E is for... Extremely well-Educated Edamame

Here is today's entry in the A-Z of Awesome Japan, a sponsored charity drawathon I will be doing all month of Things About Japan, That Are Awesome! Check out the full set so far on Flickr!

Annotations:

• Edamame are soy beans, generally eaten simply boiled or steamed, and served in the pod, sprinkled with rock salt. They are the BEST.
• Cicero was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.

So, some NEWS. This is a bit of a swerve, I know, but I'm going to be changing the way I do the A-Z. From now on will not be drawing any more copyrighted characters (that I did not create, anyway) as part of this kind of thing. I can't really go into the details of why, I'm afraid. Something crappy happened this week, and it left me with a very bad taste in my mouth, a massive dose of paranioa about blogging that kind of thing, and pretty much zero enthusiasm for it. And I'm afraid that's really all I can say about that.

Apologies to anyone who feels put out by this change, and in particular to @RusDady, whose excellent and highly entertaining suggestion for E - "Evangelion-01 Eating an Enchilada on an Elephant" I was very much looking forward to drawing.

I WILL however be carrying on with the A-Z, as lots of you have been awesome enough to sponsor me already. And you know what, I'm going to make it EVEN MORE AWESOME. I see it as a kind of "the best revenge is living well" response to the events of this week. After giving it some thought, I'm actually really excited to carry on; from hereon in I'm going to be seeing it more as me making my own personal love letter to all the things I adore about Japan, and I really don't think I should have any trouble finding subjects for the rest of the alphabet.

Readers are still welcome to chip in suggestions, but please note the 'no copyrighted characters' rule. As a rule of thumb: Ninjas= YES, Naruto=NO. Okay?

I will continue to update the A-Z as often as possible - it's not going to be every single day now, but I'll try and keep it at 2-3 times a week (more where possible). Also, as and when I get a chance I'll be going back through and redoing the drawings for A-D with new versions to fit the new rules. Because I didn't have enough to be getting on with.

Deep breaths.

Anyway! You are of course you are still very welcome to sponsor me! All donations go to the Japan Earthquake & Tsunami Relief Fund and are hugely appreciated - I keep wishing I was richer / famouser and could do more to help, but this is all I can think of to do, so this is what I am going to keep on doing.

I think that's everything. Thank you for your patience.