annie, but she goes by the username Dochiani. She wrote a very long essay about how there has always been tension between South Korea and Japan and she tries to make her voice heard saying that each side should do more to learn about the other. She doesn't like how South Korea in the past limited imports of media from Japan leaving many to learn from whatever illegal bootlegs they could acquire. Annie shared her stories of discovering the "floozy" Sailor Moon in High School, Japanese fashion in the Green Zone, and of watching Evangelion and Studio Ghibli Films. They were just as enjoyable as Korean media, if not more. It was then, ten years ago, that she decided to read some books about Japan. And it was difficult to find any books that didn't paint a harsh picture of the country there. Later, she learned that Japan didn't have very much about South Korean history in their libraries. Tensions between the countries have only been resolved very recently. But it was through her discovery of anime that she was inspired to learn more about Japan and it's culture through means other than certain political restrictions would allow. The blog entry is here, but most translators (if you want to read it all) won't work on the site. Your best bet is to select the text downwards from the heading and pasting it in.