Monthly Archives: April 2006

Ikea.jp

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This week (on April 24th), the first Ikea shop in Japan opened near Funabashi (east of Tokyo in Chiba). Miou being a fan of Ikea we decided to go there today. It was an almost eight hours trip, including transportation and lunch time.
Of course, it was the first Sunday that the shop was open but still, there was more people than at Akihabara the day the PSP was released.
It was crowded and you have to wait for everything (eating, paying, entering,…).
We bought some big furnitures as the prices are quite low compared to the same kind of shops in Japan and asked for delivery (that is more expensive than other shops except if you buy a lot as the price is fixed for one order not depending on quantity). We expected to have it delivered tomorrow but it will arrive only on May 13th ! It’s the first time that I hear about such a long delivery time in Japan where it is usually very quick and relatively cheap.
Next week is the Golden Week (almost a whole week of national holidays) so it was a good opportunity for cleaning our flat and install the new furnitures. Given that we are both very lazy, I think the flat won’t change before the 13.

Performancing

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I tried Ecto recently, an offline blog publishing tool but I discovered Performancing, a free extension for Firefox. It works very well and is more convenient than Ecto.
If you have a blog and use WordPress (it works with other blog editors), you must install Performancing. It will greatly increase your productivity.

Learn Katakana With Ultraman

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On each biscuit, a katakana (one of the two Japanese alphabets) and the Ultraman monster whose name begins with this katakana. Only Ultraman himself is a bit special as his associated katakana is N that is the last katakana in “ultraman”. This is because no word starts with the katakana (or for that matter, hiragana) N.

On the box, the complete list with all the katakanas.

The Stalin: Sex & Politics

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A friend gave me this great magazine called Couples certainly from 1981 given that there is a small add for the record “Stalinism” by The Stalin released by Political.
I must admit that I would never had recognized Michiro Endo from the picture on the cover by myself.
Especially given the type of the magazine.

Couples is a porno magazine (Japanese style) and Michiro Endo is a model in a lot of pictures. He is both on the front and back covers.
The magazine itself is quite strange with only three adds, including one for The Stalin and articles about couples, sex, high-school girls,… There are some good quality color pictures but most of the magazine is in black and white with a DIY feeling, certainly because of the low quality pictures, and the “underground” feeling.
I think it is better to show you part of the content rather than talking about it. So here you are (for adults only).
Continue reading →

Wakamatsukoji.org

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We want Kouji Wakamatsu to shoot the movie “Jistsuroku – Rengo Sekigun” !
That’s the wish of several persons including Jim O’Rourke. The goal is to collect enough money (300 000 000 yens, that is 2 millions euros) so that Kouji Wakamatsu will start shooting this fall. The scenario is already written and the movie will be based on the true story of the Japanese Red Army, starting in 1968 with the demonstrations again the Vietnam war and the presence of the American Army in Japan, and ending with the event of the Asama Mountains in 1972. Cast is not decided yet.

You can give money for this project (minimum 30 000 yens or 200 euros) that you will get back in the form of cinema tickets once the movie has been shot. It means that by paying the minimum amount, you will be able to see the same movie 20 times…
Anyway, if you want more details or participate financially, it’s here: www.wakamatsukoji.org. If you need help, send me an email. The blog is here.

???? (kenkoushindan) – Physical Examination

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???? is composed of two parts as you could easily guess: ?? (kenkou – “health”) and ?? (shindan – “diagnosis”). Let’s talk about the first part, “health”.
It is constituted of two kanjis. The first one means “healthy, health, robust”. It is a bit complicated but one can see the left radical that is ? (a person). The second one means “ease, peace” (old meaning) and “healthy”. This kanji is found for example in gouken (“virile, manly”). It is the second time we see a word that is constituted by two kanjis that mean more or less the same thing. This one too is a bit complicated and it is even hard to see that the inside bottom radical is “rice” (?) and not “water” (?). It is almost only used with the first “health” kanji for forming the word “health”.

Pump Up the Barium

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Barium or Valium, it is almost the same in Japanese (in fact, the official transcription in Japanese is Bariumu for Barium and Beiriumu for Valium). So when I was asked to drink a full glass of Valium for a stomach x-ray, I though that I will stay in bed for at least two weeks. Of course, it was barium and not Valium. Instead of sleeping for days, I had to go several times to toilets for defecating white shit.
As an employee in a Japanese company, there is a mandatory medical exam every year. It is only for employees so during my three years at the University as a post-doctoral fellow, there was no medical exam for me.
Being a foreigner has some advantages when it comes to things such as a medical exam. When a foreigner enters the medical center, there is a kind of panic: how will we communicate with him ? So usually, one of the employees who has learned some english will escort you during all the steps of the medical exam. It allows you to not wait a single minute as they all want get rid of you as quickly as possible. Not that they don’t like you, just that you are the origin of an incredible stress among doctors and nurses.

Shinjuku Tsutaya

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It was such a long time I didn’t go to Shinjuku that I was not sure I could remember where was the Tsutaya, my favorite video store. It was at the same place but it took me several minutes for finding what I was looking for as they changed the place the different genres are stored. I rent the last Hisayasu Satou movie (Si-Sei) and the last Sono Sion (Strange Circus). One is totally awful, boring, just plain bad. The other is bewildering and I couldn’t decide yet if I liked it or not. But not the kind of movie you forget easily. Guess which one was really bad ?
A new movie of the Cream Lemon series has been released too (adaptation of a manga). The first one was made, quite surprinsingly, by Nobuhiro Yamashita (No One’s Ark, Linda Linda Linda) but three other movies were released (as OVs) after. These three movies are in the “Cream Lemon Label” series and are (of course) more erotic and exploitative than the Yamashita’s one. All the Cream Lemon movies have been released by Fullmedia. I’ve never watched the Yamashita’s movie (released in 2004) so I rent it today and plan to rent the OVs later. May be I will talk about these movies more lengthily in the future.

Sasori TV

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I wanted to work on the design of the forcoming noise compilation that I will release on Even Stilte and the Toei Channel was broadcasting the perfect TV show to watch while working: a TV series based on the famous Sasori character.
Well, it was not very good, especially if you are a fan of the original Sasori movies with Kaji Meiko. The actress chosen for playing Nami/Sasori was the worst choice possible, the story became more and more complicated and confusing, the newly introduced characters were typical of a TV drama and didn’t fit well with the Sasori atmosphere. There were 7 episodes (around 30 minutes each) and may be only the first two tried to stick to the original movies (I don’t know about the manga). Then it was just a long fight between Sasori and a crazy killer who killed at least 50 persons, sometimes just because he needed a coat…
Not good but not horrible, so I could enjoy it while making some progress on the design of the No Noise compilation and then play to Elder Scroll IV Oblivion on my MBP (on Windows thanks to Boot Camp).
Tomorrow I’ll try to set up things for a live of Dave Phillips when he will come in Japan in June. By the way, Dave Phillips is on the No Noise compilation.

ES Mailorder – new items

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Two great new CDs from Housepig Records are available on ES Mailorder.
The CDs are a 6 tracks compilation (with Aube, Guilty Connector und Tabata, Unicorn, …) and the first album of Sky Burial (aka Fire in the Head).

By the way, I received all the contributions for the compilation that I will release on Even Stilte. It will be a 10 tracks compilation with a great cover. I just have to finish the design, to find a cheap place where I’ll duplicate it and it will be over for this compilation (does it really took me four years ?).

Books

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I didn’t watch a lot of movies recently, and no pinku for at least one month… That’s may be the reason why I couldn’t help buying several japanese books about pinku, but not only.
Let’s start by the non-pinku book, in fact the number 5 of the great review/book Hotwax. This issue is mainly about the director Akira Kobayashi and a CD is included. But the best is for this summer with release of the number 6 that will be about Roman Porno movies ! And because July in still in three month, Hotwax will be releasing some very interesting stuff before. Next month, two CDs. One is constituted of soundtracks of the Onna Banchou series (23 tracks) and the other one is a compilation of tracks of singers such as Miki Sugimoto, Ike Reiko, etc. It’s called Onna Banchou Nagaremono and contains 16 tracks.

Then Hotwax will start releasing some DVD boxes. One of them is Mofuku no Houmonsha – “King of Cult” and contains 1 CD + 3 DVDs with 6 movies of Teruo Ishii.
And if you still have some money, why not the Japanese Pops Complete Guide 1980-89 to go with the Japanese Pops Complete Guide 1970-79 that was released some months ago ?
Anyway, if you want any of these items or backnumbers of Hotwax, don’t hesitate to ask me.

The second book is the first one of an ambitious series of 5 books that will cover more or less the whole Roman Porno production. The first volume of this “Interview with a Romance film Creators” as they call it, has just been released. The japanese title is “Allegory of Love – Nikkatsu Roman (Spotlight on the end of a film studio system)”. It strange to start with the end but the book (A5 format), for people who can read Japanese, seems very interesting (content in Japanese):
- Interviews of 13 directors, 2 actresses, 8 staff members,
- 60 pages (2 per movie) of “Poster Gallery” with the full color poster on one page and some text on the other one, such as a short sentence excerpt by the leading actress,
- 30 pages of “Film Library” with one page per movie that includes two color pictures, the story and a comment called “Women’s Eye”.
- Full listing (1133 movies) of all released Roman Porno with for each the release date, director, main actors, duration, format.
I don’t know if they plan to cover the whole 1133 movies or just a selection. May be the poster gallery will cover most of them but it seems that according to this first volume that only the movies released on DVD by Geneon are covered. As these movies where released at the end on the last year, we can expect to see new Roman Porno released soon. Volumes 2 and 3 will be released later this year and volumes 4 and 5 in 2007. You want the first volume ? Ask me !

The third and last book I bought for improving my Japanese language level, is a very small book that contains texts about Roman Porno and 24 about the main actresses of the genre. It is written by Saotome Hiromi, a former Roman Porno actress and a performer (she acted in several movies of the (in)famous Seppuku series that you can find on Fujikikaku).

Well, I just have to learn to read Japanese now…

More pictures of the volume 1 of “Interview with a Romance film Creators”:
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I’ll Throw Up in Your Toilets

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I haven’t totally recovered yet from my trip in France, and the weekend didn’t help. First, Saturday was the wedding party of a friend where it was planed I’ll be the dj for some time. But that was not really the problem. The problem was that wedding party means drinking a lot. So today, when I woke up, I was sick but had to be at 15h at the police station for a statement. The same old story of my driving licence.
I managed to go there but spent the four hours and a half of the statement trying to not sleep and making several trips to the toilets for throwing up. There was a translator and two or three people were working on my case. I wonder if the money spent for that really worth it. I think that going three times to the police station for at least three hours each time is a sufficient punishment. Now I have to wait for a summoning before a prosecutor…

KitKat Fruit Parfait

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KitKat are everywhere in Japan. You can even find special KitKat boxes at the Narita Airport if ever you think it’s a nice idea for a gift. The box is constituted of KitKats from the Takagi series and is called “Exotic Tokyo”. Not really a typical japanese gift, but as you can only find these KitKats in Japan…

Another KitKat than has just been released in Japan is the very pop Fruit Parfait. In fact in will be sold from 4/17, I don’t know how Miou could already find one . This one is tsubutsubu, meaning that there are small pieces of fruits. The taste ? A bit too much and too artificial for me.

Incheon

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Short post from Incheon International Airport (Korea) where I finally paid $3 for one hour of connection as it is impossible here to have a free wireless connection. The same in Paris but I could be freely connected in a train station in Paris. Strange that they are no free hotspots in the airports.
Anyway, I have three hours to wait before leaving for Japan and I need at least one hour just to get rid of all the spam messages in my inbox. Tomorrow I’m back to work and I’m so busy that I don’t think I’ll be able to post another post on this blog before the end of the week. Moreover, I have a party on saturday and sunday I have to go to the police station for an interview. This story with my motorbike is getting more and more complicated…