I saw the Japanese trailer for akamikaze survivor documentary movie titled Wings of Defeat. The Japanese title is 特攻 (tokko) which literally translates to “special attack”, but in Japan, when speaking about tokko in the context of WWII, most people will imagine the Kamikaze pilots.

The Japanese on the front of the flier translates roughly as: “I wanted to live.” “I didn’t want to die.”

This movie looks really interesting. I’m going to have to drag myself down to the theater and pay the 1700-ish yen or so to see it! It starts July 21 in Japan.

By the way, a friend brought to my attention a book that is out of print, but available on Amazon called I was a Kamikaze. I have never read it, but it looks interesting.

Surviving suicide missions. . . That’s heavy. Apparently the author, Nagatsuka was a French literature major at Tokyo university, so he originally wrote this book in French, and later it was translated into English.

Even better, John W. Dower is in the movie. Dower wrote the amazing Japanese post-war history book, Embracing Defeat. This book is as fat as a textbook, but is so interesting it reads like a novel. Highly recommended!

- Harvey

- Harvey

A friend sent me this image, along with a few others showing incredible “new” fashion trends in Japan. He wanted to check to be sure they were legit.

I have never seen this stuff on the street, so I figured it was just some kind of a Photoshop hoax. . . But after some Googling of the terms that appear in the screen shots.. .

I found this website that actually sells these “ultra low rise denim bikini pants“. Apparently they are from Brazil and are some kind of new fashion trend. The price is exactly the same as shown on the Japanese TV show pictured in the images.

Call me old-fashioned. . . But I’m amazed.

Anyone seen these in the wild?

- Harvey

I have been in Japan for quite some time now, yet I still have first-time experiences quite frequently.

A while back I had “blow fish sake” at a blowfish specialty shop in Kobe. The meal consisted of blowfish sashimi, followed by blowfish nabe (a type of hot pot), and after our first beers we had this blowfish sake to top it off. . . And knock us out.

It comes in an innocent looking cup, but when it is served, the waitress will reach inside, pull up a chunk of blowfish which has been floating inside and set it on fire!

Burn blowfish burn.

The alcohol content of this felt very strong, though I don’t think it was any stronger than regular sake. The fact that it is extremely hot, and also has a very almost bitter and sour taste to it because of the blow fish make it go down rough.

I was a little out of it the next day. . .

- Harvey

The first thing I notice when I get off the plane when returning to America is how large the people are on average when compared to Japan.

Japanese people are thin. Especially females.

Here is some interesting data collected from the World Health Organization.

This graph has the percentage of underweight females on the Y axis, and the a countries GDP on the X axis. Plotted on the graph are countries from around the world.

You would expect that as the GDP of a country increases, the percentage of underweight women would decrease. Generally this is true, but Japan is an exception.

According to this data, 12.24 percent of Japanese women are under weight, while countries in the same GDP range as Japan, such as Canada, Sweden, the UK, and Australia, are all under 5 percent. On the other end, Pakistan and Bangladesh have low GDP and an extremely high percentage, around 30%, of underweight women.

The definition of “abnormally thin” is when your BMI (Body Mass Index) is less than 18.5%. BMI is a calculation based on body weight and height.

The categories of BMI break down like this.

Starvation: less than 15
Underweight: less than 18.5
Ideal: from 18.5 to 25
Overweight: from 25 to 30
Obese: from 30 to 40
Morbidly Obese: greater than 40

They’re getting skinnier and skinner. The population is decreasing! Japan is gonna disappear!

- Harvey

For some reason, the KCNA official website which publicizes news for North Korea, is hosted in Japan.

Why is this?

On this site you can read what’s “really” going on in the Korean crisis, straight from the secret state itself.

An except from news published October. 18. 2006 Juche 95 (explanation of the Juche calendar - basically, the birth of Dear Leader Kim Il Sung is year 1) .

DPRK Foreign Ministry Spokesman Totally Refutes UNSC “Resolution”

. . . The successful nuclear test in the DPRK was an exercise of its independent and legitimate right as a sovereign state as it was a positive defensive countermeasure to protect the sovereignty of the country and life and security of the people from the U.S. escalated nuclear war threat and sanctions and pressure. . .

. . . The nuclear test in the DPRK was a great deed that greatly contributed to defending peace and stability not only on the Korean Peninsula but in the rest of Northeast Asia as it demonstrated powerful deterrent for coping with the U.S. nuclear threat and blackmail and foiling its attempt to ignite a new war. . .

. . . The DPRK had remained unfazed in any storm and stress in the past when it had no nuclear weapons. It is quite nonsensical to expect the DPRK to yield to the pressure and threat of someone at this time when it has become a nuclear weapons state. . .

There you have it.

The official website does not have a search function, and it is a pain to dig through the archives. A NK news buff and skilled programmer has created a website, nk-news.net, which archives and sorts all of the news from the official website.

As if that wasn’t fun enough. . . You can even search by keywords.
Now, because of the incredibly filtered, and controlled nature of the media released from NK, this keyword search is extremely interesting.

For example. . . Check their suggested searches. The phrase “bitterer hatred” shows up quite often. And, looking at the search results, seems to be commonly pointed at Japan.

The Japanese reactionaries are persistently raising a hue and cry over the abduction issue hardly comparable with the monstrous crimes committed by Japan against the Korean nation in the past. This frantic ruckus of confrontation with the DPRK only triggers off bitterer hatred of its army and people toward Japan.

Indeed.

Check out the nknews hall of fame. Read the article entitled ”Mr. Roh, tear down this wall!” about the giant concrete wall separating North and South Korea. . . which doesn’t exist.

- Harvey

At parties in Japan, there is a cultural tradition to pour beer for others.

This cultural habit is not only observable during company drinking parties, match making compa’s, or large wedding parties, but it pretty much happens anywhere there is a bottle of alcohol and more than one person drinking.

There is a saying that if you pour your own beer, you won’t be a success in life (or get a promotion at your company).

Anyway, during wedding parties in Japan, the beer drinking tradition is in full force. As a guest you are expected at some point to pick up a bottle and pour a tall cold one for the parents of the bride and groom, the office manager of the groom who gave a speech at the wedding, and of course, for the bride and groom themselves.

Japanese wedding parties can become fairly large, with guests usually numbering over 50. You can imagine that lot of beer makes its way over to the bride and groom.

[Stating the obvious] Not all Japanese are strong drinkers. 5 beers would make many a Japanese red in the face. So what do you do with all that beer? Also, your glass needs to be at least partly empty for when the next guest comes by with the bottle, or it would be rude. Where are they going to pour your beer?

See that metal can at the grooms feet in the nearby photo? This can is provided specifically for the groom to discretely empty his beer glasses into, so he can continue to accept more booze from all the grateful guests.

- Harvey

Welcome to MIND GAMES pension.

A Bambi cake set for 500 yen.

Tax.

Included.

The Mind Games begin before you step in the door.

I want to meet the owners and ask how they came up with the name.

- Harvey

In the States, we say that the shadows on the moon look like the face of a man.

In Japan, they say the same shadows are rabbits who live on the moon making mochi (pounded rice cake).

You know how the character “Sailor Moon” has the name Usagi? Usagi means “rabbit” in Japanese, and well, she’s Sailor MOON.

Mere coincidence?

I think not. . .

- Harvey

This is a good one.

This is a Chinese snack. A friend brought it back from mainland China as an omiyage.

Inside the package, is dried squid.

Outside of the package, is a picture of a shark, and text which says “takoyaki”. Which, as we all know, are fried breaded octopus balls.

What’s going on here? Is this related to the shark-eating octopus?

Japan has really small cell phones!

But the desserts are even smaller. . .

There’s nothing more disappointing than finding a great deal such as… Pasta dinner set for just 1500 yen! Salad, Pasta, Drink, and dessert! Great!

Then the cheese cake arrives. Or, what will be a cheese cake when it grows up.

Cheese cake this size wouldn’t survive two normal sized-bites. Staying in Japan for so long though has taught me to eat my cheese cake sliver by miniscule sliver. If you plan it right, you can nurse your cheese cake through a two hour dinner.

Of course. There are some exceptions, not all Japanese desserts are small.

Check out this giant kakigouri found in Kyoto!

- Harvey

Chabudai-gaeshi literally means: turn over the chabudai. The chabudai is the small round Japanese table that people sit at. . . or used to sit at. . . in the traditional Japanese home.

Since you sit down on the floor at the chabudai, it is easy to get your hands under it, and stand up forcefully flipping the entire thing over.

A situation in which chabudai-gaeshi is commonly used is the following.

Salary man comes home from a hard day at work. He sits down at the chabudai and
utters gohan (food).

His wife scuttles in and gives him his rice/miso/fish combo dinner.

The salary man then takes one sip of the miso. . ..

Bam! Food flying everywhere! Table UPSIDE-DOWN. Chaos.

I heard that the phrase chabudai-gaeshi was made famous through the cartoon, Chibi-maruko.

I haven’t tried this out myself yet, but here is a Chabudai Gaeshi Game where you can practice flipping over the chabudai.

The text on the page says: “Flip over the chabudai. That’s it. That’s it, but this is something you can’t do in reality often. . .”

Someone give this a shot and tell me how it is.

-Harvey

You guys know Gundam right?

Some Japanese university kids made a real life video depicting themselves as Gundam (you know, the giant flying robots) for a school project back in 1991.

The video has been released to YouTube, and there isn’t a semi-otaku or higher in Japan who hasn’t seen it yet. I would say this is as famous as the “Star Wars Kid” video you’re probably familiar with.

Some facts regarding this video are documented here in Japanese. Super summarized below.

Created in 1991 for a university school project. Initially, the kids were planning to create a horror flick, but decided to change it to Gundam one day before the project was due. They ran out and filmed the entire thing in a day. Who would play which Gundam character was determined on the spot by the colors of their clothes. . .

For example the guy wearing blue pants (also known as jeans…) would of course, be Gundam, cause Gundam’s legs are apparently blue. Then they added the necessary paint and stuff you see in the movie.

This was filmed on top of their University building.

The guy sitting in seiza position is supposed to be the Guntank. Imagine his legs as tank treds or something. I think that’s what the Guntank looks like anyway.

I honestly don’t know much about Gundam at all, so am completely unqualified to speak about this.

So I’ll shut up now. Enjoy the video!!!

- Harvey

Even if you can’t understand Japanese, this 7 minute video will be entertaining. Watch it to the end, I promise you won’t regret it.

The toilet cost $50,000 USD to create (5,000,000 yen).

- Harvey

I wonder what kind of shop this is. . .

- Harvey

Haagen-Dazs in Japan is getting in to the Kansai spirit with takoyaki-like ice cream snacks.

This spread here will cost you 800 yen (about 8$), and is just like takoyaki! Except there is no octopus, it’s not cooked, and is sweet tasting, like ice cream. . . instead of. . . Taco-y. Like. . . Octopus.

The sign says:

An original menu item made in the image of Osaka takoyaki. Available only in this outlet!

So if you want to try it. . . You gotta go to Osaka. (Sorry again Mr. Wake) This shop is located near Doutonbori in the Namba area, right near the Kuidaore clown doll which is so famous.

- Harvey

The number of Osaka-ians wearing Hanshin Tigers goods are starting to be overshadowed by the soccer fans coming out sporting their “Samurai Blue”.

Even the famous kui daore in down town Osaka on Doutonbori is now decked out in the Japan World Cup soccer teams uniform, complete with hat and Japanese flag tatoos on his cheeks.

I was on vacation around the Hida Takayama area, and saw (or should I say, “caught”) this priest in a ramen shop.

It’s odd, because if you look carefully at the beer-like liquid in his glass, and the giant bottle labeled “Asahi” in front of him. . . He seems to be. . . Well. . . Having a beer.

Extra attentive readers will also notice that he is simultaneously enjoying a smoke as well.

And this was before noon!

Did I mention he was having an entire bottle of beer to himself?

Priests aren’t supposed to drink. Or smoke. Right? Am I wrong?

Where’s the wabi-sabi?!?

Not in there I suspect. . .

- Harvey

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There is an amazing attraction in Osaka near Doutonbori in Namba which will allow you to transform yourself into a takoyaki.

There is even room for a friend.

This brings new meaning to the phrase “be the ball”. Or should I say, “Be the Fried Octopus Ball.”

- Harvey

During Ebisu Matsuri in Osaka, I ran across this vendor selling takoyaki which must have been three times the normal size! Maybe four.

An entire mini octopus fits inside, rather than just a piece of leg. I didn’t try one of these. Even while eating regularly sized takoyaki I often end up burning the inside of my mouth due to the super-heated insides.

Not quite ready to level up to these super takoyaki yet.

Maybe next year. . .

- Harvey