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Toyoko Academy High School (4) |
In our last installment, descriptions of the trips these girls take made Anno's eyes bug out. They kept on going, though. Whether innocent, or just happy with their lives, there was no unpleasantness in their conversation. Anno was stunned to learn that high-school girls such as these actually exist.
Q. What was your high-school experience like?
Anno: : I did a lot of things other than study while I was in school.
Kashiwara: Right, I feel like I'm doing just about anything but studying.
Anno: What I did was different from everyone else, but all that late-night mah jongg toughened me up spiritually.
Q. Do you put in all-nighters when test time comes around?
Kasagi: Uh-huh. Around here, though, we talk to one another during test time.
Kashiwara: Right. We'll be on the phone for two and a half hours during test time, at four or five in the morning. It's like, give me a wake-up call in half an hour.
All: Only during test time does that happen.
Kasagi: All I do during test time is study, and it gets to me. When I want to talk, there's no stopping me.
Kashiwara: My desk is never as clean as it is during test time. I take a vacuum cleaner to it. I tell myself I'll do it after tests are over, but I can't stand it if it's not clean in the meantime.
All: (laughter)
Kashiwara: Usually I consider going to the bathroom or taking a bath to be a hassle, but during test time it's actually an escape to get in the tub.
Kasagi: I take my baths afterward.
All: Me too.
Kashiwara: So we're all alike. And all this time I thought it was just me being strange.
"No Problems With School"
Q. You all seem so lively. Is there nothing about school that bothers you?
Kashiwara: On the whole, it's fine. I have no problems with it.
Kasagi: No problems at all. And it gets better as I go up in grade level.
Q. Does that mean that you had problems in intermediate school?
Kasagi: Problems in intermediate school... They probably had to do with the fact that I was still a child.
Kashiwara: Right. I deal with the same problems totally differently from how I dealt with them in junior high. Now when I see underclassmen from junior high fighting, I know to just let them go at it, whereas I had no idea what to do about it in junior high.
Kasagi: In junior high, I could see myself flipping out, doing something crazy, because I understood my own feelings then.
Yoneyama: That's experience talking.
Kashiwara: Yeah, my way of thinking changed completely between the end of junior high in March and the beginning of high school in May. It was the same year, yet it wasn't the same, and I think it had to do with my being designated a high-school student.
Kasagi: It used to be that I'd get mad when teachers yelled at me, but now I apologize and I really mean it.
Q. Do you all feel this way?
Retsu: Well, depending on the time and circumstances, yes.
All: That's usually the case (laughter).
Anno: I'm just blown away by this, I tell you. I couldn't possibly get a word in edgewise. Do you talk like this all night long?
Kashiwara: Yeah, we do.
"Getting Along With Siblings"
Kasagi: We talk about our siblings too.
Kashiwara: Yeah. My little sister not only does well in school, she's also cool about it all. She got into the school I most wanted to get into. It's like I'm the real little sister. She explains stuff to me. I get no respect as a result.
Kasagi: I have a little brother, and when I call his name, "Takahiro," at two in the morning or thereabouts, he says disgustedly, "Is that you again, Sis?"
Kashiwara: Wow, that's great.
Anno: (laughter)
Kasagi: I'll tease him by asking things like, "Are you keeping up with your studies?" or "Have you got a girlfriend" Or I'll say, "Hey, come rub my feet." He's currently in ninth grade, but there's no resistance between us. He's sweet, and we get along well.
Kashiwara: My sister and I are close in age, so we share magazines and such, even though our tastes are completely different.
Anno: There's really nothing I can say here. I mean, I've been aware of the existence of high-school students like you, intellectually. Right now, I'm working on an anime series based on a girls' manga, but the world of girls' comics, where everyone is nice, looks completely unreal to me. It's a major surprise to find that there are people in the world who praise others so unreservedly. I guess such people really do exist after all.
Kashiwara: Do unpleasant things really exist?
Anno: There's no need to go out of your way to find them.
Kashiwara: Even if there are, I think the nice things outnumber the bad. Even if I get burned by my teachers, I have enough peace of mind to remember that they're people too, so I can get it out of my system.
(From the Oct. 15, 1998 Edition of Mainichi Intermediate-School News)
