You keep mentioning that you’re into Classical mythology but don’t know much about Japanese mythology, so I was wondering if there any other mythologies you’re interested in?

Well, classics is sort of my job (or the closest thing I have to one, anyway – I’m a graduate student, but I have a fellowship, so the university pays me for it, rather than the other way round), and knowing the mythology is an important part of the background, so I’ve actually studied a lot of the major texts, like Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the Homeric epics (and, for that matter, some of the texts that are important to our understanding of ancient reception of myth, like Plato’s Republic), at an academic level.  I’m also a TA on a classical myth course at the moment.  Nothing else really comes close to that.  Having said that, when I hear a mythical story I tend to remember it; I guess I know quite a bit about Norse myth (I bought a copy of the poetic Edda the other day; it’s just a matter of finding time to read the damn thing), and probably more than most people about Maori myth (I’m guessing those stories don’t get a lot of exposure outside New Zealand).