A Quake-Filled Weekend...

Around 10 or 11 Friday morning, as I surfed the Net from the comfort of my bed, I felt a vibration. My bed seems made to rock, so I assumed at first it was caused by my body having shifted. But it continued for maybe 10 seconds, stopped, then began again. Or course, quakes are common here in Japan. That was just one of many I've experienced, and not even a spectacular example.

But the quake that struck northeastern Japan around 8:43am Saturday? The big one that brought down a highway bridge, sent mud and rocks cascading down hillsides and killed at least 6 people (including one man who ran outside his home for safety only to have a car run him down)? The one that caused 15 liters of radioactive wastewater to spill from a nuclear power plant holding pool?

That one I didn't even feel. A friend had to tell me about it later that day. My mom knew more about it than I did.

According to the Japan Times Online, there are hundreds of stranded tourists in several mountain resort areas around the area, and three foreigners and a Japanese camper unaccounted for in one camping area hit by mudslides. We can only hope they're okay and soon to emerge with nothing more than a more thrilling vacation story.

I need to put some serious thought into making an earthquake preparedness kit. Every household in Japan should have one. A change of clothes, bottled water, canned food, towels and more. Yeah, I need to get on that!

And Now It's Time For...

... Name That Tune, starring everyone's favorite rock band, Melt-Banana. Take it away, rockers!



For those of you playing along at home who said "Heart of Glass" by Blondie... you win! In-studio contestants guessing correctly and those who sent in their replies by August 4th are in luck! Tell them what they won, Don!

Don: A neeeewwwwwww tattoo! Courtesy Black Lion Tattoo Parlor and Piercery in lovely downtown Burbank, Cali... FORNIA!

Thanks, Don! Agata shreds this song to tiny quivering pieces with the fur still attached and at 1:30 Rika loses her pick and gropes on the stage floor to find it. Yasuko boards an interstellar rocket and waves bye-bye to Debbie Harry.

How Many Times Do I Have to Tell You?

Wolf and cat.

Through the Magic of Ryoko's Sudsy Time Machine, You Can Relive Japan's Decadent "Bubble" Era!

This is a trailer for Hirosue Ryoko's Bubble Fiction: Boom or Bust, a science fic... er... fantasy flick that came out in 2007. A researcher creates a time machine inside a washer, rather than a sexy DeLorean with its shiny stainless steel body and gull-wing doors. I suppose a washer is more economical and practical. The DeLorean would use increasingly expensive gasoline and require difficult-to-acquire plutonium, while the washer not only provides temporal shifts but also covers the traveler in a pleasantly aromatic detergent foam.

When the scientist doesn't return from her trip to 1990, the government does what any responsible group of leaders would do- it sends the woman's frivolous club hostess daughter (Hirosue) back to rescue her mother... and also Japan's national finances.

The subtitles at one point have Ryoko raising a glass of champagne and screaming that she loves the bubble, but my translation is closer to, "The bubble is so cool!"

And, indeed, it was.

During the 1980s and early 1990s, Japan's overheated economy was the envy of the world, especially in the United States where every day we had news reports of Japanese corporations buying choice commercial real estate in New York City and Putney, Georgia. Cell phones were roughly the size of Greyhound Scenicruisers and required users to wear nuclear-powered mechanical exoskeletons in order to carry them about, an aging Arthur Fonzarelli gave up his Harley for a Suzuki dirt bike, Mothra became CEO of Levi Strauss and started shipping weathered jeans back to the mother country where newly affluent Japanese teens paid thousands of yen for them only to grind them into a fine powder and snort them off mirrors in nightclub bathrooms.

Yes (according to the film trailer), the bubble years were a time of "exuberance and over-indulgence, ruled by lust and decadence!" And also dangly earrings and old guy lechery. How very different from Japan today where we've successfully eliminated dangly earrings.

In the States, those bubble years were characterized by Michael J. Fox films, acid washed denim, white high-top Reeboks and brightly colored t-shirts. As the era wore on, these increasingly gave way to pocketfuls of kryptonite and attempts by two or more princes to kneel before various young women and demand they choose a proper mate. Eventually it all collapsed both in Japan and America in an orgy of flannel and Timberland hiking boots. This led to a period of retrenchment in the late 1990s in which groups of self-styled "neos" experienced bullet time while still others became ill with some sort of "bug," from which untold millions of Beanie Babies perished.

All of this will be addressed in the sequel film, entitled Millenium Fantasy: No Scrubs.

Napoleon of the Stump...

This has nothing to do with Japan, but it's an election year back home and this song tells the story of a man who accomplished everything he set out to do, then removed himself from public life and promptly died.

While the man himself was from perfect and perhaps can be harshly judged from a modern perspective- an aggressive expansionist, he confronted Great Britain and negotiated the purchase of the Oregan Territories, waged war with Mexico (inspiring Henry David Thoreau's night in jail and brilliantly conceived literary work Civil Disobedience) and also was a lifelong slaveholder who supported extending the Missouri Compromise into the newly-acquired western territories- there's no denying James K. Polk's presidency was incredibly successful.

James K. Polk, little-celebrated 11th President of the United States.

The Akihabara Knife Attack...

On Sundays, the main street in Akihabara is closed to traffic so the shopping throngs can walk freely, safe from danger, buy duty-free electronics and the latest computer games, visit maid cafes and shop for manga and cosplay goods. Yet last Sunday, June 8th, suddenly a white rental truck came driving along, plowing into people, and then a man with a knife stabbing passersby. When a cop tried to talk to him, the man stabbed the officer repeatedly. When he was finished the man had killed 7 and injured 10 more.

Why? People who work there are trying to understand it. Akihabara attracts tourists and geeks alike. And evidently, one twisted, unhappy individual with mayhem on his mind. A 25-year-old from right here in Shizuoka prefecture, a temp worker with more problems than solutions.

I'm not really an Akihabara kind of person, prefering Shibuya, Shinjuku and Harajuku. But on my last trip to Tokyo I decided to explore there and spent two fun, rain-splashed afternoons strolling around, looking for hardcore otaku and akiba-kei (fanboy/girl and Akihabara fanboy/girl) sites, checking out the maids in sexy-cute Victorian costumes outside the station as they shilled for their cafes, finding toy and model shops chock full of colorful plastic toys. I've been planning a big photo essay post about Akihabara...

Before it just seemed frivolous and fun. Maybe even harmlessly creepy in some respects. Now it seems a little haunted, tainted. Despite having so frequently lost friends and family (including someone very close recently to something so stupid as to be almost incomprehensible), I can only imagine how the victims' families must feel. In some cases they must have actually watched the murders taking place in broad daylight, amid the same sights and sounds I drank in so recently and thoroughly enjoyed. What a horrific disconnect from reality that must have been. For them, those buildings and signs forever have a different meaning. Something sinister, I suppose.

I don't think there are any broad trends at work here; analyzing Japan and making absolutist statements tends to be a favorite pastime of ex-pats living here. But this is a personal tragedy for real human beings. Whatever external causes you might name, there are almost certainly many more internalized ones, dark places inside this young man that are his and his alone and universal at the same time.

My heart goes out to those left behind.

The Onion Discovers "Battle Royale"

The Onion AV Club has a fascinating regular feature called "The New Cult Canon," about films the cinema cognoscenti are into these days. They finally got around to covering that ultimate in cool cult flicks, Battle Royale.

And you can read it here.

The article neatly sums up all that is good and bad about Battle Royale, so I won't rehash it here. Suffice it to say, if you don't like violence, don't see this movie. I find it less disturbing than Suicide Circle, but others may have a lower threshold of nausea than I do. On the other hand, where else can you see Kuriyama Chiaki, Shibasaki Kou and Maeda Aki together in one all-singing, all-dancing, all-shooting movie?