More Gay Bar Thought Dump
So I'm really fixating on this bar Kiyoshi works at and the owner's backstory.
I Like! To Think! About It!!!!
So this bar, I don't know if it will have a name yet, is owned by a friend of Kiyoshi's dad.
Dang in this AU Michael sure does an 180 on his gestures at conservative white US American culture.
Anyways, Kiyoshi helps out at this of a friend of his dad's. My initial image (frankly my idea of a bar in general) is a British-pub style. Glass windows looking into a long wooden counter with a row of seats. Wall full of pretty bottles of spirits. The kitchen is somewhere as well as the bathrooms. There's also some of those... seats, dinner style. Right at the end of.
So with the power of mordern technology, I was looking around actual real Japanese bars in Goggle Maps on 2-chōme. And the image I have seem too... Western? to these international bars. It also looks very plain.
Oh, I do have one scene where the owner brings some snacks and it's chock full of pride flags so perhaps one of the "things" on this bar is that customers can choose a flag for their food and drink?
I was also thinking about the history of this bar as most of the ones I saw where small, where on a building with unmarked doors and had colorful lightning.
This bar in my head looks like a "regular" bar. It's mostly wood so that was probably expensive. Perhaps the place has been around for a while? It probably wasn't a gay bar when it started. Maybe it became one?
Also the thing about Japanese bars is most of them are tiny. Like a few square meters or so. A hole in this wall. The design in my head isn't that.
Maybe, hmmm, it was a bar that some wealthy American built for soldiers during the occupation that... I don't know. Time passed. Things changed.
The timeline in my head is that Kiyoshi's dad came to Japan in the 80s/90s when Japan was a leader in tech and it was trying to enter the global market. I think a lot of his now friends came during that time and where the ones who stayed.
I think the current owner came in that wave. Worked for some company. Realized he was gay and couldn't have a "normal" job. So I don't think he founded the bar but took it over.
He's probably older than Kiyoshi's dad???
Wait wait, Kiyoshi is 15 on 2008. Graduates high school on 2011. Is in his early twenties during college. That's around 2013/after 2012. So he was born in the early 90s. His dad was in his mid to late 20s. He was born in the mid-60s then. Dang I had to use a calculator for the last part.
Okay, I think the owner was born mid-50s. I think he would be a decade older than Michael (Kiyoshi's dad). So he's on his 50s. Math solved! Woooo.
Yeah this doesn't tell me anything else other than he's old and of a very different generation than Keima and Kiyoshi. So perhaps and subtle gay bar isn't quite odd?
I don't know, this man gives me New York vibes. Educated city man vibes. He's definitely a bear. Would he be the kind of person who spent time on NYC's gay bar scene then (instead)?
I'll check that out next.