HaiKara followup

So Justin went with me to the High and Mighty Color show, since, sadly, Patrick from Texas had to miss the show for a work party.

IT WAS AWESOME.

They played a long time, and a lot of great songs. Sadly, they didn't play either "Days" or "Run Run Run," but they did play "Pride" and a bunch of other good songs. They talked to the crowd a lot and really got the crowd into the performance. It was very cool. When they played "Mushroom" they all came out in rainbow clown wigs, which was weird, but cute. Maki was totally adorable during that bit. She seems kind of... stiff... in some of the videos I've seen of them live, but that wasn't the case AT ALL at this show. Her stage presence was excellent - all of the band members were great, really.

Weird piece of trivia - Maki's only 20! That's crazy! She's been in a pretty successful rock band since she was 15 or 16 years old! She's also an actress now - she was in the movie あなたを忘れない (Anata wo Wasurenai - I won't forget you) which is also sometimes called 26 Years Diary (which may be the translation from the Korean title). It's about a Korean student in Tokyo, Lee Su Hyon, who attempts to save a man who falls on some train tracks and dies in the effort.

Here's the Japanese trailer:

スポーツ！

Last Saturday I went with about 30 other JETs to the city gym in Uda, near Haibara. We played some games with kids from first through 8th grade, and then we ran competitions - cricket, dodgeball, volleyball, and ultimate frisbee. I ran the Ultimate game with another member of the Shika Fun team, Jarrett. We had a good time and the kids really seemed to like it. It was good to catch up with Jarrett, too. He lives pretty far out in the inaka, so it's rare to get a chance to talk with him.

Here's some video coverage from the local news:

Murakami Haruki

Just read it.

And be daunted. Like I was.

"Writing stories is work to plunge you into your soul. That is a dark world, and life and death are unclear and chaotic. It is a world with no language, and there is no standard for right and wrong."

Tootles

some tips from a Tokyo rental car agency:

"When passenger of foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage then tootle him with vigor."

via Melina

High and Mighty Color

Some kids from my school played a couple of songs at the Bunkasai (culture festival) and one of them was a cover of a song by a band called High and Mighty Color. It stuck with me and felt sort of familiar. I didn't know why at the time, and I'm still not sure. But it was a catchy tune.

In Japan, there's a video rental chain called Tsutaya. They're sort of the Japanese Blockbuster. Because of the differences in the music industry in Japan, the video shops also rent CDs, including singles. After the rental disks are getting old and no one is renting them anymore, Tsutaya sells them used - cheap. The average CD single in Japan is well over 500yen, and usually gets close to 1000yen, or about $9-$10. Albums are about ¥2500 - ¥3500, depending on the number of disks or if there's a DVD included (a common practice). Imported CD's from America are usually cheaper than domestic CD's. It's crazy. If you ever wondered why you were paying $40 for an import album from Japan, that's why -- they're freakin' expensive.

Anyway...

I was at Tsutaya going thru the used music bin and I found 3 High and Mighty Color singles, along with some singles by Miz (aka Mizrock, aka Watanabe Mizuki) and some Bump of Chicken and Orange Range disks. The singles are ridiculously cheap, like maybe 3 for 100yen or 10 for 500yen. REALLY cheap. So I grabbed 10 disks and took them home.

The singles included the songs "Run*Run*Run" and "Days" (which was the tune my students covered) and I fell in love with those tunes immediately. The b-sides were ok, too, though not as good as the main songs. I picked up some other stuff by them and found their videos on YouTube. They're getting popular in the States because many of their songs have been used in various anime (most notably "Pride" in Gundam Seed Destiny).

HIGH and MIGHTY COLOR - Days
Uploaded by spencer41

Thanks to my friend Patrick (woo! Texas!), I heard about an upcoming concert... so Saturday evening I'm going to Osaka to see High and Mighty Color live! Very excited...

high &mighty color - RUN RUN RUN
Uploaded by futzlecker

If you're into a sort of blend of maybe Linkin Park blending with maybe Kelly Clarkson's better stuff(?) - I dunno, it's Japanese so these genre distinctions blur into all sorts of weirdness - you should check them out. It's power pop with a weird overtone of American rap-rock/post-NuMetal. They're from Okinawa and feature a female vocalist and a male rapper (who tends to use English lyrics).

Oh, and Maki, the singer, is adorable.

凉風

Suzuka is an anime that's recently made it to the States (I guess - or it's coming out soon). I'm watching it with fansubs. The story is a pretty typical high school romance, which is common here in Japan. Suzuka is a girl from Yokohama who moves to Tokyo to go to a school with a noted track and field team. (Yokohama is about an hour or two outside of Tokyo, depending.) She's a high jumper with a lot of potential. She lives in an apartment building that also has a 銭湯 (sento - a public bath).

But the main character of the story is Yamato Akitsuki. He's from Hiroshima (which is a long way from Tokyo, being completely past Osaka and most of the Kansai region - probably around a 3-4 hour bullet-train ride, depending). His aunt runs the apartment building and sento. Akitsuki is sort of rough around the edges. He falls for Suzuka and joins the track team to try to impress her.

The show is engaging. It's 26 episodes, so new characters are added gradually. We meet Akitsuki's aunt and cousin, a childhood friend who goes to the same school, another classmate whose family has a shrine that Akitsuki spent time at as a child, and the neighbor college girls who drink too much. In episodes 7 and 8 we start to meet the other members of the track team, too.

It's the kind of show that completely grabs a sucker like me. And it's infuriating that the thing that grabs me is also the aspect I find most annoying - the source of the drama is a love/hate relationship between two immature people who grow closer as they grow up and become more mature. It's the same motif as Ranma 1/2, Love Hina, Kare Kano, Escaflowne, etc.

So I'm hooked. I'll probably finish it by the weekend... and I'm only on episode 9.

Caper Beans

The guitarist for the band Caper Beans graduated from Oyodo High School, and he was here to visit some teachers earlier today. Gambatte kudasai!

(and no, I have no clue where the hell they came up with the name)

Old Men on the Way to Yoshino

(being fiction, or something like it, that echoes reality - written months ago)

I see them looking in at me, through the windows. Really, only one looks. The others are drowsing, nodding - not bowing - and scratching or talking. Lines collapse their once wide, flat, round faces into rugged landscapes, river valleys, fissures and ravines. I will never be one of these old men. I don't know that I want to be. When I think of being old, I'm on a porch in a swing, not on a train. I already have the hat. I already feel some aches. Some days, I am already shindoi, like the lines on the old mens' faces betray them to be.

There is a girl. (Truly, there are many girls. But I mean particularly one whom I wish to know. More.) She has gloss-glistening lips and kakkoi megane (red with black temples, half-lenses), works in a hospital, emails occasionally. I think some days of how we'd raise a child, where we'd make a home, how we'd survive one another. I am not afraid. This courage -- no. Courage is to strive when every impulse is to tremble. This calm -- yes, far more appropriate -- is new, and perhaps it's even näive. C'est la vie (since we're speaking French). I think of sleeping next to her, and it feels wholly foreign. I have slept in foreign arms, but it's not the ethnically alien that I sense -- she is of another ethic. She is cut not only from silk (to my flannel), but in a different pattern, with a different tool. She is the product of pinking shears, and me a razor blade.

The train shuffles on, a great beast dragging its lonely carcass through the tunnels, across bridges, gasping in relief at every station, sighing before starting up again.

It's an old man, too, on its way to Yoshino.

The Power of the Visual - A Cultural Thing

Google has changed the design of their Japanese entry page to include more graphics.


This is a smart move, I think. Japanese culture is highly visual, and I'm convinced this is related to the use of kanji. I also think it's why manga is so popular here and why it's also not dismissed outright as childish. Though there is a definite association of manga with young people and teenagers, it's not exclusive and it's not dismissive in most cases.

The Japanese also use many icons and emoticons in email messages. Many people (especially girls and women) use tons of animations in their emails, too. The phones have added these features across the board, regardless of provider.

I'm particularly sensitive to this because I think tone in a text message can cause massive misunderstandings. Icons help inflect and convey the tone or intent behind a message, especially if it's a joke that is slightly sarcastic.

I also have had to defend visual media within the academy more than once. It's appalling that open-minded academics reinscribe the prejudices they have faced when dealing with other media.

Anyway... one more thing to keep in mind about visual culture.

J-Rock Glossary

http://www.jrocksaga.com/site/content/glossary.php

めちゃべんりだよ。(Really freakin' useful.)