Gedo Senki is everywhere.  You walk into the Convinience store and it is like GEDO SENKI GIVEAWAY!  I went to see V for Vendetta during Golden Week, and Japanese Movie theaters…it was ladies day so I go in for as much as a NY movie, anyway, theaters have a goods corner, so you could buy V for Vendetta folders and stuff…cool art/posters, etc.  And when I was there, I saw the Deathnote movie poster up.  Death note movie news is all over the net by now (The manga just finished! I could spoil it with a word!) but I was the first to know about it in my circle, so I win I win I win.  One of the few times being in Japan was actually faster for the information get…like the cup noodle thing…I saw the Katsuhiro Otomo CM TV and was all ready to talk about that like I was so special and then I listened to an episode of geeknights and Rym and Scott were like CUP NOODLE FREEDOM and I was like DAMMIT!  Or I found this deathnote mug in Akiba and was regretting not getting it and then as I was typing I looked online and found it right away.  In those kinds of things I really don’t have the advantage anymore…but I do have…THEATRICAL ANIME.  See, unless there is a leaked copy, or something like a cam capture, you can’t see it before I do!  Mwahahah!  Coming up are, of course, the Ghibli film based on Earthsea, Brave Story, which looks kind of kiddish, but has a dragon-like creature and a cat girl, Live Action Deathnote, and this one about a time traveling girl called Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo, with character designs by the guy who draws the Eva manga.  As far as TV fare goes, I have been watching Jyu Oh Sei…I like it a lot.  Shoujo Survival SciFi stuff…I like the shoujo a bit, you know, the androgynous pretty boys etc, but I like it best when they are running around with machetes and shooting anti aircraft missles in a post apocalyptic Cyberpunk world…like the Zero manga…Anyway, Jyu Oh Sei is right in that perfect medium between the girly-girly and the tough boy stuff, and also has the rocket ships.  Also.  Host-bu.  The twins..The Twins!  Nothing more to say.

Maybe next week I will review Shimotsuma Monogatari and Hana Yori Dango.

Whoa…maybe this weekend I can relax and work on my paper

This is possibly the most sociable I have ever been in my life, and consequently I’m just about ready to collapse in a heap. What with the world cup and a rather dangerous drama addiction, I have not been keeping a sleeping schedule anything close to what a normal human requires (but for a college student it is perfect…it can go hand and hand with my recent diet of conbini bento and melon bread). Let’s see. Last Friday, the movie club had a barbecue, and after going shopping at the Jasco, 13 of us crowded around this little tiny hibachi, fanned the flames and grilled meat and squid and various other delicacies, including blueberry marsh-mellows. Marsh-mellow no kushiyaki! Ueno-sempai makes up ridiculous stories all the time, to try see if he can con me…at the shopping center he was telling me the children in the day care are for rental and then handed me a bottle of soba soy sauce and told me it was marinade. 嘘つくなってば！信じたらどうする？One of these days I’m going to believe him, do something off the wall and then they will feel guilty for trying to pull one over on the American, oh yes. I had a really good time, got a kinda tipsy (I had a little bit of that 朝鮮人参Korean carrot liquor. Whoo. That’s potent stuff.) and rode my bike home around 11 in high spirits. Once I got inside my little darkened apartment, though, I suddenly got really lonely and ended up calling up Uncle John on Skype and talking his ear off for about an hour. That is one of the benefits of time differences…you ever get lonesome at 1 in the morning, you are able to call your friends and relations without the fear of pissing them off royally. Saturday was the AMI compa and Sunday? The Toyota car museum with Matsumoto-kun + Gyouza. It was really fun and edu-macational and I know know the words for exhaust system, displacement, and various other phases having to do with internal combustion engines. (I wish my sis was here.) Our favorite car was the Lancia in the parking lot, though. Apparently a race car driver had decided to take his young son to look at the history of automotive technology, and his car became an unofficial exhibit.

So I saw Kimi wa Pet.  Golly.  Gee whiz.  I think I’m done for.  He sits.  He shakes.  He rolls over.  You can take him for walks in the park.  It’s Matsujun in a box.

So actually, the drama, as an adaptation, is really well done…I think I actually like it better than the original manga.  When I read it I remember liking the story of the manga, and the characters do have a lot of personality, but I really didn’t care for the at style at all…poofy lips and really angular faces…not really to my taste.  When I  read the first volume I remember thinking…”Hmmm.  This would work well in live action… hahaha Imagine pitching this to an American studio hahaha.” But the Japanese have come through for us again and delivered one of the best live action manga adaptations I have see thus far.  (Usually they fail to impress somehow.)  But I really dig this.

So for those of you who don’t know, let me recap the story and shed some light on the reason I am currently kicking my feet in the air and squealing with fangirl-ish glee. The story is about a woman, right? Who keeps a man as a pet.  No, no…don’t run away!  I know it sounds kinky as all get out, but it’s really cute!  Really!  So.  Begin at the beginning.  You know those guys who get intimidated by girls who are smarter than them…?  And the girls who play dumb and helpless to get guys?  The main character isn’t one of those girls.  Sumire is a Todai/Harvard graduate who works in the foreign affairs devision of a large newspaper, who in the beginning is dumped by he fiance because she is taller and smarter and makes more money than he does, and it scares him.  Feeling insecure because of his highly capable independent journalist girlfriend, the bastard cheats on her and eventually marries lil miss future housewifey type mistress when she becomes preggers.  Not only that, but following the breakup, Sumire (violet) gets transfered from “Foreign Affairs” in the newspaper to “lifestyle/home” department because she refuses to put up with sexual harassment from her boss.  So her life sucks, even though she is the best at what she does everyone hates her and is jealous of her for just being herself.  And then she finds a homeless boy (Matsujun) in a cardboard box in front of her apartment complex.  Yup.
He is pretty much the worse for the wear, so she patches him up and lets him spend the night on the couch.  She leaves for work in the morning thinking he’ll be gone when she gets back, but when she comes home there he is on the floor watching TV.  She tosses him out while he begs her to let him crash…so, in an attempt to chase him off, she is like “you can stay here only if you be my pet, and when I say pet I mean like a dog.” thinking “no sane person would agree to that.”…well…”Peaches” promptly agrees.

There are, of couse, a lot of dog jokes, but really the relationship between the characters is quite interesting.  For the most part, its like Sumire has this boy crashing at her house (and he acts like a normal person most of the time, or as normal as his character will allow for), and she refuses to enter into a romantic relationship with him, but he keeps her company and calms her down when the stress of her career gets to her.  In return he gets food and gets to sleep in the loft…Just watch it.  Just watch. You’ll have to trust me on this one.

私はどれほど幸せ者なのか．．．
I is a heppy heppy ket.
Before I get into the Meidaisai, I just have to say I had just about the best day ever yesterday. (and you say…big deal.) But really.  It’s entering the rainy season and everything is grey and smells like mildew, and for about two days I had a mood to match.  Something you can’t really put your finger on, but you know…just kind of wistful and blah.  I Skyped my dad, and was like “Pop, why are things blah? Why don’t I get…I don’t know…invited to more parties or something?” and then he was like “Aww, be happy…alright, I’m going to bed.”  As far as happiness as a chemical reaction goes, sports = endorphins.  So I did what I always do when I am cranky mood - something that involves running around until you are ready to fall over and tired enough to forget why I was cranky in the first place.  I’ve got a bike…
And here I recall a conversation I had with Kuma-san the other day. I forget exactly how it came up, but..

“One of these days I’m going to ride to Sakae.” says I, in Japanese.

“Sakae? Get out.  That’s too far away!” quoth he.

So, Yesterday I set out with my wallet in one pocket and my cellphone in the other and rode straight down the sidewalk on the side of the expressway.  I rode almost all the way to Nagoya station, and I spent time in Sakae watching street concerts.  The TV tower is closed until the 14th, but I found the Ghibli store I went to before, and a Shonen Jump character store right next to it.  (Man, all you Bleach fans back home would have a fit.  Which, by the way…the free TV is great except for the fact that it goes black and white when there is an explosion, so watching Bleach, I have to keep getting up and fixing the dang thing.  Ichigo, stop fighting, stupid!)  I just felt so good feeling the wind rushing past me…I always like riding out back on the country roads in the summer, past the field of corn.  You feel like you’re flying.  And then I get a mail from my friend Matsumoto-kun in the movie club and I spent the rest of the evening hanging out with him, talking politics and soccer.  I was sitting the the sushi place we went to that night, and there was just this kind of glow around everything as I watched the entrees cycle around the conveyor belt.  Man, I’m glad I came back here.  I’m so, so glad.

So today, I, uh, got a craving for Japanese food.  Which is funny, considering the circumstances.  The thing is, I’ve been eating way to much katsu in the school cafeteria.  I mean, this is Nagoya, home to Miso Pork Cutlet, but still….Meat, meat, meat.  And in the morning, hey, I’m in a hurry, so Bread bread bread.  Fish.  I need Fish.  I was in the co-op cafeteria after class and of all things I got a craving for natto.  There it was, the most infamous of infamous Japanese foods, the Gaijin-bane stinky beans, and I thought “…yum.” Now I don’t dislike natto…I actually think its pretty good, with some mustard and onions.  But its not something I usually eat voluntarily, you know.  So a craving for natto?  Either I must have adapted better than I thought, or I really do need to change my diet.  In any case, I had some good
アジ（鯵）mackerel and ate up my sticky beans, and relished them.  Cafeteria food though it may be, hooray for washoku.  I also want real Kimchi.  Maybe I need to rally the Koreans and head out to Sakae for some good eats.  Doh…Ethnic cuisine…(making Homer Simpson drooling noises).  We were talking about an Indian food menu in class, and I suddenly got really nostalgic.  I’m not Indian, but my family tends to eat a lot of Indian food and I was one of the only ones in class who knew what all the dishes were.  I got really misty eyed, remembering various family meals.  There’s this one restaurant we always go to when we celebrate, and we went right before I left.  I just remember being really content that night, and full of a good saag curry.  No, I’m not homesick…just full of memories, rattling around like pennies inside of my head.
Oh! Speaking of curry, there was a booth at the school festival by the Thai student association that served lovely Green Curry, and also this thing called “Yamitsuki” (yummies)  It was, I believe, a perfect recipe in that it effortlessly combined the dishes of four different countries into one.  I shall teach you how to make it, to the best of my knowledge.

YUMMY FOOD!

1. Take a tortilla (or a piece of flat bread…any sort of wrap will do) and warm it briefly in a frying pan (or nuke it..but then it won’t get a little crispy.)

2. Brown a hot dog on the stove, and also heat up some thick curry.  You want something similar to Samosa filling, you know…potatoes and peas, yellow, spicy.  Actually, pick out the curry that best suits your personal taste.

3. Put the hot dog on the flat bread.  Cover it with curry. AND THEN! (this is key) drizzle Mayo over the whole thing.

4. Wrap it up and enjoy your Hotdog-Mayonnaise-Curry-Burrito Mexican/Indian/American/Japanese food.  Why is it Japanese, you say?  Weren’t you aware that Mayo is a primary ingredient in Japanese Cooking?  I consider it a Japanese food, on par with wasabi and pickled squid guts (no, I am not being racist and sarcastic, ちゃんと食べた、イカの塩辛I have eaten squid guts (ika no shiokara)…it was salty)

next! MEIDAISAI REPORT!

I just saw something really weird.
So, I can usually tell a “surprise guest” episode of a talk show versus something weird that just happened.  People act surprised, but are prepped before hand…the come up with quippy, fawning comments, feigning amazement at the good luck of having so and so on the set.  But imagine something weird happened, and some of the people in the studio must have known about it, the info didn’t get to the main players…there is just awkwardness and silences, nervous fidgeting.  What we are talking about is something that genuinely catches them, professionals though they be, by surprise. Something WEIRD.

So, I was watching TV just now, right? Michael Jackson just showed up on the SMAPxSMAP  show.  Not like as a guest.  He was watching the concert they were filming upstairs, and then just walked onto the set.  Who’s going to stop him?  He’s Michael Jackson.  He’s become a joke in the states as sad fallen creature consumed by fame, but the after-image of legend still lingers.  This was the man who twenty years ago inspired a generation of pop stars…Shingo said that after seeing Michael on stage at the Tokyo dome he made up his mind that he would one day stand up on that stage.  This man, he came, he greeted them, and he left.  Just like that.  You could see the five fellows of SMAP reeling in his wake.
They just sat on the floor and said suge na. Suge-. over and over.  No music…no cutting to other things…just the five sitting on the studio floorboards all moony-eyed like they couldn’t believe what just happened.  These men and their band are one of the biggest names in pop to come out of Japan…they may not be super stars, but in Asia they are pretty well known, and almost every red-blooded Japanese man, woman, and child knows their names.  I am not a big SMAP fan, as their stuff is not really to my taste… pop, super upbeat, but if nothing else I acknowledge that they are a THING.  Of course, I do like Shingo mama and his mayonnaise antics (”Oha” was going around when I was in high school.)  Goro did his Michael Jackson imitation that he did in a TV sketch years ago, and everyone was like “okay now stop.”  The five guys were tongue tied, cowed.

And Micheal Jackson.  He is so far gone.  It’s like he’s a robot, dead inside, eaten from the inside out.  I can see why people joke about him being an alien.  Ghostly visage, eyes hidden by dark aviator glasses that almost hide his ghastly (and I use the word in a literal manner…he looks like a night ghast) nose as well…even the way he moves is strange.  He spoke in his creepy, high voice.  “Thank you for acccepting me, God bless you, god bless you.”  The pretty young translator behind him fluidly repeated his words in Japanese, but somehow they lost their pleading, wretched yet vacant quality in the translation.  SMAP, a giant of the music industry standing dwarfed before a another giant, a great big crumbling, dying giant.

Just when I though Japan had stopped being weird for me.  CMs cease to freak me out, customs seem to be the norm.  But no!  Japan, you never cease to amaze with your sudden bouts of the surreal.

Speaking of which…that was a cool music video on now…like a cross between Yellow Submarine, Bakshi’s Wizards, and Indian Religious Art.  Funky.