Afro Samurai vs Danny Choo

I had a fun night at Danny Choo's place the other evening when he invited me over to have dinner with our mutual friend Takashi "Bob" Okazaki, and a few of his Afro Samurai colleagues. Turned out to be quite the otaku gathering, with Bob dressing up as Darth Vader and all us lads going gaga over Danny's figure collection. I'm not sure what kind of expression I was trying to pull in this photo, but you've gotta at least try and look a bit tough when you're standing next to Vader! In the photo are:

From left to right:
Fuminori Kizaki (Director of Afro Samurai)
Mrs Bob Vader, Minna (hiding in Vader's cloak!)
Danny Choo
Takashi Okazaki (Original creator of Afro Samurai) as Darth Vader
Myself
Hiroya Iijima (Afro Samurai Character Design/Animation Director)
Will Feng

You can see more pix over at dannychoo.com

Seijin no hi

Yesterday was the Seijin no hi (Coming of Age Day) holiday in Japan. It was beautiful weather and I headed out with my new mate Danny Choo to take a few pix for his blog. The plan was to get photos of him in his Storm Trooper costume with as many cute twenty-year-old girls we could grab.

The official age for adults in Japan is twenty and on this day each year, young men and women gather at their local city halls (or somewhere else if the hall is too small) to be officially welcomed into adulthood. The new grown-ups dress in their best formal wear, which for girls means beautiful kimonos, called furisode, and fluffy fur stoles. This style of kimono is distinctive because of the bright colours and long flowing sleeves that signify a girl is both an adult and single, which is a handy thing to know ;)



Danny and I visited the CC Lemon Hall in Shibuya where gaggles of giggling Shibuya gals wore a sensational mix of their normal "gyaru" hair-styles, makeup and traditional kimonos. The addition of "decora" accessories and outrageous nail fashion completed the look.

Arcade Mania! on Japanese TV!

I woke up early this morning to watch Brian Ashcraft on NTV's morning show "Zoom in Super." He was interviewed a few days ago about Arcade Mania! and all of us involved in the book have been dying to see how it'd turn out. And it was fantastic!

The show had basically decided to do the story because they'd seen Arcade Mania!, and ran a 10 minute segment about foreign tourists flocking to Japanese game centres. They spoke to lots of people about what they thought of the arcades and opened with a shot of the book's cover. Then they spoke to Brian (who I gotta say came across really well despite being scared shitless) and showed the book again inside and out. It was really nice to see the book getting such good exposure.

Here are a few more pix Brian and I took off the screen:

Arcade Mania! vs Pingmag

I swear it's a total coincidence that the last post was also about something up on PingMag. No, really! If I wasn't so lazy I might have posted something in between, but no... Anyway, Ping had nice long chat with Brian Ashcraft the author of Arcade Mania! Hopefully this is the start of lots of press on the book and we'll sell lots of copies!
Read the interview here...

Kabukicho vs Pingmag

I recently interviewed Max Hodges of White Rabbit press about his new Tokyo Realtime: Kabukicho audio guide tour. He's a pretty crazy guy so it's kind of a shame so much of what we spoke about was "off the record"! But you can read (the rather heavily edited) version live on Pingmag now.

More JSG Rock

"Rock'n'Roll High School" by the Ramones blasts from the speakers as four Japanese girls in high-school uniform come on stage. It couldn't be a more perfect song to introduce this band to the waiting press.

Scandal are young, sexy, and have a gimmick that may just carry them to international stardom. As I've pointed out before, there is something magnetic about metal performed by Japanese high-school girls wielding guitars like pros. Maybe it's because long black hair is made for head banging, or maybe it's the tartan skirts? But the school uniform and rock formula is something that works. Just ask Angus Young from AC/DC, and he's nowhere near as sexy. Comparisons to the band in the film Linda Linda Linda are also inevitable. But Scandal are the real deal, they got their start playing live on the streets of Osaka, and three of the girls are actually still in high-school; the forth, the lead singer Haruna, is only 20. They're fresh, young and really look like they enjoy what they're doing. They play like they love rock and with their 70s rock hair, and Fender and Gibson guitars, they have all the trappings of a rock band, including lots of groupies... male groupies.

Their fans are a bit of a worry actually. At the moment they're the same kind of awkward guys that like to dance along with syrupy Akihabara street idols. They're very uncool, and an association with them may be to the bands detriment. It's easy to see why otaku are attracted. Schoolgirl uniforms are a major fetish for these guys, but unlike the glut of so called "idols" out there catering to the otaku dollar, these girls actually have talent. They can really play, and really do rock out live.


But Scandal is going to have to break free from the otaku ghetto if they are going to be taken seriously. They may need to rock even harder to release themselves from their current fan base. It may be overseas that they find their true rock creds by following in the footsteps of Japanese bands like Shonen Knife.

They also need a better producer. These girls are way better live than they are on their CD, which has been mixed as if they were light weight J-pop stars. It totally caters for the otaku audience, but when they play live their sound is much bigger and more raw. It's a shame that the energy of their live show is diluted on the CD. It could be much better, and if they are to succeed overseas they need better producer, one who knows how to deal with rock.

Ditch the otaku fans I say and get the Indy fans behind you. Scandal have already played in the States and may return to play at the South by Southwest festival next year. Keep an eye out for them.

Here's their latest single, "Doll":

Bome vs Docomodake

I caught a couple of exhibitions last week, one by chance and the other less random; but both were linked by the fact art in Japan these days often has its roots deeply buried in corporate-pop-culture. We probably we have Takashi Murakami to thank for this. Him and his grand Superflat theory—that Japanese don't traditionally make distinctions between "high" and "low" art—have sure made it easier for artists and corporations to come together and produce art for the masses. Populist, fun art that seems easy to understand. But art that doesn't challenge the viewer too much. Branded, corporate art that sells for a fortune; but with copies mass produced to sell in toy stores. Art that's given away with a mobile phone. It's art for everyone, but no one in particular.



I stumbled across the first exhibition in Shibuya when I noticed a bright pink poster advertising a show by BOME—who can most simply be described as a sculptor; a very otaku sculptor. In Japan Bome is best known for his sexy three dimensional figurines of anime-style girls, including the Monseiur BOME series of collectible figurines from Kaiyaido. These are sexy dolls for pervy boys; of big-busted babes with ridiculously long legs. They're the 6 inch girlfriends of otaku (to quote Patrick Maccias). And they seem almost, how can I put this? Possible.

Bome's skill is taking the absurd proportions of women in the two-dimensional world of anime and manga, and transforming them into glorious, eye-popping 3D. This is why he has so many fans; because he has overcome what otaku call the "three-dimensional contradiction" that the girls who exist on the pages of manga could not possibly exist in the real world. The weight of their breasts alone would mean the poor girls' backs would give out! But somehow, Bome's figures pull it off and the illusion of possibility is what makes these dolls such a tease. This skill is also what caught Takashi Mukrakami's eye many years ago.

With the help of Murakami, Bome's work has managed to emerge from the dark geeky ghetto of figure-collecting otaku into the glare of the international art world. And ever since 2003 when his 1997 collaboration with Murakami—a sculpture called "Miss ko2 (Project ko2)"— fetched US$567,500, the highest price ever paid for a piece of contemporary Japanese art at the time, Bome has been known overseas as an artist to keep an eye on. The show at Parco Factory is billed as the 10th anniversary of the artist's debut into the contemporary art scene, but it's essentially a show for otaku. Many of Bomes original figures are on display, and from his most early work in the 1980's to the most recent work it's fascinating to see the development of his technique. There are videos showing interviews with him and there's a detailed, step-by-step display of how he makes his dolls. But the best part of the whole exhibition—and the thing that brings all the high-falutin talk of his art world connections back down to earth— is that you can buy the mass produced versions of his figures in the gift shop, for about 4000 yen each.

The second show I went to see was a much more blatant corporate art show, but one that ironically had art of a more traditional taste, and very different flavour. "How to cook a Docomodake" is a collection of work by sixteen artists who were invited my the mobile phone company NTT Docomo to produce art that was inspired by the company mascot, a mushroom called the Docomodake. The exhibition first showed in October 2007 in New York, and was a very clever way for Docomo—who are not at all well known in the US—to introduce both their brand and their popular mascot. In Tokyo the character needed no introduction and the show was still packed when I went to see it on the closing day.


Essentially all the artists involved had deconstructed the well known character and presented it in their own way. Rika Eguchi, presented the Docomodake served up as if cooked in different ways, grilled, sliced, diced and rather over-cooked. This work was the most "cute" of all the work there, but not the best. My personal favourites were the detailed, psychedelic, pencil drawing by KYOTARO entitled "The Sleeping Forest" and of course "Yokai - Japanese Ghost - Dokomodake" by MUSTONE (pictured above). I also really liked the jacket and skirt by ANREALAGE, who has taken apart hundreds of stuffed Docomodake toys, including the small "screen-cleaner" versions that hang off people's mobile phones, and sewn them together to make his patchwork fashion (below).



Both these exhibitions could be criticised by a more serious art critic for being shallow, and vapid extensions of a post-modern society that doesn't quite know how to stop feeding upon its own pop offspring and start producing meaningful art again. But I liked it.

"BOME" The 10th Anniversary exhibition Debut in the Contemporary Art scene in PARCO FACTORY, SHIBUYA, TOKYO runs until October 20th, 2008

How to cook a Docomodake was at the Intercommunication Center at Tokyo Opera City but ended on October 13th, 2008

Alone in Shibuya

I found a good place to sit and watch. From a seat near this bar's window, I can see Shibuya passing me by. Opposite me there's an Excelsior Caffé that I know, from personal experience—and a somewhat obsessional love of good coffee—fails to excel in café. Beside that there's an entrance to a basement bar that's advertising cheap beer. A black guy stands there, waiting for customers, and occasionally breaks into dance. Break-dancing. Moon-walking-robot-style; seriously old-school. In front of him, on the sidewalk, are three men, two black, one Japanese, and it sure looks like they are passing a blunt. The police Koban is about one hundred metres away. Next to the cheap-beer-hip-hop bar is a Zara, and girls walk by looking at the mannequins in the window. It's raining, which is when I Iove Shibuya best; wet—neon reflecting in the puddles on the street. Umbrellas up, shielding the faces of all the girls with great legs, leaving me to wonder just how wonderfully gorgeous they are. Reflected in the second floor window of the Excelsior Caffé is a Big Echo karaoke place—a big reflected echo. Other signs add an expressionistic chaos of colour to the slick wet asphalt; the "Italian Tomato Cafe Jr.," and the "Curry House CoCo" send an aromatic mixture of curry and garlic into the damp air. A girl posts a letter in a tomato-red mail box as couples walk by, and the two girls sitting next to me light two more cigarettes. They are talking about their friend, who "is so beautiful she looks like a foreigner," and I wonder about the different eye's of the beholder, as mine scan the girls out the window, and the beautiful ones are beautiful maybe because they are foreign, to me. A white guy wearing a red-and-white shell-suit is lingering near the hip-cheap-hops bar; red baseball hat worn backwards, he's trying so hard to get "down" with the black guys clustered there. He's weedy, small, dangerous in his intense desire and looks like a dealer, an East London dealer, twitching, nervous and keen. He tries to lure passing girls with his imagined ghetto charm and fails. Now he's leaning alone against a wall. Now he's alone beneath a clear umbrella. Perhaps he works cheap for the hip-hop beer. Opposite him is a smooth black gentleman in a suit-and-tie and the contrast between the two is culturally amusing. The smooth dude is emailing someone on his mobile. The girls next to me have gone. And my glass is empty.

Arcade Mania! launch party

A quick reminder that the launch of Arcade Mania! is tomorrow night (Saturday 27th) so if any of you who happen to read this blog also happen to be in Tokyo, please come along!

Here is a link to the invitation on Kotaku

Itasha

I went to COMIKE about a month ago, along with about 500 thousand others, and it always amazes me just how massive this amateur comic market is. I've been four or five times now and the manga on offer this time were the usual piles of comic-porn. Naked manga honeys assaulted and exalted by a mass of sweaty otaku. This shocked, and to be honest kind of titillated me the first time I went, but it now seems boring, and a little sad. It never seems to change. The same drawing styles. The same themes. The same cum-covered girls fighting off the same invisible, censored, phallic-somethings. And it is still mostly young women drawing and buying this stuff—which is the one thing that does still raise my eye-brows.

But in the car park this summer were a group of otaku I hadn't seem before. Standing proudly beside their cars these guys reminded me of rev-heads back home in the 1970s, who declared their machismo by airbrushing naked-chicks on their muscle-cars. The modern Japanese approach however is to splash hot-anime-babes across the bonnet to display just how much "moe" you feel.

Now moe (a key term for otaku, and pronounced "mo-ay", like Moet champagne ), is kind of a hard concept to grasp. But basically, imagine that you seriously have the hots for a girl — probably a young teen girl — and that you are literally burning up inside to express your passion. Only, that passion is coupled with the somewhat awkward, slightly embarrassing, knowledge, that the object of your budding love is... a cartoon character. And that's moe.

These otaku say that living this kind of life is somewhat painful (no kidding), so these cars have been dubbed "Itasha". "Ita"= pain and "sha"= car. It used to mean "Italian car", but they've made it their own.

Walking around the carpark the one word I kept overhearing as people looked on at these chariots of moe was "mottainai!" (what a waste!) And seeing the Mercedes with the rather cheap looking decals stuck to it, I have to agree.

p.s: roll your mouse over the image on the right....."moe!"