MASOCHISTIC DREAM

I would like to talk today about something in particular.. a fantasy i've had for a while now. There's one profession that has taken over the culture of one specific milenial country. With their own hands they work, day after day ,tirelessly, until the work is done, and the hungry folk read and judge if it's a masterpiece or a piece of sh*t. I'm refering to the Mangaka, the artists behind japanese manga, those who endure painful weeks of continuous drawing and drawing, hoping to deliver safely their finished work before the deadline arrives. 

Japanese society is really hardcore. They work, a lot, day and night, devotedly, non stop. Since school until they're old enough to rest in a peaceful backward drinking sake, surrounded by their tatami little temples. Not being productive, as a student or as a working class citizen is socially punished. They're severe people, but have grown to become one of the most complex, advanced and aesthetically beautiful cultures in the world. Although they can be weird, misogynistic and overstrict, it's due to their sense of responsability within the natural world that their society became what it is now, where one's body can be sacrificed in order to do something that surpasses boundaries (like the classic stereotype of a oriental kid that rules at something) because the body is an ephimerous thing, something that dies eventually and needs to make use of it's existence the best way possible. So yeah.. mangakas are that very same idea, but in an artistic-plastic manner. The creation and publication of a world of their own, sacrificing every drop of free-time and good health, but inseeding in a cultural level. I mean.. some mangas have anime, then merchandise, then coffee shops, thematic parks, becoming national icons and having the possibility to change things, to critizise society's crap, etc. That's power, true hability, mad but kinda cool. 

And so maybe some day i'll be taking a plane to Japan, with a friend brave as myself, with our ideas, ink and paper, with a bag full of dreams and a body to sacrifice. We will be surrounded by marvellous landscapes, fantastic food and pretty pink cherry trees. We will draw our souls out, day afer day, in order to make something true, endouring the pain and stress... because we like it.