AltJapan

Conjugal Relations

Translated from a recent Yomiuri Online advice forum:

My husband is an otaku and it is driving me crazy.

Before we got married, he didn't exhibit much of this kind of behavior but I've really been noticing it lately. He collects these pathetic dolls. They're called "Chogokin" robots or something, I don't know. He seems to have been collecting them since he was a kid, and he filled like four cardboard boxes with them. Sometimes he'd take them out and gaze at them lovingly. It really grossed me out. So one day when he was at work I threw them all out.

When he came home, we got into a big fight. Getting angry about dolls... it's so childish! How can I get him to admit he was wrong? Please give me some advice.

Konya wa Hurricane

Somewhere in Kichijoji circa 1989, a pair of young voice actresses are shanghaied into a photo shoot for an anime artbook. Oh, that Eighties hair-and-hardsuit look... 

(Images courtesy the Bubblegum Crisis Live Only 1989 book)

 

 

Above, "Priss" voice actress Kinuko Omori models a hardsuit designed by Fuyuki Shinada. Actually, the two shots seem to have been taken on the pedestrian overpass on the west side of Shinjuku station.

 

Now here's some hot and heavy Kichijoji action. Akiko Hiramatsu, voice actress of Nene, posing alongside her virtual namesake as built by Ryosuke Takagi. This appears to have been taken on the roof of the old Artmic building.

Old Men's Jump

Associated Press: China making anime push as Japan hits slump

Tomoko Hosaka quotes me in this piece on China 's mounting successes in the field of animation. Does the country pose a real threat to Japan's anime industry, or are they just another "acetate tiger"? Truth be told much of the content currently being produced in China is kids' fare, but the same could be said of the Japanese animation industry fifty years ago as well. 

Speaking of kids' stuff from fifty years ago, one producer Hosaka interviewed cited Osamu Tezuka as an example of what sets Japanese anime apart from that produced abroad. He's absolutely right, but not for the reason he thinks. 

Tezuka was a visionary with the storyboards but not so much with the balance sheets. He successfully established a marketplace for televised anime, but the absurdly low sums of money he agreed to per episode established a culture of poverty that persists in the industry to this very day -- a phenomenon popularly known as "Tezuka's curse." While it's true that his characters enjoyed massive popularity throughout the world, it's also true that his company went belly up in 1973. One thing is for sure: no matter beautifully executed classic "golden era" anime might be, it's no guarantee of future success.

Cute is War

Taken from the General Products (Gainax) catalog circa 1984: Dinosaur Tank gets taken for his walkies. Could this be the first salvo in the Great Moé Jihad of 20XX!? (Okay, so it's cute. But if you'd told me back in the Eighties that within two decades my giant robots and monsters would succumb not the JSDF but rather little girls like this, I'd probably have studied Swahili instead of Japanese.)

Thanks to Steve-o for the scan!

Hi-Chew

 Separated at birth? At left, an ad spotted on the train for Morinaga's new "Hi-Chew" candy. At right, a still from some quality entertainment that's fun for the whole family.

Der Kommissar

How would World War II have turned out if Nazi Germany had developed R2-D2 before the Americans?

K-Off!

The more astute followers of Japanese subcultural trends have long realized that there is an ever-widening schism between old-school "otaku" and new-school "moé" devotees. But what does it mean for modern moé when even a pro degenerate -- and lolicon pioneer -- like manga artist Hideo Azuma has this to say about it? You'd have expected that if anyone could bridge the eras, it would be someone like him, but no dice. (For those not in the know, Azuma is something like Japan's R. Crumb, only without the ability to catch a break and actually get himself laid.)

"I watched [moé staple anime] 'K-On!' It was empty. It was nothing. The jokes made no sense. It didn't even have any eroticism, any grotesquerie. Just the mildest, faintest hint of fetishism. Are the people who made it and the people who watch it that unable to cope with reality? It just feels gross -- kind of like maid cafes, now that I think of it."

Quoted from one of the semi-regular manga diaries posted on Azuma's official site.

Hurt Nutrocker

Veterans of the war against the Brain Brigade assure me that this is an incredibly accurate depiction of their experiences in the field.

Lumber Robo

 

 

Beautiful, hand-carved "mecha" in wood from take-G toys. Too bad they're not for sale, but lots of other stuff is! According to his site, he's having an exhibition at the Gallery Mitate in Nishi-Azabu from March 30 through April 18th.

War is Swell

 "The Forever War" author Joe Haldeman's reaction to the io9 article on the lack of realism in military science fiction movies:

"A movie that accurately reflected the conduct of war would be pretty enervating. You sit in front of the screen and watch people dig holes and fill sandbags for two hours. Then in the last few seconds of the movie, someone in the balcony opens up with a machine gun."