Some more information reported here that the sales of the Nintendo Wii have shown signs of slacking. The reason might be related to the dearth of software that truly utilizes the Wii’s capabilities in a compelling way.
It has been awhile since I posted about Anime. Real life has been giving me a crotch kick lately. But I am here to make it up with two anime picks this time.
My first post about anime is here. Good info on finding subtitled anime and a way to find the titles I will be reviewing.
NHK ni Yokoso, or Welcome to NHK!, has most of what I like in anime. It is not one of the 800k anime about high school students who are martial artists/in a love triangle/magicians. The main character is Tatsuhiro Sato, a hikikimori, which is basically the Japanese equivalent of agoraphobia, attempts to break out of his illness.
Akagi is all mahjong, all the time. If you like Mahjong, you will like Akagi. However, if you do not know anything about mahjong, the anime may be bewildering. But, if you have a layperson’s notion of what the game is about, and can have patience with being confused about what is going on half the time, Akagi is worth a watch. It has that Japanese flair for the dramatic and will also appeal to those with an interest in gambling and yakuza.
Read more about Welcome to NHK! below the fold.
The art of diplomacy is just that: an art. However, there are certain bedrock principles. One of them is that when you say something explicitly, you mean it. As reported by Informed Comment, a blog by Middle-East Studies professor Juan Cole, Japan seems to be pulling away from its pro-US position on Iraq:
Just two weeks after Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma described the US invasion of Iraq “based on an assumption that weapons of mass destruction existed” in Iraq a mistake, comes a new remark from the somewhat more surprising source of Foreign Minister Taro Aso.
On the 3rd, local media in Kyoto reported Aso to have said that the US “launched a very immature operation that did not work so well, and that is why there is trouble.” This comment was then picked up by the national and international media, and broadcast around the world. Beleaguered Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki tried to explain, “I understand what he meant to say was that soft policies should have been used more skillfully… I think the word ‘immature’ was inappropriate, but I think his true intention was to suggest using Japan’s knowledge in building peace.”
The Chicago Tribune has an article on how the ultra-right wing arm of Japan are taking their protests to the extreme.
TOKYO — When ruling party lawmaker Koichi Kato criticized a prime minister’s trip to a Tokyo war shrine, retribution from Japan’s right wing was swift: An extremist set his house on fire and tried to commit ritual suicide.
It was the most dramatic in a string of attacks and threats over the past year that have academics, journalists and lawmakers worried that Japan’s freedom of expression is under assault by a resurgent nationalist fringe.
I took a vacation to Hawaii this past November. An article in the Honolulu Advertiser reminded me of the interesting ways in which I ran across Japanese Tourists in Hawaii.
The first thing I noticed was they came in large crowds. By the bus full. The main place I ran across Japanese tourists was on the Big Island at Volcanoes National Park. They came in large numbers and seemed to be broken up into demographic groups. In one bus would be older people; in another would be younger. In another would be the more elderly people. They seemed to be herded around place to place on a rather tight schedule as well, not really getting time to really explore a place.
With one exception: I ran into several Japanese couples, to the one being younger tourists. They did not come by the bus full, but tended to come in rental cars. They also could be seen doing the more adventuresome traveling, driving the Hana Highway and stopping off at the myriad of hikes to scenic pools and overlooks. But the number of Japanese doing this sort of traveling seemed minuscule compared to the hordes of package tourists.
Now, I understand that the main problem for Japanese would be the language barrier and the fear that they would not be understood. And I do know that even though the average college educated Japanese person may have been taking English for years, their ability to understand native English speech is minimal, mainly due to poor teaching methods in Japan (for instance, being taught by, well, other Japanese for one). However, there seemed to be a cultural aspect to it. Maybe it is “group” mindset that may not foster travel that takes risks. But I cannot help think that the Japanese tourists, in their gigantic buses and cheap, ugly Hawaiian shirts, missed out on some of the most beautiful scenery in the world. Minna kawaii so….
A 70-year-old woman in Osaka evaded a robbery by administering a foot to the crotch of her robber. Story here.
In other news, Mainichi Shinbun reports that 11 elderly Tokyoites (between 70 and 90) were hospitalized after choking on Mochi and 5 are still in critical condition as of press time. In Ibaraki, an 80-year-old man died after choking on the sticky rice cake (see here for past Japundit notes on the phenomenon).
So it goes. Life in Japan goes on.
Nothing has impressed me more about Japanese art then the samurai film. Maybe this says more about me then anyone else, but the dichotomies of violence and moral fortitude intermingling is closer to reality then 1000 “reality shows” on US television (or the European counterparts that the US TV companies stole from).
My favorite example is Zatoichi, the blind swordsman. His name is actually Ichi; “Zato” is ranking in the masseur business of Edo era Japan. He is also blind and has been since birth. What is amazing is the cohesion and continuity of the story lines woven through the 26 movies and 97 television episodes (with one exception noted here). He also is an impeccable swordsman with a very unique style; he can strike in huge arcs cutting down anything in his path (Wiki claims the style is called Iaidō).
Reported in Asahi Shinbun, Japan’s government will propose a plan to issue identification cards to “nikkeijin” (foreigners of Japanese ancestry) which contain information such as “name, date of birth, nationality, address in Japan, family members, and duration and status of stay”. This seems to be a compromise as the Liberal Democratic Party wanted to issue them to all gaijin (general foreigners) but that proposal did not seem likely to pass.
The plan will still need to pass the Diet. There was no indication from the article on whether or not the plan has a chance to succeed.
Maybe I am being paranoid, but this reminds me of China’s policy attempting to control movement around the country. Of course, they do not say they will be doing anything Orwellian like granting permission for nikkeijin to move. Just another example of the right turn the LDP has taken since Abe took over. Of course, his popularity has dropped to 46% in a recent poll.
I will admit it: I like Nintendo. And Sega, but they folded. I have a GameCube and all of my gaming friends have Playstations or Xboxes. With the GameCube, Nintendo did not do well.
But it looks like things have changed. Sales for the Wii seem to be outpacing the Playstation, partially due to Sony’s production issues. But, the reviews of the Wii have been almost universally good. My favorite is here. And you can also go back to the Japundit archives for some more information about it. This one from Kaishin was especially right-on with a prediction that Nintendo was doing everything right. And this one from Alex talks about issues with the strap for the controller not handling the stress and taking out televisions! Nintendo is replacing straps that are eligible.
Looks like Nintendo has made a rather surprising comeback.
There is an interesting story in Mainichi Daily regarding an alleged generation gap between Baby Boomers in Japan who are starting to turn 60 (Japan’s compulsory retirement age) and their allegedly superficial daughters-in-law. “Mrs A” says:
“I don’t expect her housekeeping or child rearing to be perfect all the time,” Mrs. A insists. “But most of the meals she throws together are made from semiprepared foods she buys at the supermarket, and when I visit I see clumps of dust in the corners, so she obviously shirks in her housework.
“My son puts in long hours of overtime, and he’s exhausted by the weekend, but she makes him look after the kids while she goes out for esthetic beauty treatments and massages. So he has no chance to unwind from the stress.”
There are two other women who are quoted talking about how their daughters-in-law are crass or impolite or how they neglect Obon.
One conclusion I can get from the article: bad journalism knows no cultural boundaries. Three anonymous sources ranting about their daughters becomes a social trend while the author breathlessly generalizes some “social trend” as some sort of fact.
The Diet, Japan’s Parliament, just passed a bill that would “teach “love of country” and “public spirit” to Japanese school children. This is not that much different then the daily “Pledge of Allegiance” I mumbled through in my grade school days as well as not being much different then the “US is great” school of teaching US history.
However, Japan’s history of fervent nationalism during WWII is always playing on the political stage and this change in education policy has led some to fear that the camel nose is in the tent. Of course, it is a far cry from teaching “love of country” to “Pearl Harbor 2″ (Oh God, a remake of Pearl Harbor!?).
Only in Japan:
Something shaky is about to hit Japanese meal tables — poisonous giant jellyfish!
Wobbling its way onto the Japanese cuisine are huge Echizen jellyfish, which have been appearing in massive schools flocking off the Sea of Japan coastline and gorging on more palatable fare, like prized maguro tuna.
“Making them a popular food is the best way to solve the problem,” Shunjiro Ueno, a professor at the National Fisheries University in Shimonoseki, tells Sunday Mainichi.
I am not so find of the overpopulation of cockroaches in my house……Eureka! Cockroach stirfry!
Ninomiya Tomoko got inspiration for a popular manga in Japan from a photograph of a piano in a messy room, according to the Mainichi Daily News. The piano belonged to a women named Noda Megume and the author and her inspiration still talk to each other from to this day. The photo and its taker inspired a 16 volume, manga series.
Dai Mahou Touge is my favorite of the latest anime releases (this one came out in April, 2006). The story is about a princess of some magical kingdom who must prove her worthiness to take the throne. The princess is a tough cookie who can use magic and is handy in a melee.
Here is where it gets weird. Her magical powers consist entirely of transforming vegetables into her (living) slaves who do her bidding. In one episode, she creates a delicious curry for a school festival by making the vegetables come alive so that they can commit suicide in the curry pot! You have got to see it to believe it.
Add to this the story of how the princess fights with a trash-talking, psychotic plushie (something only the Japanese could dream up), a credits sequence where the princess sets fire to landmarks all over Japan and an episode with Initial D as a horror ride and you have one of the funniest, most original anime I have seen in a long time. Enjoy it. It is not licensed, so you would need to procure it from Animesuki.
So you live in the US and have heard of this thing called anime. Or, you like anime, but want to know what is out in Japan and current (i.e., not licensed 1+ years after it airs). Then fansubs are what you are looking for.
I love anime. Can’t get enough. How does one feed the habit? The fansubber to the rescue.
A fansubber is a person, or more likely a group of persons, who get a raw copy of an anime episode, OAV (only on video release, i.e., not a movie or televised) or a movie, usually from Japan. Then they get that raw media into an electronic format, create or get a copy of a translation of the Japanese into whatever language they desire, merge the translation into an electronic text file called a subtitle file, then merge the two together. It can be a complicated process and there are many permutations on the finished product (namely final file output, editing, muxing, etc.). See here for a good but simplistic rundown.
