Archive for September, 2009

Hugh Jackman eats sushi (again)

A day after NTV aired its show about taking Hugh Jackman to Tsukiji so he could enjoy sushi, FTV’s “Mezamashi TV” morning show aired its own Hugh Jackman interview segment. They had also heard about Hugh’s love of sushi, so they also took him to Tsukiji:

Incorrectly assuming that Australia and the United States lack conveyor belt sushi restaurants, they took him to a kaiten sushi place. It wasn’t as impressive as his experience with NTV, but he was still acted excited and was very nice and polite to everyone.

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
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Visualizing complaints about the American military presence in Japan

In a news segment yesterday morning about the Okinawa military base issue, FTV included a summary of some of the complaints Japanese have about American troops enjoying special privileges in Japan. To help the audience understand, they put their cartoonist to work.

Shown in the video:

• Members of the US military do not need alien registration cards to live in Japan.
• They don’t need to pay Japanese sales tax when shopping at on base stores.
• Japanese police are only allowed to arrest US troops if they are caught in the act of committing a crime. In other cases, they must request permission from the US military to question or detain members of the US military. This makes it difficult for Japanese police to carry out investigations.
• The Japanese government must pay for base expenses, including the salary of Japanese civilians who have jobs working for the bases.

The DPJ recently agreed to a coalition government, giving in to requests from its partners, the Social Democratic Party and New People’s Party, that it take a more aggressive stance towards revising the status of forces agreement between the US and Japan. Hatoyama has also maintained that his government will end Japan’s military aid to the international mission in Afghanistan.

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Related link (Japanese): The Social Democratic Party is an extreme leftist party that advocates the total dismantling of Japan’s military and an end to the U.S.-Japan alliance. It recently made headlines for its strong opposition to a parade of Japan Self-Defense Forces troops, referring to their carrying of unloaded rifles as “menacing” and dangerous.

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
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Cat face + other heads

A great video from Maru, the feline star of one of Japan’s most popular pet blogs:

Maru’s owner has created a photo book and DVD called “I am Maru.” It is printed in both Japanese and English, so that Maru’s fans around the world can also enjoy it.

[hat tip to Watashi to Tokyo]

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

Andrew W.K. Gundam Rock

Andrew W.K. of “Party Hard” fame was featured on “Mezamashi TV” yesterday because he’s created a new album to mark the 30th anniversary of Mobile Suit Gundam:

Gundam Rock will be sold through Amazon.com starting on September 15th.

Update: Here’s the music video of his Gundam main theme song cover. (Via Matt Alt)

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
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Marriage hunting in Japan

CNN’s Morgan Neill takes a look at the konkatsu craze that’s currently sweeping Japan:

Nozomi Okabe, the woman featured in the video, is seeking a husband who is taller than 180 cm and has a good job. The average male height in Japan is 171 cm, so most of the men at the konkatsu event probably failed her test immediately.

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• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
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Hugh Jackman visits Japan, eats sushi

Hugh Jackman was in Japan this week to promote the upcoming theatrical release of X-Men Origins: Wolverine*. As part of his promotional activities, he went on NTV’s “Sukkiri” morning news show and visited Tsukiji with Mari Sekine:

It lacks much of the awkwardness one usually finds when foreign celebrities appear on Japanese TV. He was friendly and polite towards everyone and really seemed to enjoy himself. The narrator keeps mentioning how Hugh is such a nice guy, and I’m inclined to agree.

In the segment, Hugh is taken to a tamagoyaki store owned and operated by TV producer Terry Ito’s brother. The day after they filmed there, Hugh and his family had some free private time to explore Tokyo. Apparently Hugh loved the tamagoyaki so much that he brought his wife and kids back to Tsukiji and visited the store so they could try the food prepared by his new friend!

*Note: Yes, that’s correct. X-Men Origins: Wolverine won’t hit Japanese theaters until September 11, 2009. According to IMDB, the film was released in the states back in May and Japan is dead last on the release date calendar. While Japanese fans will be seeing the film for the first time in theaters, Americans will already be buying it on DVD.

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