Archive for August, 2009

Japanese model trains

If yesterday’s model airplane isn’t your thing, you can go with another hobby being advertised on Japanese TV: model trains!

It makes an appeal to viewers who want to recreate the nostalgic scenery of their childhood days, something that was absent in the model airplane commercial. Just like the Zero, this is sold as weekly sets that allow you to slowly build your way towards perfection.

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
• Kirainet.com – A geek in Japan (Subscribe)

Japanese women long for samurai men

NTV’s “Zoom In Super” morning show takes on the “History Girl” (rekijo) boom that is hitting Japan (subbed in English):

The AFP has a good article up about this trend:

In testing times like these, “people tend to turn to strong symbolic figures on whom they can project their ideals,” said Hideki Nakagawa, a Nihon University sociology professor and an expert on pop culture.

What started out as a trend among video game nerds erupted into a mainstream craze this year after young women latched onto it. Japanese media quickly found a label for them — “rekijo,” or female history geeks.

In a society where market researchers recently identified a new male demographic as passive ‘herbivores’, “women seek ‘super carnivorous males’,” said Ichiya Nakamura, a media and pop culture researcher at Keio University.

“The warlords were different from the cold-eyed, dispassionate Japanese men of today,” he said. “They stood out because of their strong personalities.”

In a store dedicated to samurai books and paraphernalia, a 17-year-old female fan agreed wholeheartedly, gushing that the “warlords sacrificed themselves for justice and to protect the people.”

Now, she scoffed, “politics purely serves the interests of politicians.”

They seem to be obsessed with an unrealistic and idealized version of history, no doubt because it was presented to them in that way through TV dramas and video games. Still, it is good to see that historical sites are making more money from tourists.

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
• Kirainet.com – A geek in Japan (Subscribe)

The man who saved the Akita Inu

I just finished reading Dog Man: An Uncommon Life on a Faraway Mountain and would like to recommend it. Here’s a short blurb:

One day in 1944, in the midst of World War II Japan, with people suffering and starving around him, Morie Sawataishi heard something troubling. The country people of Akita Prefecture were killing their dogs and selling their pelts to the military in order to line the winter coats of officers. The Akita dog, already dwindling in numbers as it fell out of favor, neared extinction. When an acquaintance offered him a puppy, Morie could not resist buying her and later purchased a male for breeding after he was able to verify the existence of only 16 other Akita dogs. Sherrill tells the story not only of the salvation of an ancient breed of dog but also of the complicated man who loved them and of his Tokyo-born wife, who had to learn country ways and how to love dogs. Throughout the book, the changes in postwar Japan are woven into the narrative, along with tales of Morie’s Akitas.

I’m not a dog person, but all the hype on TV about Richard Gere’s Hachiko movie kind of made me interested in the history of the Akita dog breed. I stumbled upon the book by chance and found it to be a very good read.

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
• Kirainet.com – A geek in Japan (Subscribe)

Judgment Day for Japan

I thought TBS news had the coolest and most ridiculous graphics/music for its election coverage. I was wrong. FTV has raised (or lowered?) the bar by adding Terminator music and the title JUDGMENT DAY to its election news:

Get ready, Japan: Skynet will be attacking us tomorrow! I hope everyone has stockpiled enough weapons to deal with the hordes of killer robots.

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
• Kirainet.com – A geek in Japan (Subscribe)