Hooray! Two posts in one week, I’m finally getting this baby back on track. In fact I’ve got a massive stack of stuff to write about now and plenty of free time at work to knock out some posts so we should finally be ahead of the game again.
Woo hoo!
Anyway today I just want to go over a few miscellaneous odds and ends that have been gathering up and need to be addressed.
New School
No photos as, well, it isn’t very interesting looking, but I have recently moved to a new school, Higashiochiai.
In contrast to my last placing out in the middle of nowhere Higashiochiai is smack dab in the centre of the kobe metropolis. Well, not quite, but it is decidedly urban. And whereas Iwaoka was an hour’s journey everyday Higashiochiai is less than half the time away. This is a massive boon to my free time and has granted me an extra half an hour in bed in the morning. Bliss! And no snakes either.
However I’m now in a decidedly weird situation. I will probably be moved from this school at the end of March and it is already nearly the end of January. I have barely 2 months left at Higashiochiai before I will be shipped out yet again to meet new teachers, get to know students and generally adjust. This means I’m kind of in limbo. Sure I work here but I feel like all of my efforts here are pointless. I don’t really have enough time to properly get to know anyone, students or teachers and I certainly don’t have enough time to train students up to my expectations of them in lessons.
Still everyone seems nice enough so far so I guess I’ll just enjoy it while I’m here and worry about the future later.
Sweet Potato Kit-Kats
I have been as lax with my kit-kat reviewing as I have with the blog in general but I intend to let this error persist no further. Already I have skipped over informing you people of the important evolutions of strawberry cheesecake and blueberry cheesecake kit-kats, cookie kit-kats and anko kit-kats. Maybe one day they shall return to stores and I can educate you as to their deliciousness or lack of delciousness. Alas, that is a dream for the future.
For now let’s talk about sweet potatoes.
Sweet potatoes are very popular in Japan. In fact potatoes of all kinds are fairly popular but particularly potatoes that are traditionally grown in Japanese soil, of which swete potato is one. In fact there are a wide variety of sweet potatoes native to Japan ranging from the purple skinned but orange centred imo to the wholly purple beni imo.
Sweet potatoes can be used a both a savoury option, in nabe (a kind of stew), roasted, boild or baked on its own or pressed into rice and as a sweet option, made into a dessert called daigaku-imo, sliced, fried and sugared or used as a starch in wagashi (tea ceremony sweets). There are even varieties of shochu made of it. And now there is a kit-kat version.
And it is delicious! Incredibly delicious. In fact it may be my favourite variety of kit-kat. The taste is incredibly nuanced and complicated for kit-kat. It's mostly a kind of caramel flavour but a very rich caramel with nutty, earthy notes coming through too.
And it tastes, not even slightly, like a sweet potato.
Delicious though.
Umeshu
You may re-call from this post all those many months ago that I was making some umeshu.
Well here it is.
As you can see it has gone down in height by quite a significant amount. This is because I have been drinking it, not because of the ume absoribing the water or anything like that. The colour has obviously changed to a more recognizable ume tone and the ume have shrunk.
My how they’ve shrunk, and now they look like little brains. Tiny brains in a jar. I’ve always wanted to own some brains in a jar, now I can fantasise that I do.
The taste is, actually a little bit disappointing. It’s definitely umeshu but it isn’t as sharp as I usually like my umeshu and furthermore it is very, very sweet. To the point of almost being sticky. I aim to try again next year with much less sugar in the mixture.
I also aim to brew it for a whole year. We cracked open the jar around about Christmastime after a period of more than 6 months but I am now informed that a ful years wait is needed to make a fully mature umeshu.
I should point out that my girlfriend was very happy with it though, even if it is a little bit sweet for me.
Mushrooms
Until the next spring my attempt at making umeshu has drawn to a close but now I have a new project to divert me.
Growing shiitake mushrooms.
My wonderful girlfriend got me a grow your own mushroom kit for Christmas. After dithering with the Japanese instructions for a while I eventually figured out what to do and have been cultivating a patch of mushrooms in the same cupboard the umeshu used to live in.
My first mushroom was constrained by the shape of the bag and had begun growing before I had even opened up the kit. It went a bit strange shortly after I set up the kit properly and turned all watery and…odd. So I ripped it off.
Presently I am growing 1 single solitary but unbelievably massive mushroom. The biggest shiitake I have ever seen. I am going to eat it for my tea tonight in fact in the hopes that if I cut it off it will stimulate all the other spores to start growing.
I will keep you updated on further mushroom news.
Finally I like to end any odds and ends post with a video showcasing the madness that is my adopted land.
This is a trailer for the upcoming live action version of the yatterman anime. Yatterman is about a pair of super hero mechanics riding a giant robot dog who fight a trio of super villains who also have various robots, and a 3 person tandem (tridem?) The show is mostly about the villains and the comic relief they offer. In tone it feels like hannah-barbera filtered through Japan. And now they are making a live action movie. I have high hopes for this.
Sorry guys but both my camera and my SD card are elsewhere as I type this so I have little recourse but to do a quicky video post.
Real posts to resume next week gang.
I'll start us off with this marvellous tribute to Super Mario Bros rendered through Japanese puppetry. With roots in bunraku,a style of puppet theatre, modenr Japanese puppetry probably provides the most spectacular special effects that can actually be done on a stage. Recreating something as abstract and cartoony as the world of Super Mario in real life is an amazing artistic achievement.
Funny as hell too.
Excel Saga is a "Quack Experimental Anime." Basically a surreal comedy series that satirises anime tropes and in which anything can happen. The series is loosely about the ideological organisation ACROSS, a severely understaffed super villain outfit that aims to eventually conquer the world but for now is focused on just conquering F city F prefecture. the staff consists of Excel, a hyper-fast talking, energetic but hopeless idiot and Hyatt, a naive alien girl who dies every episode (beating kenny to the punch by a few years). There's also a mad paedophile scientist, a poor doomed dog called menchi and many other hilarious characters.
The theme tune's lyrics were apparently written by the director on the train ride to the recording studio to record the theme and bear no relation to the plot whatsoever. Good sight gags though.
The end theme is rather brilliantly sung by Menchi.
The title of the song is "and so you are going to eat me."
In contrast to Menchi's eventual fate, to be eaten by Excel as an emergency food supply, Chi, the star of "Chi's Sweet Home" gets, well, a sweet home. This anime, about a stray cat adopted by a family and told from the cat's point of view is without question the cutest anime ever made and possibly the cutest thing on the planet.
I should note that the subtitles on this version are not especially good as they editorialise far too much to make the English seem more natural. However it is the only embeddable version of the song that I could find.
Hello everyone, apologies incidentally for the lack of a post on Tuesday. I'm going to try and make up for it with extra posts this weekend. Today however I'm continuing my series of articles catching up on mine and Fran's brief exploits in Tokyo. Today's topic, that Mecca of geekdom; Akihabara.
P.S. Mum, if you're reading this I recommend you stop right now. No seriously, stop. Dad if you're reading this don't tell Mum.
Akihabara is renowned throughout Japan as being Otaku-central or nerd-city if you will. In fact it’s pretty renowned outside of Japan for the same reasons. This is the heart of anime culture. This is where the cos-players throng, where the amateur manga is drawn and published, where computer games tournaments are held. A dozen of the things that typically draw the western eye to Japan all originate in Akihabara or have their spiritual home here. Akihabara is the home from home for all Otaku.
However Otaku has a very different meaning in Japan than its equivalent English word geek does in Britain and America. Some of the meanings are shared, the fascination with pop-culture, the obsessive fandom, the interest in non-mainstream fiction and hobbies. Indeed some of the more negative meanings are shared too, the social awkwardness, poor personal hygiene, etc. But in Japan the negative meanings are far, far worse. In Japan social awkwardness is not something that’s a shame but is forgiven. It’s not a joke, it’s the ultimate in taboo’s. To choose not to partake in the dominant cultural and social norms is to declare yourself to not be Japanese. The culture here is all about harmony and group dynamics, to opt out of the group is to become the ultimate outsider. So Otaku, far from being a fairly affectionate term for someone with slightly odd interests is an insult that suggests that you are odd, cannot function in society, are a disgrace to Japan and your family, are disgusting personally and likely are a sexual pervert.
Okay that is a bit harsh but really geek is at best affectionate and at the worst a humorous term. Otaku ranges from the humorous to outright fear and hate. At a speaking contest held in my adopted home city of Kobe one group of girls did a presentation on Otaku and "mania." Although the presentation was sympathetic to Otaku a survey of their classmates revealed that something like 80% of them "hated" Otaku.
Oh and apparently one of the girls presenting was a comic "mania"* because she owned 70 manga digests. I wonder what her friends would make of my comic collection of more than 1000 comics.
furthermore the sexual pervert thing, alas, is truer than I would like it to be. All the areas of “geek” or “Otaku” culture in Japan are linked inextricably with a sleazy pornographic culture. Den Den Town in Osaka freely mixes computer and toy shops with pornographic posters of underaged anime girls and Akihabara is home to the original maid cafes. Where sad lonely otaku pay for the privilege of having a woman dressed as an anime character flirt with him whilst he eats his food.
But, says I, is all this sex culture merely pornographic? Is there not a vibrant sexual underground in Japan? A breaking open of centuries held moral and social practices all in the service of better and more thrilling sex? Surely my girlfriend and I could explore this brave new world whilst we are in Tokyo?
No? Alright I’ll own up. The nerdy stuff was all shut so we wandered into the only place open (a 6 story sex shop) to pass the time giggling at willies.
As you can imagine, with 6 stories available there was quite a selection in there. Adult costumes, some extraordinarily hardcore pornography, marital aids of all shapes and sizes, flavours and colours and this:
This my friends is the Hello Kitty Vibrator.
Marketed officially as a neck massager the Hello Kitty Vibe has been well known as a sex toy since the early 90’s**. Sanrio gave the license to produce Hello Kitty products to Genyo who produced the first “neck massager” and began raking in money hand over fist when the thing became a bit of a cult object amongst certain sub-cultures in America and Europe. When Sanrio got wind of this they promptly yanked the thing from the market and revoked Genyo’s license (eventually, initially they had no egal standing but in the end shady business deals by Genyo gave them a pretext), citing moral outrage.
Of course as of last year Sanrio has re-released the neck massagers to the market, in a variety of colours no less. Evidently it was more greed than moral outrage that motivated Sanrio’s decision.
I knew of the Hello Kitty vibe long before I ever decided to come to Japan and I couldn’t believe I was being faced with such a legendary object. Something that seemed to so perfectly sum up the insane materialism of this country, and only for a 1000yen!
Alas I didn’t buy it, girlfriend didn’t want it and I had no use for it so we put it back and moved on.
Our next stop in Akihabara was a café called “Neko Ja La La”. This was the original “cat café.”
Now when I tell my Japanese friends that I went to a cat café in Akihabara they assume that I went to a Maid Café where the maids dress as cats. Nope, I want to a café filled with actual real life cats.
And aren’t they just adorable.
Neko Ja La La charges per the hour and also charges for drinks. Whilst there you can play with any of about 30 cats and the room is filled with cat toys, baskets and other luxuries to make the cats happy. It was all very, very twee and ridiculously cute but come on; I’m not made of stone. Wook at the kitty, wook ad duh kiddy!
The idea behind the café is to exploit the stress relieving effects of cats. Most Tokyoites live in tiny apartments where pets are banned. So places like these allow stressed urbanites the chance to play with and pet cute kittens and generally chill out. In my opinion it’s a fantastic idea although it does potentially veer into the realm of animal exploitation. However, considering the cats are basically pampered all day long I think it steers clear of it. There are numerous rules in place to protect the cats too (everything is very sanitised) so overall I wouldn't be at all disappointed to see more cat cafés spread over Japan.
The cats seemed particularly interested in Fran’s feet. This puzzled us for quite some time until we twigged that we had spent the morning walking though a fish market and our feet probably smelled delicious to the cats. Needless to say we also found this to be sooooooooooooo cuuuude.
And on that final fishy feet fact I bid farewell.
* Yes, i know it should be "maniac" but Engrish has appalling grammar.
** Most of the information in this section comes courtesy of Hello Kitty Hell.
Some of the things I have talked about recently on Mummyboon have cropped up again in the news in short order so I figured I’d take the opportunity to follow up on them.
The saga of the mega-monkeys (or metabo-monkeys*) continues as the keeper updates us all on how their diet is going. Apparently it has been 2 months since they were put on a healthier diet of grains, vegetables and small fish and less bananas and sweet potatoes. The caloric intake of the monkeys ahs been cut by as much as 60% and signs and barriers have been erected to stop people throwing food to the monkeys. The keeper claims that there has been a noticeable improvement in the health of the monkeys but it certainly isn’t evident from the above photo.
That might be because some people are STILL feeding the monkeys! In fact the keeper is still finding candy wrappers and peanut shells in the monkey area (it isn’t a zoo but a park so the monkeys aren’t in cages). This is despite the high profile media attention the fat monkeys have been receiving and the fact that they clearly have obesity problems. I honestly cannot believe some people. They are either incredibly naive not to realise that the signs and warnings are in place for what is quite a serious health problem or are some kind of sadist that is actually trying to kill the monkeys. Knowing the general character of Japanese people I’m actually going to vote for the former.
*This is another great Japanese news story recently. The government have been trying to increase the Japanese peoples’ awareness of the health risks or obesity by renaming obesity/being fat as being “metabo.” Their hope is that “metabo” doesn’t have the negative connotations of obesity so people will be more confident seeking out medical attention from their doctor. They’ve published a fact sheet telling people when they qualify as being “metabo” and they hope that the “metabo” members of the population will feel less stigmatized and will seek medical attention earlier and with less fear. I have only two real thoughts about this. Firstly, that this is easily one of the stupidest things I have ever heard of any government doing and secondly that I have no idea why the Japanese government feels the need to create such a program when it has one of the healthiest populations on the planet.
Also it seems that the BBC has bought the rights to air "Tunnels"; the Japanese TV show that features the “human tetris” short I mentioned last month.
I reckon that this is probably going to be part of some “Tarrant on TV” style clip show making fun of Japanese TV (as is only right and proper. The international media gets Japan horribly wrong a lot of the time but Japanese TV deserves everything it gets) however I would be thrilled if the BBC are planning to produce their own version of human tetris.
Hrmmm, bit short. Tell you what, let's talk about a uniquely Japanese phenomenon.
Everybody loves a good TV theme tune. Many's the time I've had discussions with my friends about what the best them tunes of all time are and we've spent happy hours humming them away. However, with a few rare exceptions TV theme tunes remain as just that and rarely does a good tune cross over and become a genuine pop hit.
Not so in Japan. Most of the theme tunes for popular anime and dramas are done by established pop acts and the theme tune becomes a chart song, even an album track usually. In fact, some TV shows thrive purely on the strength of a really good song. Anime themes are everywhere in the pop culture of Japan. As song choices in computer games, as karaoke songs, as adverts, as number 1 hits and indeed as the theme tune to anime shows.
So here are a few of my personal favourite anime themes.
Let's start with my all time favourite and the only one I have ever been known to sing at karaoke. "Flying in the Sky" from G-Gundam. My undying love for the sheer unbridled creative stupidity of G-Gundam has been mentioned a couple of times on this blog. Yes, this is the show with the giant robot fish.
However my love for the theme tune is entirely un-ironic. This is the best cartoon theme tune the world has ever known. It's epic, ballsy, soaring and unbelievably 80's. And most importantly it features Japanese people (or drunken gaijin) screaming "Flying in the Sky", "Shining Finger" and "Bright you now" with pure unbridled joy in their hearts.
If this song doesn't make you happy then you and I can't be friends anymore.
Another popular karaoke song with my friends and the opening theme tune to "Full Metal Alchemist." This is by the brilliantly named "Porno Graffiti" which I once thought my students were pronouncing as pornography. This has an insanely catchy tune and some of the most esoteric lyrics I have ever heard.
One of the many opening themes that Naruto has had and my personal favourite. The song is a bit shouty but it fits the character really, really well and I'm a big fan of the guitar work.
In contrast here is the first opening theme for Naruto. I can never decide if I like this song or not. It sounds sort of vaguely Billy Joel-ish but sung really badly.
Then he says "I waana rocks, rocks to the chest" and I burst out laughing.
From Cowboy Bebop. I hate Jazz and even I have to concede that this is amazing.
I am not hugely familiar with Fist of the North Star and this theme is not particularly inspiring (at least not until the Japanese Shirley Bassey kicks in and then it briefly turns into Led Zepplin) but I do know that it is incredibly fun to yell "You Wa Shock!"
This is only an anime on a really thin technicality (it was a French/Japanese co-production) but it squeaks by being bloody awesome. I opted for the longer song in favour of the actual opening theme with the proper lyrics. Why? Because more Ulysses 31 is always a good thing.
I guarantee that at some stage tomorrow you will yell either "uly-ey-ey-eysees" "bright you now" or "you wa shock!"
Hey gang. Fair warning to you that this article is a little bit out of date as it has been sitting on my desk at school for a week. However it’s something I feel really strongly about and my thoughts still stand.
Those who know me know that among my many passions in life one that rates more highly than my interest in Japanese culture is my interest in comics. Specifically my interest in super-hero comics. So I was very excited recently when not only one of my favourite comic authors (Grant Morrison) but one of my favourite artists (Cliff Chiang) debuted mash-ups between western super-hero archetypes the Justice League and Japanese culture.
And I feel it necessary to talk about them and judge, as someone who kniows both a fair bit about Japan and Super-heroes, how successful they were.
Firstly let’s look at Grant Morrison’s efforts. Morrison, for those unfamiliar with comics, is one of my favourite writers. He is generally famed for his big concept ideas, use of philosophy and bleeding edge physics in otherwise straightforward super-hero work and a sort of joyous surrealism. He is presently writing an enormous story for DC Comics called Final Crisis; a cross-over event story that ties up a lot of plot developments in the D.C. Universe over the last 5 – 10 years. Morrison has invented 2 super-hero teams for Japan that he has retroactively added into the continuity. By continuity I mean the general storyline of the D.C. Universe. So for example, whilst neither of these teams existed until a few weeks ago everyone in the D.C. Universe is pretending they’ve been around since the 1970’s. Wakarimasu ka?
Anyway, nicked from Scans Daily, who in turn nicked them from the Final Crisis Sketchbook here they are.
First lets start with the “original” Japanese super-team i.e. the JLA spliced with some of the bigger and more famous manga genres.
First up we have the team itself known as “Big Science Action.” An attempt at Engrish which isn’t hugely convincing but it works for me.
Ultimon. So far so good. Here we have Super-man crossed with Ultraman. This works perfectly fine for me since Ultraman, bar possibly Astro Boy, is the most super-heroic of all the Japanese Super Sentai (basically their version of super-heroes) mostly due to his secret identity, costume and the fact that his name ends in man.
Morrison also has this to say about Ultimon.
Together in the ruins of Tokyo, young Dai Yokohama and his master fought the three COLONIZERS (all the monsters we see him fight look like "real" versions of POKEMON creatures, as if nature had actually created Pokemon horrors to run around causing real devastation):
SCARRBA the PROTECTOR leads the charge -- a multi-headed Hydra thing spitting a different death ray from each head. Eyes of one head fire lasers. Mouth of another shoots fire. Horns on the third launch electrical bolts, etc. KRY-TORR the BURROWER digs up the streets, and the rubble of fallen buildings flies from his hellish, centipedal multi-legs. LORLOXX the LAYER squats and releases fuming glass eggs from rows of pipes in its sides, all filled with squirming monstrosities.
Making him fight monsters also works since a) this is what Ultraman does and b) you can’t do a Japanese pop-culture pastiche without having some kaiju in there. They may not be the most popular thing in Japan but they’re emblematic of Japanese pop-culture to the west. Although Pokemon as real monsters is very, very Grant Morrison-ish I think it works. It sends up the differences in style between Western and Asian comics, that there is a greater tradition of cartooning here whereas in America art has gotten progressively more realistic. Oh and there’s a King Ghidorah pastiche in there too which I approve of because King Ghidorah is my favourite Kaiju.
Cosmo Racer Not a brilliant name (but oh my god is there worse to come) but not a bad mash-up either. Silver Surfer with Atom/Astro Boy. Morrison says Silver Surfer with Pinocchio but considering Atom Boy was/is basically Pinocchio if Pinocchio was an atomic robot in underpants it’s Astro Boy. The problem with that mash-up is that Atom Boy was already in part a mash-up of East and West, with Tezuka openly borrowing from many famous western sources such as Pinocchio, Superman and Walt Disney.
I’m not a huge fan of the design either which is a little bit too much silver surfer, except with roller skating instead of surfing. As far as I can detect there’s nothing overtly Japanese in this design. At least nothing that isn’t already largely incorporated into Western comics.
Boss Bosouko Akira plus the Human Torch plus Ghost Rider. Again like with Ultraman or Kaiju Akira is such a visible example of the history of manga that you would be silly to pass it up. Kaneda (the hero of Akira) maps so perfectly onto the human torch (plus the borrowed visual from ghost rider because, let’s be honest flaming heads on bikes look awesome) too. Both are young impetuous hot headed heroes but with their hearts in the right place. In fact the elements Morrison has chosen to join together here gel so well that it doesn’t feel like a pastiche, I can actually see Boss Bosozuku working as a legitimate character. He does have a rubbish name but I love the nuclear warning symbol motorbike jacket.
Hammersuit Zero-X I like the “spunky young girl” creating a giant robot. What’s actually working here is less of an East/West pastiche and more of a combination of Japanese elements. So we have the spunky school girl from Magical Girl Manga with the small boy has big robot friend stuff from Gigantor or Giant Robo. The design is appalling though. Morrison sights Gundam and Gigantor but this doesn’t look anything like either of those. Gundam suits look blocky and militaristic (or like fish and windmills) and Gigantor looks like clean 1950’s sci-fi. Nor does it look like any modern mecha series which have all followed the Evangelion template of organic mecha. It basically doesn’t look like any mecha series I’m familiar with. What it looks like is a mid-90’s Iron Man villain crossed with an X-box. The concept is fine but the suit needs work.
Junior Waveman Spot on basically. Junior Waveman is Aquaman crossed with the classic Sentai super-team (think Science Ninja Team Gatchaman or Power Rangers). Sentai teams are characterized by matching outfits/powers and the notion of a junior member. His costume is a bit lifeless though although his name works quite well.
Those are our heroes that we’re meant to take seriously “Big Science Action Team.” Now I’d complain about the name but considering my favourite Japanese super-hero team is called “Science Ninja Team Gatchaman” I think it’s largely appropriate. Especially since these are meant to be a 1970’s style team both in the Justice League members they ape and the Japanese characters chosen and the 70’s were really the era for the silly/badly translated names.
The next set are all summarized from the opening text in Morrison’s introduction. These are wannabes. Mindless and inane fashion drones with no real desire for heroism but rather are emblematic of the inane/superficial/random elements of Japanese culture (i.e. the bits I love so much).
For starters we have “Most Excellent Super-bat.” Now this may be the finest name I have ever heard for a super-hero ever. Just try saying it to yourself, most excellent super-bat, most excellent super-bat. Does it or does it not just make the day seem that much brighter? Most Excellent Super-Bat is Batman and Superman blitzed together with bright colours, cute accessories and the post-apocalyptic/nihilist psychedelic/mass-consumerist philosophy of Shibuya denizens. He is meant to be utterly bizarre and stupid beyond all possible words and he is masterfully successful in it. Morrison gets this one right, there are guys exactly like this on TV in Japan already, except less super-heroey.
The problem is Morrison kind of makes his point with Most Excellent Super-Bat and then has nothing left to say. Most of the other characters in the Super Young Team (which isn’t Engrish enough to sound fun like Big Action Team and is too stupid to work as something a Japanese teenager would actually call themselves) are just the same joke again, take a Justice League member and re-arrange them plus add in some bright colours and mad fashion accessories to point out the inane superficiality of some Japanese teens. Big Atomic Lantern Boy is a fine example of the problem. There isn’t much pastiche here or thought going into it, it’s a ridiculous looking guy with a silly name and some Green Lantern elements nicked from a proper super-hero. He doesn’t map onto a Japanese fashion or sub-culture nor does he directly reference any manga or anime he’s just a goofy looking idiot with a silly name.
Shy Crazy Lolita Canary would work a bit better because she actually maps onto a Japanese sub-culture, Gothic Lolita. Except she doesn’t because Morrison gets every single element of her character wrong. For starters if she’s a Lolita canary why is she in a school girl outfit and not a Gothic Lolita costume? Secondly why does she shout sumimasen? Sumimasen means sorry in Japanese and although they’re not exactly the crowd I move with Gothic Lolita aren’t known for yelling sorry very loudly. I think that what Morrison wants her to be saying is “Irrashaimasen” since he mentions shop girls and shop girls in Japan say this. It means welcome and shop keepers yell it at you when they see you in their shop. HwoevEr again, why is a Gothic Lolita yelling irrashaimasen? Unless Morrison is thinking of maid cafes because maid costume is quite similar to Gothic Lolita fashion but again why isn’t she in a maid/Lolita outfit? And why is she shy crazy Lolita canary? Lolita are amongst the most extroverted Japanese people around, unless that’s why she’s yelling sorry (but then there’s something weirdly inverted about yelling sorry, not really a shy action). I’ll give him making a black canary analogue winged is quite a nice touch considering the fetish-isation of angelic imagery in this country but generally shy crazy Lolita canary doesn’t work at all.
Shiny Happy Aquazon is a bit better again. We’ve reverted from trying to say anything about Japanese subculture and have gone back to fusing manga characters with super-heroes. In this case we’ve got Aquaman, Wonder Woman (an amazon) and the sort of happy bright but dumb and clumsy characters that populate a wide swathe of manga (i.e. Sailor Moon, Lum, belldandy). Her outfit is quite nice too, very super-hero but still looking like something Lum would wear. Her name is rubbish though, mostly because shiny happy sounds less like engrish than it does an R.E.M. song. Engrish works when you have two words that we don’t regularly combine in colloquial English (science ninja being a good example of words that would never meet each other in normal English) but we’re all used to hearing shiny and happy next to each other so it doesn’t work as Engrish and just sounds dumb as a standard super-hero name.
Well Spoken Sonic Lightning Flash Well spoken? What? Okay so the description is sonic the hedgehog meets Impulse. So for those that don’t know Impulse was a super-fast scatter brained teenager raised inside a virtual reality computer game like world whereas sonic the hedgehog is a….super fast scatter brained hedgehog that actually is a computer game character. Yeah, that’s less sonic meets Impulse than Impulse meets the character that inspired Impulse in the first place. Oh but it’s okay because he has a ridiculous top heavy anime inspired design….y’know, like Impulse. Oh and he’s living for the now…a bit like Impulse and.
Basically the problem with Well Spoken Lightning Flash is that he’s EXACTLY the same character as Impulse but with a more ridiculous design and a name that I cannot begin to fathom the joke behind.
I realise that the whole point behind the Super Young Team is that we’re meant to dislike them as shallow poseurs and they contrast with the heroic and noble Big Action Team. I get the point Morrison is trying to make and I love the joke behind Most Excellent Super-bat but none of the other characters work in the slightest bit. Shy Crazy Lolita Canary and Well Spoken Sonic Lightning Flash in particular entirely fail as jokes or pastiches because they don’t reflect anything Japanese, either in real life or in manga.
So ultimately I think Morrison ahs failed here. Potentially Big Action Team could work as a real comic with some tweaking but Super Young Team fail entirely as jokes and were never meant to be real characters.
However, Cliff Chiang also recently showed off some Super-hero manga mash-ups, although he created his nearly 10 years ago. Chiang’s gone for a more direct pastiche approach, simply taking one character and re-imagining them in the form of an existing Japanese manga. These are all specific homages but some of them work excellently and really draw parallels between the western characters and the eastern characters.
To start with we have science ninja hero Batman and his partner Robin. Robin’s costume is a little bit too on the nose and looks exactly like a Gatchaman costume only re-coloured. I’m a big fan of Batman’s Gatchaman inspired look though. It’s still recognizably a bat but with the clean lines associated with 1960’s Japanese sci-fi. Visual Kei joker is fun too, observe this photo of Gackt…
...and now look at the Joker. And yet it’s still recognisably the Joker, and it works better for a Japanese joker since it incorporates the androgyny and attractiveness that Japan likes to instill its villains with.
Superman as Gigantor is hilarious. He really is a man of steel. The Super-man robot looks like an anime super-robot (actually a genre of anime) and the shorts wearing kid who commands it with a signal watch is spot on. Unfortunately it wouldn’t quite let you translate stories as easily as the science ninja batman would. Batchaman would still fight super-villains and could still have the same origin but Super-Robot would have a vastly different origin without all the Christ/immigrant imagery in the original character.
Aquaman as a Kanren runner/Ultraman type is just genius though. Kanren Runner or Ultraman are the most obviously super-heroic of any Japanese super-heroes and Kanren Runners design works well for an alien being that lives in the sea. And having him grow to enormous size to fight sea monsters (Kaiju actually does translate as sea monster) is a spot of brilliance. I would happily read the adventures of a king of the seas protecting his civilization and the surface world from marauding giant monsters. It would be an infinitely better character than Aquaman.
Flash Go Go Go is just speed racer with a red car. The homage is spot on but there isn’t much to say about it. Green Lantern I sadly cannot place and Wonder Woman as Princess Luda from Starblazers doesn’t work too well because the character is no longer recognizably Wonder Woman. The homage is fine since both are princesses but the design needs a little work to bring out the super-hero sides more.
Overall then I vastly prefer Chiang’s mash-ups but sadly there isn’t as much to say about them.
And finally let’s take a look at what happens when it occurs in the other direction and Japan does the mashing. Well you end up with this.
That was the Japanese Spider-man show from the 1970’s (Supaidaman). You may have noticed, as I did, that there is a giant robot. Moreso there is a giant robot that Spider-man summons by yelling “change me lepardomon!” Why spider-man has a giant robot is an easy mystery to figure out.
Japanese Scriptwriter: Well boss you know how you bought the rights to that American super-hero Spider-man?
Japanese TV Exec: I did, well what about it?
JS: Well I worked out a story concept for you.
JTVE: Oh cool,. So what does this supaidaman do?
JS: Well he shoots webs, climbs walls, does flips and martial arts and beats up bad guys.
JTVE: Hmm, sounds good. Kind like Gatchaman but with a spider instead of birds.
JS: Right boss.
JTVE: So how does he fight giant monsters? JS: Sorry?
JTVE: How does he fight giant monsters?
JS: Um….. he doesn’t?
JTVE: Well that’s no good. You’ve gotta have giant monsters so you can sell toys. Tell you what why doesn’t he have a giant robot?
JS: Genius sir.
Why he has A LEOPARD ROBOT rather than say a spider one is a mystery that may never be unsolved. And I have it on good authority that in a later episode he gains a car with machine gun lamps. Catchy theme tune though.
I put together a simply enormous post today at work. Unfortunately because I am an idiot I have left it at work. I shall probably post it tomorrow thought to make up for the missed post on Tuesday.
Until then here's some work my students did recently.
The grammar point my san-nensei have been working on recently is passive sentence construction. The exercise they have been doing is to create their own countries and then tell me what food is eaten in that country, what drinks are drunks, clothes are worn, etc, etc. They can do anything they like but I gave them a hint sheet with some normal and some very odd answers.
Some of the answers were fantastic. For example, most of the boys said that curry was eaten in their country and beer was drunk in their country, a combination that made me feel so much at home. Oddly nearly every single girl opted for orange juice, what they have against tea, beer and wine I don&t know.
But best of all are some of the names for countries they came up with. Here's a short list.
Ringo-land - No word on whether that's the Beatle or the Japanese word for apple.
Dream-land - Not very funny but I did a count and nearly 18 different kids opted for Dream-land. I can only assume there is some anime or computer game with a Dream-land in it.
Never-land - Similarly I lost track of all the Never-lands that I got.
Lucky-land - That's Ireland, surely?
EVA-land - Where dragons are seen apparently, and not angels as one might expect*
A land - Pragmatical at least.
Star-land - Hollywood right.
Stars-land - Ah, but somebody else went one better.
BIOHAZARD-land - BIOHAZARD is the Japanese game for the computer game we know as Resident Evil in the U.K. and the States. Although I remember the first one coming out when I was there age it's still incredibly popular with my kids. In BIOHAZARD-land Humans are eaten, blood is drunk, suits are worn, Umbrella events will be held (the villains in the Resident Evil games are called the Umbrella cooperation), zombles (bless) are seen and oddly the Olympics were held.
As if BIOHAZARD-land weren't disturbing enough, two different kids in two separate classes came up with the idea.
Free-land - Where workers control the means of production!
Cat-land - Where people eat dogs.
Special Beautiful Island - Which is extra specially beautiful because we all dress like pirates.
Beautiful-land - Sure it's beautiful, but it isn't special beautiful is it.
Atari-land - Finally, a country where I can be free to enjoy classic 80's gaming.
Smile-land - I don't think I'd fit in there.
Future-land - Welcome! To the world of tomorrow!
Disney-land Disney-sea Disney-rina - They're taking over the world!
Silent Hill - Apparently kangaroos are seen in Silent Hill. Now I don't remember any kangaroos but I do know about the evil nurses.
Scary-land - Sure they eat humans there and drink blood but how scary can it be without evil nurses.
Tea-land - This sounds like my kind of place.
Japon - Bad spelling or deliberate humour, how would you mark it?
Peace-land - Peace-land apparently has dinosaurs and wrestling. I propose it's name be changed to awesome ruckus world.
Interesting-land - Ironically this sheet was otherwise very boring.
Ultra-land - Well that's what I interpreted it as. The kid actually wrote Uruta- land, which I initially read as Urethra-land because I have a sick, sick mind.
and finally.
THE FRONT OF ARMAMENT
STEAK IS EATEN IN THE FRONT OF ARMAMENT
BEER IS DRUNK IN THE FRONT OF ARMAMENT
LEATHER JACKETS AND LEATHER PANTS ARE WORN IN THE FRONT OF ARMAMENT
TANKS ARE SEEN IN THE FRONT OF ARMAMENT
THE WARS WERE HELD IN THE FRONT OF ARMAMENT
THE VERY BIG WARDS WILL BE HELD IN THE FRONT OF ARMAMENT
I have no idea what game or tv show the front of armament is from but there is no way the kid made it up on his own. He actually wrote it like that as well, all in caps with no punctuation. Of course I had to mark him down for that but I really, really didn't want to because THE VERY BIG WARS made me piss myself.
You want some more, okay how about this.
This is Edo Harumi. Edo Harumi is a Japanese comedian. Like all Japanese comedians she doesn't so much tell jokes or make observations as do vaguely humorous routines with a sort of catchphrase gimmick. In her case she sticks out her thumb and says goo like a baby. This actually means "good." Basically her whole routine is based around taking the piss out of English language teachers and the use of the English language in Japan. A lot of her mannerisms are based aroudn Japanese teachers of English, and you can take it fron me she's spot on. Her other big joke is to take an -ing word in English and turn it into -ingoo i.e. hop, step, jumpingoo. This is a reference to how Japanese people speak English. See the Japanese language is entirely phonetic and all it's letters (except n) can only be pronounced with an associated vowel sound. So in Japan there is a separate letter for ga, ge, gu, gi and go. If faced with an English word that ends in a consonant the natural thing to do is to turn it into a phenom they're comfortable with, hence nearly all my students call me Adamu because they struggle to say Adam.
Yeah I know, not exactly side splitting stuff but she is one of the few Japanese comedians that actually does make me laugh and I figured I'd post some Japanese humour I appreciate for a change. That and her song to the tune of "My Sherona" is one of the catchiest things I have ever heard and I no longer want to suffer alone.
Still not enough.
Okay, how about human tetris.
Alright not quite human tetris, but still bloody amazing.
Still not enough?
How about the finest thing I have ever seen in my entire life.
Well that should satiate you until tomorrow. However despite the fact that it has nothing to do with Japan or this blog I still want to post this video because it makes me giggle outrageously.
This is an anime from 1934. So it's a relic from a pre-war and decidedly imperialist Japan. Not exactly the Japan I'm familiar with but one that's still a living memory for some and one whose attitudes inform the country I'm living in.
In it we see the rabid, rabid anti-American sentiment at the time symbolised through Mickey Mouse invading Japan. Well i assume it's japan, only a Japan populated entirely by doll people.
Anyway Mickey Mouse invades the doll people with his army of Mickey Mouse bats and serpents and crocodiles. The doll-Japanese summon up famous mythological figures to fight Mickey Mouse only two of whom I recognise (Momotaro, the kid who fights Mickey Mouse and the kid on the turtle whose in the ni-nensei English textbook). Then some people turn into tanks and mickey gets old and my brain starts to hurt.
It&s all deeply symbolic of course (encroaching American modernism is defeated by traditional stories) but it's also deeply, deeply messed up.
And what's this business with the heroes saying okay all the time? Surely that runs counter to their argument in the first place.
Anyway I recommend you watch it because you will never, ever look at Mickey Mouse in the same light again. That and because it has Daruma dolls in it and I love Daruma dolls.
Saw the ear doctor today who strapped me down and roughly abused me, aurally. He had his wicked way with my ears and left them sore and aching but vastly improved. Yesterday I couldn’t hear a thing out of my left ear. The doctor strapped me to a chair and cleaned out my ears and now I can hear better than I ever remember being able to. I had no idea I was so deaf before! And you should have seen the amount of crap he pulled out of my ears, I had no idea ear canals were so big! It was truly disgusting.
He diagnosed an ear infection which I have to take an absolute ton of drugs for. 9 a day!
Anyway the only reason I bring this up is because I have now experienced something new in Japan, I have been to a Japanese doctor. How do they compare to western doctors I hear you ask, well largely it’s the same. The waiting time was a bit shorter than what I’m used to and the nurses had sexier uniforms than back home but generally they’re just as brusque and no nonsense as English doctors.
Anyway I’m still in recovery mode largely so it’s a quick one today. Tomorrow I should have a full post all about a recent confectionary convention I attended in Himeji.
So let’s talk about Caramel-Salt Kit-Kats.
One of the things that ex-pats notice a lot and that for me is indelibly linked with Japan is the staggering variety of forms the humble kit-kat can achieve. I have mentioned this before on the site and I have always intended to start cataloguing the different kinds of kit-kat available. Well there’s no time to start like the present so here is kit-kat entry number one, caramel salt.
The combination of caramel and salt sounds odd (it is after all just sugar and salt effectively) but not too odd. I can conceivably see this flavour working but I do wonder why not just go with caramel on its own, what does the salt add?
As it happens not much. The kit-kat has a definite caramel flavour although disappointingly it’s still quite chocolatey whereas I was hoping for something close to a caramac. The effect of the salt is to make it taste more like a burnt caramel than something overtly sweet. Presumably this is meant to compliment the bitterness of Japanese tea.
Finally I want to show everyone this.
Yup, it’s a bag. Crucially it’s a backpacking bag, one designed for the purpose of doing some travelling. What it signifies is a little adventure I intend to go on.
Since I first arrived in Japan people have been telling me that the great thing about Japan is that you can sleep anywhere. If you miss your last train you can always sleep in a capsule hotel, a love hotel (basically a hotel where you can buy rooms by the night or the hour) or failing that in a karaoke box, a manga café (much more than a mere manga destination. For an hourly rate a manga café will let you read manga, drink coffee, use the internet, watch films, play computer games and sleep in big comfy chairs. They stay open all night and people are employed to look after sleeping customers and see that they are safe) or failing this just in a train station. I have tested this theory by sleeping in a nightclub unmolested but now I am going to really put it to the test. I aim to head out to Hiroshima during Golden Week and see if I can spend 3 days there and in its environs without using a hotel, mostly because during golden week most of the hotels are booked up anyway. I will sleep in manga cafes and wash in onsens and sentos. If I succeed I will be endeavouring to use this method of travel again in the summer.
By the way the title of today’s post is a pun on the famous manga and anime series Deathnote. Deathnote is about a boy who discovers a notebook left on Earth by a shinigami (a death god). If he writes a name in the book, that person dies. I haven’t read much Deathnote but at the moment it is an insanely popular manga in Japan.
One of the best aspects of my job is getting to see and participate in all the special activities my school puts on. I think more than anything else this is the biggest insight into Japanese culture. I get to see what Japanese people do as they grow up. Unlike my shrine visits this is simply something a tourist never gets access to.
So I was really excited last Friday afternoon when Kosuga-sensei asked me if I would come watch the students play cards.
Yes you heard me, watch them play cards.
The game was karuta (literally card), specifically “iroha-garuta” which is the original karuta game and something of a Japanese tradition.
Karuta is a sort of listening version of snap. Students sit in small teams surrounding a set of cards placed face up. One person (i.e. a teacher) reads out a word or phrase and the students have to grab the corresponding card. I use it all the time in classes, say by putting a load of pictures of emotions on a table and saying “I’m happy” so the students have to grab the “happy” card. However “iroha-garuta” differs slightly from the way I play it. In “iroha-garuta” one person is reading out various tanka (or poems). He reads the first 3 lines of the poem and the students have to find the card with the last two lines.
The students study tanka in their Japanese classes so playing this game is the culmination of a lot of months hard work memorising poems.
This just sums up Japan so much for me. Not just taking time out from lessons to play a card game but actually studying it in lessons in order to prepare. And for no other reason than that it’s a tradition.
It was a pretty fun afternoon too. Of course I had no idea what the teachers were reading out but the answer cards were written in hiragana not kanji. This meant I could have a go at reading them (although I didn’t have a chance in hell of understanding them) and I was pretty pleased with how well I was doing.
The kids seemed to be having a ball too. One group of boys did the respect fist every time they won a card. So of course after a while I came and joined in.
Traditional school card games. I love this country.
JAPANESE CRISPS ARE WEIRD: PART 2
Ladies and gentlemen these are Strawberry flavoured Cheetos.
Some madman has combined the flavours of cheese, potato and strawberry!
This truly is the upper limit of weird food, surely.
Nothing more insane than this could possibly exist, could it?
Dare I eat them.
I must, for how could I pass up something so tremendously bizarre.
If I do not taste them now I shall forever wonder.
They shall haunt my dreams forever more, a nightmare vision in pink.
And so I must.
Yet, I still fear.
But what is man if he cannot overcome his fear.
Pray for me friends.
*crunch*
Actually.
They’re quite nice.
To provide some explanation for this. In Japan pink is considered to be a lucky colour. It’s a mix of the red and the white of the imperial flag. After the New Year everything turns pink for the whole of January and a startling amount of pink food goes on the market. My sakura crisps were one example of the pink food phenomenon but I’ve also seen a huge variety of pink crisps, sakura flavoured kit-kats and lots of stuff made with prawns.
G-GUNDAM
I usually don’t talk about the Manga (comics) and Anime (cartoons) that I’m into at any moment in time because I generally assume that the people reading this blog either a) already know about them or b) couldn’t care less.
G-Gundam is an exception because it is profoundly and gloriously stupid.
Gundam is a catch all title for various series all about giant robot vehicles called “mobile suits”. If you want to know all the details then by all means check out wikipedia but take it from me, you don’t want to know all the details. My friend Ryan is obsessed with Gundam to the point of frightening normal people but I can’t judge because I find the series to be quite cool myself. I watched “Gundam Wing” back home in England and bought a Shenlong Gundam model (my favourite gundam) shortly after I arrived. I even sent some gundams to my nephew for Christmas.
G-Gundam is set in a universe where most of the countries of the world have established colonies in space and given up on life on Earth. To avert the possibility of a catastrophic war between space colonies they hit upon the idea of deciding all conflicts by gundam combat. So once every 4 years each colony competes for the right to rule the entirety of space in a pitched gundam battle. Earth is the battleground and anything goes.
So far so laboured but serviceable set-up to watch robots hit each other. However, it is the designs of these robots that sets G-Gundam apart from its more normal sister shows.
This is the robot of Neo-Japan. It looks like a standard gundam. Humanoid, coloured in red, blue and gold with a white body. In every gundam series there will be a robot that looks like this and it will be the hero.
In sharp contrast here is the Mexican “Tequila Gundam”
That there is a robot with a sombrero. A giant robot sombrero.
Yes, you guessed it. The whole series is little more than one national stereotype after another. But the humour comes from seeing what the Japanese think about other countries. For example China and Hong Kong get relatively sensible robots. But Denmark.
They get a robot dressed as a fish. The “mermaid gundam”.
America fairs slightly better with an American football themed robot.
That transforms into a topless boxer.
I’m not even going to touch the Spanish “Taurus Gundam”
What have Sweden got?
Why yes, a leggy blonde, of course.
Japanese people love France and the French “Gundam Rose” is actually pretty dignified and cool. Although the Napoloen hat cracks me up.
And of course now I’ve shown you France you’re all curious what the English gundam looks like right? Well presenting the “John Bull Gundam”.
Yes, they gave us a robot bearskin. You’ll be pleased to know that we beat up the French Gundam, but then the Japanese guy kills our pilot (we’re baddies in this series).
But undeniably the king of the stupid is the Dutch Gundam, or “Nether Gundam”
Plus the theme tune features the phrases “bright you now” and “shining finger”. This is obviously hilarious but unfortunately the theme tune is incredibly catchy. This means I’ve been wandering around my house and school singing “bright you now” without noticing. Damn catchy gibberish.
GAMERA
Mentioned in the Aquarium post was Gamera. Here he is again.
Gamera is an enormous turtle. He breathes fire, he can fly by retracting limbs and shooting fire out of the holes and he is amongst other titles “guardian of the universe” and “friend to all children”.
I have recently been watching a lot of Gamera and again I wouldn’t mention it, except that recently I watched a film called Gamera vs Barugon.
This was much like any other Gamera film, in fact all told it was a pretty poor Gamera film (right up until the part where barugon shot rainbows from his back that somehow destroyed missles) with one exception.
At one point Barugon destroys Kobe.
You have no idea how much we cheered.
Having seen years of asteroids destroying the empire state building, aliens blowing up the white house or the Eiffel tower, dragons eating London or Godzilla stomping Tokyo I finally got to see something I know and love destroyed on camera.
It was awesome. Nothing makes a disaster movie more fun than recognising what’s been destroyed. I’m sure there’s the basis of an interesting essay in there but at the moment I’m just too happy to think about it properly.
I mean a giant lizard knocked over Port Tower with his tongue. Glee!
The other cool thing about Gamera is that the film company that makes his films, Daiei, is the same company as my supermarket.
And finally.
I have been sick recently and bought tissues. Hilarious tissues.
Aroe? That isn’t an ingredient, it's what my kids say to greet me in the morning.
An exercise I’ve been doing with my kids recently is to take a cartoon character and have them use 5 sentences to describe the character. i.e.
I have a good friend He likes flying His favourite food is dorayaki He is blue He is a cat Who is it? It’s Doraemon!
They must use he/she likes and his/her favourite is for at least one of the sentences. Fairly standard stuff all told and most of the answers range from terrible to similar to my example.
But some of the responses are utter genius so I'm sharing them with you all.
He became a rubber boy. Suddenly with eating a nut.
This is for the one piece character Monkey D. Luffy. It's entirely true but a) I'm surprised that any of my kids knew the word "suddenly" and b) its just a joyous pair of sentences.
His head is very decious He is a hero His friend is jamojisan
This is for Anpan Man a super-hero whose bread is made of an-pan (bread filled with a sort of sweet bean paste) so yes I guess his head is “decious”.
He can change face to face He can fly He can eat face He likes to fight His favourite attack Anpunch
And apparently Anpan Man can eat his own face. Japanese entertaiment everyone, self-cannibalism.
He is a bear He is yellow His favourite food is honeys He is fat He is handsome and cute
In case you didn't guess, this is Winnie the Pooh (whom the Japanese know as Pooh-San). What you might not know is that my students think my father looks like Winnie the Pooh. Well cheer up Dad you are both handsome and cute. And fat apparently.
He is food He doesn’t like water He has a round face He is the world a hero His rival is baikinman
Anpan Man again. I just laugh at "he is food".
He likes peach He doesn’t like koopa His favourite food is mushroom He is from mushroom kingdom He is a game player
This one impressed me because Mario wasn’t even one of the characters I gave for them to use. It also impressed my students because I guessed it was Mario with the first 3 lines and they had no idea anyone outside Japan knew who Mario was.
Cat look like Your in ninja Girl a disguise!!
High Surrealist poetry clearly. And those exclamation marks are in the original too.
I'm a British bloke from West Yorkshire trapped in a world I never made. Am I insane? In a coma? In Japan? And how do I get home...if indeed I even want to.
Posts
