Osu! Tatakae! Nippon!

TBS Election Rip-Off Video?

noreply@blogger.com (Maxamillian) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 13:25:00 +0000

I posted a video up last December, made by these guys. Here's the video again:

At the end of last month, Japan Probe posted the new TBS intro for its election coverage. Have a watch:

Notice any similarities?

People Need To Stop Being Idiots

noreply@blogger.com (Maxamillian) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 18:28:00 +0000

I'd like to briefly step in to the biggest debate in Japan at the moment: Miyasaka Emiri's dress. The Miss Universe 2009 contestant is going to be wearing a leather kimono-like thing in the pageant and some stuck-up people are throwing hissy-fits about it, claiming it makes her look like a porn star. This is her in the outfit:

What the hell is wrong with people? It's being referred to as "vulgar". It's also being claimed that the dress undermines part of Japanese culture. But I'd like to remind people that this is a freaking beauty pageant. The whole damned event is vulgar, and the whole event undermines the dignity of women, so a stupid dress is really not the thing to be complaining about. Are people fine with the idea of parading women in bikinis around whilst they spout inane bullshit and then lauding them as the pinnacle of the feminine gender, but somehow appalled if she makes a national dress slightly smutty? Get a fucking clue.

Dissolution

noreply@blogger.com (Maxamillian) — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 18:12:00 +0000

Forgive me, internet, for I have sinned. It's been sixteen days since my last blog post. You know how sometimes you intend to blog about shit and then by the time you get round to it everything's changed and you realise that, actually, you can't be arsed? Well watching the last two weeks of the LDP imploding has been like that. But with more alcohol. And less being arsed.

So. The LDP lost the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly elections two weeks ago by almost as much as I like to tell people they lost by. Which is shitloads. They no longer hold the majority, that now goes to DPJ, Tokyo Network and assorted cronies. Unfortunately hardly anyone voted for the SDP, but then that's no surprise. There are still people who don't wash their hands after they use the toilet, so I guess some people just refuse to be civilised.

Obviously Aso tried to limit the damage by telling people that the Tokyo Assembly elections weren't indicative of how the party would do in the general election because they deal with entirely different issues. Naturally, everyone knows that's horseshit. They're going to lose spectacularly in the general election. Not spectacularly because they'll lose by much, but spectacularly because they've only been out of power for nine months out of the last 54 years.

Aso needs re-inflating again.
That's not to say that they've had a solid monopoly over Japan for all of those years. Since Koizumi they've had a litany of popular failures and private disasters. The best way to imagine the LDP's situation is to picture a man falling down an up-escalator for three pathetic, bone-splitting years. Like the LDP's approval rating the man seems to be constantly falling, with all the associated pain and embarrassment, but always miraculously stays in the same place. We have to wait for him to finally hit rock-bottom to see whether he'll lie there and bleed out with the remains of his dignity or whether he'll lurch like Frankenstein's monster back to the escalator of government.

Aso has dissolved the Lower House in preparation for a general election on the 30th of August. This obviously means that there is effectively no government in Japan at the moment. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Cos I'm pretty sure this means Japan is ripe for a coup d'etat. If we can barricade ourselves in Aso's office so we've got the Prime Minister's Throne on the 30th of August then it's legal, right? Isn't that how it works?

Debt Will Eat Me Alive (Also A Woman Was Burnt)

noreply@blogger.com (Maxamillian) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:03:00 +0000

Having recently found out how much debt I'm currently in from my student loan (£32,000, or $51,823, or 4.8 million yen), I have no sympathy for people being made redundant. There's a recession on, but eventually things will stabilise and they'll find jobs again, and at least they've all got experience and viable qualifications. This £32,000 is going to hang around my neck til I die, because there's no way in hell I can pay it off. Surely there's someone in the world looking to employ a Comparative Literature graduate? Seriously, I can compare the shit out of things.

Anyway. Fuji TV have reported how some crazy bitch set a job-agency office-worker on fire because she couldn't find her a job. The batshit old whore doused her with gasoline and then ignited her. And as if telling us wasn't good enough, Fuji TV then show us what a plastic bottle of gasoline might look like, then show us a lighter. And for those of us that still don't get it, they then do a CGI re-enactment. They also show the spot where she was set alight over and over again, as if by looking at it often enough we'll get some kind of clairvoyant flash-back of the actual incident. This is a news-story in which every person featured failed at their job.

Video via Japan Probe
The job-agency worker couldn't get a client a job. The crazy bitch got fired from her job in the first place. And Fuji TV are just shit. I could do any of those jobs! Or at least not do them any worse than these people. Somebody hire me! ...Please?

Land Of The Rising Unemployment Figures

noreply@blogger.com (Maxamillian) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:59:00 +0000

"Yes, unemployment rates are increasing. And yes, the rate at which the unemployment rate is increasing is increasing. But! The rate at which the rate of unemployment rate increases are increasing is DEcreasing! So it's all going to be ok! Vote LDP! Vote LDP!"

The unemployment rate in May was up to 5.2%. I'm waiting for an update on June's figures, which I expect to see at Japan Economy News any day now. I'm also preparing my face to adopt the appropriate expression of concern before going back to gleefully writing jokes about all the people who're unhappy because they're now penniless. Welcome to my world. Welcome to the world of debt.

Aso's "I feel your pain. No, seriously" face

Aso Meets His Boss

noreply@blogger.com (Maxamillian) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:43:00 +0000

Well, hasn't Aso Taro been busy? (No.) He turned up at the Vatican yesterday for a meeting with the Pope ahead of the G8 Summit in Italy that's just started. Every time the G8 meet it seems like all their members go on press-junket style tours, meeting local luminaries and being interviewed, like weary actors promoting their latest movie but with a radiant sense of glee and self-importance. They smile for the cameras and answer questions like, "What was it like working with Silvio Berlusconi?" and "Can you confirm or deny rumours of a romance between you and Chancellor Merkel?" Then everyone forgets they exist for six months or so before they're off again.

So yesterday Aso (68 years old, Catholic) went to meet his Overlord, the Pope. But he wasn't just there to take Pope Benedict's each-way bet on Obama to use the word "reform" at least three times in a single sentence, oh no. He also wanted to present him with a Sony digital camcorder. Because if there's one thing the Pope likes more than gambling on dead-certainties it's home-videos. Oh, and God.

Awkward gifts are something of a staple in the political world. When Obama met the Queen for the first time, he gave her an iPod loaded with songs from The King And I (true fact). In turn, the Queen gave him a framed, signed photo of herself, which quite frankly is fucking hilarious. And when Gordon Brown visited America, Obama gave him a box-set of 25 DVDs (another true fact). Of course, Region 1 DVDs can't actually be played in Britain, but how was the President to know that?

Here's the Aso-Pope meeting, with the Sony camcorder being presented on a silver platter:

You'll notice the camcorder doesn't actually have a charger though. So the Pope will be lucky to get even one match of the All-Italia Nuns Volleyball Championship out of it. Better luck next time.

Abandoned Hotel Becomes Even More Abandoned

noreply@blogger.com (Maxamillian) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:09:00 +0000

The Takara Hotel in Nakagusuku, Okinawa, has been a hang-out for lots of idiot teenagers living in the nearby military base. It's also been used by some Japanese "military-gamers" as a paintball arena, which is a far better use for an abandoned hotel than kids trying to scare each other. I mean, honestly. But now, because a Marine was injured there recently, the Corps has declared it off-limits to all personnel and family of military staff. The wimps.

2nd Lieutenant Lucas Burke (great name) has written that, "Injuries sustained by a service member brought the dilapidated conditions to light with Marine Corps leadership, who consider the high risk of harm at Takara Hotel to constitute a threat." The Corps elaborated on the "dilapidated conditions", specifying "decaying structure, broken glass and accumulating detritus".

I'm no expert, but aren't these guys trained for wars? You don't need to coddle them, they're soldiers. A little "decaying structure" never hurt anyone! And "detritus" is known to be character building. Significantly, the military have declined to describe the details of the Marine's injury sustained in the hotel, leaving us no choice but to speculate wildly.

The Takara Hotel was half-constructed in 1975 by an adventurous businessman. Apparently the local villagers told him not to build the hotel because the proposed site was on sacred grounds. No seriously. But, like any conscientious horror-story protagonist, he did it anyway. Then the local Buddhist temple started accosting the builders, warning them that the construction site was right next to a cave housing "restless spirits", so most of the builders left. We're told that the rest of the workers "abandoned the project when several other workers died in mysterious construction accidents". It's like the plot of every shit teen-horror movie rolled into one ridiculous mess. And the businessman ended up in an asylum.

Is that blood in the hallway?! (No.)
So, bearing all that in mind, what do you think happened to the Marine that was injured? Speculate as wildly as possible in the comments section, and the winner will get 100 Points.

Not Long Before Flying Monkeys Now...

noreply@blogger.com (Maxamillian) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:06:00 +0000

Monkey news time! Not fugitive monkeys tonight though, we're talking about glowing monkeys!

Marmosets have been genetically engineered in Japan's Central Institute for Experimental Animals to glow in the dark by splicing some jellyfish genes into them. Somehow. And when the glowing marmosets fathered baby marmosets, the babies glowed too, meaning the scientists can make non-monkey genes inheritable in monkeys.

This fantastic snub of Mother Nature is supposed to "herald development of monkeys that are better models of human disease than genetically modified mice". Somehow. I'm withholding judgement on that angle, given my lack of a bio-engineering PhD, but I'm all in favour of the Mother Nature snubbing and invention of anything that glows. Pictures have been very hard to come by, unfortunately, and the ones on this post seem to the only ones available.

Glowing monkey hands

YoYoJam Japes

noreply@blogger.com (Maxamillian) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:22:00 +0000

I've got over my accidental, self-induced food poisoning and I'm fighting-fit again! Although I'll probably still try to avoid fights. Let's keep it real.

Right, I've got a lot of catching up to do with what's happening outside my flat, so whilst I go read some "news" here's what I'd like to fob you off with:

Via Japan Probe

This is the three-time World Champion yo-yo-er Suzuki Hiroyuki, of Team YoYoJam.

How many times do you think he's hit himself in the head with that thing? (OTN Official Guess: one million!)

Maria Sharapova Taking On Four Guys And A Girl

noreply@blogger.com (Maxamillian) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:31:00 +0000

As tennis fans and anyone with access to the BBC's blanket-coverage will be aware, Wimbledon is happening at the moment. I wasn't interested in the tennis at all, then I saw that Maria Sharapova was playing. Then she lost. ...Stupid tennis.

So for anyone else that was expecting to relax into a couple of weeks watching leggy Russian women prancing around in miniskirts and grunting, here's a video of Sharapova playing against an opposing team of five Japanese tv personalities.

Japanese Blogging Topics

noreply@blogger.com (Maxamillian) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 22:51:00 +0000

What Japan Thinks has translated an interesting survey that ranked the top blog topics in Japan.

The Top 10 for men were:

1. What I Did Today
2. Impressions of Movie/TV/Anime
3. Favourite Product/Service
4. Impressions of Today's Food
5. Product/Service I Want to Recommend
6. Political News
7. Financial News
8. Sports News
9. What I Bought Today
10. Entertainment Gossip

And for women:

1. What I Did Today
2. Impressions of Today's Food
3. Favourite Product/Service
4. Impressions of Movie/TV/Anime
5. Product/Service I Want to Recommend
6. What I Bought Today
7. Impressions of a Manga
8. Impressions of Music
9. Entertainment Gossip
10. What My Friend/Relatives Did Today

By way of comparison, here's the OTN Top 10 Topics so far:

1. Politics
2. Technowizardry
3. The Economy
4. Ueto Aya
5. Criminal Underworld
6. Visions of the Apocalypse
7. Culture
8. Baseball
9. Wildlife
10. Pokemon

Yeh, you'd never have thought that the bulk of this blog has been about politics, would you? But those are the numbers, man.

Go to What Japan Thinks for more details on the blogging survey and for shitloads of other interesting surveys.

For Lack Of Anything Else: Gundam Stuff

noreply@blogger.com (Maxamillian) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 21:54:00 +0000

There's been a spate of Gundam suits being made recently. It started with the life-size Gundam RX-78 suit made in Odaiba as part of the 30th Anniversary of Gundam celebrations, which seem to have spawned a series of copycat-crime Gundam creations all over the place.

Video of the Odaiba Life-Size Gundam, via Japan Probe
But as we all know, the Universe craves balance. And as a multi-million yen, painstakingly accurate Gundam suit had been erected in Odaiba, so the Fukuoka Science Museum had to build four Gundam suits out of cardboard. This is the tiny picture that the Asahi Shimbun provided, and I haven't been able to find anything bigger, sadly:

Quite frankly I'm more impressed by these cardboard Gundams than by the life-size one.

And in America, army mechanic Carlos Owens has designed and built his own mobile suit. It's not a Gundam, but in contrast to the Odaiba and cardboard models his actually works. It's a six-metre tall hydraulic-powered suit that can be controlled from within.

Via Japanator
Given the numbers of novelty robots now roaming the Earth, could someone please get round to organising a Robot Battle Royale? Who's job is that? It must be someone's job. Yeh I'm looking at you, Japan.

Guitar Playing Nine-Year Old

noreply@blogger.com (Maxamillian) — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 14:52:00 +0000

Despite Ellen Degeneres, this video is amazing. Try to ignore her and watch the video to the end - seriously. You won't regret it.

Hotness, Courtesy Of Asian Poses

noreply@blogger.com (Maxamillian) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:49:00 +0000

In the past week I've seen three people link to Asian Poses, and the last person was Gary Cutlack so clearly it can't be ignored any more.

Although this doesn't come under "Japanese news", it does come under "pictures of hot Asian girls" and is therefore still within the mandate of this blog. Asian Poses is, as you can imagine, a catalogue of the poses that girls strike in photos. Like in this video demonstration of quick-fire posing:

Check out the site, it's super cool.

Breaking Monkey News!

noreply@blogger.com (Maxamillian) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 20:01:00 +0000

Another monkey is on the run! This is not the same creature as the elusive Shibuya Monkey or the Kisarazu Monkey, it's a brand new one that infiltrated Kasukabe in Saitama yesterday. Look at it go!

Actually they're not really chasing it, are they? It's like they hardly care.

Monkey Chase!

noreply@blogger.com (Maxamillian) — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 21:20:00 +0000

The people of Kisarazu in Chiba have failed where their compatriots in Shibuya also failed. Late last month, 30 people attempted to capture a monkey that was running amok in the town, chasing it through streets and over rooftops, but they were outmaneouvred and outrun.

Why were they chasing the monkey though? Was it causing damage to property or something? I know nothing about the countryside, other than that it doesn't have internet and is therefore something to be avoided, so I very rarely come into contact with animals. I can't imagine the monkey was being that much of a danger to anyone or anything, but maybe that's ignorance on my part and monkeys are an infamous threat to crops or something.

Pretty much the same thing happened in Niigata in March, but the people there caught their quarry. They initially tried to outwit it by leaving bananas laced with tranquilliser around, but when the monkey didn't fall into their trap they ended up just cornering it in a garage. And it only took 20 people there. Here's a video of the Niigata chase:

Sadly there's been no news about the Shibuya Monkey, who evaded train-station workers, the public and the police for months. I really hope it survived the winter.

Max's Vision Of The Apocalypse #3621

noreply@blogger.com (Maxamillian) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 22:18:00 +0000

Robots are now capable of reading. Waseda's Information, Production and Systems Research Centre has developed a one metre tall, 25 kilo robot that can scan text and read it aloud in a soulless, Mother Nature-mocking voice. He reads kana and over 2,000 kanji, making him officially about 10 times better than I am at Japanese.

The robot, which some commentators are already calling a "crime against nature" (source: OTN), has been dubbed "Ninomiya", and is an abomination upon the Earth. The heathen scientists behind Ninomiya are currently working on making its voice sound more natural and human, the better to infiltrate our homes. They hope the aberration will be used in the future to read books to children and the elderly. Although the scientists didn't say what it would be reading, it's probably significant that they didn't explicitly state it wouldn't be reading anti-Human propaganda and Satanic pledges, so we must fear the worst.

Video from Pink Tentacle
Woe! Woe! Fear the unbelievers!

Evangelion Phones!

noreply@blogger.com (Maxamillian) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:18:00 +0000

Oh if only my blog hadn't broke this week and I hadn't been so lazy last week. Then I could have linked the last blog-post and this one together and created a kind of Evangelion-themed week. Once again the forces of bad luck and laziness have colluded against me. Anyway, brace yourself for the most awesome mobile phones ever...

Evangelion phones! Yaaay, Evangelion phones! Say it with me: "Evangelion phones"! All the fellas: "Evangelion phones"! Now just the ladies: "Evangelion phones"!

Yes, Evangelion mobile phones costing 90,000 yen each (that's about £560 in good, honest, British currency) have been released. There were 20,000 of them available on Friday at 10pm, and at 3pm after five hours of taking orders there were none left. That's over £11 million earned by Nerv in five hours. Or £2.2 million every hour. Or £37,000 every minute. Or £617 per second. Just in the time you took to read this paragraph they probably earned enough to buy you and everything you own.

And I can't think of a better way to spend 90,000 yen. Look at it:

It's designed by Anno Hideaki, who I'm guessing had to sell his soul to do shit this cool, to tie in with the release of the second of the Eva-remake films.

And look at the stuff it comes with:

They sure as shit know how to merchandise, these people.

Watching The News Gets Marginally Closer To Being Worthwhile

noreply@blogger.com (Maxamillian) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 17:12:00 +0000

I've got a new addition to the list of Reasons To Shell Out Stupid Money For A PS3: Katsuragi Misato is delivering real-time news through a downloadable Nerv News 24 application. This now joins the previous one reason on the list: "the PS3 exclusive release of Yakuza 3".

They haven't got the original voice-actress doing the reading, but they're using a voice-synthesizing programme to recreate her so it's all ok. The background and Misato's clothing will be customisable, so you can have her reading in the Nerv Headquarters or in her dining room. It's as yet unknown how far Bandai are capitulating to the fans in the choice of outfits they're making available. Although the Evangelion franchise is very open to total fan-service so we could be in for a real treat.

Unfortunately the application is only available in Japan, thereby adding to the already lengthy list of Reasons To Live In Japan. It joins such reasons as "not having to live in England" and "not being able to accidentally overhear people talking bullshit I can understand".

In Before The Clock Ticks Over

noreply@blogger.com (Maxamillian) — Fri, 22 May 2009 22:57:00 +0000

It's 11.57pm over here, so it's time for today's blog post!

The brilliant Crazy Ken Band have just signed with a major label. Universal are establishing a sublabel called, for absolutely no reason, Double Joy International just for them. Frankly, I didn't know they weren't already signed with a major label. Well, 'every day a little wiser', eh?

For those of you who aren't already familiar with Crazy Ken Band, here are a couple of songs. They kick ass. Bask in the glory! Etc!

Lock Stock

noreply@blogger.com (Maxamillian) — Thu, 21 May 2009 22:00:00 +0000

There's a reason I haven't written any blog posts since Monday - I forgot. I've been literally so busy over the past three days that I completely forgot to write on the internet or watch even a single minute of baseball. Apparently I missed a Mariners win last night. :o( Still, the reason I'm so busy is that the Pokemon World Video Game Championship is currently happening around the globe and the London heat is in nine days, giving me a frighteningly short amount of time to do a frighteningly large amount of preparation. So you can expect anything I write on here over the next ten days to be quite spectacularly half-assed. Even more so than last week when I only had university exams to prepare for and not a potentially life-changing Pokemon tournament.

But anyway! Today, let me introduce you to the Stocking Tug Of Team War!

Available in shops.
Behold! The heady mix of two parts entertainment, five parts extreme lack of taste!

Paper Plane World Record. Whoopee.

noreply@blogger.com (Maxamillian) — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:11:00 +0000

Toda Takuo is a 52 year old paper plane enthusiast from Fukuyama. He recently broke the world record for the longest paper plane flight by 0.3 seconds, and it now stands at a proud 27.9 seconds. He tells us that "the key to breaking the record is how high you fly it." No. Shit.

That story makes today officially the Slowest News Day Of The Year so far. It's actually slower than the days when I didn't even have any news to post. Give me strength.

Stagnation

noreply@blogger.com (Maxamillian) — Sun, 17 May 2009 22:53:00 +0000

I said a week ago that I'd do a post on the DPJ leader election when they announce who's running for office, but they already elected Hatoyama Yukio this weekend when I wasn't looking. Sorry. That's what happens in politics when you're not paying attention: nothing.

Somehow the DPJ decided that instead of giving Japan something different from the failing LDP, trying to win an election by being better than the other candidate, they'd give Japan something exactly the same and hope that people confuse the two enough to elect the DPJ. Or something. Shisaku points out that both Hatoyama and Aso are bad communicators who are recent descendants of former conservative party Prime Ministers. (We can also add the other two leaders of the LDP since Koizumi to that list - Fukuda's father was Prime Minister and so was Abe's grandfather.) So what's making the DPJ more electable now? They might have had something under Ozawa, but that's been scuppered.

Time to elect the Communist Party?

Well I Blame The Parents

noreply@blogger.com (Maxamillian) — Sat, 16 May 2009 22:13:00 +0000

The Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary, Konoike Yoshitada, resigned a few days ago due to "health issues". Not having a formal education in politics it took me a while to realise that "health issues" is actually a euphemism for "being caught using government money to pay for a golf trip as part of a poorly-concealed extramarital affair with a young lady". Don't you just hate jargon?

And you know when Aso said to reporters that he shouldn't be held responsible for the appointment of someone who later had to resign for being a cheat and a crook? That was a euphemism he cleared up in yesterday's speech. It's apparently a more poetic way of saying that he's "responsible for appointing all those who ended up resigning" and that "This time is no exception". I guess we should have known that. Silly us. Who knew we were actually supposed to trust politicians less?

So now Konoike is "entirely to blame", and Aso is also "fully responsible". Once Japanese scientists invent an engine powered by Japan's surplus guilt we're all gonna be driving hovercars.

Aso's "How-can-you-ever-forgive-me?" face

Why I'm Not Working In R&D

noreply@blogger.com (Maxamillian) — Thu, 14 May 2009 18:52:00 +0000

Japanese scientists have developed technology for an organic electro-luminescent display that stretches. Apparently,

The team demonstrated a face-shaped display showing changing expressions, and a spherical screen to show weather information. They were produced by spraying a layer of carbon nanotubes with a fluoro-rubber compound to produce a stretchy, conductive material. The displays are thinner than plasma and LCD equivalents, and consume very little power, making them suitable for a range of different uses.

Not entirely sure that it's going to make much difference in the world. What actual good can this technology be put to? Maybe they'll be able to make bras that have a Twitter-feed on them. Or bras that show the baseball scores. Or bras that tell you what mood the wearer is in. Hmmm. Maybe someone with more imagination than me should have a look at the new technology.