Hi everyone,
Horrible news, devastating pictures and videos of the natural disasters and the fear of a nuclear meltdown have been streaming from Japan since the first earthquakes and tsunami hit on March 11th. This is our chance to do more.
There are already plenty of ways to give to the Japanese people. Of course, Japan has a lot more money than Haiti and a much better infrastructure to rebuild with. But Japan faces an incredible amount of problems before anyone can take a hammer to the first nail. There are still thousands of people missing, hundreds of thousands displaced and more debris to be cleared that can even be guessed at. Roads leading to the most affected areas are severely damaged, which means aid cannot easily reach these people. Food is in short supply and so are basic necessities and medical supplies because transportation has come to a standstill. There are still rescue teams attempting to find survivors and victims, with many places beginning to run out of body bags to store the dead in. Before any of the wreckage is cleared, Japan must take care of these matters, and that’s where we can begin to help.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan has described this as the worst crisis in Japan’s post-war history, and it is hard to argue with him.
As anime and manga fans and bloggers, we are both consumers and (in our own small ways) participants in Japanese popular culture. We are online communities that are dedicated to sharing our love of J-culture with fans from all over the world, in places that not even the creators of anime and manga may have even considered. Now it’s time for us to pull together as people who love Japan and pitch in to the recovery of the nation from which our hobby comes.
Now it’s time to donate, and to spread the word for others to do the same.
