I was watching some episode of something today, (what a great starting sentence), and in it a guy drank down an entire glass of an almost certainly non-alcoholic beverage, and upon finishing slammed the glass down and made some loud but nondescript "Ah" refreshed sound. Is this a regular thing in Japan? I'd be quite surprised if it was, and it certainly isn't a regular thing here. If it isn't a common thing that people do in Japan, how is it so popular in anime? I have seen it in more than one series where more than one non-alcoholic beverage has been swallowed whole. It got me thinking about a number of possible things like this that happen regularly in anime that would be weird to see in real life, whether in Japan or not.
I know some things are "just that way" in Japan; for example, the shoe thing apparently takes some adjustment from westerners visiting over there. But it had me thinking that we could have something like a mythbuster thread, where if we see something in a series that doesn't seem quite right but regularly shows up in anime, we can check out if it's just a cultural thing that the Japanese traditionally do, or if it's just something that has developed over time in anime and become something of an anime culture reference in itself, not based on any pre-existing traditions.
Another one I can think of is when a girl grabs a guy's hands and brings them up in between them while talking energetically about something, but in a non-romantic context. I've seen this a lot with girls to other girls too - grabbing both hands and bringing them together while looking right into each other's eyes, but for no real reason.. Doing it in real life would be really weird, but it happens in anime all the time. Is it a characteristic of Japanese conversation or something that's just developed with time through anime? Any ideas as to why it might have developed? I don't have a clue.
These days I have a tendency to kind of blank these little things out as just "one of those things that happens in anime" but really it is kind of weird. Just little things that feel kind of awkward but you don't think about it. So this thread is like the regularly appearing nosebleed question but on a broader scope.
I know some things are "just that way" in Japan; for example, the shoe thing apparently takes some adjustment from westerners visiting over there. But it had me thinking that we could have something like a mythbuster thread, where if we see something in a series that doesn't seem quite right but regularly shows up in anime, we can check out if it's just a cultural thing that the Japanese traditionally do, or if it's just something that has developed over time in anime and become something of an anime culture reference in itself, not based on any pre-existing traditions.
Another one I can think of is when a girl grabs a guy's hands and brings them up in between them while talking energetically about something, but in a non-romantic context. I've seen this a lot with girls to other girls too - grabbing both hands and bringing them together while looking right into each other's eyes, but for no real reason.. Doing it in real life would be really weird, but it happens in anime all the time. Is it a characteristic of Japanese conversation or something that's just developed with time through anime? Any ideas as to why it might have developed? I don't have a clue.
These days I have a tendency to kind of blank these little things out as just "one of those things that happens in anime" but really it is kind of weird. Just little things that feel kind of awkward but you don't think about it. So this thread is like the regularly appearing nosebleed question but on a broader scope.