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When you’re thousands of miles away from a problem you want to solve, you do what you can. Although I live in California, some months ago I had the good fortune, quite by happy accident, to become involved with a book project for Japan March 11th disaster relief called Quakebook. It’s a powerful collection of true stories and images about what people in Japan felt and experienced during and just after the earthquake and tsunami. I helped edit the book, which you can learn more about here. Well, the world spins, and things were more or less settling back into the comfortable routine I had established writing news pieces for this humble website, when another happy accident occurred. Through the friend of a colleague on Facebook, I heard about a project called Kizuna: Fiction for Japan, an anthology conceived by an American expatriate in Niigata, Japan. His idea was to do with original, fictional short stories what Quakebook had done with true-life narratives. And he needed stories. Fast. He had only given himself a few months to put the book together and get it published, first as an Amazon Kindle, then as a printed hard copy. Well, seeing as how I had a short story about Japan lying around, and that the purpose of Kizuna would be to donate all proceeds to disaster-related Japanese charities, I figured I might as well send my story to Brent Millis, the project’s creator and editor, and see what would happen. And I’ll be damned if he didn’t decide to publish it. But for me it got even better. I soon found out that not only was I to be published, but my story would be in some pretty prestigious company. Very prestigious company. We’re talking science fiction and fantasy writers like Michael Moorcock and John Shirley. Yeah, the guy-who-wrote-the-screenplay-for-The-Crow John Shirley, and THAT Michael Moorcock. And these two guys aren’t the only amazing, world-class writers in the book. Some of the writers you may know, many of them you won’t but should. But as I did, I urge you to discover that for yourself. Although I am a contributor to Kizuna, the book is being sold for charity. So I bought the Amazon Kindle for $9.99. If you do the same it will go a long way towards helping charities like Smile Kids Japan give some hope and aid to survivors of the March 11th disaster. Survivors who are still homeless, dispossessed and trying to rebuild their lives. Parts of Japan are still broken and hurting; and like I said, when you’re thousands of miles away from a problem, you do what you can to help. Click on the links below to learn more about Kizuna: Fiction for Japan, and to buy a Kindle copy of this amazing and timely book. Kizuna: Fiction for Japan homepage. Buy Kizuna for Kindle from Amazon.
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It’s been well over a year since the infamous Human Centipede film made its theatrical release in America and it looks like it finally hit the Japanese market. According to IMDB, the film gained distribution in Tokyo on July 2, 2011. For those that don’t know, Human Centipede is a horror movie about a mad scientist who surgically grafts three people together…from anus to mouth. As a result, they each share the same digestive tract in the worst way imaginable. Fans and critics have both described it as the “2 Girls, 1 Cup” of horror. Japan’s pop culture is reputably the land of “WTF.” I bet the movie’s marketers thought long and hard to think of ways to out-weird the movie’s original premise. This advertisement is the end result.
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The premise is amazing: After World War II, an American prisoner of war stays behind in Japanand slowly makes his way up in the ranks of the Japanese yakuza. This is the movie idea currently in being scripted at Warner Bros. by a fellow named Andrew Baldwin. No, not the reality TV personality. The idea for “The Outsider” was conceived by John Linson, who produces the FX show “Sons of Anarchy” with his father Art. Apparently, Warner Bros. loved the idea so much that the studio bought the movie based solely on the way the premise was pitched. Some entertainment trade papers are already describing the movie idea as a criminal version of “The Last Samurai”, but to us it sounds a bit more original than that. We’ve seen crime dramas before where Americans get entangled in criminal activity in Japan. Robert Mitchum in Sydney Pollack’s “The Yakuza” and Scott Glenn in John Frankenheimer’s “The Challenge” both come to mind. But in these films the Americans are definitely on the outside trying to look into a seemingly impenetrable organization or set of codes. The idea for this movie sounds like it turns the typical East-meets-West senarios in crime drama on their head. At the moment, the movie has not even been cast. But we think Edward Norton might be a good choice for the lead, since he actually does speak some Japanese. (Reuters – American Yakuza at Warner Bros.) Moviehole also has a short piece about this upcoming film.
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A few weeks ago, we reported on the Japanese government’s Super Cool Biz campaign, which is basically an initiative to encourage Japan’s office workers and business folk to wear lighter, cooler and somewhat more casual clothing during the hot summer months. It is a big part of this year’s setsuden summer in Japan, where a premium has been placed on conserving electricity due to the country’s diminished electric power production capacity in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear meltdown back in March. And apparently the Super Cool Biz campaign has been a big hit. Polo-style shirts in particular have become a kind of new and comfortable symbol of a more relaxed and energy-conscious environment in Japan’s busy and rather serious offices. In addition, some government offices in Tokyo and other cities are allowing workers to wear pattern-free t-shirts, and even knee-length shorts. So with every day this summer basically being a casual Friday in Japan, you wouldn’t be surprised to see folks wearing Hawaiian shirts, right? Well, wrong. Seems Hawaiian shirts, known as ‘aloha shirts’ in Japan, are a source of discomfort and controversy in Japanese office environments. At the link, you’ll get some historical background about the origins of aloha shirts (they were invented in Japan) and why these shirts are an uncomfortable reminder of Japan’s loss in World War II. Oh, and on the practical side, it seems that the very hot and humid Japanese summers make wearing the typical Rayon aloha shirt a pretty uncomfortable and impractical undertaking. Who knew? (Asahi Shimbun Online – “Aloha” Shirts Not Super Cool for Biz)
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Supposedly it’s a bad idea to judge a book by its cover. With this particular volume, however, doing just that is highly recommended. This is because the rich and colorful design on the outside is the perfect introduction to the varied and detailed tour of the fuzzy, furry, odd and wonderful Japanese mascots within. “Fuzz & Fur” is the second book about Japanese pop-culture icons by English brothers Edward and John Harrison. Their first book, “Idle Idol”, was a photographic guide to the inanimate figures which attract and greet customers outside Japanese shops and restaurants. “Fuzz & Fur” takes that premise and logically expands upon it by using pictures and detailed text to introduce the reader to a huge variety of animated, three-dimensional Japanese characters, basically guys in costumes playing fictional or mythological figures.
Here in the United States, at least, when you think of a person in a character costume, you typically think of a sports mascot, something like the Philly Phanatic or the San Francisco 49ers mascot Sourdough Sam. Or you see giant mice and anthropomorphic dogs, rabbits and ducks at amusement parks created by entertainment companies such as Disney and Warner Brothers. But that’s about it. However, in Japan fuzzy, furry costumed characters are far more ubiquitous, and are created and used for a wider variety of purposes than just promoting sports and entertainment. Japanese mascots are used to promote tourism, consumer products, government programs, and agriculture.