—!
“Ah!” It was like a bolt of electricity ran through my body. Of course I would recognize her! Her eyes and nose... The area around her mouth... They looked like me! Just as I realized this...
“Nii-sama!” the girl yelled in a cutesy soprano. She looked so overjoyed that tears were welling up in her eyes. “I-I’mma... I’m your ‘real’ little sister, Amaneko Makoto-nodesu!”
The mysterious little sister had appeared before me!
The blood-related jitsumai had shown up at the feet of the older brother who lived together with his non-blood-related gimai... What an incredibly literary development!
I was extremely overjoyed, but also at the same time a little nervous. After all, this girl, Amaneko-chan, was just too full of mysteries. The first step would be to establish smooth communications...
I could use that line the main character used when he met a girl for the first time in that orthodox literature book I read the other day...
“What color are your panties?” I asked.
For a second, Amaneko-chan made a disgusted face, but her cheeks started to blush and she replied, “B-Black-nodesu...”
“Oh, that’s unexpected,” I replied.
“I-I guess people are way more open in how they communicate over here... It piques my curiosity-nodesu!”
Yes. That was a very literary conversation.
Perhaps it was because of my initial question, but Amaneko-chan was extremely friendly. After she said she was a second-year in middle school and I replied that I was in my second year of high school, she looked at me from head to toe and said, “Nii-sama... You’re really, really an adult-nodesu!”
“Do I really seem that adult to you?” I asked.
“Yes! Those beige pants you have are just a little baggy, just a little past-your-teens... Very proper-gentlemanly! Amazing-nodesu...”
Man, getting praise so straight like that almost tickles... I’m sure glad I dressed up!
Well, I have a ton of things I want to ask, but if I go and suddenly barrage her with questions, I’ll feel bad about it, I worried, as Amaneko-chan looked around at AKIHABARA Road.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“Well... Nii-sama, I have a favor to ask-nodesu.” Amaneko-chan’s eyebrows were arched and with how her eyes curved upwards at the sides she made quite an expression. “I want to go for a walk together with you, Nii-sama! It really piques my curiousity-nodesu!”
“Huh? Oh... Sure.”
The two of us walked down AKIHABARA Road. Amaneko-chan was clearly on cloud nine. It wasn’t like this was the actual AKIHABARA, so it was pretty odd for someone to get this excited for just a local city’s shopping district.
“Nii-sama! Look at this! There are so many 2D characters-nodesu!” she cried.
As we started walking down the road, Amaneko-chan kept reacting with glee at all the 2D characters on the billboards or that were shown on the big screens.
“I saw pictures on the internet, but... the real thing is something else-nodesu,” Amaneko-gushed. “There are so many 2D characters-nodesu. I bet there’s a lot of anime on TV.”
“Good question... What kind of anime do you like to watch, Amaneko-chan?” I asked.
“The only anime I’m allowed to watch is educational anime for kids-nodesu.”
“Japanese anime?”
“Yes.”
“If you’re talking about educational anime... Something like SO WHAT IF THEY’RE BEIGE!?”
“No, not that. Ones that really push old-fashioned morals on you-nodesu. Like ‘protect the old traditions’ and stuff like that...”
I was surprised. SO WHAT IF THEY’RE BEIGE! was a classic anime with a pointed moral of “you mustn’t discriminate against different colors of panties.” What’s going on with her?
Just then, a panty-flashing anime poster came into view in the front of an anime shop. You could just barely see a pair of panties with a strawberry pattern on them.
“I wasn’t able to watch proper anime where the girls actually show you their panties because of my house’s rules-nodesu,” she said.
Wow, she must have grown up in a pretty screwed-up household...
Amaneko-chan lightly touched her hand to the strawberry panties on the poster and said, almost as if uttering something forbidden, “So this is what they call current-day culture-nodesu...”
Perhaps Amaneko-chan really was from overseas. She had mistaken a life-sized figure for a human being, and had been raised in a household with questionable values... I didn’t believe she could have been raised in Japan.
Her expression had darkened just a bit, but she immediately returned to her bright smile.
“Nii-sama, please look at this!” She moved beside the life-sized figure in front of the anime shop and stood next to it, posing with double peace signs. “I think they might be a little taller than me, but... what do you think?”
She’s so innocent and cute... almost like a real little sister...
...Yeah, that’s right, it’s not like, she really is my “real” little sister. At least according to her.
We’d met up, introduced ourselves, and walked around town. But we still hadn’t talked about the important issue here. I had so many questions I wanted to ask, and they were all lined up, waiting in my head. But walking around on the street isn’t the time to start asking difficult questions...
“Ah, are you hungry?” I asked.
“Huh?”
“My treat. Let’s get something to eat.”
Amaneko-chan demurred at first, but when I told her, “Really, it’s no trouble,” she slowly pointed to a restaurant. A nation-wide conveyor-belt foie gras chain restaurant.
“Whoa! This is my first time in a restaurant like this-nodesu,” she said.
Conveyor-belt foie gras restaurants catered to all kinds of people, with various foie gras dishes passing by customers on a conveyor belt. Everything was really cheap, so I could afford it even with my allowance.
In current-day Japan, “conveyor-belt XX restaurants” were really common, and just looking up and down AKIHABARA Road, I saw a number of other ones like conveyor-belt shark fin and conveyor-belt kaiseki... It seemed it was a culinary tradition that dated back to conveyor-belt sushi restaurants in the Showa Era.
Amaneko-chan and I were led to a booth where we sat down facing each other.
Oh, yeah. I remember Odaira-sensei telling me that he wanted to try something in a restaurant like this one day. He wanted to take off the food from one of the plates and replace it with a pair of panties... A pair of panties rotating around the conveyor-belt... How surreal and wonderful! Sensei truly is the embodiment of literature!
Amaneko-chan was very impressed at how the staff were all 2D characters and how the food was all produced completely automatically by machines.
Just watching her makes me feel refreshed...
After we finished eating, it was time to get down to it and ask the serious questions. It wasn’t really the kind of restaurant you’d have a deep conversation in, but it was way better than just chatting on the street.
“So... can I ask you some questions?” I asked.
“Sure!”
Good. Well then, I guess I’ll just go down the list of questions in my head in order.
“Which would you choose out of pantyhose, knee-socks, leggings, or stirrup pants?” I asked.
“Huh? I-Is that something important-nodesu?”
Shoot! That was the second question on my list!
“If you’d like, I’d wear... a-all of them...” she said a bit hesitantly, her eyes clouding a bit.
Sorry, sorry! What I really wanted to ask first was...
“...Are you really my blood-related little sister?”
After I asked the question so bluntly, Amaneko-chan started to look upset.
“I knew you wouldn’t believe it-nodesu... But, you’re right to question it-nodesu. That’s why I’ve prepared something-nodesu.” Amaneko-chan took out
a small, round capsule from her pocket. “This is the latest genetic testing kit.”
Oh, I’ve heard about this. A famous inventor had collaborated with genetic scientists to make a really easy-to-use genetic testing device.
Amaneko-chan pressed the capsule against her arm. Then, she pressed it softly against my arm. I felt a little prick, but it wasn’t enough to make me actually bleed. After a few seconds, the previously-white capsule had turned green.
“Green! In other words, you and I are related by blood, Nii-sama!” cried Amaneko-chan, handing me the instruction manual for the capsule. It looked like it turned green when the two people were immediate family members (parents, siblings, twins...). “Do you believe me now?”
She looked at me with her eyebrows in the shape of the 八 kanji.
“...Yeah.”
I still didn’t believe her 100 percent, but seeing her make such a transparent expression, I felt like I had to tell her that.
“I’m so happy! The technology here is really amazing-nodesu!” she cried.
“Here?” I asked. “You mean Japan?”
“Yeah!”
I knew it. She was born overseas.
That was what I had deduced, but it was completely shot down with what she said next...
“Here in ‘Outer Japan’-nodesu!”
“Outer Japan?” I asked. I had never heard that term before.
Is there some country that refers to Japan that way?
As I got a confused look on my face, Amaneko-chan noticed, started to look apologetic, and told me, “I’m sorry Nii-sama. ‘Outer Japan’ is what people from our district call the other parts of Japan.”
“Your district?”
“Yes, the Special Cultural District,” Amaneko-chan replied.
“Aha!” I see now! All the questions that I’d had about her since we’d met were now answered.
Amaneko-chan must have been raised in the Special Cultural District. That was why she’d had such a reaction to those things that weren’t very special to me at all. I could even understand her apologizing to that figure.
The Special Cultural District was a special administrative district which preserved old Japanese culture that was located in the ARIAKE area of TOKYO. If I went into the specifics of how that area had been established, it would take quite a while, so I’ll omit the details. Simply put, the area had been created thanks to how we had corrected history. The culture and values of the area were quite different from the rest of Japan, and much more like the Japan of the past. I had seen the area on the news; all the billboards had kanji on them, and it looked really retro.
“So you were born in the Special Cultural District?” I asked.
“Yes...” she replied, her voice lowering in tone instantly. “I don’t like the place-nodesu. It’s all old-fashioned, and conservative, and strict... I’m sick of it-nodesu.”
The smile had disappeared from Amaneko-chan’s face. I didn’t know the reason, but it seemed that Amaneko-chan didn’t think highly of the Special Cultural District. But I really didn’t have anything I could say to her.
“Um, Nii-sama, can you read kanji?” she asked.
“No, I can’t...”
“Yes... That’s normal for people from Outer Japan,” said Amaneko-chan, who I guessed could read kanji since she had been born in the Special Cultural District.
It turned out she even had a name that was written in kanji. She taught me it was written 眞琴 (Makoto) 周子 (Amaneko). According to Amaneko-chan, it was “a name so old-fashioned you wouldn’t even believe it.”
“I’m sorry I can’t read it,” I apologized.
“Don’t worry about it! Honestly, it’s better if people can’t read kanji-nodesu,” she said. “But...”
As she said that, I thought I saw a glimmer in the back of her eyes...
“There are a bunch of idiots in the Special Cultural District that say things like ‘Let’s resurrect kanji in Outer Japan!’-nodesu,” she said.
“Resurrect kanji?”
“My grandfather is one of those people-nodesu.”
I could tell from the way she said it that she considered him her enemy. Does she hate her grandfather?
“I think that’s ridiculous-nodesu! After all, kanji came originally from another country-nodesu. I can’t believe they actually call it a treasured Japanese tradition-nodesu! You agree with me, right, Nii-sama?”
I honestly had never thought about it.
We had traveled back in time in order to return the world to one that didn’t use kanji. We had meddled in history. But it had really just been to restore the world to one that I was more used to. I had never had any special thoughts about the history of the language or anything like that.
“And it’s not just kanji,” she went on. “I think it’s best if we don’t even use the alphabet-nodesu.”
“Because that’s something we got from other countries?” I asked.
“Right!”
As the topic changed to this subject, Amaneko-chan seemed quite different than before. It was almost like she was her own fantasy revolutionary preaching her side. She seemed like a completely different person from the innocent girl who had been strolling along AKIHABARA Road before.
I was like that, too. When the conversation changed to something I was really into, I was the type to completely lose myself. Something in our blood, maybe?
“The way I think about it, it’s not just kanji and the alphabet, but eventually even hiragana and katakana need to bite the dust!” cried Amaneko-chan, her voice raising higher and higher.
“What?!” I think that’s maybe a little too radical here... “But hiragana and katakana were invented in Japan, weren’t they?”
“Both had their origins in kanji. Nothing but inferior imitations of borrowed goods-nodesu,” she said.
“Inferior imitations...”
“Nii-sama, it’s not that I reject other countries-nodesu. Please don’t misunderstand me. What I reject is the Japan of today which has been too influenced by other great nations-nodesu!”
Th-This conversation has gotten kinda complicated... Is she really in middle school? I wonder if all the kids in the Special Cultural District are like her...
Amaneko-chan had completely worked herself up with her own speech. Her cheeks were flushed red as if she were drunk, and she was breathing heavily.
“I want to know-nodesu. Why do the people of the world just accept the way things are and the way things have come to be? For example, the people in the Special Cultural District use kanji like it’s perfectly natural. And the people in Outer Japan use hiragana and katakana in current-day writing. And those facts are not even questioned-nodesu. It vexes me-nodesu. Why do we think of these borrowed letters and inferior copies as ours? Don’t you think we should create something of our own instead?!”
As she finished her speech, she slammed her fist into the table. Her fierce eyes peered at me, demanding an answer.
I was so completely overwhelmed, I couldn’t even speak. I mean, her speech was very impressive and all, but what she was saying was completely unrealistic. After all...
“If we stop using kanji and hiragana and katakana and the alphabet, wouldn’t all literature disappear from Japan?” I asked.
“That’s right. And that’s why we need to make new words-nodesu. You see, I am...” Amaneko-chan raised her chin and puffed out her chest in pride. “...a member of the ‘New Word Order.’”
“...What’s that?” I asked.
According to Amaneko-chan, the “New Word Order” was a community on the internet dedicated to creating a new Japanese. At first, I thought it was just a bunch of people doing it for fun, but it seemed like they were pretty serious about their activities.
“Creating new words, huh?” I asked. “That’s quite a monumental effort. It’d be amazing if you did it, but it seems pretty difficult.”
“Yes! I thought it would be really hard, too, actually... but then a savior appeared!” said Amaneko-
chan, looking me squarely in the face with a strange passion in her eyes. “And that savior is you, Nii-sama!”
“M-Me?” I was so shocked, I pointed at my own face.
“I read your novel you posted on the internet-nodesu. It was so incredible, it knocked me off my feet! You used so many symbols... That is indeed the writing of the future!” said Amaneko-chan, giving me a warm expression. It went beyond just happiness. It was almost like she was infatuated with me...?
“Oh wait, were you the one who posted those comments to the novel I just uploaded?” I asked.
“Yes! That was me-nodesu!”
I knew it!
Amaneko-chan said that she had done some research on her long-lost brother (that was me) beforehand. Perhaps she had hired a detective or something. As soon as she’d learned that I had posted a novel to the internet, she had read it.
“It was like a revelation to me. My brother and I had the same vision... I couldn’t wait any longer!” she cried. She had immediately fled from the Special Cultural District and come to see me.
Wait. I have the same vision as her?
“I really understand... You also feel like words need to be revolutionized, right, Nii-sama?” she asked.
I do?
“I mean, that’s the only reason you’d write things with so many symbols-nodesu! The brother I’d wanted to see for so long actually had the same dream as I did... I felt it was fate-nodesu!”
I was glad that she was so supportive of my writing but... that was quite the misunderstanding.
“I think that the symbols you use so many of are very visual, very global-nodesu,” she went on.
“Global...”
Amaneko-chan continued, writing words on the table with her finger. “For example, if you wanted to write the word ‘pantyhose,’ you could write it like that, or you could write: ”
“Which one is easier to understand? The second one, of course.”
“Yeah.”
“And instead of writing out ‘drop-kick,’ you could just write ‘♀√ ,’ and that’s way easier to understand the meaning of, you know?”
“Definitely.”
“Or ‘walked lightly despite having a hunched back’ versus ‘λ,’ that’s clearly the latter, right?”
My Little Sister Can Read Kanji: Volume 3 Page 3
