summer

SFJ: Brazilian Day in Yoyogi Park, Harajuku

Brazilian Day Japan (September 3rd, 4th 2011) has both a main stage with capoeira and samba dancers, while food stalls feature a mix of Brazilian-style barbecue, pastels and cocktails. There are also a few non-food stalls advertising Brazilian-run businesses and those with a more tenuous connection.

I sampled food from a variety of different vendors, although it was mostly too bland and greasy for my taste. It’s unfair to judge the cuisine of an entire nation based on a few fast food stands on the other side of the world in Japan, but I will say I preferred the food at the Thai and Indian festivals held in the same location.

Of all the food I tried, kibbeh was the best and reminded me of koftas, with its spicy, nutty texture. On the other end of the scale, a delicious-looking sausage had big chunks of juicy fat hidden inside. It was vile.

My friend who’d invited us in the first place is actually Brazilian, and told us the food was pretty authentic. As a vegetarian though, he dodged the worst of it.

The capoeira display on the main stage was impressive, but a little difficult to see as this martial art often uses the ground as a base to make attacks. There are also the famous handsprings and acrobatics, but the photos don’t turn out so well when half the performer’s body is hidden behind someone’s head. Luckily, the group later formed a capoeira circle (or Roda) just outside of the festival grounds, which was much easier to watch.

Soon after, a samba school called Gres Alegria performed in feathers, sequins and costume jewellery against a backdrop of bubbles. There are plenty of photos of their colourful costumes below… but only one of the food!

Click on any of the photographs below to see them at a larger size. The majority of them are available at 1024×768 size, perfect for desktop wallpaper.

All photos below are 1024×768 size.

Spam From Japan: Dancing Through Typhoon Talas

The notice on the website said the festival was on, but Typhoon Talas was passing over Shikoku and leaving even Tokyo drenched. The question was whether heavy rain would stop the last chance to see Awa Odori this summer at a festival known as “Odore, NishiHachi Natsu Matsuri” (Summer Festival in Nishi-Hachiouji).

Awa Odori is a Japanese dance originally from Tokushima in, yes, Shikoku. Its most distinctive feature, aside from the movements and the way the female dancers stand on the ‘tips’ of their wooden sandals, is the straw hats. Shaped like a half-moon and covering half the face, they are called amigasa.

As you can see by the photos, the matsuri took place more-or-less as planned. If you look closer (click on the landscape-oriented photos to view at 1024×768 resolution), you can see the dancers’ hair is slick and some of the yukata is becoming see-through around the sleeves. Yes, they really did dance through a typhoon! The only concessions to the weather was wrapping fans and paper lanterns in clear plastic and a shortening of the performance time.

It’s worth mentioning that there were about four or five children performing, some of whom hadn’t even reached elementary school age. Due to their age, I won’t upload them to the wilds of the internet, but the crowd adored them.

Click to see the photographs at a larger size. Landscape-oriented photographs are at the correct proportions for desktop wallpaper.

SpamFromJapan: Lanterns For Bon Odori

Summer is almost over, or so we hope, which means that so are events connected to Obon, the Japanese festival of the dead. The term ‘Obon’ covers private ceremonies in the home and community activities such as Lantern Boats and Bon Odori.

Bon Odori (or its English translation, Bon Dance) was held recently in my area. This year, the event was so crowded that I didn’t get a chance to dance. Nevertheless, the feeling of being surrounded by so many beautiful lanterns at night (and having shaved ice or a beer from one of the stalls!) is an amazing feeling.

Please click on any of the photographs to see them at 1024×768 resolution.

Volunteering Up North Part Five (End): Living in a Tent

Eleven sachets of Pocari Sweat, all unneeded.

Part 1: Introduction to Ishinomaki / Part 2: Floating Lanterns
Part 3: The Festival / Part 4: Oyster Farming / Part 5: Camp Life

Conditions in Ishinomaki, Miyagi prefecture were both better and worse than I expected. The city has, in many ways, been the symbolic focus point for volunteer groups and the results are obvious. I had seen the photographs from March, and I couldn’t have predicted how far the area would come since then. Even volunteers who went a month ago expressed surprise at how successful the clean-up around the station had been.

But wake-up calls are common. You could be enjoying yakitori at a festival and suddenly notice that the car park across the road is flooding. Or sleeping after a rewarding day at an oyster farm with your fellow team members, when you’re woken up by a shindo level four earthquake and you worry about the fishermen you worked alongside that day. Or eating ice cream outside a workshop in a tiny fishing village, surrounded by scenic pine trees and tsunami wreckage.

I don’t think I could prepare you for volunteer work in Ishinomaki. but I’m going to try.

I brought eleven sachets of Pocari Sweat to mix with water in my Thermos for rehydration during the day. Eleven totally unnecessary sachets. Not even my massive roll of duct tape was needed. After consultation with people who had been previously, I’d brought waterproof trousers and jacket, insoles for boots and two types of gloves. I wore the jacket and trousers, if only because I could, but the rest went unused.

Circumstances really did change every week and my advisers had been the very same people who’d been told to bring individually-wrapped food for every meal. We were provided with bentos for lunch and dinner.

The lunch bentos were always the same. Two onigiri from a random selection of konbu, katsuobushi and umeboshi and a piece of fried chicken. Dinner was a large bento consisting of meat or fish, a few things seemingly chosen at random (shumai, spaghetti, sweetened lima beans) and a portion of rice.

So that’s the food. How about the portable toilets? My first experience was of using them in the dark, something I would never do again. I didn’t even find the “foot pedal” (located at knee height) on the first attempt. Later expeditions would see me roll up both trouser legs and turn on my head-mounted torch before entering the tiny cabin. On one memorable morning, I almost threw up from the smell. And yet, not bad considering where we were. Previous volunteers have worse tales.

Entrance to the onsen, mountains in the background.

We were busy with the festival on the first few nights, so it took us a while to find the Co-op, located about 25 minutes away from the camp at Senshu University. Inside, it didn’t look any different from a supermarket in Tokyo. There were snacks which I bought to share with everyone during the day and there were toilets too. Once the festival was over and the curfew had returned to eight o’clock, we found ourselves going pretty much every evening.

Most of us were staying for eight days, so we had to wash. For that, we went to an onsen (hot spring), where you have to get naked in front of a room full of people if you want to get clean. My situation was probably a bit unusual as I’m transgender, but I was too far gone to care by that point. Although I felt uneasy, I stripped off like everyone else. That was my approach to living in close quarters in a tent for over a week — I can deal with it and I can do it. And I did.

One of the most endearing aspects of camp life was our morning routine. Before Radio Taisou, we sang the Anpanman theme song [YouTube link]. The first time we sang it (on the second day), it seemed inspiring but benign. By the third day, volunteers could be caught secretly humming it. After that, people would try singing anything to get it out of their heads, all to no avail. It’s stuck there forever, guys.

You probably want to do this right now. Believe me, it’s an experience that will stay with you your entire life and help a community in need. If you’re confident about your Japanese, you can join the short-term volunteer teams. Personally, I wanted English help should there be an emergency (I imagined there would be many — there weren’t) and I joined one of the international teams. These consist of a number of English speakers, five in our case, and one bilingual team leader. The downside was that the short-term option wasn’t available to me and I needed to stay the full eight days.

I hope that Japanese companies, particularly those based in Tokyo, start realising the benefit to their business in allowing workers time to volunteer up north. While we were there, we also worked alongside teams from Toyota and Nomura, as well as school teachers. They’ve made a wise choice and I hope that dispatch companies (hakengaisha) who employ foreigners like me will follow their lead.

Anyway, you want to do all this too, right? Start here, with Peace Boat.

Volunteering Up North Part Four: Oyster Farming

Part 1: Introduction to Ishinomaki / Part 2: Floating Lanterns
Part 3: The Festival / Part 4: Oyster Farming / Part 5: Camp Life

Kobuchi-Hama is a tiny fishing port on the Oshika Peninsula, which is to the south-east of central Ishinomaki. On the bus down there, we passed whole villages that had been wiped out entirely. Due to the tsunami, every stage of the oyster farming process had been interrupted and fisherman had lost not just their families and homes, but their livelihoods too.

The Oshika Peninsula was the closest point to the earthquake’s epicentre on Honshu (the main island of Japan). The area surrounding the main building in Kobuchi-Hama is covered with a tangle of ropes, nets, buoys, the odd washed-up boat and — often — nothing where there used to be something. The land mass shifted violently; we had to leave before four o’clock every day because the workshop now lies below sea level at high tide. This is worth remembering every time someone complains that a tsunami advisory of “just 50 centimetres” is meaningless.

I didn’t know anything about oyster farming before I came to Ishinomaki. If asked, I would’ve initially guessed that people collect wild oysters from rocks, and then realised that would be too time-consuming. Admit it, you’ve never really thought about it either.

First, the oysters grow on shells threaded together on thick wire, with small plastic tubes separating them out. There’s a photograph of how the shells look before the oysters start growing below, but having not been there for this part of the process, I’m not really clear on this section at all. I don’t know how the oysters get on them, because the next time I saw them we had jumped a stage, to cutting the cords and emptying the shells with the oysters already growing on them into large yellow baskets

The shells arrive packed on a large wooden pallet, brought by a forklift truck. Three or four people pull off the chains of shells (about double the length of your arm), cut them in the centre with wire-cutters and throw each half into a basket. Everyone else grabs one section and removes the wire. This is a little more difficult than it sounds, because there is a metal knot over one end; you have to grab the final shell and shake the rest loose. You then have to get the final shell, but often barnacles have grown over the knot and you have to either work it loose or smash it.

For about an hour, there’s a flurry of activity as people move the shells off the pallet and into the baskets, while everyone else tries to separate them before more are dumped on top.

Next, we attached these shells to ropes. But first we had to retrieve said ropes from the tsunami debris covering the docks. They were twisted around metal poles, knotted around rusted spikes, threaded through nets and covered in seaweed and mud. Some of them weren’t long enough and some didn’t have the necessary loop of rope at the end. Sometimes we would pull three quarters out, only to find that the last quarter went straight into the heart of the knot. Once we got them out, we laid them out straight in the mud to be wound up and tossed into a basket. Our team retrieved more ropes than anyone expected, but this was by far the hardest task of the week.

Attaching the shells to the ropes was the most common task for our team and we would spend whole days doing it. There were about ten baskets in a row, which rested on crates so they were just above our waists. At both ends were machine with two hooks. Two ropes were hung between the hooks and they fell either side of the crates.

First the ropes were unwound, so they were slack; two teams approached the crates of muddy shells and oyster seeds from both sides and started sliding the shells into the gaps in the rope, about a fist-width apart. Three minutes or so later, a fisherman would give our handiwork a quick once over, then we would all step back and the ropes would be tightened. This involves spinning them very tightly in the opposite direction and so mud, oyster parts and less identifiable sea creatures are flung up in the air and over everyone nearby. Accompanying this is a cracking sound, like ice-cubes in a drink, as the ropes bite into the shells.

As we worked, we chatted to the fishermen, which is where foreigners are particularly useful. With us, we have something to talk about that has no connection with earthquakes or tsunami or even Japan. Or family.

So we talked about whether it was still foggy in London, whether onigiri is delicious or not and beer. Probably natto and chopstick ability were mentioned too.

On the last day, I got to go on a fishing boat. From there, the area is so beautiful. Just pine-covered trees either side, a few islands and the open sea. Then you look behind you and see the devastation around the port and you remember.

The bay was covered with a network of linked buoys; the boat pulled up alongside one and a pulley system with a metal hook at the end lifted up the linking rope. We started attaching a number of loops of rope to the newly exposed rope and heaving coils of oyster ropes off the boat. Experienced crew members held one end in their hand and threw the rest straight out so they unwound in a spiral, with the rock-filled plastic bag used as a weight going down first. I threaded mine down over the side more slowly. After that, we attached the oyster ropes to the rope loops, which were attached to the ropes linking the buoys.

The oyster ropes hang straight down underneath the water, and tsunami victims have been found caught up in them in the past. It’s no surprise that volunteers without these memories seemed to outnumber the fishermen on such trips.

While they will never read this, I would like to thank the fishermen who helped us learn the ropes as quickly as possible and were kind to us despite everything they’d seen and experienced. Thank you!

To read a more coherent description of oyster cultivation, check out the entry on Wikipedia, and to read a news article that touches upon Miyagi’s oyster industry go here.

Volunteering Up North Part Three: Kawabiraki Matsuri in Ishinomaki

Ishinomaki Festival: The shrine made of tsunami debris.

Part 1: Introduction to Ishinomaki / Part 2: Floating Lanterns
Part 3: The Festival / Part 4: Oyster Farming / Part 5: Camp Life

After the devastatingly beautiful floating lanterns, our team was eager to hear what we would be doing to help out with the happier side of the festival the next day. Some teams would be carrying mikoshi (shrines that can be carried), some would be fund-raising.

It turned out we were to clean the portable toilets and the cars used for street clean-up and food delivery. That took us most of the day, and we arrived at the festival in late afternoon.

Nowhere in Japan has been as welcoming as the people of Miyagi, and even in post-tsunami Ishinomaki, this still holds true. We stopped at a number of street vendors, and bought fried buns with oyster stew inside (Kaki stew pan) and tortilla hotdogs, which came with free yakitori. We got samples of mikan juice, and the promoters were happy to pose with a carton for us.

We even found a place that sold the freshly-ground, freshly-roasted hot coffee we’d been craving. Taku of Kigokoro Cafe runs a travelling coffee shop and he’s now doing a tour of Tohoku. He offered us free coffee, but after we insisted on paying, allowed us to donate instead. Awesome guy, and if you can read Japanese, you should check out his resumé.

On the outskirts of the destroyed section of the city, a hospital was handing out kakigoori (ice shavings with syrup). I thought I was over kakigoori, but I’d never had it with condensed milk before. It was delicious, but they refused payment. Once again, everyone was so nice.

One of the highlights of the afternoon parade was a mikoshi made of tsunami debris. Let me repeat that: A tsunami took thousands of citizen’s lives and destroyed half a city, so the residents made a shrine out of the debris and paraded it through the streets. That is one hell of a ‘f*** you’ to any natural disaster that dares show its face here.

On a sour note, a ton of so-called “Christians” decided to show up and tell us that the tsunami was our punishment and we needed to repent. By the time I’d seen the fifth or sixth blank-eyed little git holding their obnoxious yellow signs with their stupid loudspeakers reciting their views in Japanese, I was begging my team leader to let me break protocol and Have Words with them. They never made eye contact, their lips formed into an immovable pout and there was not a shred of kindness — Christian or otherwise — in their eyes. How dare they.

Once the fireworks started, however, their Bible verse was drowned out with music, camera shutter sounds and commentary from a nearby loudspeaker. Thank God.

There were fireworks donated from all over Japan, which exploded in the shape of of cats, hearts and spirals. They reflected off the water and one side of the Mangattan manga museum. Very beautiful and inspiring. Unlike the previous night, there was no noticeable absence of light where buildings used to be and no visible wreckage, so it was very easy to think of this as being like any other summer firework festival in Japan.

As we left, from the crowd I delivered a swift and decidedly weak kick to one of the sign-holders and lost my moral high ground. He never even noticed.

Below the photographs is a long-ish video of the fireworks, plus very short videos of the tsunami mikoshi (no longer than ten seconds!). I hope you like them.

Volunteering Up North Part Two: Floating Lanterns Festival in Ishinomaki

Part 1: Introduction to Ishinomaki / Part 2: Floating Lanterns
Part 3: The Festival / Part 4: Oyster Farming / Part 5: Camp Life

Floating lanterns are usually in memory of the dead, but this year in Ishinomaki, the main aim was specifically to console the spirits of those who lost their lives in the tsunami and earthquake. According to the unofficial “fan” website, each lantern has the name of a tsunami victim written upon it.

When I first heard about the floating lantern festivals of Japan almost ten years ago, my aunt had recently passed away. I asked my Japanese teacher if I would be allowed to launch a lantern-boat for a relative at such a festival, even though I wasn’t Japanese, and she said it would be okay. Even though the idea was merely theoretical, her answer touched me at a difficult time. Since then, Bon dances and the floating lanterns have felt special to me.

The lanterns themselves (in the case of Ishinomaki) consisted of a round waterproof paper tray with a candle and coloured paper forming a rectangle around it. Of course, you can’t just buy 10,000 waterproof paper trays, which was where our team came in. On the morning of the festival, we systematically sprayed the lantern bases with waterproofing liquid, piled them in pyramids so they could dry and then stacked them again.

Before the lanterns were launched, there was a carnival-like atmosphere in the city centre. Food vendors, free mikan juice from POM and charity suika-wari. TV camera operators lined up on the bridge in front of the Mangattan Manga Museum (The white, egg-like building in the photographs). A group of us were even asked to help light the candles around the ceremonial site. The vendors and matsuri are for another post though, and the mood quickly shifted once the event got underway.

As the first lanterns were released, Buddhist chants played over the loudspeaker. Most people around me got out their cellphones and took pictures until the prayers started. I wouldn’t have dared to take pictures myself otherwise.

The sky got darker until we could really see the lanterns and the prayers and chants continued. The section on the other side of the river is comprised of gutted buildings and rubble beyond; in most cases the lighting comes from floodlights presumably set up to discourage criminal activity. In near darkness, the lanterns floated by in complete silence. It was lonely and heart-breaking.

The priests started chanting the names of everyone who had been killed in the recent disaster. I couldn’t pick out individual names, just the rhythmic murmur of voices. It would take them hours to go through them all. It’s the same number of paper lanterns we waterproofed.

The first part of this series was an introduction to Ishinomaki, which can be found here. You can also visit the Official Kawabiraki Website or read another volunteer’s account of the festival.

Spam From Japan: Every Single Summer 2011 Anime Reviewed!

Winner: Sacred Seven

I decided to watch the first episode of every single summer anime and report back on my findings. When I realised there were twenty-six in total though, I made a few rules. Mainly, that I wouldn’t have to watch the entire episode. Just long enough to decide whether to keep watching or to ditch it. I decided to watch just three series in the end, while one anime didn’t last thirty seconds. Read on to find out which ones they were.

I found out a lot about what I like. Strong pre-credits openings with meaningful action or atmosphere work for me, particularly if the next glimpse of the protagonist’s “normal life” has something equally exciting about it. Girls tripping over their own feet, forced wackiness, early exposition and stupid porn are quick turn-offs.

Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu Ni (Second Season)

Hook: Akihisa has a wacky life.

Stopping Point: 2 minutes, 30 seconds.

Wow, look at all these wacky characters! They’re so wacky they even go into super-deformed mode! Aren’t you impressed by how wacky they all are?

In short, no. No, I am not. I didn’t even make it to the opening sequence. I didn’t even watch enough to find out what it was actually about. You see, the opening sequence consisted of a brother and sister both utterly removed from reality and yet generic. Each character has an amusing quirk chosen from a master list of amusing quirks. I don’t care if it later turns out that the boy has decided to summon monsters to fight for his underperforming class (I Googled), just make him believable or worth watching.

Verdict: I’m annoyed I spent two minutes on this.

Official Site: Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu Ni (Second Season)

BLOOD-C

Hook: Saya is a shrine maiden who hunts vampires with a katana. Designs by Clamp.

Stopping Point: 3 minutes, 20 seconds.

The pre-credits and opening song are beautiful, mixing iconic Shintou imagery with katana fights and blood, using a muted palette. There’s even this short sequence where the bloodied heroine stands in front of the moon and catches the katana scabbard with the katana itself. In short, it promises a cool, tough female protagonist. On with the rest of the show.

Saya is meditating in full miko garb, when her father enters the room. She runs to him and trips over her own feet.

Oh. It’s that kind of show. Forget it.

Verdict: Why are they always clumsy? Why?

Official Site: BLOOD-C

Blade

Hook: From Marvel Comics in the US, a man with both human and vampire heritage fights vampires in Japan.

Stopping Point: Made it to the end!

This is pretty much identical to BLOOD-C, without the Shintou theme. And yet… Blade doesn’t trip over his own feet. I don’t know what he’s doing in Yokohama rather than New York, but I can live with that. It means he gets a tough Japanese woman as his sidekick, who doesn’t trip over her own feet either.

The budget is obviously very low for this one though, which you can see when the vampires burst into poor-quality flames. Or when Blade tries to walk. This is unfortunate, since the draw should be the fight scenes. There are a couple of good but short sequences, but then they throw in some backgroundless, minimally animated frames to pad it out.

Verdict: Poor quality animation lets down a potentially interesting story.

Official Site: BLADE

Dantalian no Shoka

Hook: Animation by Gainax, clothing by Baby The Stars Shine Bright / Alice and the Pirates.

Stopping Point: 6 minutes, 45 seconds.

I recently saw Thor, so the opening reminded me of the rainbow bridge sequences from the movie. After that, this anime moves into the English countryside. The music combined with scenery from my home country was rather pleasant and I didn’t even notice I’d tuned out the main character’s monologue. Huey – the main character – likes sheep, and I can relate because I went to university in Scotland.

Despite being by Gainax, the animation is pretty bad. The main characters are very simply drawn, but with blurred photographs used as backgrounds. Sometimes it works, mostly it doesn’t.

I gave up just after Huey meets Darian and she hits him. Same old, same old.

Verdict: There is nothing new here except BtSSB dress designs.

Official Site: Dantalian no Shoka

Idolm@ster

Hook: Imagine yourself interacting with real Japanese schoolgirls! Or any woman at all, really.

Stopping Point: 1 minute, 40 seconds… 4 minutes, 30 seconds (Sorry, trainwreck syndrome)

Idolmatster was originally a creepy computer game where you taught a number of teen girls how to be idols. The developers of this anime subsequently had to ask themselves, ‘Without the interactive training element, how can we still make this creepy?’ They did it by making it ‘documentary style’ to pull ‘you’ into the action. This is actually a pretty interesting idea, but you’ve still got a fundamental concept flaw; you’re making wank material about barely-teenage girls.

And yes, they trip over their own feet.

Verdict: Too many people don’t see the above as a flaw. *shiver*

Official Site: Idolm@ster

Ikoku Meiro no Croisée: The Animation

Hook: A young Japanese girl explores nineteenth century France.

Stopping Point: 5 minutes, 15 seconds.

Yune arrives in 19th century Paris. She’s beautiful and, notably, is the only bright thing in the place. She also does this crazy thing called ‘a bow’ and it’s clear she should be admired by everyone for being so awesome and unique. In other words, a Mary Sue. At least she doesn’t trip over her own feet.

However, I was impressed by the (muted) backgrounds and French pronunciation.

Verdict: I thought this would be slow, but interesting. It isn’t.

Official Site: Ikoku Meiro no Croisée: The Animation

Itsuka Tenma no Kuro Usagi

Hook: A boy is kissed by a vampire and has to stop a completely different vampire with the help of his classmates.

Stopping Point: 5 minutes.

I liked the colours for the opening scene. Lots of pinks, purples and blues. Not a bad change of pace for a scene featuring a vampire. I had high hopes for this anime based on the artwork.

But eventually we have to get to the main story. It’s not too bad really, it’s just been done before. It’s yet another anime set in a high school and we have yet another meek and mild Japanese schoolgirl. I was looking forward to seeing the other characters (Fukuyama Jun has a role), but I’m just not interested enough.

Verdict: Nothing about the characters stand out, but the art is rather nice.

Official Site: Itsuka Tenma no Kuro Usagi

Kaitou Tenshi Twin Angel ~Kyunkyun ☆ Tokimeki Paradise~

Hook: Magical girls fight crime.

Stopping Point: 3 minutes, 30 seconds

This is clearly not my kind of anime as I’m neither a young girl nor an older man, but it’s doing everything right. Starts out with a action sequence with the girls in costume, then moves onto human interaction that is actually relevent to what we just saw. It’s no Madoka Magica, but then what is?

I’m not going to diss it for being based on a video game based on a pachinko machine because, hey, Pirates of the Caribbean.

Verdict: Competent magical girl stuff. Nothing special.

Official Site: Kaitou Tenshi Twin Angel ~Kyunkyun ☆ Tokimeki Paradise~

Winner: Kamisama Dolls

Kamisama Dolls

Hook: Singing Shintou God-robots.

Stopping Point: Right to the end and onto the next episode!

We have a winner! It starts off with a battle showcasing the robots, then moves to the human drama in Kabukicho, Shinjuku, with hints there is something more to come. The backgrounds here are so detailed that you can even pinpoint the precise junction where they are standing. Unlike Dantalian no Shoka, the characters blend in well as both the colours and drawing style match.

Our protagonist is Kuga Kyouhei, who has moved to Tokyo to escape village life and something more. This means he’s not a clueless idiot (mostly) and already knows his shrine maiden sister has a robot-God called Kukuri. He’s a bit clumsy, but let’s ignore that for now. Everything else was there, so it didn’t put me off.

Kukuri first makes his appearence by rising up into the elevator from below, singing a simple song. That kind of introduction kind of reminded me of Gantz, and the setting somehow triggered flashbacks to Bokurano, so I don’t believe all is well. I certainly hope not.

Verdict: I’ll be watching this one.

Official Site: Kamisama Dolls

Kamisama no Memochou

Hook: Fujishima makes some NEET new friends.

Stopping Point: 21 minutes, 11 seconds (roughly halfway)

Fujishima’s life is dull. He moves from school to school without making friends. One day, a high school girl falls out of a love hotel and a bunch of NEET kids deal with her and mock him.

He is befriended by Shinozaki, who (re)introduces him to the kids he met before. They each have their own quirks, although it’s more varied than most anime with “wacky casts”. There’s a military otaku who looks like a kid and a pimp, amongst others.

And then there’s Alice. Weak, with a narcissistic personality disorder, she imagines that the only thing allowing natural disasters and suffering in the world is her lack of power. I stopped right there. That, along with still having no idea what a NEET actually is after twenty minutes, caused me to give up.

Verdict: Twenty minutes in and no hint of a plot.

Official Site: Kamisama no Memochou

Manyuu Hikenchou

Hook: Boobs.

Stopping Point: 40 seconds.

This is a hentai anime all about breasts. I was totally prepared for that. But that doesn’t have to mean rape.

Verdict: Boobs and rape.

Official Site: Manyuu Hikenchou [Not Safe For Work]

Mawaru Penguindrum

Hook: When their sister dies, twin brothers must search for the elusive penguindrum, with the help of invisible penguins.

Stopping Point: 3 minutes, 15 seconds.

An opening monologue about life, in which stars twirl all over the screen. There is nothing remotely enticing, but at least it’s short. It appears to be a slice of life anime about two twin brothers, their sister and stars sparkling all over the screen. I only know better because I read the Wikipedia entry.

Verdict: Shame, the hook was so promising. But the penguins should be introduced as soon as possible.

Official Site: Mawaru Penguindrum

Mayo-Chiki!

Hook: Teenager forced to crossdress realises all she really needed was a man to allow her to express her femininity.

Stopping Point: 19 seconds… then 3 minutes, 50 seconds… then 5 minutes, 5 seconds… Because I hate life and all things beautiful.

The plot is enough to make me write ’0 seconds’ and be done with it. The promise of a girl forced to crossdress and maintain that secret by acting cool and awesome (moe!!) only to have that layer peeled away by a boy and have her girliness revealed (super-moe!!!) is enough to make me vomit. It says a lot about what the writers think women really are at their root.

I’m sure that in any conversations that result from this anime, the term ‘reverse trap’ will be thrown around like using it is a badge of honour. It’s not. It’s offensive. Outside of most anime, nobody is trying to fool anyone. It’s just who we are.

Onto the anime. Man… girls hitting their brothers like that is so nineties. Almost stopped there. And, wow, Kinjirou’s friend thinks he’s gay because Kinjirou doesn’t like being touched by girls. That’s hilarious.

The final nail in the coffin was Kinjirou walking in on Subaru peeing sitting down with her frilly panties showing. If I hadn’t read a summary of this already stating that Subaru is a girl forced to crossdress, I’d probably have passed out from sheer ticked-offedness.

Verdict: You’re not necessarily a bad person if you like this kind of stuff. But you might be.

Official Site: Mayo-Chiki!

Morita-san wa Mukuchi.

Hook: A young girl doesn’t say much.

Stopping Point: All the way through. It’s only five minutes.

A girl talks at her friend about boys. Friend never responds except during internal dialogue to remind herself to listen better.

It was meaningless. But short. Hey, not too shabby!

Verdict: Extremely short slice-of-life. Nothing amazing or offensive or meaningful.

Official Site: Morita-san wa Mukuchi.

Natsume Yuujinchou San (Third Season)

Hook: A boy releases youkai’s names from his grandmother’s “Book of Friends”.

Stopping Point: All the way through.

This is a lovely anime. I thought it might be difficult to get into because it’s the third season, but it’s not a problem at all. They explained it all as they went, probably a little more than they needed.

Verdict: I probably won’t keep following it, but it seems to work well as a stand-alone episode. Generally, I want to see evidence of a plot arc before I decided to follow something though.

Official Site: Natsume Yuujinchou San (Third Season)

Nekogami Yaoyorozu

Hook: Catgirl goddesses.

Stopping Point: 3 minutes, 30 seconds.

This is just not my anime. The humour is forced, with sound effects written out onscreen and sudden ‘lightning’ backgrounds when characters get angry. The characters are moe and well-designed for maximum appeal (they’re catgirls), so I’m sure there’s plenty of fans prepared to overlook the rest.

Verdict: Someone will love this. I’m not that someone.

Official Site: Nekogami Yaoyorozu

Winner: No.6

NO.6

Hook: A bromance blooms between an elite kid and a runaway in a dystopic future. Somewhere, the Moon Tears are falling…

Stopping Point: All the way through.

Excellent example of a good start. The action sequence was followed by a scene from ‘normal life’ which superficially resembles our world, but is hinted to be otherwise. This is never stated aloud and the characters don’t have long, forced conversations about information they both know, but we get the picture.

I’m not clear about whether Shion was visualising himself floating above the city at the start or if it’s a power that he has. I think the former, but I’m still not sure. Either way, just a few minutes in, the anime has indicated that this is an anime set in a near-future dystopia and a typhoon is coming. The anime does well with that eerie feeling just before one hits.

I love that they say that Tsuki no Shizuku (Japanese for moon drops? Moon tears?) is crying without any explanation. That’s for future episodes, presumably.

Verdict: Another winner! I’ll be watching this one.

Official Site: NO.6

Nurarihyon no Mago ~Sennen Makyou~ (Season Two)

Hook: A half-human, half-youkai helps humans and makes friends

Stopping Point: 2 minutes, 20 seconds.

Surrounded by yamabuki (a type of yellow mountain rose), a man in soft-focus and traditional dress recites a famous tanka and is stabbed to death by a katana-wielding woman. The opening credits roll and they don’t have a catchy J-pop song. This sets the tone for what will be surely be a serious, dramatic anime.

…the hell!? Super-deformed characters and the laughter of children?

If you’d seen the previous series, you might have been expecting that. This might even be a pretty funny psyche-out for you. I leave at this point.

Verdict: This is clearly not for those who haven’t seen season one. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Official Site: Nurarihyon no Mago ~Sennen Makyou~ (Season Two)

Nyanpire: The Animation

Hook: Cat becomes vampire becomes vampire cat.

Stopping Point: All the way through. It’s very short.

Very cute, designed by a committee for maximum appeal. It would be great filler between anime shows on cable or at conventions, but you wouldn’t really sit down and watch it.

Verdict: Show this one to the goth cat-lover in your life.

Official Site: Nyanpire: The Animation

OGA: Onigokko Royale

Unable to watch this one. Probably for the best…

Official Site: OGA: Onigokko Royale

R-15

Hook: Schoolgirl lolimoe crap.

Stopping Point: 23 seconds.

Twenty three seconds! A new record is set! It starts with an almost empty school. In one classroom, a teacher clutches a note saying a pupil wants to meet with him. She writhes nervously and it’s clearly love confession time.

She lifts her skirt.

Does no one know how to confess their interest in another human being? Good grief! If you’re immature enough to be communicating through cryptic notes to Teacher, then this is the wrong approach.

Verdict: I’m not offended, just thoroughly annoyed with how stupid this was.

Official Site: R-15

Ro-Kyu-Bu!

Hook: Moe girls play basketball.

Stopping Point: 3 minutes, 30 seconds.

The pre-credits hook was great and I actually settled in to finish this to the end. Sure, it was lolimoe, but the girls were playing basketball and doing great. There was a mini-cliffhanger too — will she make the shot in time?

I even sat through the electronic, high-pitched opening song. And then came the title card: The Elementary School Kids are Coming! Hey Hey Hey!

Wait, are they elementary school kids? It’s impossible to guess their age due to the drawing style. The anime moves on to their dressing room, providing coy shots of them slipping into French maid outfits. I’m feeling distinctly uncomfortable.

An older boy arrives and they greet him dressed as maids. He asks if they’re the basketball team and I turned off. I remembered I was still watching because I had been promised an anime about a girls’ basketball team and I didn’t get that at all. They didn’t even show the result of the opener, whether she makes the shot or not. This is because this isn’t really about basketball at all.

I looked up this show on Wikipedia and it turns out they are, indeed, elementary school kids. I cannot get this anime away from me quickly enough.

Verdict: Lolimoe crap.

Official Site: Ro-Kyu-Bu!

Sacred Seven

Hook: Maid snipers! A butler mecha pilot who is also the president of the student council! Ninja-pirate-zombie-robots!

Stopping Point: All the way through!

One of the first things that caught my attention was that it wasn’t set in Tokyo. Despite enjoying anime where the production team have clearly gone round a specific area and photographed it from every possible angle (Ikebukuro in Durarara!! or Shinjuku in Kamisama Dolls, for example), I like anime set outside of the capital too.

Luckily, the boy started manifesting his powers through a hole in his head like a unicorn, so I could pretend that I had a legitimate reason to keep watching other than a briefly-glimpsed butler.

Next up was a sniper organisation exclusively manned by French maids. Unlike Ro-kyu-bu, I didn’t turn off. First, they’re adults and it didn’t feel like fanservice (gratuitously quirky, sure, but not gratuitously gratuitous). Second, they seemed capable and didn’t trip over their own feet. Third, we weren’t just going through the motions. It was an odd detail that genuinely amused me.

Still, this is very silly stuff, so I’m going to stop– Wait, what was that?

HOLY CRAP THE BUTLER IS DRIVING A TANK MECHA THIS IS AWESOME

Hey, I’m only human.

Verdict: I’m waiting for the dinosaurs to show up. There’s gotta be dinosaurs in this, right?

Official Site: Sacred Seven

Usagi Drop

Hook: Salaryman adopts an ophan.

Stopping Point: 2 minutes, 20 seconds.

Starts off slowly, with an unusual animation style and a muted pallet, just like a low-budget Ghibli film. And then… Sorry, I just can’t.

You see, what has been seen cannot be unseen. And I know the ending to the manga.

When I see fans squeeing about how cute this anime is and how adorable that this thirty year-old single man adopts a cute six year-old orphan, I wonder if I should tell them or not. I mean, no one likes surprise spoilers, but this is probably something they need to know.

Reader, he marries her.

Verdict: I can’t watch this, knowing the ending.

Official Site: Usagi Drop

Uta no ☆ Prince-sama ♪ Maji LOVE1000%

Hook: Rich boys dancing and singing.

Stopping Point: 4 minutes, 15 seconds.

I thought I might enjoy this for the sheer campiness of the plot and characters, but it seems that Sacred Seven has already filled that niche for me. Plus, the characters are all really annoying.

If I want to watching something campy with singing, dancing and developed characters, I’ll just go to Musical Tennis no Oujisama.

Verdict: Hahahahaha… no.

Official Site: Uta no ☆ Prince-sama ♪ Maji LOVE1000%

Yuru Yuri

Hook: It’s yuri.

Stopping Point: 30 seconds, just to make it clear it’s not worse than R-15.

This is the last one and I’m done. I just can’t take any more wacky slice-of-life moe schoolgirls who wake up and look at their adorable alarm clock and rush off to school and–

Anyway, I’m done. Yes, even though they’re apparently crushing on each other rather than the male flavour of the month.

Verdict: No more.

Official Site: Yuruyuri

Spam From Japan: Photo-Walking Around Odaiba

I was in Odaiba recently for the International Tokyo Toy Show. The sky was overcast and grey, making it the perfect weather for photographing the brightly-coloured boats. The light reflects oddly at this time, enhancing greens and, at twilight, naturally bringing out the now-ubiquitous teal and orange. Since it was June, you also get the iconic ‘raindrops dripping off hydrangeas’ photo.

All photographs are available at a larger size if you click on them. All landscape-oriented photographs are wallpaper-sized for your PC.

Spam From Japan: International Tokyo Toy Show 2011 Report

The International Tokyo Toy Show (Also known as “Tokyo Omocha Show”) is the one of the first major ‘fun’ event to be held in Big Sight since the earthquake. Okay, there were trade fairs devoted to sales incentives and a few doujinshi markets, but nothing with sponsors. They weren’t even sure if it would go ahead considering both the Tokyo International Anime Fair and its new rival, Anime Contents Expo, were cancelled. Although numbers for both attendees and booths owners seemed like it was down, I’m glad they went through with it.

I must admit, fewer things caught my eye this year. However, the people behind Doubutsu Shougi (“Animal Shogi” or “Catch The Lion!”) were there again to give demonstrations. If you like board games or puzzles, I totally recommend this one. It has a few basic shougi pieces, represented by simple illustrations of animals and a reduced playing area. The pieces have the potential moves (mimicking actual shogi moves, obviously) included in the illustrations too.

This year they had a treat for us — a full shogi set with the same basic concept! That is, the legal moves for each piece are clearly marked and all pieces are adorable animals. These are a perfect gift for anyone, even adults (especially adults!).

Amongst other toys that caught my eye was Yummy Dough. According to the flyer, they started making it when a little German girl asked “Why can’t you eat clay?” Instead of replying “Because we said so,” they made edible play dough and set up children for a lifetime of bad decision-making. It looked like a pretty good idea, but I didn’t try any of their many samples, simply for all the children already pawing through them. There’s a photo of the booth below though.

Amongst other things I photographed was 4D Cityscape Time Puzzle from Yanoman. The concept isn’t new, but now Tokyo has been added to the list of 3D cities you can make. There were also plenty of sentai and tokusatsu rangers on display at the Bandai booth. Like Takara Tomy, their booth took up about a quarter of an entire hall. This time they were promoting Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger (AKA Pirate Squadron Gokaiger), which is a mash-up of a Super Sentai show and pirates. Probably my favourite photographs were of Lego’s new magic-ninja-and-dragons model line, called Ninjago.

I was very pleased by what I found in the Takara Tomy booth. I’m a big fan of ‘we made it so-so-so cute that it stopped being cute and became creepy’ — I love soulless eyes, kigurumi cosplayers and life-sized dolls with visible balljoints that they didn’t have to include but did anyway. Good work guys, and I won’t be able to sleep for some time.

Here’s a list of Japanese Toy Awards 2011 grand prize winners. There are a few changes from the previous year (See a list in English here), although Bandai are still making sentai transformation belts and Anpanman keeps educating kids. This year, Takara Tomy took more wins all round and their winning entry for the Innovation Award, Ningen Gakki, looks particularly intriguing.

List of award winners 2011. Scroll on for the photos!

Category	Name	Company	Sale Date	Price in Yen
Access For All Children “Kyouyuu” Award	Tomica Yubi-Con Series	Takara Tomy	June 2011	5,229
Educational Award	Anpanman Touch de “AIUEO” o-kyoushitsu Kids Tablet [Link to .PDF]	Agatsuma	August 2011	7,329
Boys’ Toy Award	Henshin Belt (Kamen Rider) DX OOO Driver O Medal Series	Bandai	September 2010	6,825
Girls’ Toy Award	Licca-chan 31 Icecream Shop	Takara Tomy in association with Baskin Robbins	April 2011	4,725
Character Toy Award	ONE PIECE LOGBOX	Megahouse	September 2010	630
Innovative Toy Award	Ningen Gakki	Takara Tomy	June 2011	3,360
High Target Award	nanoblock Tokyo Skytree and LED Plate	Kawada in association with Tokyo Skytree	September 2011	2625 (+1050)

I hope you enjoyed my report and photographs from the International Tokyo Toy Show 2011. If you like anime, you might enjoy my cosplay photographs from Winter Comiket 2010. If you want more photographs from other big events like this toy fair, maybe you’ll prefer my report from last year’s Tokyo Game Show. Alternatively, click on the banner to your left to see photographs from other bloggers in Japan. You can also share this on Facebook or Twitter (amongst many other sites!) if you click the button to your left below.

Spam From Japan

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Volunteering Up North Part Five (End): Living in a Tent

Volunteering Up North Part Four: Oyster Farming

Volunteering Up North Part Three: Kawabiraki Matsuri in Ishinomaki

Volunteering Up North Part Two: Floating Lanterns Festival in Ishinomaki

Spam From Japan: Every Single Summer 2011 Anime Reviewed!

Spam From Japan: Photo-Walking Around Odaiba

Spam From Japan: International Tokyo Toy Show 2011 Report

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