Filling A Niche.

A lot of people in the West are into anime and manga, Japanese cartoons and comic books respectively.  Apparently there's enough of them that cosmetics maker L'Oreal thinks it's worth marketing Miss Manga mascara. Yeah, they're selling a product to help you get the big eyes people associate with manga and anime.  It would be interesting to know what age range they're hoping to reach with this product.  Teenagers, perhaps?  Older manga readers who use makeup probably aren't going to be interested in such a gimmicky idea, but perhaps I'm being unfair to younger folks.  Is it a case of cultural appropriation?  I'll leave that for others to decide, although the great anime and manga artist/creator Osamu Tezuka, who helped popularise the big eyes look for anime and manga characters, said the concept was taken from the eyes of Disney characters like Mickey Mouse.

A Cultural Tip.

I was busy listening to the Roughriders game, and haphazardly playing poker online.  I don't watch awards shows these days anyway.  But I still got a bit of a chuckle out of Katy Perry's performance at the American Music Awards.  The AP piece on the awards described Perry's outfit as "a traditional Japanese dress."  It's not.  It's your typical vaguely kimono looking outfit, created by a Western costume or fashion designer.  It's not hard to find images of actual kimonos online to compare, but is that necessary if you're writing a simple article about an awards show? Well, you might want to consider doing so if you're going to claim it's authentic.

Anyone Here Speak Japanese?

Doing some maintenance work on the blog I noticed that this post, featuring a YouTube video of Japanese rockers Yura Yura Teikoku, has 86 responses! Unfortunately they're all in Japanese, so I'm wondering if any of them are legit comments about the post, or they're just comment spam. So, if you can read the language please let me know. If they are just spam a bunch of people sure wasted a bunch of effort given that this is an English language blog whose readers are mostly English speakers.

Just Because.

From YouTube, a nice long live cut by Japanese group Yura Yura Teikoku. I don't have anything by them in my Japanese music collection, but I definitely like this piece.

Via Brent McKee's blog I've just learned that controversy has arisen regarding the biography of actor Al Lewis, whose death I reported a few days ago. His son Ted has stated to the media that his father was born in 1923, not 1910, throwing certain elements of his personal history into dispute given that he would have been too young to do certain things when he supposedly did them. Most peculiar if true, as celebs usually shave years off their ages, not add them. There is the occasional execption, such as Traci Lords, who did most of the pron films she appeared in underage with fake IDs.

Appearances can be deceptive. I bought a copy of the Japanese fantasy film Legend of the Eight Samurai on DVD for the dirt cheap price of 88 cents plus tax at Walmart this week. There's a scene where Princess Shizu, played by Hiroko Yakushimaru, and the peasant warrior Junbei, played by Hiroyuki Sanada(seen in The Last Samurai as Ujio) have sex. There's nothing explicit about it, as it shows no real nudity, but it still had me jumping for the computer given that Yakushimaru looks about 12 in most of the film. A quick look at the IMDB shows she was 18 or 19 when the film was made. This may explain why we don't even see a breast shot, since the age of majority in Japan is 20, since we certainly see enough of the naked breasts of the witch Tamazusa, played by Mari Natsuki, in one shot to see her nipples. Then again maybe Yakushimaru or her handlers simply were unwilling to do even a topless shot.

Is it a bad sign when a film or TV show has major characters who have the same first name as the actors and actresses playing them? In my experience it often is. An example is a film I just watched a part of, China Strike Force. This 2000 Chinese made film was obviously intended for an international audience given the casting, which features American action adventure actor Mark Dacascos(who really should be in better roles than he usually gets), Hong Kong actor Aaron Kwok, rapper Coolio, and Japanese actress/spokesmodel Norika Fujiwara. Unfortunately it really doesn't work, having a weak script and a lot of limp acting. And to top it off we have the "real name" problem. Coolio's character...is named Coolio! Fujiwara plays a character named Norika. (The film was released in Japan as Spy N, to cash on her popularity.) When scriptwriters can't be bothered to spend 2 minutes to come up with names for some of the major characters they generally aren't in a hurry to put much effort into other areas of the film.

Ever wonder what kind of car modding they do in Japan? Well, take a look at this. They've been getting a lot of hits apparently, so I don't know how long it will stay up. I love that purple van with the mural of a tanuki(a raccoon-ish creature native to Japan)doing his laundry on the back.

Here's this week's random Japanese themed link, Nick Kent's synth music from Japan page. I've always found this one an interesting place to go. Mr. Kent is also a regular on yahoogroups' Yellow Magic Orchestra group.