What's LUSH: My anime self, my new fetish wear and more..

Some of the items I ordered from Japan and places afar have finally reached me. This has not made me medically better but has improved the quality of life in the way having new clothes or new shoes makes you feel good and people saying, “Great bag, where did you get that?” makes you feel good.

I have always claimed that if you want to see yourself represented in literature, and are a person who breaks out of the traditional molds, either as female, in orientation or other issues: go to anime and manga. Where else do you get a lesbian story which starts with a spaceship falling on a guy, turning him genetically into a female (Kashimashi) and thus starting a lesbian romantic triangle? Or have multiple representations of females in sports from sword fighting (the new manga Dorothea or Orfina), to goths who play socccer/football (Gothic Soccer).

For gender bending it ranges from a boy who enters into an arranged marriage as a girl because a) he is dying and b) he is in love with the guy (Devil’s Bride). All the way to a girl who is willing to do anything to be a star singing idol, including being a the new hit MALE singer (Star Project Chiro). The point of this is, that while Japan traditionally does not show people with disabilities (except blindness) in real life or in literature, I knew that if I looked hard enough, I would find ‘myself.’ I did, I bought it used for a couple dollars, but then the person moved to Uni, then found it again and shipped it 6-8 weeks late and today it arrived. Yup, an anime girl in a wheelchair! This girl is from the hit series Mai Hime. I am still looking for the wheelchair character in Air TV, Kanon 2006 and Code Guess (if they made the wheelchair girls in those series into figures). This one is two inches tall and stands on my computer. Yes, female in wheelchair, AND like me, has a short skirt! Ha, take that you wheelchair Physical Therapists!

As you can see, she has a Japanese Wheelchair. Japanese people EXPECT people in wheelchairs to have ‘keepers’ or ‘attendants’ and thus, as you see, she has no control over her wheels, and is just waiting to be pushed here or there. One day there will be a kick-ass self wheeling Wheelchair Heroine, just not yet. Still, it is nice to have SOME representation of a major character (a little over two inches tall), sitting on my computer saying, “You exist, you count in society, you are a part of literature and the human story.” (it doesn’t actually say that, not even in my head – so no, I don’t need to increase the dosage. But for a company to design and produce it, it means all those things I listed and that is why I bought it!)

But that’s not all! The bad news is it looks like my gig at the BBC may be over since they are going to the more ‘controlled’ aspect of “columnists” instead of the random aspect of “bloggers.” So I will have to go back to pitching ideas one at a time. Ack! But in Japan ebay I found along with some other items like postcards, this item for my new and upcoming career: a maid in a maid café serving Otaku’s and lonely guys who don’t get to talk to girls. Yup, I now have my ‘official’ maid socks (it says so right on the label, but why does she have a tail?). Only in Japan, I think could you take normal knee-highs and re-label them for cosplay and specialty café purposes as quasi fetish wear: “Maid Socks” – or maybe these are to be sold at special stores to guys who take them out and sniff them or something.

In the maid café, the maid comes up to the guy at the table as says in meek and mild soothing tones, “How may I serve you Master?” which plays into a LOT of fantasies of lonely guys about girls I guess (and a lot of porno dating sims). And then if they want a picture with you, or of you, it costs between $5-$15. See, there is SO much sex work out there which still lets you keep your clothes on! So when they open up a branch of the Maid Café’s near me and want to bring in a devotee market, I will be completely ready.

We talked to people in Japan and oddly, the Japanese only recently are obsessed with Maids. Until about 10 years ago there were no maids, then they saw some BBC series and guys became obsessed with maids (much like the gentry of the UK). So now there are Maid Café’s, there are two major Anime/Manga series including Emma, about the life of a British Maid, and endless manga, like He is My Master with eccentric rich guys hiring girls as maids in sexual comedies. So, another great accomplishment of British literature, we have exported the erotic fantasy of several hundred years of ‘having sex with the help’ to Japan, huzzah for British lit, the “empire” lives on!

But wait, that’s not all! I also have my new stationary set of xxxholic. The series is from Clamp (the all female group that manages to slip a little girl/girl Yuri attraction into every series they do!), and while the books bored me, this stationary does not. Like many people, I adore stationary, the problem is while I like buying stationary, particularly cute letter sets, the difficulty is in choosing when to use it. Here we have the two sections of this set: the boy/boy love (Yaoi pages) and the girl/girl love (Yuri) sheets. As well as butterflies. Butterflies seem to be the symbol of forbidden love in Japan for the last few years (like the Award winning Yaoi book Day I became a Butterfly or the Anime/Manga series Loveless, filled with boy/boy pairings and one girl/girl pairing and symbols of butterflies everywhere!). Another symbol for forbidden or unusual sex is strawberries, as they aren’t native or can’t really grow in Japan, ergo, EXOTIC. So often Yuri books will have a sign of a strawberry on them or be titled Strawberry Panic, or I, my, me, Strawberry Eggs, or Strawberry Marshmallow (a girls growing up AND lesbian series).

Well this stationary is delish, and as they say in Wales, “It’s LUSH!” but who can I send it to? Which is why I have WAY to many stationary sets. Get a grip Elizabeth and use these things before you lose your hand function entirely (sorry about the writing for the people who are getting postcards these days!).

So, while my health is no better and I am soon unemployed (or will say what all writers say who leave a writing deadline arrangement: “I’m taking a bit of time to write a BOOK.”), there is an upside. I do have a wheelchair anime girl on my computer, and my OFFICIAL Japanese maid socks ready for my new career (or to wear them and then sell them on ebay as “Official Japanese maid socks worn once by girl with red hair” – like strawberries, not a lot of Japanese redheads). And I have new pretty stationary to look at and maybe, maybe actually send out.

Anyone else buy anything LUSH lately (that can include your new power tools or spanners for guys or butchy girls)? I working the rest of today to finish a piece for BBC. This one isn’t about LUSH, or beauty, it is about public toilets. And why are baby changers and everything else stuffed in toilets for people with disabilities? Because we are FASTER at doing the biological then other people?