Just in time for Tanabata and the 4th of July, some nutjob here in LA decided to threaten to blow up the Tom Bradley International Terminal building at LAX with a home-made bomb (which turned out to be just a backpack full of shoddy pinball machine parts). [LA Times]
Though the bomb turned out to be a hoax the threat itself shut down LAX for several hours on Thursday. This of course interrupted the arrival of one Nakagawa Shoko - Japan’s official ambassador of Otaku-dom to the world at large. “Shoko-tan” is scheduled to make her state-side, live debut at Anime Expo 08 being held in Long Beach from July 3rd-6th. Great - now the terrorists have set their sights on everyone’s favorite nerd girl from Japan. Here’s a video of “Shoko-tan” doing what she does…
As Gary mentioned a couple of posts ago, we are indeed open and still alive. For those of you who know what’s been going on in my life lately, you know I’ve had pretty good reasons for the recent hiatus; for those of you who don’t know, eh, don’t worry about it. The most important thing is that things are back on track, so here come the posts!
In preparation for touring to support their upcoming album release, Japanese rock behemoth, Glay announced recently that they will be playing three dates in California on their upcoming tour.
August 12th - Filmore Auditorium - San Francisco
August 15th - House of Blues - Sunset Strip - Los Angeles
August 16th - House of Blues - Sunset Strip - Los Angeles
I got the word on the concert dates from Jojo today. Pre-sale tickets are available as of right now.
Tickets for the show are about $40 and its the House of Blues - a pretty intimate affair. To frame for those not familiar with Glay just how much of a flip-flop playing a couple of tiny venues in the States is for this group - Glay holds the record for concert attendance in Japan at their Glay Expo event in 1999. Something close to 200,000 attended an outdoor concert - just to see this one band. Crazy…
I’ll be in attendance for one of those 2 shows in LA. Below, I’ve posted the goo-tube embed for Glay’s current video single - Verb (at least until Japan’s Youtube Nazi squad takes it down).
This week, a truckload of Sumo have arrived here in the Southland. As mentioned earlier, the 2008 International Sumo Exhibition is being held this weekend in Los Angeles. Prior to the start of the Exhibition, which runs through the weekend, Mongolian Yokozuna, Hakuho took the honor of throwing out the opening pitch at Dodger Stadium on Friday as the Dodgers faced the Chicago Cubs.
In other sporting news, at that very same game, Dodger rookie (and 10-year Hiroshima Carp veteran) Hiroki Kuroda shut out the Cubbies so badly that Derrek Lee ate his bat in frustration.
For baseball fans keeping up with Kuroda’s yo-yo performance this season (having thrown all kinds of junk at New York earlier in the week), its worth noting that even though its essentially the same sport, Baseball in the US is a very different game than in Japan. The pacing of the game, differences in strategies and the physical differences in the players make its difficult for Japanese players to quickly adapt to the way the sport is carried out over here. Just look at Kaz Matsui - it took him 4 seasons and a couple of trades before he really started living up to any promise here in MLB.
Despite a month’s worth of inactivity and some recent server SNAFU, this crab still functions. The past month has been a bit of a smorgasboard of events and happenings. First and foremost - the wife and I moved. Granted, we didn’t move that far away but still - changing out your abode is never an easy thing. This makes the 3rd residence we’ve resided at in as many years. The place we currently live in is about as far away from the 2LDK we rented out in Japan as one could get. At some point, I’ll post photos to illustrate. In the meantime, we are still open for business here.
March 28th, 2008 saw the long-anticipated reunion of X Japan – arguably Japan’s most influential, homegrown music group. After a breakup in 1998, personal disputes, some religious cult brou-ha-ha regarding the lead singer and the death of the band’s now-legendary lead guitarist, X Japan sold out the Tokyo Dome again for the first time in over a decade.
For those uninitiated to modern Japanese music, I won’t waste space summarizing who or what X Japan is (was) other than make the analogy that X was to Japan what Gun ‘n Roses was to the universe at large. They created and defined the entire Visual Kei movement in Japanese pop culture and were largely responsible for inspiring a whole generation of musicians, manga-ka and other members of Japans’ various tribes within the country’s pop-culture zeitgeist. Here’s the band’s wikipeida entry.
NHK broadcasted the first of their 3 night, sold-out, reunion stint at the Tokyo Dome live and thanks to the incredible, edible Internet; you can not only see highlights of the show but also grab the whole thing via bit-torrent.
I for one have been a fan of X for many years. That said, I sat through the entire 2 hour NHK reunion concert broadcast wishing that the band had just stayed dead and buried. Cynics would probably argue that X is doing this whole 10-year reunion thing for the same reasons other bands do – the money. I can’t fault anyone for thinking that nor do I discount that money is a major factor in the band getting back together. However, it’s evident that at least X lead singer Toshi and band leader/drummer, Yoshiki – the band’s founding members, look exuberant and pleased just to be back in the saddle – even if they spent a significant portion of the concert milking the legend of the band’s deceased guitarist.
And what of Hide? Matsumoto Hideto, X’s lead guitarist was found dead in his Tokyo apartment almost 10 years to the date of this concert (returning to the GnR analogy, this would be the equivalent of Slash being found dead sometime, circa 1993). Hide was a talented rock guitarist and the only member of the band to have significant success post breakup as a solo artist (he also had the best hair). Dying at the zenith of his popularity, Hide’s death left a hole in Japanese rock music that to this day leaves fans tearfully scratching their heads and wondering, “what might have been” had the guitarist not met his demise so early.
Hide’s death obviously didn’t keep the band from reuniting. Nor did it not prevent them from being X-Japan again. The NHK concert confirmed what I had already assumed – the affair was part money grab, part reach for past glories and part memorial service – staged by the remaining band members for their fallen comrade. Hide’s part was filled in using copious layers of archived live footage stapled together and played in synch with the band’s performance on giant video monitors while Sugizo (lead guitarist of Luna Sea – a sublime choice by the band) physically and sonically stood in for Hide on lead guitar.
The most genuine thing I got from watching this band play together for the first time in 10 years is that, deep-down, Toshi Yoshiki and the rest of the band are all still trying to deal with the loss of their fellow band-mate and friend even 10 years after the fact. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Hide shouldn’t have died in ’98 and X should have gotten back together 5 years ago and recorded a double album full of power ballads. Oh what could have been! I can personally relate to that. In the end, I’m glad to see X back together again, however I wish they would have just left the band and Hide rest in peace.
With the start of the new school year upon us, I thought I’d take a minute to reflect on the year that was.
At some of my schools, the students must write a page of English in a notebook daily, which I then check for errors. Most of the time, I end up with the phrase “I PLAY GAME” repeated ad nauseam, but occasionally a student tries something a bit more ambitious. Often they succeed in making a coherent sentence, sometimes they don’t.
And then there are the ones that fall somewhere in between.
I present the following examples to you with the caveat that a lot of these kids are busting their asses to learn what is to them an almost totally foreign language, and their English ability is probably better than my Japanese. God knows, the mistakes I’ve made in nihongo could be a post in and of itself.
These were just some sentences written by real Japanese junior high kids that tickled my funny bone for one reason or another.
I was surprised to use pot. - What was in that cigarette?
Red Demon wrote letters for John every week. - Maggie, does John talk about rivers of blood and burning souls in your letters too?
Men’s volleyball is the enjoyment.
I viborite like this, book. - And you can too!
Is Jim higher than Tom? - He was surprised to use pot, too.
Thursday, January the Thirst-fist - January is the cruelest month. And it could use a drink, too.
Read the book or I’ll kill you.
Your penis that? - Why, yes it is …
Who plays basketball better, Tumor Bob? Tumor Bob was noted for his basketball acumen. And his unsightly growths.
The Japan Times reports that the dollar is coming close to its lowest value in 13 years and now worth only 96 yen. Keeping in mind that 100 yen is the unit equivalent of a dollar in Japan and that Japan much prefers about ¥120 to the dollar and you start to get the idea. With the Japanese economy so closely tied to the American one, this doesn’t make Japanese businesses very happy; on the flip side, it’s a really good time for Japanese tourists to head to America (or at least, get in some good internet shopping!)
The most important thing is that things are back on track, so here come the posts!
