Bad Ideas, why are you so tempting?

On the current list of Bad Ideas is trying again to get through Romance of the Three Kingdoms, mostly because I want to read about Zhuge Liang being Awesome. It's just...long and difficult to get through, because although the translation I have is pretty good, it's still not easy.

At least it's better than trying to read Tale of Genji again.

I'm also having terrible (maybe awesome) ideas about using the Thirty Six Stratagems as a prompt for something. (Oh, now there's a terrible idea for a ficathon...)

Also on the list is something that came up in my Japanese Popular Culture class today. We were discussing very early Japanese animation, and watched the beginning of Hakujaden (Tale of the White Serpent) and Astro Boy in class. The thing that came up was how the humans in Hakujaden looked "Asian", while Astro Boy looks more "Western". And then there was a discussion about how this is a common argument about anime, and how that's not actually the case, but it takes a bit of thinking. Seeing as how I've run into that argument a lot, and how it always irritates the hell out of me (although, in my classmate's defense, it was an honest question), maybe an actual explanation of the nuances is needed? Then again, I don't have an anthropology degree, so I'm nowhere near egotistical enough to say my word is law. :P