Whale wathing in Zamami, Okinawa

I haven't updated my blog in forever because I am still traveling every day now that my remaining family members have come to Japan - my mum and my 2 siblings.

They only got to stay in Osaka for 3 days before we took a flight to Okinawa and Zamami island.

At Zamami we swam every day and looked at the fishes, and one day we also went out for some whale watching.
The whales come down to the sea near zamami during the winter months but you can still see them in the beginning of  may (they have tours until like the 5th of may or something).
We got really lucky as we got to see a whale jump four times, right next to the boat! Very cool experience!

These photos were taken by the whale watching guide. The under water photo's were taken with a go-pro on a long stick =P

Dad's vacation in Japan

It's been a while since I made a blog post now because my dad has been here with me in Japan for the past 2 weeks. We have been doing things pretty much every day like going to Kyoto, Nara, Koyasan and different places all around Osaka.
Thus I haven't been using my computer much at all and since my dad didn't bring his computer I let him use mine most of the time while I myself used my tablet.
But it's hard to write a blog post on a tablet, so I mostly watched youtube videos and stuff.

Now my dad's vacation in Japan is nearing it's end and he is leaving early tomorrow, which sucks. After this it will be another 6 months before we hopefully can meet again.
But on the bright side, I will only have to be alone for 3 days now and after that my mother and siblings will come stay with me for 20 days, which will probably be both exhausting and fun.

Rabbit island!

Went to Hiroshima for 3 days from the 18th of Feb. to the 20th of Feb. and on the second day went to visit Okunoshima aka Rabbit island, so prepare for pictures of bunnies!

I loved Rabbit Island and would love to go back. As soon as you step onto the island you are surrounded by bunnies, and as you walk around the island they will jump out of nowhere to greet you (wanting food, but w.e).
All of the bunnies were really nice, most of them let you pet them and one even liked being petted - it would just lie down and let you continue as long as you wanted.
Before going to the island I bought some pellets for them at family mart, and had enough to feed the rabbits all day and it was a lot of fun.
There are not just rabbits on this island though, since it used to be a military island where they produced poisonous gas to use in wars. Because of this there are a few old buildings left, and a museum showing how the island used to be, and how the people that worked with the gas ended up suffering various diseases. It's a dark past, but it's hard to not feel happy even as you are walking around the island looking what used to be poisonous gas chaimbers etc and learning about the island. Just as you are looking into what's left of a storehouse, feeling a bit gloomy, you see a bunny in there eating grass. As soon as it notices you it jumps out of the house to greet you and get some food. It was lovely.

Funny thing is, if the island didn't have such a past it could've easily turned into a great vacation spot because the nature is great, there are lot's of nice beaches and the bunnies are awesome!
There was a hotel at the island, and with it rundown tennis courts and stuff, which leads me to believe that they might have tried that once upon a time without a lot of success. It must be hard getting into vacation mode with so many buildings around showing you what the island used to be like..

Anyway, I would recommend bunny island to anyone remotely interested in the idea, because I loved it. I have never owned a bunny, and haven't ever thought of buying one, but after visiting this island I think anyone will start longing for their own bunny, haha.

End of my first year at Osaka Sogo Design

Today we got to see if we passed all our courses and got to move on to the second year, and I passed everything (which was expected ofc, lol, I haven't been slacking off!).
But I know that atleast one person, maybe a few more, will not move on to the second year. They have just been skipping school too much and not doing the homework etc. One guy who had been going to school and done pretty well just started to slack off more and more and the last few weeks he didn't bother coming at all. He left a gift (lol) for his closest friend in the class, his folder, which the teacher gave to the friend today.

It's pretty sad that some people who used to belong to our class will not be there next year, and I don't get what they are thinking when they pay a shit ton of money to go to this school, just to skip classes and quit after a year.

Anyway, this first year has been pretty relaxed, except for the last month which was just crammed with manga drawing. I got through it though and handed in my manga in time.

Now all that's left is the exhibition of our works, though I am not really sure what exactly they will be showing. I think they only choose good works/finished works because today the teacher told us whose works from our still life will be displayed, and mine was one of them of only 7 people or something. And I think they chose us because we actually finished it on time and did a pretty good job too.

Well, right now I am just counting down the days til my family gets here and until they come I'm gonna be pacing my room impatiently waiting! Cya!

Evolution of my manga?

(I have no idea why there are so many giant spaces in this post)
I made this manga about a Japanese high schooler called Mizuki (who makes a wish in a wishing well to be a super hero, and end up with a double personality) years ago! A few years(?) later I remade it on my computer, but I had no idea how manga was really made so I really just improvised.
But now I've finally been able to remake this manga in the real traditional manga way!
So lets look at some comparisons shall we!

So Mizuki turns into Hiroki when he senses danger
But Hiroki isn't a very nice guy and would if possible,
want to get rid of Mizuki completely, lol

 So these 3 are the oldest the "original" and I don't even remember how old I was when I drew these.. 13? Dunno tho.

These are all in Swedish tho =P

Mizuki is gonna make a wish, but in this version kinda fails o.0 and why is he using Swedish money?? Cuz I didn't know what Japanese money looked like, ok!

Mizuki and Yuuto in the last frame
Here Yuuto's name was Nanba tho, haha, guess who had just
watched Hanakimi, and also didn't know that Nanba is a city in Osaka
Who could've known I would end up living near Nanba, lol :')

Ok so next version is a shorter version that I made for a manga drawing competition (which I obviously didn't win cuz I sucked lol) In this version he never turned into the other personality tho, so no drawings of him.

Yuuto and Mizuki walking home

The ending: He got the girl =P

Makin dat wish again!

Dreaming? o.0

 Did this all in photoshop I think
I hope for my next manga I make for school I can use the computer to put on tones. It would make everything so much easier (and cheaper)!

You can see on these I've gotten a little better at drawing but I'm still not very good.

I am actually suprised that the tones don't look all too bad tho. Even tho it was my first try ever! :)














Now time for the most recent version! Unfortunately I only have photos of it, not a scanned version, sorries.

Make a wish! Mizuki and Yuuto

Something is going on! o.0

 Just handed this in today x_x
I feel that it looks better than the first manga I made for this school I go to now. But I still have a long way to go.

Compared to the 2 versions above tho this is a big step up, atleast in the drawing of the characters. They look a lot more grown up.
Ofc, I still have a long way to go.

Got some super powers I guess!

Hiroki and Yuuto

This is the end of this manga for now.
I already have an idea for what I am going to do next and I hope it turns out the way I want it too :)










It feels good to be able to look at these and see the progress I've made, because it makes me realize how much better I've gotten even in a short time! I looked at some other drawings I made just last year and comparing that to what my drawings look like now, there is a big difference! So what about next year, eh? And all those after that! Maybe some day even I will be really good.

Just gotta keep tryin'!

Tired of Japanese people thinking I'm christian

As an atheist and anti-religion person (not that I say anti-religion and not anti religious people, because I have nothing against them) it truly bugs me every time people assume that I am a christian.

When I first came to my new school one of my classmates told me that they don't believe in god or a life after this so they really wanna do whatever they want with their life as to not have any regrets about it. I told them that "Oh, I am also an atheist!" and they were like: "Huh? Really? I thought everyone from over there where you live were religious."
I told them that Sweden, where I am from, is the most non-religious country on earth with around 90% of the population being atheist/agnostic/non-religious. Their answer: "Oh, I thought Japan was the most non-religious country."

What? Seriously? No way José.

This Tuesday, the teacher I mentioned in a previous post, had on their list of things that too often appear in students manga: angels. They gave a short description of how people usually draw manga-angels now-o-days and then proceeded to ask me:
"Where you live there are lots of churches right?"
Me: "Uh, I guess, idk."
Teacher: "So there must be lots of angels right? How do they look?"
Me: "Uhm, no I haven't seen any angels to be honest." (Cuz even if there are churches in Sweden they usually don't come with any angels, unlike in Italy for example)
Teacher: "Oh, really? But your country is chatolic, right?"
Me: "No, definitely not."

Really! Not just christian but even chatolic x_x.

If you can even call Sweden a christian nation it's of the protestant division. There is a big difference.
Though I don't think it's fair to call Sweden a christian nation since almost no one is a christian. We should just call it an atheist nation if you wanna be like that. Or just, "we want critical thinking not religion-nation-plz".

When you meet a Swede, if you have to assume something about their religion, you should assume that they have none. Because you have a 90% chance of being correct in that assumtion.
While the assumtion that we are christians is most likely dead wrong.

Not even my grandparents are religious. Marriage is not something that everyone does in Sweden, and most people who do it, don't involve a church in it.

I don't wanna hear everyones suprise anymore when I tell them I'm an atheist. I just wish people had a clue about the non-religious countries aswell. I mean, take any country and most people can tell you what religion they have in that country. But can they tell you any countries with pretty much no religion? I don't think so, because they don't teach you that in the religion class at school. I think they should though, because atheism is just growing and growing as people become more educated and stuff (lol).

Sorry for rant, but rly, it's my blog. I can write w.e I want. ^^

In Japan there is "homo" and there is "normal"

So in English we commonly call heterosexuals "straight" and homosexuals "gay".

In Japan tho they call gay -> homo and straight -> normal ...

Hmm, I see something a little off with that.

I've read about this before on the internet but never heard it with my own ears until yesterday when one of our teachers made a list of manga ideas they didn't want to see anymore because they are so common.
One point on the list was about Shonen-Ai (boys love manga) which the teacher just referred to as Boizu (boys) so I wasn't really sure what she was talking about first. She said that you shouldn't write a manga where you force the "normal"(straight) guy together with the "homo"(gay) guy, because that doesn't happen in real life.

"Normal guy? So you are saying the gay guy isn't normal?? Oh, now I remember, that is just how Japanese people say "straight"". It was a bit of a confusing moment for me.

I didn't get the vibe that my teacher is anti gay people, this is just the word a lot of Japanese people use. We can only wait and hope that they come up with a better word, I guess.