So it looks like I'm going to Japan for two weeks at the start of October. The first week is on business and boy is it going to be busy! We're hitting up a ton of licensors in the five work days between when my December books MUST be at the printer, lest they miss the date for the in-store displays, and when most licensors apparently leave for the Frankfurt book show. However, this leaves me with the ability to take a second week as the vacation I was already kind of planning on taking, in the country I was kind of planning on taking it in, and with the added bonus that I'm just so slick as to have coordinated my own business trip with that of silvarwyrm, so now we get to hang out in Japan together! Woo!

Yeah. Anyway, I had to send an email in Japanese today, which is something I do only very rarely, and therefore takes me an inordinate amount of time (written Japanese leaves much less room for error than spoken does, especially when it's writing to a business partner, as opposed to chatting with a buddy). For those who have never used a computer to write in Japanese, the auto-kanji selection feature you get as you're typing is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, you don't have to remember how to write a billion different kanji yourself, but you *do* still have to remember which one is which, and how to correctly spell the underlying word so that you pull up the right kanji menu. I'd forgotten quite what the word for "business trip" was at one point ("is that one -ttsu, and is it tyuu or shyu..."), but the fun part was when I hit the "z" instead of the "s" while typing "syuzyutsu," or "surgery," and got the word for "sorcery" instead. OOOPS. I caught it pretty quickly when I did a read-through, since it was clearly not right (呪術 vs. 手術 ), and I was very relieved that I was taking the time to double-check everything. That would have been dumb.

So why was I sending something about surgery to some dude in Japan? Well, actually I was emailing Sugino-san, the editor at Ichijinsha who manages Kouga Yun and Minekura Kazuya, the latter of whom apparently had surgery over the summer. I read her blog periodically, so I was kind of catching up in retrospect (and practicing my non-manga literacy skills), and from what I gather, she had really nasty uterine cysts, and so she basically had a hysterectomy (I think--blog posts are at the upper end of my comprehension range). Which is why we haven't had new chapters of Saiyuki Reload for a few months. She seems to be recovering splendidly (although there was a period of boredom, where she wasn't allowed to draw anything), and doesn't miss the womb at all (loosely translated quote: wasn't really using it, after all), and it sounds like she'll be back and better than ever soon enough. But yeah, I asked Sugino-san to send my regards, and those of all her Western fans (I speak for the masses!!).

But all you Western fans, if you are interested in sending a more personal "get well soon" kinda thing, albeit a little after the fact, lemme know. I was thinking if people wrote something/drew something and scanned it and emailed it to me, I could print them all and bring them along if we get to have a meeting with Ichijinsha. That'd be nice, doncha think? Don't start drawing yet, since I don't know if I'll have a chance to do a hand-off, but start thinking about it, I guess.

And tell me what you'd do if you went to Japan for a week! Kate-senpai and I have only officially agreed on going to a hot springs so far (and the requisite shopping in Tokyo, of course). A return to Kyoto is possibly on my list, since I've only been there once, and it was in January and I didn't like it all that much, and I kind of want to do this: http://www.yumekoubou.info/english/top.html (cultural appropriation, or good, clean, pricey touristy fun?) But aside from that, my schedule is theoretically clear!