5 posts tagged “japanese”

Kim North Korea DPRK 북한
Originally uploaded by Eric Lafforgue

I found this beautiful picture on Flickr thanks to a link provided by Boston.com's Big Picture. More pictures here.

Incidentally, Hitomi and I watched a South Korean documentary on a (North) Korean school run in Hokkaido, Japan called "Our School". (The trailer is below and unfortunately subtitled in Korean not English. Click on the link for a summary.) The gist is Koreans living in Japan feel like outsiders and are more comfortable in an environment where they can speak Korean and not be treated like a minority.

Being Korean in Japan is tough, because Japanese-North Korean relations aren't too great: The occasional Nodong missile is fired over Japan, people are still upset over the abduction of Japanese for spying, North Korean ships are notorious for smuggling in drugs and receiving cash from Japan, a backlash against the recent Korean Wave. Hitomi says Korean kids are aggressive, which is off putting for many Japanese.

You can get the documentary from Scarecrow Video in Seattle or probably through YesAsia and places like that.

I used to read and buy (occasionally) the Japanese Newtype magazine more than about ten years ago and I bought it mostly to enjoy the pictures of the new shows. I also liked seeing the ads, and some of the composite pictures of a particular "anime girl" or mecha against a real photographs. There were also interesting photographs of models and figurines, etc.

I think what happened, when I started to subscribe to the Newtype USA magazine, that I just started to feel overwhelmed with the volume of content, as not only did I look at the pretty pictures but try to read everything. Then, I realized I would never, ever be able to see, or try watching, most of the shows in there anyway. Unfortunately as an "older" fan you have more money than time.

But I still enjoyed the columnists, mostly the English-speaking ones, as often the Japanese column/interview translations were fairly unpolished sounding. And, maybe because I was too busy or not interested, I never could bring myself to watch many of the DVDs. I eventually felt it a waste to buy such a lavish magazine which I did not fully enjoyed and ended my subscription about a year ago.

To me as an older fan, I find myself now mostly interested in about content analysis and the culture. For instance, the anime show reviews, were really at the T.V. Guide level, not professional film critic level. Or at least some of the time they could have sounded, well, college-level. But perhaps this doesn't represent what the Newtype brand really is, which is really visual impact. I can already figure out -- based solely on pictures! -- what a show is 90% of the time anyway, so whatever words they added seemed superfluous.

In the USA version, I was sad that many columnists from the Japanese Newtype never made it in. A few more pages of translated columns would have been nice, for this fan anyway.

In Japan, there's 大人アニメ (Adults' Anime) magazine, which Hitomi occasionally buys. And according to Newtype's Wiki Page, they at least used to publish a magazine of essays.

We subscribe now to Otaku USA. It's better at explaining shows, and other pop-culture trends, at an adult-level. And it has a more holistic view of all kinds of Japanese pop culture and a written, not visual, focus. Giant Robot is also good, though I'm not altogether interested in Asian-American fringe culture, I like a their perspective on what's going on in Asia that's (pop) culturally interesting.

I hope Newtype USA's replacement picks a better direction than Newtype, and can distinguish itself visually and content-wise from its competition.

To me, if I were to publish a Newtype-like, visually-focused magazine, I would do it more in the flavor of National Geographic. Something with a define photographic focus, on very glossy, high-quality paper. It'd look like a coffee-table book, not in size, but in content. Everyone could enjoy it for just the pretty pictures, but then if you could also read more in depth from the accompanying article surrounding each photo spread. Each new anime show would have 10-15 pages to highlight the show's significant content, be it scenes, original illustrations, character art, etc. I'd leave out reviews, columnists, trends, etc., and focus really just on the visual side. And there would not be just shows, there'd also be cultural photojournalism, pictures of studios, bios of creators, etc. What would National Geographic publish about Sundays in Akihabara? Studio Ghibli? Voice actors at work?

Check these out:

Akitaro Daiichi - http://akitaroh.blog25.fc2.com/

Kaori Nazuka - http://blog.excite.co.jp/kamosan/

Even if you don't read Japanese, there's some interesting pictures related to Sakura-con.

A lot happened this year, and I should have been taking notes. Hitomi did a pretty good job of describing her Friday which is typical every year we've been at the convention.

For those without the benefit of understanding Japanese, Hitomi wrote a list of scheduling and guest issues discovered that day. For example, Mr. Daiichi was returning to Japan on Sunday, but his autograph signing session was scheduled that day. We take on the responsibility of running around talking to the executive staff in programming, relations, and other departments on fixing things at the last minute. This sort of represents the sorts of things dealt with by relation staff.

Those dealing with musical guests, have similar last-minute problems which come up. Eureka, for example, was practically up all night trying to locate all the things required by Avex staff at 11PM at night before the next day's event, while simultaneously trying to get a full equipment sound check ready. Since the sound equipment was being concurrently used by the dance, setup was delayed until 1-2AM. She supposedly only got a few hours sleep each night.

What did the other staff do? Hideki ("dancho") is a point of contact for us all, and the interface between us and Sabrina, who is relation department head. Masaki is sort of the off-site guest services and off-site translator, though he does not drive. Our boss ("dancho"). The rest of the Japanese staff provide panel and press translation, some do a bit of guest hosting, some I never really saw share meals with the guests, which is what I often do.

What did I do? I'm not a panel or press translator, though I'm able to read most Japanese fine, my problem is I hardly speak Japanese anymore or participate in conversation practice. And just being a shy guy interferes with opening up to people. It also doesn't make you relaxed when you sit face-to-face with a veteran voice actress, or are talking with a director or character designer. And when there's a group of them happily communicating, it's a bit difficult to jump into a conversation.

But whatever lack of language skills I have, I am considered "reliable" (perhaps because Hitomi is so much so) and have a reputation to do whatever it takes. This is probably why I get invited back every year.

The two biggest (unstated) goals of the staff are: 1. Ensure the guests are happy. 2. Provide an environment for them to interact with their fans. For us, satisfying both goals is actually quite fun, though sometimes exhausting.

Hitomi arrived in S.F. in the morning. I met her later in the evening, after I got my work done.

It takes about 30-40 minutes and about $5 to make it into the city. Once you're in, driving around is a real treat, as roads turn from arterials to local streets, climb or descend very steeply, drivers vie for parking, taxis stop to pick up or let out people, pedestrians dart out between cars, etc. Especially if you don't know the street naming (most streets are named not numbered), you end up zig-zagging around.

Luckily finding Hitomi's Amsterdam Hostel wasn't too difficult, once I followed the right street. But my zig-zag route took me through parts of the red light district. (Seattle doesn't really have a proper district, I think, more like a scattering of strip clubs, sex shops, massage parlors, and porn theaters from the waterfront to Capitol Hill.) Since it sits next to the old Chinatown, some of the shops are Asian-run and have signs up in Chinese, Japanese and other Asian languages. One funny thing that Hitomi caught on our way out was that "Massage" was posted with the characters "ma sa di" not "ma sa ji".

Having been to many cities in the U.S. and Canada with Chinatowns, I've always noticed they are located next to the red light districts. This is no doubt due to cheaper real-estate costs. But it is also interesting that Asian immigrants are also an integral part of the sex trade.

And really the sex trade ties in with the tourist trade. The "masadi" sign was written either to attract Japanese tourists or possibly just to fit in with the Asian theme. I felt the streets was very busy, especially for a weekday night.

We headed over to Japantown, which to be honest is less of a town and more of a series of shopping malls. The Japantown area is about 2 miles west of Chinatown. The restaurants have plastic food displays and are really the kinds of stores you'd often see in Japan, though the place had a rundown appearance. It was a little sad to see the mall mostly deserted around 8:30PM. I eventually grew hungry enough to pick a place mostly at random and ate some okonomiyaki and cold spinach. I was kind of hoping to find some higher-end places, there was Benihana (which is not really Japanese), but most restaurants weren't so formal. (Across the street from the mall I recalled, however, some more formal dining.)

At around 9:30PM, the place was shutting down.

Hitomi and I found a vending machine. About 8 or so selections of drink with taped up prices (think white paper and scotch tape), wasn't in great shape. Now compare this to the 30 or so drinks and sophistication of a machine in Japan. This really epitomized the difference between S.F. Japantown compared to an actual mall in Japan.

However, Hitomi seemed thoroughly impressed. It was indeed inexpensive, and Japanese, though I expect like everywhere most Japanese have gone from working shops to working regular white collar jobs. She was happy and comforted to see that there was a place where lots of Japanese shops were concentrated in one area, unlike most Japanese shops which are scattered about, and there is no physical indication of community.