AltJapan

Hikonyan!

Four centuries ago, a daimyo by the name of Naokatsu Ii ordered the construction of a massive fortress in Shiga prefecture. It was a tribute to his father, felled by musket-fire on the killing fields of Seki-ga-Hara. He completed the castle keep in 1607; he wouldn't finish building the castle itself for close to twenty years, at one point reduced to scavenging stones from ruins nearby when the Tokugawa Shogunate temporarily siezed his holdings in the early 17th century.

What would this man make of Hikonyan, the official mascot character created to celebrate the four hundredth year anniversary of Hikone Castle, the fortress he built with his own hands?

Oh, the Urbanity

Newsflash: designer-toy freaks are getting left out in the cold (or blistering heat, if you're talking about Tokyo this summer) by manufacturers who deliberately avoid producing enough of their product go around. I got an earful about this from several fans at Wonderfest, but you can read another account here in this thread on the "Skullbrain" BBS, where irate collectors talk of lining up outside a certain designer toy shop for days on end in an attempt to score their favorite pieces. "I was in front... by 6:45 am... [but] everything, Everything, EVERYTHING was SOLD OUT by the time I got in," moans one collector. Meanwhile, "a guy I know was in line for 24hrs," sympathizes another. This is all for the privilege of paying 7000 yen ($60) and up for a piece of polyvinyl chloride in the shape of a cute-looking monster.

You wa Prey

Japanese news services reported yet another case of otaku gari, or "otaku-hunting," on the streets of Akihabara last night. This time, the culprits weren't a gang but rather a twenty-year-old brother and sister; she'd bump the mark with her shoulder, then her brother would rush in and make him pay "apology money." After being caught, they confessed with the ever-popular motive of "otaku are weak and they’ve got money, so we went after them.”

Combined with the upsurge in shoplifting and weapon confiscations, Akiba has been losing some of its nerd-luster lately. Which isn't particularly surprising given how much attention it's recieved from visitors, press, and the industry in recent years. In fact, the word going around Wonderfest last weekend was that Akiba has become "a wasteland" (in the words of one longtime visitor) due to hordes of foreign toy-dealers scouring the shops for booty to take back to their homelands and sell at a profit. Say it ain't so!

Daikaiju Trump

The summer "Wonder Festival," Japan's second-largest gathering of nerds amateur and pro, went down like that giant-ass freight elevator in "Akira" this Sunday. Only the minute details differ from previous years -- this time around there was decidedly more mini-sofubi, like the ones sculpted by my pal "license to" Ilanena, he of the awesome Kenner-style logo, a die-hard Flatwoods Monster fetishist and director of short films with titles like "Violence Farmer." (Seriously, check these things out: he sculpted them based on tiny illustrations from an obscure set of monster playing cards packaged with bottles of mayonnaise in the '70s. I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.)

Rei and the Family Stone

Rolling Stone Japan is up to issue six, and they've already crowned a successor to Kurt Cobain (whose mug inexplicably graced most of the five previous issues): Ayanami Rei! The cover story, "Does Evangelion Save Us," is sandwiched in between coverage of newcomers the Sex Pistols and a promising guitarist named Bob Dylan. How do these guys manage to keep their finger on the pulse?

Don't Follow Me, Golgo

Love him or not, you've got to admit director Mamoru Oshii's got the touch. He's got the power. And a few days ago, Japanese public broadcaster NHK posted a list of twenty-six of his most popular shows and films, ranked by viewers of the Anime Giga TV show. It's part of an all-Oshii fest being aired this week on NHK's BS2 channel. (NHK also posted a list of fans' favorite Oshii-directed Urusei Yatsura episodes, but you can translate those lengthy show titles your own damn self.) Here we go:

1) Patlabor 2: The Movie (920 votes)
2) Patlabor: The Movie (905 votes)
3) Ghost in the Shell (851 votes)
4) Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer (747 votes)
5) Innocence (653 votes)
6) Patlabor (OVA) (621 votes)
7) Urusei Yatsura TV Series (376 votes)
8) Avalon (250 votes)
9) Gosenzo Sama Banbanzai! (219 votes)
10) The Angel's Egg (187 votes)

Neo-Kichijoji

My interview with Tekkon Kinkreet director Michael Arias is one of the feature stories in the second issue of Otaku USA magazine, which (if you're an otaku in the USA, at any rate) should be hitting bookstores and newsstands right about now. Conducted both in Studio 4C and on the mean $treets of Kichijoji, it touches on life, his movie, and, well, everything. Except what the nonsense phrase "tekkon kinkreet" means, that is. (My take? It's a remix of the Japanese words for "reinforced concrete," so I guess a direct translation would be... "conforced reincrete." I suppose that's why they stuck with the original Japanese.)

Arias is one of the few gaijin who've made it to a position of power in the anime industry, and to date the only one who's ever directed his own anime film. The movie itself is spectacular stuff; add the fact that he's incredibly open and insightful, sprinkle with soy sauce and wasabi, and you end up with a juicy material all around. Not to build it all up in your heads or anything. Check it out when you get a chance.

Wine With Character

To paraphrase Henry Chinaski in Barfly, "a drink for all my Ultra-friends!" Hot on the heels of their Kamen Rider Shocker Wine, Bandai has just announced the Ultraseven 40th Anniversary Wine Set, limited to (of course) 777 sets at 9,800 yen a pop. (I was expecting -- perhaps even praying a little -- that it'd be a repackaged "fortified wine" like Cisco, the better to fortify oneself for all-night Ultraseven watching sessions, but in fact it's a merlot from Japanese winery Lumiere.) Each is lovingly packaged with Ultraseven festooned glassware and the signature of Koji Moritsugu, better known as "Dan Moroboshi." They're taking orders until September 28th, so get those Ultra-communicators tuned in to the LaLaBit site. This has got to be the weirdest pop culture/alcohol mashup since the legendary Taxi Driver Sake.

Tea-Time on Cybertron

Hot on the heels of "The World Sinks Except Japan" comes director Minoru Kawasaki's latest, a parody of the Transformers... I think.

Tongues are lodged so firmly in cheek it's kinda tough to tell what exactly is going on, but it appears to be a collection of ultrashort parody skits being released direct to DVD this December from Tornado Film. The one thing that does seem clear is the title: "Ochanoma-Transformation" (literally "Tea Room Transformation," though it's colloquially more like "Living Room Transformation.") They hammered home the joke with a faux press conference in Shibuya featuring a random gaijin who sorta-not-really looks like Steven Spielberg.

What's it all mean? Beats the hell outta me, but the ironic thing is that the transforming keitai phone in the first clip posted online is actually kinda cool. In keeping with the oh-so-crazy marketing schtick, it's incogruously titled "part 7."

Attention: Gundam Fans

Look at this picture and describe, in single words, only the good things that come into your mind about your mother.