2009 July

Spam From Japan: War Anime For Children

The animation studio Shin’ei Douga, better known for titles such as Doraemon and Crayon Shinchan, releases a new anime on the subject of the Second World War every summer. They call this series Sensou Douwa, or “war tales for children”. Their 2009 offering is Aoi Hitomi no Onna no Ko no Hanashi (“The Tale of a Blue-Eyed Girl”) about a half-American girl named Eiko.

Here’s what the official site has to say about it, loosely translated. And when I say “loosely translated”, I mean you might as well use Babelfish. Seriously, don’t look here for accuracy.

Welcome to the green fields of Tosayamanaka. Due to bloodshed, hatred towards kichikubeiei, a term given to Britain and American forces during World War Two, has taken root here.

A young girl called Eiko transfers to an elementary school in this village from Yokohama. Since her father was American and little Eiko has blue eyes, her classmates torment her without mercy. With the exception of Akiko, the homeroom teacher, both teachers and children are united in their contempt for her.

However, Eiko is spotted by a boy called Kenta. He feels curious about her and can’t ignore this abandoned girl. He helps her search for a pendant which she carried in memory of her father. Classmates think he’s being stupid and make fun of him. However, the lively Eiko takes on Kenta’s friends and shows the boys up. From that day forward, they become friends.

One day, Kenta’s best friend’s father returns home after being wounded while fighting on the war front. At the same time, every house in the village receives a report on deaths during the war. New hatred is stirred up within the villagers. The children have no outlet for their rage and so aim it at Eiko. Kenta tries to shield her, but is unable.

Eiko will be sent to a POW camp as her mother was killed during an air raid and she has no surviving relatives. The military police are approaching and, on that day, Kenta decides to let her escape……

The seiyuu for Eiko is Kuwashima Houko, known for her roles in Fullmetal Alchemist, The Melody of Oblivion and Inuyasha. Kenta is voiced by Komatsu Rika, who also does Bun in Hoshi no Kirby.

Spam From Japan: Dance For The Dead

The Obon Festival in Japan is what Halloween would look like if it still had its soul. It’s a festival to welcome departed loved ones into your home and then send them back to where they came from after you’ve spent precious days with them. The main group event is “Bon Odori”, which is a dance that takes place after nightfall, lit by lanterns.

There are two fixed times to celebrate in Japan, plus another date that moves around based on the lunar calendar. The first is in late July, which is observed by those in Tokyo and a few other places. The second is approaching in August. This is when people from more rural areas celebrate, along with those who still have their hearts there. Around this time, you can see shouryou uma (“soul horse”) made of vegetables and chopsticks by the roadside and outside houses. This is a cucumber or carrot horse with chopsticks for legs and is a prayer at the start of Obon that the departed’s soul will arrive just a little bit quicker. Both horses and cucumbers have a reputation for being pretty fast. At the end of Obon, a cow made of aubergine/eggplant asks for souls to be sent home at their leisure.

I asked my Japanese teacher if these were kindred spirits to teruterubouzu, which are made by children hoping for sunny days during the rainy season, and she gave me a resounding ‘no’. Teruterubouzu are for children, whereas a shouryou uma is a sincere prayer. She also told me about a private moment of the festival, when families take lanterns to and from the temple. The light guides the spirits to their home. In times past, this light was kept on throughout Obon, but this practice has since stopped.

I can’t take part in that, but Bon Odori holds a special place in my heart. People from the local community dance around a yagura, which is part watchtower, part stage, and usually has a taiko drummer at the top. Pre-recorded folk songs play and people use simple, repetitive movements to move around the tower. As long as you’re respectful, you can usually join in too. The secret is to copy the oldest person in the circle.

Below are photographs of the yagura and lanterns. If you would like to know more about Obon, please check out Choutin.com (simple Japanese) or the ever reliable Wikipedia (English).

Spam From Japan: JSOC Blog Matsuri

All the entries for the JSOC Blog Matsuri on the subject of unusual things in Japan have been revealed at Gakuranman.com, including my piece on beetles.

Spam From Japan: Six Legs Good, Eight Legs Bad

The Blog Matsuri theme this month is about unusual things in Japan. I almost wrote about grapes and the moment I realised I was the only person in the room not peeling them before eating. I suppose you do what you have to when fresh fruit are scarce and a single strawberry can cost 200 yen.

This summer, however, my attentions are elsewhere. Every day for the past two weeks, I’ve checked on the progress of several tanks of kabutomushi beetles at my workplace. I’ve watched these creatures grow from larvae buried in the ground to shiny, black-cased bugs. I like shiny things.

The summertime craze for collecting insects in Japan is single-handedly responsible for anime like Mushiking and Pokemon. Some schools even have special programs which aim to give a kabutomushi to every child. So whenever I mention that my country simply doesn’t have beetles this large to Japanese people, their reaction is often one of surprise. It seems that for many, not having these beetles around is even stranger.

(The photos for this post are below, just in case there are phobic readers.)

Cheer up, I could've titled this post 'Beetlemania'.

Spam From Japan: Top Eight Most Memorable Toys From The Tokyo Toy Show 2009

While nothing could hope to replace the simple brilliance of last year’s Teacup Poodle, it seemed that a lot of products at the Tokyo Toy Show 2009 (東京おもちゃショー２００９) took a more traditional approach and favoured updates of older toys or figures based on licensed properties. I never saw anything amazingly high-tech, although I admit I must have walked past the dog-speak translator at some point without it registering.

This is not the collection of the coolest toys, or the toys I would most like to own. It’s what left a lasting impression on me, for better or worse.

Necktie Llama (pictured)

Meet Necktie Llama. Actually called “Mirabakesso”, which is an abbreviated Japanese phrase meaning ‘products to transform the future’, you can play games, watch commercials and anime shorts by Studio 4°c on the official Mirabakesso homepage. Some of these creatures can talk, by the way, just in case you didn’t find your nightmares sufficiently fuelled already.

Hot Toys Booth

The first thing I noticed was a large T-600 figure, standing slightly taller than myself. Having drawn me in, there were a number of anime figures and figures based on Hollywood properties like X-Men and Pirates of the Caribbean. Also, a surprising amount of Edward Scissorhands merchandise, including cute SD figures. There were also a number of Michael Jackson figures prominently displayed, which made me wonder how long they had been in development.

Mickey Mouse Transformer

One of the runners up in the “High Target Category” at the Toy Show. See below for a picture.

Yakiniku-Ou

Yakiniku is often translated as ‘Korean barbecue’ and many ex-pats living in Japan love showing these restaurants to visiting friends and family. You have an open grill in front of you and the meat and vegetables arrive to order, which you then cook yourself. All the fun of eating burnt meat and fighting over the cooking tongs is now brought into your home in the form of a new game. It consists of vibrating board and plastic meat and vegetables (of various values) which you have to pick up with plastic tongs. As fun as it sounds.

Canaan Model Gun

You too can own a model gun or airgun based on the ones seen in the anime Canaan.

Unko-san

Children in Japan love poo and adults are only too willing to indulge them. Naturally, this is in direct opposition to Western countries where children love poo and adults keep Mr Hankey to themselves. From what I could figure out, there are many different types of collectible poo that live happily together in a village on a poo-shaped island.

Dancing Gachapin

Like Domo-kun, Gachapin is an iconic mascot in Japan. This time, he appears as a cuddly dancing toy, along with hundreds of other properties (mostly Disney-owned). The overall effect was terrifying.

Pogo Sticks

Pogo sticks are back! Okay, probably not. These are powered-up versions that had the crowd watching in awe as the demonstrator did backflips while several metres in the air. At no point were they thinking that they could do that themselves and they wanted to buy one.

Spam From Japan: Paying For Nature

I’ve wanted to visit Kokuei Shouwa Kinen Park in Tachikawa ever since I saw a photograph of my friend sitting on a hill with his partner, surrounded by wildflowers. I figured it had to be somewhere outside Kantou, maybe Kyuushuu. It was certainly comparable to the posters I’d seen in the train station. “No,” he told me with a touch of pride. “It’s west Tokyo.”

People often claim Tokyo is a neon jungle with few outward signs of nature. This isn’t strictly true, as you can buy your way into a green oasis of goodness for around 400 yen. By luck, I ended up going on one of the free park entrance days, which are scattered throughout the year.

Most of these places have carefully organised and structured nature so there is something iconic in bloom at all times. A park keeper who doesn’t have cherry blossoms around April may as well turn in his badge and become a salaryman.

Showa Kinen Park is no exception and it wasn’t just flowers. As I was crouching to photograph something near the park entrance, I heard a rustling behind me and a pair of lizards scuttled out of nowhere. I also saw baby ducks in the lake. Anyone who doesn’t love ducks is probably a serial killer. They’re just that awesome.

My trip around Showa Kinen Park led me into a herb garden and across a pond filled with water lilies and lotus flowers. I ended up in a huge green field, surrounded by deciduous trees and blue sky so vast you could physically feel it above you. Dragonflies danced in the air. It was late afternoon and the park speakers were playing Japan’s ‘get out of here already’ theme, a signal to leave. I hadn’t even seen all of the park yet.

To see all the photographs I shot that day: Tachikawa Flickr set.

Upcoming free entrance days in 2009: 4th October, 18th October.

Price: But if you insist in going at other times, adults usually pay 400 yen to enter. Things like bicycle rental or pool use are extra.

Tachikawa is on the Chuo Line, about 25 minutes from Shinjuku. You might be better off going one stop along to Nishi Tachikawa if you can’t read Japanese signs or have the sense of direction of a one-joke anime character.

Spam From Japan: Six Reasons Why Kanji Are Unnecessary

I bet you think this cat is pretty smart, but she's actually reading the English translation. As an amateur linguist and blossoming devil’s advocate, I wanted to write a response to a blog entry I saw on JSOC titled Six Reasons Why Kanji Is Necessary.

Kanji are one of a number of writing systems used in Japanese and were imported from China over a span of time, leading to their numerous different readings. You need to know around 1,945 kanji to be considered literate by the Japanese government.

In short, they’re the complicated-looking ones. Do you really need to know them? Of course not. Here’s why.

(1) Without knowing kanji (or the Chinese version, hanzi), tattoos are awesome again. Imagine looking at your acquaintance’s new tattoo and not knowing that it said ‘prostitute‘, ‘idiot‘ or ‘sesame chicken’. I bet you thought I was making the last one up. Nope. Now you can appreciate friends’ tattoos without wondering how you’re going to explain that they’ve tattooed the technical term for mouse genitalia on their lower back.

(2) Eating out is a new and exciting experience. Just point to somewhere on the menu. Pick the food with the prettiest kanji. Heck, you don’t even need to know all that stuff about stroke counts. Within minutes, anything from shiokara to basashi to whale could be coming your way. It’s like a potluck dinner with double the excitement and none of the friends.

(3) You can still enjoy Shiso Pepsi. ‘Shiso’ is written in the Roman alphabet on the bottle and there’s even a leaf worked into the design just in case you don’t make the connection between the word ‘shiso’ and the stuff in the local supermarket.

(4) Think of the children. It’s hard to explain to a six year-old how you know more kanji than them and why most of them are found only in 18-plus doujinshi. Never again.

(5) If you really want to read, great literature is still available to you. I must’ve read “Kaijuu-tachi no Iru Tokoro” (Where The Wild Things Are) over a hundred times by now. Unfortunately, if you’re looking to read 1Q84 by Murakami Haruki, you’re out of luck.

(6) You will never know when it’s your turn to clean the staff toilet at your place of work. What does 「火曜日」 mean? And is 「５月３１日」 some kind of serial number? If anyone calls you on it, nod your head as if considering the matter hard and try to enter that number into your mobile phone handset. Screw up your face and pretend you are cracking a code like in a Dan Brown novel. If it looks like that might really make you clean that loo, consult a nearby poster of the Vitruvian Man.

As you can see, these are six reasons why not knowing kanji will actually improve your quality of life. If you decide to ignore my sage advice and continue with your studies regardless, good luck to you.

Spam From Japan: An Introduction

Across from my house and a little up the road, blue hydrangeas are blooming as the rain continues to fall. It’s getting hotter and more humid by the day in Tokyo.

When you start off a formal letter in Japanese, it’s typical to start with a brief description of the season or weather. This is probably to lull the recipient into a false sense of security. Once the scene is set and your recipient is feeling relaxed, you can spring your real reason for writing on them.

In this case, it’s to tell you why you should read my blog about Japan, “Spam From Japan”. I want to tell you about Japanese movies, gothic nightlife and food in a way that’s fun to read even if you have no plans to visit, and I’ll give you travel tips and how to find the places I’m talking about if you do. I have a genuine love of manga, anime and Japanese pop culture and I make no apologies for that. Expect photographs. As the title might suggest, there’s no thought given to “brand identity” here. Just fun posts about what I love.

What’s different about my writing may be obvious immediately or may take more reading. Want to read about things like Tokyo Pride in a supportive environment alongside awesome reviews of cool stuff? Want a place that never uses the word “wacky” outside of scare quotes? Subscribe to this blog.

Hope that introduction wasn’t too jarring after your initial mental images of flowers in the rain. Now go out and enjoy those hydrangeas.

Spam From Japan

Live from Tokyo

Spam From Japan: War Anime For Children

Spam From Japan: Dance For The Dead

Spam From Japan: JSOC Blog Matsuri

Spam From Japan: Six Legs Good, Eight Legs Bad

Spam From Japan: Top Eight Most Memorable Toys From The Tokyo Toy Show 2009

Spam From Japan: Paying For Nature

Spam From Japan: Six Reasons Why Kanji Are Unnecessary

Spam From Japan: An Introduction

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