We've noticed little activity from the list, even though our stories got
through. Is it realy quiet? or just us?

Well, on the Ranma explination, we have this. . .

TJ's take on explaining ANIME in general.

_______________

TJ sits in his highschool lunchroom, in a corner. His face showing a lack of 5
years of age he has now.

Odd, but cute girl passes by and stops. "Whao, is that chinese?" she says poking
at the cover of his book

Tj is holding an ASARI-CHAN graphic novel he picked up from IWASE in Lenox in
Georgia. "Kinda. Its Kanji."

"What is it?"

"Its a japanese graphic novel."

"Huh? Whats a graphic novel." Tj has veryy little patience with anyone and
retorts with a dull monotone.

"Figure it out. Grpahic means pictures, and I hope you know what novel mean."

With a disgusted huff, she trie to look over his shoulder. "So is it a comic
book, like archie? Or superman?"

Tj grumbles. "It is not. Archie is a dull, shallow social off-shoot of the world
most poorly run insitutions. Highschool and Colledge. Superman is a super hero
epic. I think those are dumb. I don't care about a diabolical mad scientist lust
for world domniation, convinced in his megalomania he can't lose."

After being disgusted with Tj's "Big Words" she walks away.

====

later that year, during Chemistry, tj pulled out a 3x3eyes manga.

Annoying preppy white guy comes over. "Is that them japanese comics?" he says in
a gansta wannabe tone.

"Yes," he answers.

"Like speed racer and stuff?"

TJ grabs his temples. "No, moron. Speed racer was a cartoon. This is a book."

"I've never seen a japanese cartoon."

"Sure you have. Remember Thundercats? Animated with Japanese. How about Voltron?
Or transor Z? Maybe Dragon Warrior? A bunch of others, too."

"Woah. So I heard thats got, like, naked pics of tits."

Tj grabes his temples again. Class resumes, interrupting the conversation.

=====

his junior year, and GT's first and senior year in US.

After school, Tj meets GT and Eimi. Tj drives. GT has yet to get a car, he had
just moved to the US.

"How was your day?"

"Fine," gt answers. "Lets hang a bit. I wanted to speak with some band pals
before we took off."

The busses depart, leaving some skag kids with skateboards.

"Tenki ga ii?" tj says to eimi, who's english skills have yet to develop.

"un," she nods, ignoring his poorly pronounce japanese.



Gt speaks with section heads from band while Tj watches the skag kids effort to
perform tricks on the boards on the blacktop. He notices they're wearing
Hook-ups shirts with girls holding either guns or weapons on the fronts. Tj
merely shakes his head

________________



--
       __________________________
       |  Colliding | space for |
       | SYmphonies |   rent    |
_______|____________|___________|___________
|HTTP://www.abraxis.com/ryougaecho/SYmphon/|
|__________________________________________|
| TJ-"Let's do something."                 |
|      GT-"I thought we were. . ."         |
| TJ-"Something where we move."            |
|      GT-"You lost me. . ."               |
|__________________________________________|