WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Writer/Interpreter/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.

Yesterday’s NYT had an article about the rise of Japan’s very own Tea Party.  It profiles the rise of the Zaitokukai, or the Citizens Group That Will Not Forgive Special Privileges for Koreans in Japan.  In comparison to old-line rightist groups this movement is known as the Net right, as they are organized via the Internet and come together for demonstrations.  The article focused on their protest last December at an elementary school for ethnic Koreans.  This year they also picketed theaters showing the documentary The Cove, which they perceive to be anti-Japanese.  The group is led by a 38-year old man who insists that foreigners have caused Japan to go in the wrong direction (members even harassed some Westerners for wearing Halloween costumes!).  The far right writes them off as amateur attention seekers, but nevertheless this is a disturbing trend.

In WSJ coverage this morning, there is discussion of how a majority of Read More

 By JQ Magazine’s Justin Tedaldi (CIR Kobe-shi, 2001-02) for Examiner.com. Visit his NY Japanese Culture page here to subscribe for free alerts on newly published stories.

Move over, Matsui.

The New York Mets will hold its first-ever Japanese Heritage Night at Citi Field on Friday, Aug. 27 against the Houston Astros, with discounted ticket rates available for all family and friends of the Japanese community.

Pre-game entertainment includes taiko drumming by acclaimed troupe Soh Daiko; a traditional Obon dance led by the Japanese Folk Institute of New York featuring dance participants from the Japanese heritage community and friends; the Spirit Award ceremony honoring those in baseball, the military and community service; and the national anthem sung by Japanese Hispanic American Kurt Sanchez Kanazawa.

Donna Tsufura, cofounder of Japanese Americans and Japanese in America (JAJA) and one of the organizers of Friday’s event, has contacted groups like the JET Alumni Association of New York to recruit volunteers to help publicize, assist with and participate in this special night, including the ancestor-honoring Tanko Bushi dance itself in center field. Tsufura said that this helps to fulfill JETAA NY’s mission to increase the understanding and appreciation of Japan and its people in the U.S.

Read the complete story here.

By JQ Magazine’s Justin Tedaldi (CIR Kobe-shi, 2001-02) for Examiner.com. Visit his NY Japanese Culture page here to subscribe for free alerts on newly published stories.

Those who missed the original Off Broadway run of the critically acclaimed play Sake with the Haiku Geisha are in for a treat. As part of its annual national conference, the JET Alumni Association’s New York chapter, with support from the Consulate-General of Japan in New York, will revive the play for a one night only performance on Friday, Aug. 13 at Manhattan’s Tinker Auditorium.

Penned by playwright Randall David Cook and featuring a cast that includes Jun Kim of Kurotama Kikaku Company, the work was debuted by the Gotham Stage Company in 2006 as an outgrowth of Sushi and Scones, an earlier one-act play written by Cook for the UK’s Dawlish Arts Festival and later produced by BBC Radio.

“Ninety percent of the play is based on true stories, and many of the lines were taken verbatim from their subjects,” explained Cook. ”The most outrageous things I dared not dream up; they happened.”

Read the full story here.

By JQ Magazine’s Justin Tedaldi (CIR Kobe-shi, 2001-02) for Examiner.com. Visit his NY Japanese Culture page here to subscribe for free alerts on newly published stories.

Singer-songwriter Hikaru Utada is going from exodus to hiatus.

According to a message on her homepage from Aug. 9, Hikki (as she as known to her army of fans worldwide) has wrote that following the release of this fall’s Utada Hikaru Single Collection Vol. 2 album, she will take time off from her musical career effective next year.

The message finds the musician in a reflective mood, recalling the music video from her single “Automatic,” released 12 years ago when the singer was just 15 years old. She commented that since then, “part of my growth has stopped…as a person.” Hikki now intends to focus on “human activity” over “artistic activity” in the next year for an indeterminate period.

Read the full story here.

WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Writer/Interpreter/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.

Recent news coming out of Japan has surrounded unsettling discoveries regarding its elderly population.  Last week it was revealed that Tokyo’s oldest listed man, who if alive would have been 111 last month, likely died over 30 years ago.  According to a report on CNN this morning, currently the whereabouts of about 30 Japanese centenarians are unknown.  As discussed in this coverage from Bloomberg, “the disappearance of some of Japan’s oldest citizens is raising concern that some families are bilking the nation’s pension system even as others risk being deprived of payments for the same reason — poor record keeping.”   This was a big issue back in 2007 when Read More

Tom Baker (Chiba-ken, 1989-91) is a staff writer for The Daily Yomiuri. As another example of JET ROI, he is one of at least four former JETS to have been on the newspaper’s staff in recent years. He usually writes for DYWeekend, the arts and leisure section. You can follow Tom’s blog at tokyotombaker.wordpress.com.

Recently he interviewed two members of the cast of “The Last Airbender” movie during their promotional visit to Tokyo, asking them for their views on the “racebending” controversy surrounding their film. He also covered an insect show now running at a Tokyo museum, reviewed the manga “Otomen,” and weighed in on a couple of other movies now playing in Japan. Here are some excerpts:

“Last Airbender”

In the United States, some fans of the anime-style cartoon on which the movie is based have protested against the casting of Jackson Rathbone and Nicola Peltz, who are white, in roles the fans saw as Asian.

Asked to comment on that, Rathbone said: “I originally was a finalist for Prince Zuko [a Fire Nation role that went to Slumdog Millionaire star Dev Patel]. Almost a year later, I was brought back in for the character of Sokka…I think what they were really looking for was the qualities that people represent, not so much focusing on race…All these characters [in the cartoon] have so many different features, you can’t really say that they are one race…It’s a shame that people really focus on the race thing and they don’t understand that it’s a story for everyone.”

“And there are over 120 different types of people in the film,” Peltz added.

“In terms of a big-budget film, it’s the most ethnically diverse cast there’s ever been,” Rathbone agreed.

Read the rest of the interview here.

“Insects festival”

Open your window on a hot summer day and you may hear a sound that caught the ear of haiku poet Matsuo Basho in the 17th century: the voices of cicadas, seeping into the rocks. Of course, Japan today is a lot more urbanized than it was in Basho’s time, and cicadas are more likely to sing against a background of asphalt and cement. Yet year after year, the buzzing bugs never fail to show up, even in the heart of Tokyo.

Visitors to Insects Festival, an exhibition now running at the Edo-Tokyo Museum in Ryogoku, Tokyo, are reminded of such persistence right away with a display of six-legged critters that live in three different Tokyo zones: mountains, fields and downtown areas.

While city-dwellers often resent sharing space with the likes of cockroaches and ants, the emphasis of this show is on seasonal outdoor insects whose diverse shapes, bright colors and occasional songs actually enhance city life…

Read the rest of the article here, or visit the exhibition’s site here.

“Otomen”

Anyone writing a graduate thesis on the presentation of gender in Japanese pop culture will find abundant material in the manga series Otomen. Readers looking for laughs will also find what they seek in Otomen, but rather less abundantly.

The main characters are a trio of high school students, with the focus on Asuka (a boy who has a name more common for girls), who is in love with Ryo (a girl who has a name more common for boys). Their would-be romance is complicated by the constant presence of their friend Juta, who tries to play cupid, but is more often a third wheel.

Asuka is the captain of the school kendo team, and is admired by everyone as a “real man.” But he is secretly an “otomen,” a boy who is into girly things, such as cute stuffed animals and delicate pastries. He is at least as skilled at cooking and sewing as he is at sports, but he keeps that side of himself hidden. Ryo is Asuka’s mirror image in that she has been raised by her socially inept father to follow in his footsteps as a martial arts champion, but she strives to put up a feminine front at school. Juta has a secret, too, as he is actually a best-selling manga artist who is using the couple as a model for his stories…

Read the full review here.

Also playing…

You can read Tom’s review of “Inception” here, and his review of “Zombieland” here.

By JQ Magazine’s Justin Tedaldi (CIR Kobe-shi, 2001-02) for Examiner.com. Visit his NY Japanese Culture page here to subscribe for free alerts on newly published stories.

Since 1987, the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program has hired over 50,000 native English speakers to work at Japanese public schools, enriching ties between nations. Now, Tokyo’s new ruling political party has JET in its crosshairs in the wake of its effort to slash public spending to reduce its ballooning public debt. In a hearing last May, an 11-person panel of the Democratic Party of Japan ruled unanimously for a comprehensive examination of the program to decide whether it should be scaled back or cut entirely.

JET, an initiative of the Japanese government and run by three of its national ministries, has an annual budget of over $400 million. It was launched with the intentions of increasing grassroots internationalization in Japan, primarily through introducing foreigners to Japanese youth as schoolteachers across the country contracted for a minimum of one year. While the program does not require applicants to be licensed teachers (successful candidates team teach with the host school’s own native Japanese English instructor), they are expected to have an interest in Japan and a desire to integrate themselves in their new communities as cultural ambassadors.

Read the rest of the article here.

JQ knows you’re going to see Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, the summer’s coolest comic book movie, so why not get to know the the guy who started it all, cartoonist Bryan Lee O’Malley?  Their new “Hot Button” issue features an exclusive interview with Bryan, a recap of the new Samurai in New York museum exhibition, and the return of the JETAANY Society Page, plus more! Click here to view.

Additional contents below. Thanks to JQ Editor Justin Tedaldi (Kobe-shi CIR, 2001-02) for another sugoi issue. Contact Justin if you’d like to pitch or write a story for the next issue.

        CONTENTS

• Page 3……..From the Editor, Japan Local Government Center Executive Director
• Page 4……..Nippon News Blotter / Welcome Suzuki-san
• Page 5……..JETAANY Society Page by Goshippu Garu
• Page 6……..JETlog featuring Byron Nagy
• Page 6……..Samurai in New York Exhibition by Mark Brandstetter
• Page 7……..Bryan Lee O’Malley: The JQ Interview by Justin Tedaldi
• Page 8……..Nihonjin in New York featuring Noriko Hino by Stacy Smith
• Page 9……..Book Corner: Nintendo Magic by David Kowalsky
• Page 10……Nichibei Toastmasters by Pam Kavalam
• Page 11……The Funny Page
• Page 11……The Heiz Rocks On by Hugh Prysten

Wondering how JET alums give back to the community and make new connections with Japan after their work on the program is over? JQ Magazine Editor Justin Tedaldi (Kobe-shi CIR, 2001-02) has compiled a list of ten relevant articles from the past two years that exemplify the dedication of our members.

2010 May/June – Bruce Feiler interview (an author who’s probably the biggest “JET celebrity” out there. Wrote his first book about his JET experiences) by Justin Tedaldi

2010 January/February – Aaron Woolfolk interview (JET alum, first African American to direct a feature film in Japan) by Lyle Sylvander

2010 January/February – Peace Corps profile (talks with those who joined Peace Corps after the positive experience they had on JET) by Marea Pariser

2009 Fall – International Visitor Leadership Program interpreting (shows how JETs can become invaluable interpreters to continue grassroots internationalization at home) by Stacy Smith

2008 Summer – Ambassador Nishimiya interview (boosts visibility of new Japanese officials to our readers; demonstrates strong relationships between JETAA chapters and local government) by Anne Koller

2009 Spring – Hikaru Utada interview (probably the longest English-language interview with Utada out there. It was even translated into Japanese by a resourceful fan) by Justin Tedaldi

2009 Spring – JETAANY Author Showcase (names four notable JET alum authors and also stands as a unique event organized by JETAANY) by Gina Anderson and Justin Tedaldi

2009 Spring – President Sakurai of Japan Society interview (this piece examines JET’s relationship with non-profit cultural centers and  is included in Japan Society media kits) by Justin Tedaldi

2008 Fall – Anthony Bianchi interview (JET done good in Japan) by Michael Glazer

2008 Summer – George Rose interview (JET done good at home) by Stacy Smith

Comments are welcome. Spread the word!

By Justin Tedaldi, Editor (Kobe-shi CIR, 2001-02) for JQ Magazine. Portions of this interview were originally published on Examiner.com.

Award-winning bestselling author, journalist, and—in his own words—“professional traveler” Bruce Feiler (Tochigi-ken, 1987-88) has been a writing books for nearly 20 years, the most recent of which focused on social issues and religion. Bruce’s new book, The Council of Dads: My Daughters, My Illness, and the Men Who Could Be Me, was inspired by his diagnosis with cancer two years ago. Faced with an uncertain future and concerned about his family, he asked six of his peers to form a “Council of Dads” to help guide his young daughters through their lives. JQ spoke with Feiler about the start of his writing career, which began with 1991’s Learning to Bow, an account of his time living in Japan as an English teacher on the inaugural year of the JET Program, as well as his thoughts about the program today.

You’re now cancer-free. When did you receive this prognosis, and what was your treatment like?

I was first diagnosed in July 2008, and I had osteosarcoma, which is so rare that only one hundred adults a year get it. Twenty years ago they would have cut off my leg and hoped, since there was a fifteen percent survival rate. They determined that one cocktail of chemo could be effective, and I had that. I basically had four months of chemo, a 15-hour surgery to rebuild my leg, and then four more months of chemo. So, I’ve technically been cancer-free since my surgery when they cut the tumor out of my femur. I’ve been cancer-free now for about 15 months. I’m full of hope walking forward.

Read More

By Lyle Sylvander (Yokohama-shi, 2001-02) for JQ Magazine

Most JETs enjoy telling tales about the cities they lived in. But it’s a select few who take the extra step of making movies that actually take place in them. JETAA Southern California’s Aaron Woolfolk (Kochi-ken, 1992-93) is the writer and director of The Harimaya Bridge, which received a theatrical release in Japan last year and premiered in New York’s Upper West Side in December as part of the African Disapora Film Festival.

The film stars Ben Guillory as Daniel, an American man who travels from San Francisco to Kochi after his estranged son—who works as an assistant English teacher—Mickey (Victor Grant) dies in a traffic accident. There, Daniel’s own prejudices spark rows with his Japanese hosts and daughter-in-law Noriko (Saki Takaoka) as he discovers secrets his son left behind. The film will receive a wider release in the U.S. for spring 2010, and JQ talked with Aaron about the making of the film.

How did you get involved with JET?

During my senior year in college, I ran into a couple of friends who were on their way to pick up an application for the JET Program. I had nothing to do when I saw them, so I tagged along. I had never heard of the program before, but it definitely intrigued me. I had always wanted to experience another culture firsthand, and thought the best way to do that would be to live in that culture, rather than merely visiting it for a limited time.

Read More

By Marea Pariser (Kagoshima-ken, 2003-04) for JQ Magazine

What comes to mind when you think of the Peace Corps? Is it the image of young, daring humanitarians performing HIV/AIDS work across Africa? Or how about the ambitious environmentalist who flocks to third-world Latin America to build aqueducts in the locals’ backyards? Sure, we all know the stereotype—adventurous, somewhat-experienced travelers willing to spend two years out in the bush roughing it with the locals as a result of their passion to see the world and underlying desire to help others.

Perhaps we’ve thought about the opportunity for ourselves. And it’s likely that we all know at least one person who’s a current or returned Peace Corps volunteer. What probably doesn’t come to mind, though, regarding this nearly 50-year-old program—founded in 1961 by the Kennedy administration—is the image of native English speakers flying abroad to teach English as a second language to locals in over 70 countries where the Peace Corps has presence.

Sound familiar? It should.

Read More

 By Justin Tedaldi, Editor (Kobe-shi CIR, 2001-02) for JQ Magazine

 It was perfect timing. Back in January, Hikaru Utada, the New York-born recording phenomenon who before she was out of her teens notched three of Japan’s top ten bestselling albums (including Number One), was back in town working on a new album for the U.S., and JQ spent a full hour with Hikki to talk of many things, including her new disc This is the One, which hit stores in May.

I know you want to talk about the new album and the single.

The song…

I heard it about two and half weeks ago, as I think I was already on the e-mail list from when your last English album came out.

Oh, right, right, right.

So we go way back. Ten years ago I found out about First Love when I studying Japanese as an undergraduate…

Oh, wow.

It’s amazing to be here now talking about it.

I’m humbled [laughs]. Read More

By Michael Glazer (Chiba-ken, 1995-97) for the JETAANY Newsletter 

Bensonhurst, Brooklyn native Anthony Bianchi (Aichi-ken, 1987-91), the first-ever North American to hold an elected position in Japan, is still going strong in his role as a city councilman in Inuyama-shi, Aichi-ken. Michael Glazer (Chiba-ken, 1995-97) recently did a recorded interview with Anthony to discuss the hot local topics, learn more about politics in Japan and get a sense of how things look across the pond. 

You have a very interesting background. How does a JET program teacher become a city council member? 

Well, I’ll try to make the story as short as possible. I studied filmmaking at New York University and I was interested in Kurasawa films and whatnot, and I was out in L.A. for a while. I came back to New York. I was working for New York City and I saw an ad in the paper about the Expo that was held in Gifu about 20 years ago. So I went over to Japan on a homestay program and decided it would be nice to try to live there for a year or so. I joined the JET pro­gram, stayed for a couple years, and decided I wanted to stay longer. 

Read More

Tom Baker (Chiba-ken, 1989-91) is a staff writer for The Daily Yomiuri. He usually writes for DYWeekend, the paper’s arts and leisure section. You can follow Tom’s blog at tokyotombaker.wordpress.com.

Recently he reviewed movies, “Crazy Heart” and “Brothers.” He found poetry in both of them. Here are some excerpts:

“Crazy Heart”

Country music singer-songwriter Bad Blake (Jeff Bridges) smokes like a chimney, drinks like a fish, sweats like a pig, and urinates into a plastic jug while driving from town to town. As I watched him perform under hot lights at a variety of small and unglamorous venues in the movie Crazy Heart, I could almost smell him. He didn’t smell very nice.

…

On the bright side, Bad’s personal problems are grist for the mill. One of his most popular songs looks back on a dissipated life with the refrain, “Funny how fallin’ feels like flyin’/for a little while.”

Anyone who doubts that country music is the primary home of modern American poetry should meditate on that line. “Funny how fallin’ feels like flyin’” is alliterative and catchy, but also trenchant. And Bad has flown and fallen quite a way…

Read the rest of the review here.

“Brothers”

In William Shakespeare’s play about his life, King Richard II is forced to surrender his crown to his usurper cousin Henry IV. In doing so, Richard compares himself and Henry to two buckets in a well: “The emptier ever dancing in the air,/The other down, unseen and full of water:/That bucket down and full of tears am I,/Drinking my griefs while you mount up on high.”

The title characters in Brothers, although they dwell in an American suburb rather than an English castle, are not unlike the tragic royal cousins.

Sam (Tobey Maguire) is an upstanding husband, father and U.S. marine who is about to be separated from his family for a tour of duty in Afghanistan. On the eve of Sam’s departure, his surly brother Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal), a ne’er-do-well with a drinking problem, rejoins the extended family after a stint in prison…

Read the rest of the review here.

Laura Popp (Mie-ken, 2009-Present) is a current JET who writes fantasy and science fiction for children and young adults, and is an occasional playwright/film maker.  Her short work includes a short story titled “In theShadow Realm” and a documentary she made in Malawi.  To read about her amazing adventures all over Japan, go to her blog at laurajanepopp.blogspot.com.

Here is a practical list of organizations, market guides, and networking opportunities for jump starting your writing career.  My apologies that it is heavy on the America and Speculative Fiction side, but that is who I am and what I write, so that is what I know best.  But hopefully everyone can find something useful from this list:

Read More

WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Writer/Interpreter/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.

I was very excited to hear from one of my closest college friends that her husband would be having a business trip in Japan.  Not only was I happy for him, a fellow classmate as well, to be able experience Japan, but also because of his line of work.  Pictured at right, Jonathan Mooney grew up with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and dyslexia and didn’t learn to read until he was 12.  However, he is now an amazing author and public speaker.  He has his own non-profit based in California and often travels both domestically and internationally to share his experiences and help children like himself and their families.

Jon has spoken in China before, but this was his first time going to Japan upon the invitation of a professor from Osaka.  He will be giving a presentation in Read More

***********************************************************************************

WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Writer/Interpreter/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.

This morning’s news was buzzing with the announcement that Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama will be stepping down from his position.  This makes him the fourth PM in four years to quit, a statistic that will likely lead to some self-reflection in Japan.  The 2 main reasons cited for his resignation were 1) 普天間問題 (Futenma mondai or the fate of the Futenma Marine Corps Air base on Okinawa) and 2) 政府と金  (seifu to kane or government and money, the investigations being carried out regarding Hatoyama’s political financing).

As for the former, Hatoyama directly apologized to Okinawans for his waffling on the matter and the loss of faith he had caused as a result.  When on the street interviews were conducted with Okinawa residents, the response was largely one of disappointment and regret that Hatoyama was cutting and running.  In terms of the latter, Hatoyama pledged to “return to a DPJ that separates government and money and to deal with the issue properly.”

The title of this post  is 鳩山おろし (Hatoyama oroshi or “Down with Hatoyama”), referring to Read More

WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Writer/Interpreter/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.

The Japanese government is currently undertaking 事業仕分け (jigyo shiwake), budget screening or review and prioritization of government projects.  This has become a buzzword since the DPJ came into office promising to eliminate wasteful government spending.  The party sees this reassessment method as a potentially powerful way to chop budgets.  It is being carried out to the point where no one knows where the ax will fall next.

In fact, the group I am currently interpreting for is here in the U.S. for a year through a program carried out by Japan’s National Personnel Authority and supported by the State Department.  They are representatives of a variety of Ministries and will spend their time researching and producing papers on topics relating to their respective fields, with the hopes of applying this knowledge when they return home.  However, they are concerned that due to jigyo shiwake there might not be a group to succeed them next year.

I recently received news from a friend at the Japan Local Government Center, the New York branch of the Council for Local Authority on International Relations (CLAIR), one of the sponsors of the JET program.  He told me that Read More

**************

Laura Popp (Mie-ken, 2009-Present) is a current JET who writes fantasy and science fiction for children and young adults, and is an occasional playwright/film maker.  Her short work includes a short story titled “In theShadow Realm” and a documentary she made in Malawi.  To read about her amazing adventures all over Japan, go to her blog at laurajanepopp.blogspot.com. (And check out the Authors/Books section of the JetWit Library for a list of more writers in the JET-o-sphere.)

Tired of submitting queries to agents and editors and simply getting form rejection letters or worse, NO RESPONSE?  Wondering if they`re even bothering to read your stuff?  Frustrated by wanting to submit to publishing houses that only receive submissions from agents and “referred” writers? Consider meeting publishers and agents at a conference!

Recently I returned from a writers` conference in my home in Oklahoma and came back with some great success stories to tell.  Even better than the wonderful presentations on writing, polishing and marketing were the opportunities for networking and industry contacts. One literary agent asked me for the first fifty pages of my middle grade novel Dargon, another agent requested a proposal for my young adult novel Treasure Traitor, and a publisher from Simon and Shuster asked to see the full manuscripts of BOTH. A travel publisher also requested a proposal for a non-fiction travel-essay book on Japan, and best of all, a Christian magazine publisher accepted one of my stories on the spot! Of course, most of these are just birds in the bush, if you will, but they are certainly a good start.

So how did you do it? you may be wondering. Well, let me tell you…

Do your homework

Many conferences post information about editors and agents who will be attending in advance. Research them and pick the ones that look like they may be interested in your completed fiction projects or non-fiction ideas. Note that most agents and publishers will ONLY consider finished fiction works and proposals for non-fiction articles and books.

Try to make an appointment

If you have the option to make an appointment, Read More

Tom Baker (Chiba-ken, 1989-91) is a staff writer for The Daily Yomiuri. He usually writes for DYWeekend, the paper’s arts and leisure section. You can follow Tom’s blog at tokyotombaker.wordpress.com.

He recently interviewed Shane Acker, director of the animated film “9” and Richard Kelly, who most recently directed “The Box,” a thriller starring Cameron Diaz. He also reviewed the manga “Hot Gimmick.” Here are some excerpts:

Shane Acker

[The characters in the movie are all animated dolls with numbers instead of names.]　A different personality aspect is dominant in each one. Rigid orthodoxy is represented by leader 1 (voiced by Christopher Plummer), creativity by inventor 2 (Martin Landau), bravery by warrior 7 (Jennifer Connelly) and so on. Elijah Wood does the voice of 9, the truth-seeker of the group, and John C. Reilly voices his timid friend, 5…

The most amusing character is 8 (Fred Tatasciore), who embodies sheer physicality. In one scene, he achieves a moment of strange bliss by stroking his head with a large magnet, an activity that Acker called “degaussing himself.”

“In film school, especially in the days of video, if you had a videotape and you wanted to just wipe it clean, there’s a degaussing machine, which is basically like a supermagnet, and you would wave the videotape over the degausser and it would just take off all the footage that’s on there,” Acker explained. “So that’s the kind of idea, he’s sort of wiping his memory banks. You realize why he’s so dumb.”

Read the full article here.

Richard Kelly

Imagine that a mysterious stranger has just handed you a wooden box with a red button on top. He explains, rather convincingly, that if you push the button two things will happen: Someone whom you don’t know will die, and you will receive a payment of 1 million dollars…

In writer-director Richard Kelly’s movie The Box, based on a short story by Richard Matheson, the stranger’s name is Arlington Steward (Frank Langella), and he is conducting a high-stakes social experiment by visiting the homes of middle-class American couples and offering them the choice of pushing the button or not.

“Tonally this movie crosses a lot of genres,” Kelly, who previously wrote and directed Donnie Darko (2001) and Southland Tales (2006), told The Daily Yomiuri in a recent phone interview. “It’s a science fiction film, it’s a domestic melodrama, it’s a suspense film, there’s elements of horror in it, and there’s also some black comedy inherent…The conceit of pushing this button on this contraption and someone you don’t know dying is very mischievous. Anyone who would build this contraption and make this offer is smirking when they do it. And Matheson was smirking, I’m sure, when he wrote this short story.”

…[The story is set in the 1970s because] the mysterious stranger is a character type whose day has passed, according to Kelly. “When I set out to write this screenplay, I initially was trying to figure out how to make it work present-day, but when you introduce modern technology and the Internet, social networking sites, Google maps, satellite maps, reality TV, just our media-saturated world that we live in…there is no such thing as a real stranger anymore. Everyone can be found on the Internet. You can find anyone’s house, you can go onto a satellite map with a 360-degree view.”

Read the full article here.

“Hot Gimmick”

[In this manga, a high school girl’s seriously unhealthy relationships with her would-be boyfriends is presented as perfectly normal.]

For example, the day after one of her suitors is unable to reach her by phone (for reasons that are no one’s fault), he slaps her across the face so hard that bystanders rush to offer first aid. But Hatsumi chases after him to make the following speech, which he receives in stony silence: “I’m sorry. For being so clueless. For…never being able to get your calls…I’m so sorry. I’m really sorry. For not understanding how you feel about me. I’m sorry.”

Later, when one of the boys proposes to her, she thinks, “Maybe if we got married, he’d finally be nice to me.”

She seems unaware of some basic principles of healthy human interaction, such as this simple standard: If a friend arranges for you to be gang-raped, that person is not really your friend.

Read the full review here.

The film Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo explores the history and mystery of the development of Japan’s love affair with bugs, underscoring ancient philosophies that will shift Westerners’ perspectives. JQ Magazine’s Justin Tedaldi (CIR Kobe-shi, 2001-02) talked with producer/writer/director Jessica Oreck on the eve of the film’s New York premiere for Examiner.com. Visit his NY Japanese Culture page here to subscribe for free alerts on newly published stories.

Would you describe this film as a documentary, or something else?
I try not to label films too methodically. Some of my favorite “narrative” films are not “documentary” but certainly seem more honest than films based on facts. So I guess I’ll just keep it simple and call it a movie.

Have you always had an interest in insects and Japan? What made you want to go there to capture these images personally?
I have loved insects since I was a little girl, so when I stumbled onto the Japanese enthusiasm for the same ostracized order, it felt like it was meant to be. I studied filmmaking, biology and ecology in university; I knew I wanted to make films about ethnobiology, so this was the perfect film with which to start.

The Japanese concept of mono no aware (which describes the awareness in the transience of things) is invoked early on in the film. Was this the original thesis before filming, or did this thread to traditional concepts develop later in the process?
I did extensive research before traveling to Japan, and I laid out a 17-page essay that included pieces of Japanese history and philosophy I hoped to incorporate into the film. Mono no aware was just one of the many ideas that were intricately tied together within the architecture of the film as I initially envisioned it. I knew it would be part of the film’s foundation, but as the editing process progressed and I continued to refine the essay and skim off outer details, the concept of mono no aware became more and more pronounced. In this way, editing the footage and writing and editing the narration was a very organic process.

Were there any older Japanese-made films tackling this subject that you watched for reference?
As far as I know there are no other films that address this subject in particular. There are some fantastic Japanese films that have a lot of bugs in them—one of my favorites being Woman in the Dunes. But I think the Japanese film that I watched most often while making Beetle Queen was Kon Ichikawa’s Tokyo Olympiad. That movie is infinitely perfect to me.

Several scenes in the film depict Japanese children’s love of insects. Were the ones you filmed typical of that kind of interest, or were they more passionate than most about this? How would you define Japanese kids’ relationship with the insect world compared to American kids’?
A Japanese child’s relation to insects isn’t that different from an American’s child connection—if you catch them young enough. Most young children don’t have an innate fear of bugs (from my experience watching thousands of them pass through the butterfly vivarium at the American Museum of Natural History). It isn’t until they see dad flinch or mom scream that they learn disgust or fear. What’s different with a Japanese child is that they are encouraged to explore the insect world. They keep them as pets, their dads take them on insect collecting trips, and they travel halfway across the country to watch the fireflies emerge at dusk. I am generalizing, of course, but the phenomenon is, by and large, quite widespread.

In comparison, I believe that a Westerner’s view of the natural world is, in part, dictated by the cultural heritage of what I call the Judeo-Christian syndrome, through which we see the world as a linear chain of progress that culminates in the human form and bestows the power of control to the animals with the least sense of balance. However, I think an individual’s understanding of the natural world is still mostly directly absorbed through the behavior of the people they admire, and that that is why this connection to insects continues to thrive in Japanese culture.

The author and anatomist Dr. Takeshi Yoro is the only person interviewed on-camera for this film. How did you discover him, and were there any other experts or authorities whom you considered speaking with?
Dr. Yoro is a famous guy in Japan, so everywhere we went people asked if we had plans to interview him. Eventually we just decided to call him and, miraculously, he said he would be happy to be interviewed. It was never my intent to have talking heads, but so many of the things that Dr. Yoro said felt like pure poetry—he ended up being the key to some of my favorite parts in the movie.

Generally, what kind of support did you receive from the Japanese people you worked with and filmed? What was their reaction to an American filmmaker exploring what seems to be a uniquely Japanese interest?
Everyone was happy to have us, though they were often confused about why we were making this film. We got a lot of, “What? They don’t sell beetles in America?”

What should more Americans be aware of with respect to the insect world?
Well, I hate to limit the film’s impact to the insect world. To me, the film is about much more than bugs. I have had the opportunity to observe a myriad of reactions. Plenty of people have been surprised by the loss of their fear, or by newfound knowledge, or a novel appreciation for beauty in unanticipated facets of their life. But my favorite story is of a World War II veteran who approached me after a screening of Beetle Queen. He said something to the effect of, “For fifty years I have thought of the Japanese as my enemy. And in the past hour and a half, you have changed that.”

Are there any plans to screen the film in Japan?
Not yet! But we are always looking for opportunities!

Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo runs from May 12-18 at New York’s Film Forum, with Jessica appearing at screenings on May 12, 14 and 16. Visit www.beetlequeen.com for more info, and sign up for the mailing list at info@beetlequeen.com.

Tom Baker (Chiba-ken, 1989-91) is a staff writer for The Daily Yomiuri. He usually writes for DYWeekend, the paper’s arts and leisure section. You can follow Tom’s blog at tokyotombaker.wordpress.com.

His two latest articles are movie reviews, one of “The Wolfman,” and one that discusses “Moon” and “Shutter Island” together. Here are some excerpts:

THE WOLFMAN

In most werewolf movies nowadays, it is standard to show a person’s nose and jaw elongating into a snaggletoothed lupine muzzle when they transform from human to wolf. [Makeup artist Rick] Baker has done that before, but in this film he pays homage to Lon Chaney Jr.’s furry but still humanoid look in the 1941 film The Wolf Man, on which the new film is based. Then and now, the title monster has modest fangs, a woolly forehead, a beard that goes up to his eyes and a nose that darkens at the tip.

Our first glimpse of Baker’s version of this classic face is literally over in a flash, as we see it illuminated by a pistol shot during a nocturnal battle. (In case you missed it the first time, the scene repeats a moment later, with a larger gun.) Later scenes reveal the monster’s face at greater length.

Read the full review here.

MOON and SHUTTER ISLAND

Teddy Daniels and Sam Bell are men who love their wives. They are also the respective protagonists of two new movies, Shutter Island and Moon, that take us far enough inside the characters’ heads to see each man passionately embracing his wife in a dream.

But when Teddy awakes, he finds himself trapped on his movie’s titular island, unhappily remembering that his wife has been dead for years. And when Sam awakes, he finds himself trapped on his movie’s titular heavenly body, unhappily remembering that his wife is on Earth, and he has not seen her for many months.

Teddy (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a U.S. marshall investigating the disappearance of an inmate from a prison hospital for the criminally insane on Shutter Island, Mass., in the 1950s. Sam (Sam Rockwell) is the solitary human staffer of a mining facility on the dark side of the moon, possibly in the 2050s.

The settings are very different, but both are ominous, isolated places in which intense psychological drama will unfold. In both movies, the protagonists have high-stakes confrontations with themselves, and with the powers that be.

Read the rest of the review here. The review is deliberately spoiler-free, but you can read Tom’s further comments about the endings of “Moon” here and “Shutter Island” here.

*************

Laura is a current JET who writes fantasy and science fiction for children and young adults, and is an occasional playwright/film maker.

Namaskaram! Greetings from India! Ever consider volunteering abroad? With all our JET paid vacation time, there`s lots of opportunities. It looks great on your resume, and it’s a sure way to give you inspiration for your writing! Why stick to the touristy spots you can read about? You can get a feel for “the real thing” by helping out in the rural villages and slums, and see a part of the world you might never see otherwise.

I definitely just got a feel for the “real India” after spending ten days in Andhra Pradesh building houses and teaching the children of Dalits (untouchables) with five other English teachers through Longitude International. What an amazing experience! The moment we entered Chuvuru village we were greeted by drums and dancing. The people welcomed us into their homes and there seemed no end to the smiles, laughter, and chai tea! 

We spent our mornings helping build new cement houses that would stand the tempest of the fall monsoons, and our evenings teaching and playing with the children. In the beginning they were shy and called me “madam,” but within a few hours they completely opened up and called me “sister.” “Sister, one more song, one more photo, one more dance!” Boy, did they love to dance! We taught them the hokey pokey, the Macarena, head-shoulders-knees-and-toes, everything we could think of, and in return they showed us their “Bollywood moves.” They also loved my fife and recorder. Whenever I brought them out, they instantly began shouting requests.

During a game of “let`s travel,” one of the kids asked me, “Your village?” I didn`t know how to respond. Temple, Texas, where I was born? Owasso or Tulsa Oklahoma where I was raised and went to school? Nabari, Japan, where I live now? Malawi, Africa, where I left a huge part of my heart with the AIDS orphans? Or right there in Chuvuru where I felt so at home? 

It was a bit of an identity crisis. I asked myself if I really “belong” anywhere. For weeks I`ve been nervous about my upcoming visit back to the States and wondering if it has “changed,” or more importantly, if I`ve changed. Will I feel “at home” in the place my friends and family consider to be my “home?” 

After puzzling over it I came to a rather relieving, though somewhat clichéd conclusion. The world is my village. Perhaps that sounds cheesy, but I really think so. Not that I would be welcome let alone feel comfortable anywhere in the world, but I think wherever I do go where there are welcoming hearts and warm smiles, that place will be my home, my village for as long as I am there. And the villagers of India really are so welcoming, so loving that you feel like one of them from the very beginning. There is no insider/outsider. Only friend and family.

Of course, the trip wasn`t all fuzzy feelings. It was very difficult to see how some of the people suffered. Thirty years ago in a nearby village, the government gave the Dalits land to farm, but are now taking it back. This forces the villagers to migrate long distances through dangerous roads or hire themselves out as domestic servants where they are physically and sexually abused. Disease is still a major problem, claiming many lives.   

So a lot of people have asked me, why did you bother going to India? There`s not much you can do to help anyway; why not just send money? Sending money is great, but if I`m traveling anyway, I might as well make a difference as I do and experience the “real world.” I can already tell you, those kids and that place are already showing up in my fiction!   

We were the first volunteer group to visit Chuvuru, but this is only the beginning of their brighter future. Hopefully many more teams will come to help build and teach, continuing the cause of awareness, human rights, and global friendship. Who knows, maybe you`re next? If you`re interested in learning more about longitude and their work, you can visit their website at http://www.golongitude.org/. 

For more details, pictures, and videos about Laura`s adventures in Asia, visit her weekly blog at laurajanepopp.blogspot.com.

Tom Baker (Chiba-ken, 1989-91) is a staff writer for The Daily Yomiuri. He usually writes for DYWeekend, the paper’s arts and leisure section. You can follow Tom’s blog at tokyotombaker.wordpress.com.

Recently he interviewed two notable figures from the world of science fiction: novelist Charles Stross, the Hugo Award-winning (and Seiun Award-nominated) author best known for his “Merchant Princes” series, and actor Sharlto Copley, who plays the lead role in the movie “District 9.” Stross in now in Japan to attend the newly launched Hal-Con science fiction convention in Saitama, while Copley was there to promote his film, which just opened in the country. Here are some excerpts:

CHARLES STROSS:

Stross has also written “hard” science fiction, such as his novels Saturn’s Children and Accelerando, which imagine technologically advanced futures in deep detail. Readers of those books may notice a sprinkling of Japanese vocabulary, such as “bishojo,” “chibi” and “kawaii.”

“There were particular reasons for wanting to use it [Japanese vocabulary],” Stross explained. “One issue is globalization of culture. Japan is unusual in that it’s one of the few societies other than North-American-stroke-Anglosphere ones successfully exporting its culture globally. You will find Hello Kitty in shops in the U.K., you will find her in Germany, you will find her all over the world. There’s far less in the way of, for example, German cultural exports. So if you’re going to portray a near future, it is one that is going to be Japanese-influenced to a greater or lesser extent.”

Saturn’s Children is about a robot created to serve humans who must get on with her life in a universe where humans have gone extinct. She’s one of a long line of nearly identical “sibs” who sometimes share their memory chips with each other, blurring distinctions between the individual and the group…

Read the rest of Tom’s interview with Stross here. (And read his review of Saturn’s Children here.)

SHARLTO COPLEY:

As Wikus [Copley's character] works for a heavily armed private company called MNU, another big issue in District 9 is the movement of military power into the hands of corporations, a phenomenon that has been prominent in recent world news due to the involvement of U.S. contractors such as Blackwater in the war in Iraq. In the movie, MNU is portrayed as a menace, which made Copley’s comment on the topic a bit of a surprise.

“That started with Neill’s fascination with [a South African military contractor called] Executive Outcomes,” Copley said. “That’s actually the start of modern-day privatization, when the South African government changed, and you had incredibly high-level professional soldiers…that had nowhere to go. They weren’t going to work for the new government, and they formed a private military company that went and sorted out various conflicts in Africa–and did amazingly well, actually. It was very controversial, but you couldn’t argue that when 50 guys went in and solved a problem that the United Nations couldn’t with 5,000, that there was definitely something to be said for that.”

Read the rest of Tom’s interview with Copley here.

WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Writer/Interpreter/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.

The other night I had the pleasure of meeting the author Jake Adelstein (pictured here on the Daily Show) who wrote the sensational book Tokyo Vice, the story of his time as a crime reporter in Japan.  This absorbing memoir traces his path from Sophia University student to full-time reporter at the newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun, a notable feat for a foreigner.  He spent 12 years covering the underbelly of Japan, and as expected the bulk of his talk concentrated on the yakuza.

He discussed how this Japanese mafia is known as a second police force, or a necessary evil (必要な悪 or hitsuyou na aku). As tracked by the police they number Read More

WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Writer/Interpreter/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.

Whereas here in the States today we celebrate April Fool’s Day, April 1st in Japan is a beginning.  It is the start of the new fiscal and school years, and the blooming and subsequent falling of the cherry blossoms serves as a way to mark this transition.  This morning’s news outlined several changes that will be taking place in accordance with the new year, but whether they will make life in Japan easier or harder remains to be seen.

• The child allowance law giving parents 13,000 yen per child per month goes into effect today, fulfilling one of the DPJ’s key campaign pledges.  It differs from Read More

**********************************************************************

WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Writer/Interpreter/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.

We are rapidly coming up on the deadline for the 国勢調査 (kokusei chousa) or national census, so I hope everyone has already filled in and returned their forms.  Every morning during the Japanese news there are advertisements running in Japanese advocating participation in the census as one’s civic duty.  Also, I have come across some interesting Japanese language print ads that I would like to share.

The one on the right shows Read More

WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Writer/Interpreter/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.

The Wall Street Journal had some interesting Japan coverage this week.  One article from earlier in the week discusses tactics being employed to get the Japanese populace turned on to fish again, as its popularity has declined due to factors such as smell, price and preparation.  It has gotten to the point where fishery officials have started sending instructors to schools in order to teach children how to eat fish with chopsticks, and fish is being promoted in pop culture by characters such as Sakana-kun (on right saying “Let’s eat delicious fish with Sakana-kun!”). 

Another article focuses on Japanese-Americans who were interned during WWII, and how they got through this ordeal by forming swing bands.  This legacy is being preserved through a tribute band called Minidoka Swing Band, with members who were internees as well as others who have no ties to the camps (check out the video, they’re talented!).

Speaking of the internment, this weekend was the 3rd annual New York Peace Film Festival which featured Read More

Tom Baker (Chiba-ken, 1989-91) is a staff writer for The Daily Yomiuri. He usually writes for DYWeekend, the paper’s arts and leisure section. You can follow Tom’s blog at tokyotombaker.wordpress.com.

Last Friday he had two movie articles in the paper: a review of “Sherlock Holmes,” which you can read here, and an interview with martial artist Jon Foo, who stars in a new movie based on the “Tekken” series of video games. Here is an excerpt:

“My mom, she does judo, and my dad did karate, so I learned a lot from them growing up,” Foo told The Daily Yomiuri in an interview in Tokyo last week. “My mom used to do throws; tomoenage was her favorite. She’d pick me up, kick me in the air and I landed on the bed. And I’d do conditioning. And then I moved on to kung fu, tae kwon do, Muay Thai. Just take the best from each and mix it [considering] whatever suits my body, and I’ll take that and I’ll use that to perform to my best.”

Foo, 27, has had supporting roles in action movies in several countries, but Tekken puts him in the lead for the first time.

He plays Jin Kazama, a young man who makes a living as a fleet-footed courier in a postapocalyptic world ruled by corporations, one of which is Tekken (a name that translates as “iron fist”)…

…Tekken’s top boss, Heihachi Mishima, is an elderly man–but a mean fighter–whose shiny bald dome is framed by an erect ruff of gray hair that looks like a set of tail fins from a 1950s Cadillac. The hair and makeup people did a hilarious job of replicating this look on actor Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, but they were more restrained when it came to just hinting at Jin’s swept-back hairstyle with Foo. We’re probably meant to laugh at some parts of this film, but Jin has to hold the audience’s sympathy.

Read the rest of the article here.

Roland Kelts (Osaka-shi, 1998-99), author of Japanamerica, has published his latest SOFT POWER/HARD TRUTHS column for The Daily Yomiuri–this one about last month’s sentencing of American Chris Handley for possession of ‘obscene manga’ in Iowa–and this month’s proposal by the Tokyo Government to censor ‘virtual porn’ (read: manga and anime) in Japan.

Is this another example of ‘gaitsu‘–Japan being affected by foreign pressure?

Column is here:  http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/arts/20100319TDY11101.htm

Robert Schroeder (Shizuoka, ’92-’93), a JET alum and journalist based in Maryland, has released a book he co-wrote called Rock & Roll Jihad: A Muslim Rock Star’s Revolution (Free Press/Simon & Schuster).  After Schroeder wrote a piece in The Wall Street Journal profiling the Pakistani musician in 2007, the star asked him to be his writing assistant on his memoir.  And now, just a few months after publication, the book has already garnered high praise, both from celebrities like physician Deepak Chopra and Amazon readers.

The memoir follows the life of Salman Ahmad — founder of the “U2 of Asia” Sufi-rock band Junoon, a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador, and teacher of South Asian poetry — who is now credited as the first musician to bridge the gap between the West and the Muslim world.  He brought chart-topping rock & roll riffs to new ears in his home country of Pakistan, but also reined in listeners from around the world, including those at the UN General Assembly and the Nobel Peace Prize concert.

Ahmad, with the writing assistance of Schroeder, chronicle the cultural and political intricacies of navigating the politically tense Middle East, along with the post-9/11 world as a whole, as he continues to educate through music the true diversity of the Islamic faith and its art to the rest of the globe.

Schroder himself is not new to crossing national borders.  A former NHK producer and now reporter at Marketwatch, he has contributed pieces about Japan in numerous American periodicals, including a review in The Washington Post of a Virginia inn with Japanese style ofuro baths and traditional breakfasts.  Another first-person piece in The New York Times Magazine recounts the shock of eating whale sashimi in Ayukawa.  To read more of his pieces, click here.

To preview the first few pages of the book, read here.

Tom Baker (Chiba-ken, 1989-91) is a staff writer for The Daily Yomiuri. A big part of his beat is the Pop Culture page, which covers manga, anime and video games. You can follow Tom’s blog at tokyotombaker.wordpress.com.

He also writes movie reviews. Here is an excerpt from a recent review of “I Love You Phillip Morris,” in which Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor play Steven and Phillip, the lead characters in a gay romantic-comedy/prison-break film that is based on a true story. It opens March 17 in Britain and April 30 in the United States, but is already playing in Japan.

McGregor’s sweet and naive Phillip is totally believable. Harmlessly meek and far too trusting, yet somehow uttering the lion’s share of the laugh lines, he makes you want to protect him, which is also how Steven feels. “You only see the good in people,” marvels Steven, whose own outlook is far more cynical.

Carrey, who does appear in good movies now and then, is not always as believable in his role, but this is appropriate since he plays a chronic fake who is always trying on new identities and tells lies to everyone he meets. Late in the movie, when Steven tries to prove his love by revealing his true self to Phillip, he can’t really do it.

Steven is a criminal who went to prison because he belonged there. But his scams are amusing because his wealthy victims are entertainingly depicted (fairly or not) as crude, pompous fools. And his various prison escapes are amazing. In one, he uses felt-tip markers and toilet water to dye his prison uniform green, enabling him to walk right out in the guise of a visiting doctor…

Read the rest of the article here.

WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Writer/Interpreter/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.

There is a bit of a controversy brewing over implementation of one aspect of the DPJ’s Manifesto.  This is the proposal of free tuition for high schools currently being debated in the Diet.  Students have to pay to attend high school as Japanese education is only compulsory through junior high.  The question here is whether North Korean schools in Japan (of which there are 10 and where about 2,000 students of both North Korean and South Korean nationality are enrolled) should be similarly subsidized considering that Japan imposes economic sanctions on North Korea and in light of the yet unresolved abduction issue.

PM Hatoyama is waffling on this issue, with him initially Read More

Tom Baker (Chiba-ken, 1989-91) is a staff writer for The Daily Yomiuri. A big part of his beat is the Pop Culture page, which covers manga, anime and video games.  You can follow Tom’s blog at tokyotombaker.wordpress.com.

He also writes about food. Here is a recent article about a food science exhibition currently running at Tokyo’s Miraikan museum. The latter half of the story focuses in on the scientific-culinary concept of umami, often called the“fifth taste”:

How many calories are there in a 500-milliliter bottle of a zero-calorie soft drink? If you guessed zero, you might be right. But the correct answer could be as high as 24. This is one of the many fun facts visitors can learn at “It’s a Tasty World–Food Science Now,” an exhibition running through March 22 at the Miraikan science museum in Odaiba, Tokyo. Under Japanese law, according to a display debunking food myths at the show, a drink is “zero calorie” as long as it has less than five calories per 100 milliliters. (A note on vocabulary: A “calorie” and a “kilocalorie” are the same thing.)

Other displays include sniffable containers of food scents, which you can mix to create new aromas; videos of food processing factories, where plump onions comically pirouette on industrial peelers; and a glowing green tank of euglena, a photosynthetic microorganism seen as a promising future food source. Too bad its Japanese name, midori mushi–green bug–isn’t exactly appetizing….

Read the rest of the article here.

Tom Baker (Chiba-ken, 1989-91) is a staff writer for The Daily Yomiuri. A big part of his beat is the Pop Culture page, which covers manga, anime and video games.  You can follow Tom’s blog at tokyotombaker.wordpress.com.

He also writes about movies. Here is his interview with stop-motion animator Henry Selick, whose film “Coraline” is a nominee for best animated feature in the Academy Awards to be presented on March 7:

When the nominees for best animated feature film are read out at the Academy Awards ceremony in Hollywood next month, there will be one computer-graphic animated film (Up), two traditional 2-D animated films (The Princess and the Frog and The Secret of Kells) and two stop-motion films (Fantastic Mr. Fox and Coraline).

“I feel very lucky to have lived long enough to still be making films in this era,” Coraline director Henry Selick told The Daily Yomiuri in Tokyo last week. His two previous features, Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and James and the Giant Peach (1996) came out before the Oscars introduced an animated feature category in 2001.

Coraline has already won several other prizes, including an Annie animation award for Japanese production designer Tadahiro Uesugi.

Coraline, based on a novel by Neil Gaiman, is the story of a young girl who discovers a secret passage to an alternate universe where all the things that annoy her in the real world have been changed. But like a gingerbread house in a fairy tale, this seemingly delightful place turns out to be a trap from which she must escape.

Read the rest of the article here.

Tom Baker (Chiba-ken, 1989-91) is a staff writer for The Daily Yomiuri. A big part of his beat is the Pop Culture page, which covers manga, anime and video games.  You can follow Tom’s blog at tokyotombaker.wordpress.com.

Here is his latest video game review, of “Uncharted” and “Uncharted 2” which Sony recently released as a box set in Japan:

My pal Nate is such a great guy that he keeps hanging out with me despite the fact that I’ve gotten him killed hundreds of times, usually by explosions, gunfire or plunges from cliffs. It’s a good thing he’s made out of pixels, or this relationship would be a lot harder on both of us.

Digital though he may be, Nathan Drake, the lead character in the Sony PlayStation 3 video games Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (2007) and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (2009), is so lifelike and likeable that it is not unusual for players to think of him as someone who really exists.

The two games, re-released Feb. 18 as a 7,980 yen box set, are swashbuckling adventures from the Indiana Jones school in which our hero and a few friends hunt for treasure in exotic locales while fighting off gangsters and pirates who are also after the loot. And also as in Jones’ world, events take a paranormal turn once the treasure is uncovered…

Read the rest of the review here.

Tom Baker (Chiba-ken, 1989-91) is a staff writer for The Daily Yomiuri. A big part of his beat is the Pop Culture page, which covers manga, anime and video games.  You can follow Tom’s blog at tokyotombaker.wordpress.com.

Here is his latest manga review, of Ooku by Fumi Yoshinaga:

With its shrinking population, chronically depressed birthrate and rising average age, Japan is fated for major social changes in the fairly near future. How that will play out remains to be seen, but Fumi Yoshinaga’s manga series Ooku: The Inner Chamber is an example of how popular art can tap into real-world social anxieties.

Ooku is set in an alternate-history Japan that also faces a demographic crisis, but of a different type. In the 1630s, a mysterious epidemic called Redface Pox kills 75 percent of Japan’s men, while leaving women physically unharmed.

The disease lingers, the gender imbalance never rights itself, and Japanese society comes to resemble a colony of bees or ants, in which the large female majority does every kind of work while the male minority are seen as delicate creatures valued only for their “seed.”

With women forced to share the limited supply of men, the institution of marriage largely disappears, as only a rich woman can keep a husband all to herself. The wealthiest and most powerful woman of all is the shogun, who keeps a crowded male harem in the innermost chambers–the Ooku–of Edo Castle…

Read the rest of the review here.

If you’ve been following Toyota’s problems of late, then you may have also noticed JET alum Roland Kelts (Osaka-shi, 1998-99), author of Japanamerica, popping up a lot as a commentator.

He recently appeared on ABC’s World News Tonight.  And even more recently he was commissioned to write an op-ed for the Christian Science Monitor to clarify some of the vast cultural misreadings evident in the Congressional Toyota/Toyoda hearings.

• Toyota and trust: Was the Akio Toyoda apology lost in translation? Stung by Toyota recalls, Toyoda had to convey sincerity – and bridge the gulf in communication styles between Japan and America. http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2010/0225/Toyota-and-trust-Was-the-Akio-Toyoda-apology-lost-in-translation

• Roland is also quoted in this AP article on Toyota:  “Toyota President Battles Crisis in Family Company“ http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2010/02/19/toyota_president_battles_crisis_in_family_company/?page=full

And addressed the topic of Toyota in an interesting way in his recent Daily Yomiuri column on The Super Bowl, Toyota, Anime and Hollywood:

• SOFT POWER, HARD TRUTHS / Anime must eventually transcend Japan ‘national’ brand http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/arts/20100219TDY11003.htm

And if you’re looking for commentary on non-Toyota topics, then you can listen to Roland’s recent appearance on NPR discussing a wild relic of Japanese popular culture, a viral video of Japanese ‘Jazz Opera,’ produced in 1986 by Tamori, the great comedian:

• http://www.theworld.org/2010/02/17/japanese-jazz-opera/

*************************

WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Writer/Interpreter/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.

I just started an assignment as an interpreter for a delegation of young political leaders from Japan, divided about evenly between members of the LDP and the DPJ as well as one journalist.  Over our first dinner tonight it was interesting to hear their respective viewpoints regarding various issues, especially ones that are personal to them.  For example, one DPJ rep and one LDP rep were having a friendly debate regarding day care.  Both of these men have wives who work and 3-year old daughters, and as they live in the Tokyo area child care options are limited.  There are not enough facilities to meet current needs, and those that exist are deluged by requests leading to long waiting lists.

As part of the Manifesto, the DPJ has proposed the implementation of a 子供手当て (kodomo teate) of 26,000 yen per month to provide financial aid to those who have a child.  The LDP, on the other hand, does not advocate this and thinks this money should instead be put toward Read More

WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Writer/Interpreter/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.

Recently the news ran a piece about the popularity of Japanese foods that are mocchiri, meaning heavy in a way similar to mochi.  Evidently it is a Kansai-ben term that combines mochi mochi shita, sticky or springy, and dosshiri shita, heavy or solid.  The top three reasons consumers cited for liking mocchiri goods were their texture, the ability to make them feel full and the attraction to items with mocchiri or mochi mochi in the name.  In addition, they seem to provide a sense of comfort.

Many manufacturers are capitalizing on this mood by increasing their products that contain such descriptors.  For example, a taiyaki maker with Read More

On February 8, a sold out crowd of dedicated fans, some of whom began lining up as early as 2 a.m., packed the Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza for J-pop royalty as Hikaru Utada held court for a two-hour show.

While the venue imposed a strict no-camera policy, JETAANY’s JQ Magazine editor Justin Tedaldi (Kobe-shi CIR, 2001-02) was there to sneak a few snaps, and a review of the show will appear in the March issue of JQ.

Otsukaresama to the New York-born Hikki on a successful U.S. tour and homecoming!

 

 

Tom Baker (Chiba-ken, 1989-91) is now as a staff writer for The Daily Yomiuri.  We will be regularly featuring his work.  Here is his latest, an interview with the Hawaiian Stan Sakai, creator of the comic Usagi Yojimbo.

“There was the old movie theater down the street from where I lived that showed the old samurai movies, those chambara movies, every Saturday. I’d go to see the old Toshiro Mifune movies. Get-in-for-a-quarter, stay-all-day type of thing,” Stan Sakai, 56, said, recalling his childhood in Hawaii.

Sakai grew up to become a comic-book artist, and in 1984, he launched a samurai epic of his own. Its main character is a wandering ronin with dazzling sword skills, a fierce sense of honor and a network of friends and enemies across Japan. Miyamoto Usagi is one formidable rabbit.

A fluffy bunny wielding a katana sword may sound silly, but Sakai makes it work. His ongoing Usagi Yojimbo series is filled with drama, pathos and well-developed characters. There are also abundant allusions to Japanese culture. The most obvious of these is that Usagi’s long ears are tied together to form a chonmage samurai hairstyle, but others are more subtle, such as a gourd flask that resembles mangaka Osamu Tezuka’s signature Hyotan-Tsugi character.

In Usagi Yojimbo: Yokai (Dark Horse, 63 pp, 14.95 dollars), a full-color hardback graphic novel released in November to mark the character’s 25th anniversary last year, Usagi confronts a grotesque army of Japanese supernatural beings.

“I love the old ghost stories about Japan. That was fun to research,” Sakai told The Daily Yomiuri by phone from California, where he lives. “For a country that’s so small, there’s so much [in the way of] ghosts and goblins and monsters around. The folklore of Japan is so rich. And not only the really horrific stuff, but also the really goofy stuff. It’s fun to draw.”

To read the full story, click here.