japan is fucked up!

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/sep/25/experience-i-mine-for-denim

These podcasts are a few years old but there's some interesting discussion about Japan's slow decline, consumer culture, the upsurge of Gyaru/Yaanki culture and other bits and pieces.

http://neojaponisme.com/category-projects/podcasts/

Oops *yanki*

http://flashbak.com/tokyo-subway-manners-posters-1976-1982-46545/

nah, there's definitely more at play than american model of discount retail and fast fashion. even levis guy in your linke notes how much japanese will pay for symbolic americana. there's a tendency to romanticise and idealise american forms and even incorporate it in an updated form in their own culture.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/how-japan-copied-american-culture-and-made-it-better-180950189/

The American presence in Japan now extends far beyond the fast-food franchises, chain stores and pop-culture offerings that are ubiquitous the world over. A long-standing obsession with things American has led not just to a bigger and better market for blockbuster movies or Budweiser, but also to some very rarefied versions of America to be found in today’s Japan. It has also made the exchange of Americana a two-way street: Earlier this year, Osaka-based Suntory, a Japanese conglomerate best known for its whiskey holdings, announced that it was buying Beam Inc., thus acquiring the iconic American bourbon brands Jim Beam and Maker’s Mark.

i've talked about this to a few japanese and they have mixed feelings about it. but they have bluntly told me they don't understand why i like the things i like about japan. i feel like every person i've talked to over there doesn't really like japanese movies, for example. i recall one woman, but she studied film and was into really old stuff, which i also agree is the best. but i sense that people who like new japanese movies are those girls who gush over the so-called jack-of-all-trades stud fukuyama masaharu finally getting married, reading gossip columns, but a lot of outwardly looking japanese people i've met want to go away from that attitude. yet in the west, we nominate like father, like son for a palme d'or. there's a definite disconnect.

korean dramas and music was getting big in japan like...i wanna say 10 years ago? and there are more koreans and zainichi shown in a better or at least neutral light in the public eye in japan lately; this without getting into the whole racism and cultural clashes between the two countries. when you hang with zainichi you kind of get to see another side of japanese people, which is not a very fair one. unfortunately the stereotypes of them working at pachinkos and being takumi-gumi's henchmen have not died out.

japan had a cd rental industry where piracy was a known aspect and cd rental shops actually paid a cut to copyright holders. not sure how that's transferred into our current digital world, but it was part of why compact discs were so expensive, and also the reason why japan releases tended to have bonus tracks where other countries would not.

This just came out a few days ago.

http://www.amazon.com/Ametora-Japan-Saved-American-Style/dp/0465059732

but they have bluntly told me they don't understand why i like the things i like about japan.

what do you like about japan?

i had never heard the term 'zainichi' before, that was an interesting one to google. woah that i. koreans in japan are the largest ethnic minority ii. the largest ethnic minority is less than a million people

the zainichi story is fascinating ... especially, the chongryon's links to north korea, including a bimonthly ship running between niigata and wonsan (which definitely carried currency and cognac and possibly parts for missile guidance systems).

akutagawa, ninkyo eiga (kawaita hana, koroshi no rakuin, tokyo nagaremono, etc), chong, zainichi north korean culture, japanese accents, the taste and smell of natto.

i used to like kurosawa’s films. i remember reading an essay that said he was mostly targeting foreigners, so he ended up not being very popular in japan, and remained mostly misunderstood (understandably). i think his fame only lasted a few years over there. in his autobiography he mentions the japanese consider their own culture unimpressive, until they notice westerners appreciating it, which i think still goes on. i’ve definitely seen it happen in other countries, such as other artists/writers in argentina a few decades ago, to give a random example.

dylannn, are you going to visit places outside of tokyo/kanto region?

this thread is on all cylinders.

rad posts dyl

dylan how long wil you be in japan for? i may go in january

nishino kana, right wing sound trucks (no more special treatment for koreans, scrap the constitution, defend japanese territory from chinese encroachment), 1000 all you can drink deals and 3 bucks for a pack of lucky strike, love hotels, yanki culture, mentaiko mayo.

i'll be here in january.

yes, i will leave tokyo and its suburbs. not really anywhere exciting... but i plan to visit sapporo in the new year and i want to visit a friend that lives in aomori. and i have vague plans for osaka, kyoto.

speaking of sound trucks, the space in front of the local odakyu line stop is usually monopolized by 幸福の科学/幸福実現党.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Science / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness_Realization_Party

The party advocates a nuclear deterrent for Japan, denies that the Nanking Massacre occurred and has called for China to be expelled from the United Nations Security Council.

Okawa claims to channel the spirits of Muhammad, Christ, Buddha and Confucius (among many other beings) and claims to be the incarnation of the supreme spiritual being called El Cantare. ... Okawa also claims to have direct communication with the "Guardian Spirits" of political figures, with whom he conducts interviews published in the organization's newsletter The Liberty and in book form. (See, for example, Okawa's book The Next President: Spiritual Interviews with the Guardian Spirits of Newt Gingrich vs. Mitt Romney vs. Rick Santorum, 2012.)

woah that i. koreans in japan are the largest ethnic minority ii. the largest ethnic minority is less than a million people

Didn't know these facts but having seen all those Oshima films abt it its not entirely surprising. 'japan is fucked up!' old style.

it's an island nation with strong policies blocking immigration and a history of intense xenophobia connected to that. the only countries reasonably close by water are south korea and russia (a pretty underpopulated part of Russia, at that) that both have historical enmity with the japanese.

not really surprising they've successfully kept immigration low

yeah I love this thread, going to Tokyo next month and super excited about it, in part b/c I know next to nothing about Japan

one of my closest friends has been living/working in Tokyo for the past 3 years. it seems p deeply alienating to be gaijin, just from the anecdotal evidence of his experience and other friends' who have spent time there (including a Japanese-American friend who went there to "find his roots" and a Filipino friend who thought it was weird that everyone thought she was on her way somewhere to commit suicide because she was traveling alone).

http://www.residentadvisor.net/images/events/flyer/2015/12/jp-1209-773888-front.jpg

love this poster for TOKYO NO. 1 EDM PARTY

Lol @ Yo and Shawty

Wednesdays at womb lounge

ナンバウアンイジェムパ－テぃ！！！

add japangrish to my list

bouncing between all you can drink izakaya until that club opp pens

i was in japan for my first time ever in, i think, march? i was sent to fukuoka to get a visa. i googled it and found a guardian article calling it, i think, 'the liverpool of japan', and cried a little

fukuoka looks gorgeous

dylannn my stepfather is in Japan right now and I sent him some of your posts in an email, great writing here as usual

https://freedom.press/blog/2015/12/preparation-join-us-wars-japan-dismantles-freedom-press

i'm in hk for a couple days. i never made it to womb and ended up blackout drunk in a suburban izakaya.

the same day, i walked over to sumida ku for the first time. i'd been nearby before, on my first day in tokyo even. i arrived in nippori which was actually impressive arriving at midnight from narita, a first look at tokyo, and we stayed in a love hotel somewhere nearby and walked to ueno and then asakusa, looked at senso-ji, walked along the river, saw the skytree and the asahi building with the giant gold tadpole on top. i went over to the other side of the river, sumida-ku, for the first time yesterday after following some borderline clickbait THE MOST DANGEROUS NEIGHBORHOOD IN TOKYO or something similar link. the most dangerous neighborhood in tokyo is kyojima, just east of the skytree. unlike most of tokyo: -- it's built on soil deposited from the sumida which will turn to liquid when the next big quake hits, -- serious fire risk as it's full of old wooden structures built close together, -- just above sea level. there wasn't anything significant there to destroy in 1923 and it escaped destruction by american bombs.

i'd never taken the metro to asakusa, first of all, and the ekimise building above asakusa station, some showa department store reclaimed for by developers for the chinese tourists, it's really impressive. walking across the bridge toward the skytree, the vibe was more shitamachi realness than i felt in most of east tokyo. except the solamachi development at the bottom of the skytree, the area around the skytree is still industrial/green space/shrines along the river and gridded new development with veins of vintage shitamachi running through it with well maintained shotengai a bit like yanaka ginza without the tourists with a mixture of kissaten, soba restaurants, one product shops and then clear signs of new arrivals, bike shops and coffee shops and combination bike/coffee shops. walking further east, toward kyojima, there seem to have been some significant changes to the area since most of the articles on it were written, quite a few narrow narrow brand new houses and not as much wood as i expected-- it looked a bit like the villages on the edge of these suburbs and real rural territories, where there are the shacky plywood/corrugated tin structures beside beautiful homes owned by retirees from or commuters to the special wards. in those villages, the rice paddies and canals are still there, but they've been buried in kyojima. it's really peaceful. sumida ku. i walked through mukojima too on the way back -- hatonomachi the best preserved shotengai in the area -- and you can follow nagai kafu's strolls through geisha district, if that's your thing -- and one way or another, redevelopment or earthquake, it will all be gone soon.

i've also added the tobacco and salt museum to my list of places to visit, also just below the skytree.

http://40.media.tumblr.com/0cfeb9ec0c223208c4eb6dd17c984dc2/tumblr_nzmqy0kQOm1qdzsozo3_400.jpg

lol

:D

eatery

Momus:
https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fstatic2.wikia.nocookie.net%2F__cb20120406135132%2Fsimpsons%2Fimages%2F5%2F54%2FMatt_Groening_2.jpg&f=1

just shut the fuck up momus ffs

they let any gaijin buffoon write in japan times these days

i mean the article above it explains what daikon is. so. i support it.

yeah, it's hit or miss

i still go to it sometimes, but i go to that site that translates japanese news written for a japanese audience more (so different from japanese news written for foreigners)

christmas in tokyo is fairly intense. i'm just north of shibuya crossing, tragic clogged by sound trucks advertising e-girls' christmas single, a million girls in puffy white sweaters, every shop blasting christmas music.

traffic clogged, sorry

currently crouched under an overpass near meiji dori chainsmoking.

e-girls truck has crashed through a crowd of tourists from shandong. blood everywhere. kyabajo in santa costumes assisting with crowd control.

18 wheeler billboard truck for spontini's pizza has rolled over a sidewalk barker from a nearby karaoke place who stepped in to drag the wounded from the intersection.

the police have arrived and are beating a group of austrian tourists, who were not among those in the crowd temporarily distracted by a surprise concert in front of shibuya 109 by several third tier members of exile.

the shibuya santa festival is underway now. so far it's fifteen year old girls dancing provocatively in santa costumes. waiting to bring you any developments.

dylannn ... ru ... ok?

yes.

hey i have a question for you -- can you point me in the direction of any particularly informed takes in english on the recent news on reparations and apologies over comfort women?