My Japanese Art Collection

I've taken down my old anime wallscrolls; they're part of who I was, not who I am. Decontextualized from their narrative, they're indistinguishable from Keane kids. In fact, my Mom once saw me in a T shirt with a picture of Lain from the arty anime Serial Experiments Lain, and she said "That looks like one of your Aunt Carol's paintings." And she was right; as sophisticated as the show Lain was (or seemed to be at the time) the imagery is pretty Keane. God bless Aunt Carol. She loves those paintings. Nowadays they'd call her a Superflat patron.

As for my anime wallscrolls, some of them have sexual undertones that I thought were zingy once, but which now strike me as sad. Yes, it's all very Freudian, suggestively kinky, weirdly fetishistic. None of that's necessarily bad in my book, but I don't want that kind of lewd imagery on my walls. I want it hidden in my sock drawer, the way it's meant to be.