12th September, 2024 - Packing Boxes and Thinking About Ainori
For the past couple of months, life has been all about packing belongings and planning the logistics of moving across the world, back to Wales. It's exciting! But also exhausting, and kind of constantly overwhelming!
It's kind of fitting then that recently my wife and I really got back into the swing of watching old pre-Netflix episodes of Ainori. We started watching the modern Netflix version of the show not long after our son was born. Plot twist - having a baby is kind of (absolutely) a nightmare, and we were desperate for some escapism and something just reliably nice to bring comfort and structure to our days.
We found this in Ainori, a show about people going on a little pink bus, travelling around the world, and maybe falling in love. I wrote about it in more detail on my media recommendations page for watching, so take a look at that if you're intrigued at all.
Anyway, as I was saying, it's kind of funny that as we approach the next big challenge in our lives, it's funny that we really got back into Ainori for a while. It was so much fun to watch, and was a welcome distraction from planning and packing!
The only problem is... we're entirely out of episodes! We exhausted the supply of English fan-made subtitles made well over a decade ago. Now what?
The funny thing is, the original run of Ainori was ended after 10 years really suddenly. The participants on the show didn't even know it was ending, and even though the final episode was an hour and a half long and presented as a "Special", it was all still so sudden and without explanation and closure. I think this, combined with the fact that there are so many earlier episodes (not to mention a short reboot between this and the Netflix reboot that I can't find) just leaves me with this feeling of... I don't know - like I know there is so much more out there of a thing I really love, but don't know how to reach.
Is this worth learning Japanese over? Probably not. But if this was past-me with plenty of free time, I think I'd be tempted.
At this point I'm just ranting to myself a bit. I hope you'll forgive me (unless you also like Ainori, in which case let's be friends).
I'm really glad we were able to watch so much of something that really should have been impossible for us to watch. It seems so unlikely that I should be able to watch a Japanese reality TV show from the 90's and early 2000's with English subtitles at all. That's crazy! I think the unlikeliness of it made it all even more special. Like I was stealing away some unexpected treasure or something.
As we're soon about to embark on our own journey across the globe, I feel a little bit lost without the comfort that watching Ainori has brought through difficult times. But we'll do it! We'll be okay!