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What the F@#$ Did I Just Watch?! BACCANO! Episode #1

Tom_Pinchuk — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 11:00:00 +0900

True to my word, I went ahead and watched the first episode of Baccano off of metalsnakezero’s suggestion. Keep these recommendations coming! The episode has the amusing title “The Vice President Doesn’t Say Anything About the Possibility of Him Being the Main Character” which is about long enough to be the name of a Fall-Out Boy song. As with most of these shows, so far, I found my expectations continually confounded every time I thought I’d pegged the tone of the show. The jazzy opening theme starts with a caper by Bonnie and Clyde-style couple pulling off a heist dressed as a pumpkinhead and pirate (or was it a witch? It went be so fast). I figure I’m in store for a modern version of LUPINE III, which was certainly welcome as I thoroughly enjoyed CASTLE OF CAGLIOSTRO when I first saw it as a teenager.

Then, of course, and I suppose I really shouldn’t be surprised, things get really meta.

By “meta”, I mean meta-fictional, which is a narrative sub-genre that either has characters jumping into what they see as fictional story or conceitedly pointing out that they, themselves, are in a fictional story. There are plenty of examples of this in Western popculture. PLEASANTVILLE, LAST ACTION HERO, THE NEVERENDING STORY… even Deadpool and Bugs Bunny’s tendency to talk to the audience are examples of metafiction. In this case, the metafiction manifests in framing sequences of a dialogue between the titular Vice President and a precocious junior reporter. They're discussing who the main character in this story could be. I’ve found it’s always been impossible to judge whether an actor speaking in another language is any good at his performance but, in this case, there seemed to be a higher level of… expressiveness in the voice acting. The Vice President, in particular, was FEELING his role.

There’s fantasy upon fantasy in this series, and it was a bit of a trip to see Japanese immortals with dyed hair running around my hometown of Chicago (or was it actually New York? It wasn’t entirely clear.) To me, it felt like some bizarre fever dream I might experience after history class followed by a watching of, I don’t know, Darker Than Black. If the imagination of the English is perpetually stuck in the era of the Tudor Dynasty and Chinese’s forever caught in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms era, than Chicagoans’ minds are always in the 30s Prohibition period this series is set in. Sadly, Al Capone is probably the closest equivalent we have to Ben Franklin in Philly.

Anyway, I’m intrigued to see where this geographically, chronically and metafictionally-twisted opus will go. I might check out episode two once I get through some more pilots online, so keep those recommendations coming because I WILL watch them! I CHALLENGE you to!

-- Tom Pinchuk is the writer of UNIMAGINABLE for Arcana Comics and HYBRID BASTARDS! for Archaia Comics. Watch out for the HYBRID BASTARDS! hardcover collection this March - - available for pre-order now on Amazon.com .

Corrections

MTC — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:23:00 +0900

Based on communications from the author, I have made significant corrections to yesterday's post on the article Toyota and the End of Japan.

Daily Cosplay Spotlight: Dinotiste

GodLen — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:00:00 +0900

Welcome to Anime Vice’s Daily Cosplay Spotlight, a new feature that will spotlight an amazing cosplayer or cosplay costume maker from all across the world. Today’s first victim is Dinotiste, a cosplayer from the good country of Belgium. She is a cosplayer that likes to cosplay tall, strong, and blond hair women; and she does a damn good job doing it. Not only does she cosplay anime chicks, but also does a lot of video game cosplay, mostly Lineage II and even Jadis the White Witch. Check out her blog for more pictures.

Warrenくんの最新リミックス！Tech-house!

Laurette Clare — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:58:00 +0900

Warrenくんの最新リミックスをダウンロードできます！Warrenくんは、Dbaby KaiのCDカバーをデザインした人です。Warrenは、アートにずっと追走してると、写真と展示会をデザインすることです！
皆さん、↓から無料ダウンロードしてください！よろしく！

FREE DOWNLOAD　（Tech-House mix)

Online Naruto Games

Lupus — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 06:34:00 +0900

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Another acceptable affair about these amateur is that it encourages players with absolute apperception and teamwork environment. For example, in Naruto Star Student game, Sasuke and Sakura charge escort Tazuna cautiously to his home in the acreage of waves. But they accept to abet to get through adversary in their way. Players can baddest one's own appearance and let the adventure starts. In added amateur such as Naruto Dating amateur and Naruto Olympics Game, players can acquaintance added abundant appearance of beam action after accepting to use joystick or circuitous controller.

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I Went To The Animal Fair

MTC — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:37:00 +0900

On Monday the Mainichi Shimbun published an unusually intelligent and evocative column comparing the electoral promises of the Democratic Party of Japan and the party's actual recent behavior.

The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which came to power with a promise to stamp out old patronage politics, is now engaging in a more explicit form of pork-barrel elections than the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

DPJ Secretary-General Ichiro Ozawa stumped in Nagasaki for a DPJ-backed candidate in the Nagasaki gubernatorial election campaign, saying, "If you elect X, we will be able to build a highway here."

Meanwhile, DPJ Election Campaign Committee Chairman Hajime Ishii used intimidation when he went to show his support for the candidate. What he actually said was: "If selecting the LDP-backed candidate is your choice, then the government will act accordingly."

The dangling of public works contracts before local voting bloc leaders and the naked threat of abandonment should the local area vote turn against the DPJ remind staff editorialist Yamada Tadao of the behavior of the pigs in George Orwell's 1945 novel, Animal Farm.

One day, all the animals on a farm unite to overthrow the farm owner, Mr. Jones, turning the farm into a farm of the animals, by the animals, for the animals. But the pigs that had led the other animals through the revolt assume increasingly more power and become oppressive rulers just like Mr. Jones had been.

Any time the other animals question the pigs' words and actions, they would respond: "Surely there is no one among you who wants to see Jones come back?" This sounds very much like the cliched "words of support" uttered by DPJ leaders who ask the public: "Do you want to go back to a time of collusive ties between the LDP and bureaucrats?"

Two things to note here.

A) Tadao's drawing of parallels between the electoral victory of the DPJ and overthrow of Farmer Jones in Animal Farm makes clear that calling what happened last year "a revolution" is not just a foreign vice. In order to make the simile work, the takeover by the DPJ has to have been a revolution -- one that has since been betrayed.

B) Tadao elides over two crucial assumptions. The first is that the voters (the animals of the farm) to whom the DPJ (the pigs) made their "we'll do politics differently" promises are the same voters that Ozawa and Ishii were alternately enticing and threatening in Nagasaki Prefecture.

This is almost certainly not the case. Voters who would drool like Pavlov dogs over the prospects of a new highway being built are probably not core DPJ supporters or independents. They are most likely LDP voters...and Ozawa and Ishii were talking to them in a blunt and crass manner of speech that longtime LDP voters fully understand.

The second assumption is that Ozawa and Ishii were telling the truth to this crowd. This is also highly questionable, especially in light of Ozawa's history of duplicity and sudden reversal. The DPJ might retaliate; it might not. It might reward LDP turncoats with a new road or it might just stiff them. Whatever happens it will be three years before the voters next get a shot at the DPJ...and in politics, three years is an eternity.

So while Tadao's essay is clever, and renders more concrete an uneasy feeling many now have that the election victory of the DPJ has done little to improve politics and indeed possibly made politics worse, it is in the end a bit of a literary magic show.

All the voters are not interchangeable -- and not all are innocents.

The original Japanese text can be found here.

shin-jaga

K and S — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0900

Even though the weather is kinda wishy-washy, I know Spring is coming because there are shin-jagaimo or shin-jaga (new potatoes) in the markets. This particular variety is called May Queen.

The new potatoes here are tiny, only one or two inches, I think they maybe different from the new potatoes you see in the U.S.

When I first came to Japan, I had a hard time figuring out what types of potatoes there were. In Hawaii, the only types I've seen are red, yukon & russet, none of which are in Japan (to my knowledge anyway).

Anyway, here in Japan, certain types are good for curry and some good for croquettes (I think it depends on the texture of the potato, though I usually rely on the sign at the market to tell me which is good for what).

I bought this from a little yaoya (vegetable/fruit stand). A little less than a pound for only 100 yen (about US$1).

I thought I had posted this recipe before but looked through my archives and didn't see it.

The recipe is easy and delicious.

Shin-jaga to gyuniku no amakarani (Beef and new potatoes simmered in a sweet-salty sauce) adapted from Orange Page's "Haru ni Oishii Kondate": Serves 4

405grams (a little less than a pound) new potatoes, scrubbed, eyes removed
100 grams (about 3.5 ounces) beef, thinly sliced
1 carrot, cut into bite size pieces
2/3 cup dashi (stock)
3 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons shoyu (soy sauce)
olive oil (about 2 tablespoons)

Cut potatoes in half, lengthwise
Fry cut-side down on medium in olive oil, tossing around for about 7-8 minutes
Add meat, cook until meat changes color
Add stock, carrot, sugar and shoyu
Cook uncovered until all liquid evaporates, stir once in awhile
Enjoy with rice

NOTES: I loved the sweet and salty combination and it came together quite quickly. Probably the thing that would take the longest is to make your dashi (stock), though I normally cheat and use dashi packets, which look like tea bags and are filled with konbu (kelp), katsuo bushi (bonito) & niboshi (dried small sardines).

If you can find dashi in these packets, I would highly recommend it, this method is fast and you don't have to go out to look for the individual ingredients.

It's Friday, hope you have a nice weekend!

Nakanoshima Club

osakainsider — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:31:42 +0900

Nakanoshima Club is inside the Chuo Kokaido

Nakanoshima Club (中之島倶楽部) is a Western cuisine restaurant located in the Chuo Kokaido building, which was built in 1918 in the elegant yet flamboyant European-influenced style that became popular in the early part of Japan’s modern period. The building is one of the most beautiful of the historic buildings in the Nakanoshima/Kitahama area, and it has been designated as an Important Cultural Property by the government. While dinners here average out to around 3,500 yen per person, which is a little more than the average diner may want to pay, lunch is an easily-affordable 680 yen (average) per person. Although the lunch menu is more limited, the low price gives you a chance to experience the tasty food and Showa-Period atmosphere of Nakanoshima Club without emptying your wallet. Plus, if you’ve never had a chance to walk around Nakanoshima Island, you make an afternoon out of it!

It is only a few steps to Nakanoshima Club from Naniwabashi Station (Keihan Nakanoshima Line), and only 3 min. on foot from Yodoyabashi Station (Midosuji Subway Line and Keihan Main Line). Simply walk around the side of the Chuo Kokaido building and go in through the basement-level entryway. Restaurant hours are 9:30 am to 9:30 pm (closed on the 4th Tue. of the month and during the New Year’s holiday period). English menus are available for those who don’t read Japanese—menu and further information are also available here. Nomihodai is also available. You can contact them at 06-6233-3580.

A Google Maps access map can be viewed here.

[Album] ICONIQ – Change Myself

johnyang2000 — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:10:28 +0900

ICONIQ – Change Myself

2010.03.03

Track List:

1. Prologue
2. I’m lovin’ you
3. Change Myself
4. LoveShineMagic
5. BYE NOW!
6. I.D feat.VERBAL(m-flo)
7. No Distance
8. Crystal Girl
9. Like A Virgin
10. Epilogue

DOWNLOAD:

link

Please buy the original CD to support the artist:

CD+DVD

Mr. Zakaria, You Blew It

MTC — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:25:00 +0900

The print edition of Devin Stewart's Newsweek article has landed, or I should perhaps say splattered, on my desk. He gave ample warning to everyone, alerting folks via his LinkedIn page of the arrival of the Newsweek piece. A simple Google search pointed me in the direction of his ~~reworking of the same material~~ original text, written for the Huffington Post.

Now the Newsweek print copy has arrived, worse than imagined. The article is wobbly on the facts, when not outright wrong. The black-and-white photos illustrating it are pure poverty & disfunction pornography.

I do not have the time to go through everything in the article worthy of criticism. I can offer, however, a few pointers on what I believe are some journalistic conventions:

1) When a government minister says ~~to you~~ in a speech, "a non-profit organization has claimed that the number of hikikomori in Japan could be as high as 3.6 million," you are ~~not allowed to~~ hewing close to the line when you write, "More dramatic is the presence of the hikikomori or shut-ins who have given up on social life and number about 3.6 million, according to the Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications Kazuhiro Haraguchi, citing a Japanese nonprofit" ~~or,~~ and over that line when the text says, "last month authorities said it may be as high as 3.6 million."

As for the hikikomori phenomenon, if you are going to conjure up the image of a lost generation of youths languishing behind the walls of their homes, you had better hope that the government's own survey data does not show that men and women in the 20-29 age cohort are the least likely to agree with the statement "I hardly ever go out," followed by those in the 30-39 cohort (Look at figure 8-2, if you do not believe me).

2) When you write "According to a 2008 Pew survey, Japanese were more dissatisfied with the direction of their country than almost any other nation, including Pakistan and Russia" you had better hope beyond hope that the folks at Pew stopped conducting surveys after 2008 and have closed down their website. Otherwise someone might actually go to the Pew survey database and find out that not only were Japanese surveyed in 2009 twice as satisfied as they were seven years ago, but that their rate of satisfaction was a scant 2 percentage points below the rate for Russia, nearly three times the rate for Pakistan and way above South Korea.

Oops.

Ultimately, the responsibility for the intellectual calamity that has been inflicted upon the world's understanding of Japan lies with Fareed Zakaria, the editor of Newsweek's international edition. In this age when news magazines have let of their regulars, relying instead on outsiders to produce content, a journal's reputation is protected only by a tenacious and unpretentious commitment to the verifiable, incongruent with the jitterbug lifestyle of the global glitterati.

Later - To be entirely fair, nothing that DS has written is untrue. The data, however, has been selected and the quotes parsed in such a fashion as to excite, not illuminate.

Even later - Devin Stewart responds in comments and I reply. I very much appreciate his willingness to engage me as regards his article.