Makeup and Motorcycles

I finally got to the Mall Ninja scene. It's a mall -- a shopping mall called the Kyoto Porta, under the train station Gamera attacked that one time. And there's a ninja. I think I finally figured out what the Ninja Club is, even though I'm only half way through the Turnbull book. These guys are basically experimental archaeologists. They are nuts for ninja, smart enough to know the legend is largely bunk but unwilling to accept the possibly quite boring history. So they are seeing just how far you can push the envelope of the possible, both academically and practically. So basically Thor Heyerdal with shurikan.

Or at least that's the polite way of looking at it. The other way of looking at it is that these are obsessed otaku (if that isn't a tautology). Young and sure of themselves and willing to spend way much more time than is rational learning how to use a blowpipe and climbing claws.

The other reason for the mall is a soft introduction to Dr. Bronner's Pure-Castillian antiquities-trafficking end-of-the-world cult. Their product line is now officially called Genki and they make a very nice face cream.

Wikimedia CC, taken by Omegatron

And I almost wrote a bunch of paragraphs on makeup before I dialed it back. In any case, between seeing the Christmas lights, being tailed by a motorcycle, learning about Genki and getting another language lesson I've already burned 1,700 words. Bringing me to 15K and I'm still in Part I.

There's three scenes to go before Ichiro shows up to even come close to introducing the actual plot.

***

At the moment I'm regretting bringing in the ninja. Because I had to context them. I did so at Toei Eigamura but I could have done so a lot more organically. The story of the ninja basically begins in the Warring States period and got the most traction during the Tokugawa Shogunate. So explaining the ninja in any real way meant at least name-checking those. But due to the nature of the place, I also touched on the Meiji Restoration. And the thing is? The plot is largely going to hang on an event of the Genpei War, which is in a significantly earlier period. Plus it is looking like she might get a chance to visit a keyhole tomb, which is Kofun Period. 

I am trying very hard not to go into all this stuff and name everything. I took her phone away at the Kabuki theatre (actually, they block cell phones there), and didn't even let her have a program but I am getting very tired of "looked something like" and "might have been a sort of" circumlocutions. 

I'm still ending up with way too much Japanese. I've written myself into a bit of a corner here. She has an extremely good memory and there's only so much I can do a "he said something so fast I couldn't catch the words" or whatever. She is very much reaching out for whatever scraps of meaning she can get and that means I want full, idiomatic sentences to be in the text.

Here's one of the worst bits so far:

Hanae covered her mouth with one hand. “Kawaisō,” she said.

“Hey,” Aki told me. “I know that one. It means ‘pitiful.’”

“I thought I hung up on you,” I whispered back. “How do you say ‘shut up?’”

“You mean her, or me?” Aki giggled. “The only one I know is ‘Urusai yo!’”

“Urusai yo?” I echoed uncertainly.

Hanae paused. Just…paused.

“It’s my friend,” I pointed at my bluetooth. “She’s in Boston. She likes anime.”

“Sonna desu ka,” Hanae said in a tone of it all being very clear now.

Plus I'm reflecting that despite my many lectures on the subject, I really don't do character voices. I mean I should be finding distinct and unique speech patterns but I don't. I just throw a couple of verbal tics at it when I remember but otherwise everyone in the story sounds like me.

That's extra tough, considering one of the things I want to do with this is have Penny consciously trying to behave just a little more adult, to talk in a more professional and serious manner, and for that to slowly bleed into her narrative as well.

(Plus I'm backing of from the extremely choppy speech and all the lightning reverses of Hounds. )

***

I'm unhappy, too, with the rococo. But I guess that's just how I write. When I set up the first ninja scene the outline just said, "ninja attacks." Then I started thinking about what was a possible clever move. That led to a memory of the shakuhachi being used by traveling monks. And reading up on busking led me to "'Round Midnight." And by the time I'd gotten there I'd already come up with the Octogon gag and was going to do it there. And when I checked my maps it was just off the Gion-bashi, the bridge that RoBoHon had lectured James May about in one of the most-viewed clips from his show, and there was a statue of the founder of Kabuki right at the same place, and I'd figured out the song had been written by Thelonious Monk.

The Toei Eigamura scene went the same way. I watched several videos and took a stroll with Google maps (besides having, after all, been there myself) so the Meiji stuff, and the make up of the shops, and the ninja cafe, and then the costume rental led me to wakashu and setting that up made me do a whole bit about theatre geeks, and that set up something that let me involve her in the chanbara, and of course one of the activities I found on a video included a mirror maze...

So that ended up at 3.8K -- and there aren't even any ninja attacks.

The Kyoto Porta scene is done. Now on to Osaka!