Groom throwing festival in Niigata
A news report about the Mukonage (groom throwing) festival that took place in Niigata on the 15th:
Recently married men were chucked over a cliff onto a snow embankment to pray for good luck in their marriage.
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Categories: General Japan
Akiko Wada wears more make-up
Make-up artists extraordinaire Ikko gives Akiko Wada an extreme make-over:
She ends up looking like an entirely different person, but it’s not quite a radical as the time she became a black man.
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Categories: Japanese Girls
An Unexpected Crossover
Regrettably, I’ve never played Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (aka 逆転裁判, gyakutensaiban in Japan) or any of its iterations, but I am oddly excited about this:
The title translates as “Turnabout Trial: Truth Brought Out.” Apparently this is a musical based on the video game series, performed by the Takurazuka Revue (宝塚歌劇団, Takarazuka kagekidan), an all-female musical theatre group based in western Japan. The group is pretty famous in the Kansai area where I live, but I’m not sure if it’s popular in the rest of Japan and I’m pretty sure it’s almost unheard of overseas. Of course both male and female parts are played by women, and the whole look and feel of the shows dangle dangerously if not outright plummet into the depths of “camp.”
The interesting thing is that the Takarazuka Revue’s target audience is mostly women, which I find to be largely split between those in college and those aged 60+. While I know that the Nintendo DS has broken into markets previously impenetrable by video games, I am wondering how much appeal/name recognition this title has with Takarazuka’s audience. But then again, the Japanese Capcom site seems also to be aggressively pushing the production, so maybe they’re trying to pull in more males into musical theater?
I’ve always been mystified by the Takarazuka Revue concept, but have never been interested enough to see it for myself. Perhaps the video game crossover angle will finally push me over the edge next month when it opens on February 5.
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Categories: games, Odd / Strange
Flashback – Paul McCartney busted in Japan
On this day almost 29 years ago, Paul McCartney was arrested at Narita airport after Japanese customs officials discovered 7.7 ounces of marijuana in his luggage. Here’s a classic Japanese news clip about the incident:
He has since admitted it was “the daftest thing I’ve done in my entire life”:
“I was out in New York and I had all this really good grass,” he said. “We were about to fly to Japan and I knew I wouldn’t be able to get anything to smoke over there.
“This stuff was too good to flush down the toilet, so I thought I’d take it with me.”
He said it was “not too wonderful” being held in a Japanese jail, but he kept his spirits up by organising “sing-songs” with his fellow prisoners.
At the time, some called for him to face trial in Japan and do some real prison time. However, the Japanese government decided to go easy on Paul and deported him after ten days.
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Categories: Foreigners in Japan
“Antiforeigner discrimination is a right for Japanese people”
Gregory Clark, vice-president of Akita International University, has written a column in the Japan Times responding to previous articles about the Otaru onsen case by stating that Japanese businesses should be allowed to discriminate against foreign customers:
The antidiscrimination activists say bathhouse managers can solve all problems by barring drunken sailors. But how do you apply a drunk test? And how do you throw out a drunk who has his foot in the door? Besides, drunken behavior is not the only bathhouse problem with these Otaru sailors. I can understand well why regular Japanese customers seeking the quiet Japanese-style camaraderie of the traditional Japanese bathhouse would want to flee an invasion of noisy, bathhouse-ignorant foreigners. And since it is not possible to bar only Russians, barring all foreigners is the only answer.
The antidiscrimination people point to Japan’s acceptance of a U.N. edict banning discrimination on the basis of race. But that edict is broken every time any U.S. organization obeys the affirmative action law demanding preference for blacks and other minorities. Without it, U.S. President-elect Barack Obama would probably not be where he is today.
Malaysia has also ignored it, with its Bumiputra policy of favoring Malays over Chinese and other minorities. There are dozens more examples of societies deciding to favor one group of people over others in order to preserve solidarity or prevent injustices. A large chain of barbershops in Japan has signs saying service is denied to those who do not speak Japanese. Non-Japanese speakers probably cause much less harm to a business than delinquent Russians. But we do not see our activists in action there.
The activists say there should be action to educate Russian sailors in bathhouse behavior. But do we see any of the activists in the friendship societies where worthy Japanese citizens try to ease problems for foreigners living here? Not as far as I know. Presumably close contact with these citizens would also upset their Japan-girai feelings.
Clark goes on to say that police should be allowed to speak freely about the “real problem of clever Chinese and Korean criminals taking advantage of Japan’s lack of theft awareness,” and that discriminating against some foreigners is the only way Japan can avoid becoming like the “padlocked, mutually suspicious” societies found in Western countries.
[via Debito.org]
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Categories: Discrimination, Foreigners in Japan
Crime continues to drop in Japan
The Japanese TV new’s obsession with crime might make you miss the big picture:
The National Police Agency said that 1.8 million crimes took place last year _ down 4.7 percent from a year earlier _ with burglaries making up the largest proportion, accounting for 76 percent of total crimes. It marked the sixth year in which crime has fallen in Japan.
The number of serious violent offenses, which includes murder, rape and arson, declined 5.1 percent to 8,588. But murder cases alone rose 8.4 percent to 1,300 from last year _ though they still accounted for less than 1 percent of all crime.
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Categories: General Japan