Archive for November, 2009

My Boyfriend is Obama

There is an erotic video game named 幼いなじみは大統領 (My childhood friend is the president) in which aliens brainwash the world into thinking that the world’s leaders are beautiful girls. I know, right, why are they wasting such brilliant ideas on ero-games? But anyways, someone has taken the original opening theme and remade it into a special sequence, staring Obama, Hatoyama, Putin, and others.

The preview for the original game is quite amusing as well, with dramatic style English voice-overs.

Probers, we need to know: who’s your dreamiest Japanese politician?
[via Yamatologic]
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Contributor Bio: Claytonian blogs and vlogs about Japan, language, and news at The Hopeless Romantic.
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60 Minutes report on yakuza

60 Minutes reports on yakuza boss Tadamasa Goto’s UCLA liver transplant, a story originally broken by Jake Adelstein, author of Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan:

Watch CBS News Videos Online

The news report mentions how certain yakuza might want to kill Adelstein for writing about an embarrassing secret. He even says that he keeps his window shutters closed to protect himself from yakuza snipers. The death threats do not, however, stop him from making numerous public appearances on to promote his book.

Update: Adelstein has left a comment clarifying that the 60 minutes interview took place several months ago, when the situation was more dangerous with a certain yakuza boss. Things have slightly improved since then.

[hat tip to FG Forums]

Update: Jake Adelstein will be speaking about his Yakuza reporting at Good Day Books in Tokyo on December 6th. (Anyone who wants to attend and ask him questions must buy a copy of the book from the store.) [via TokyoReporter]

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George W. Bush throws first pitch at Japanese baseball game

Ex-President Bush is in Japan hanging out with his old buddy Junichiro Koizumi. They attended a baseball game the yesterday, where Bush threw the first pitch:

George Bush threw out the ceremonial first pitch in game three of the Japan Series between the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters and Yomiuri Giants at Tokyo Dome last night.

Sporting a Yomiuri jacket, the right-hander tossed a pitch to Shinnosuke Abe of the Giants. The ball bounced in the dirt once before Abe caught it.

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New Trailer for HBO’s “The Pacific”

HBO has put up a new trailer for “The Pacific” an epic mini-series about the war with Japan (from the creators of “Band Of Brothers”):

[The first trailer can be viewed here.]

The miniseries is apparently based on E.B. Sledge’s With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa, a book that anyone interested in the Pacific War should read. Unlike the Stephen Ambrose book upon which the “Band of Brothers” miniseries was based, this book is not rosy and sentimental in its portrayal of war.

Consider this video clip of an old interview with Sledge as a teaser for his book:

“In all the literature on the Second World War, there is not a more honest, realistic or moving memoir than Eugene Sledge’s. This is the real deal, the real war: unvarnished, brutal, without a shred of sentimentality or false patriotism, a profound primer on what it actually was like to be in that war. It is a classic that will outlive all the armchair generals’ safe accounts of—not the “good war”—but the worst war ever.”—Ken Burns

If HBO is true to the original tone of the book, this could be much better than “Band of Brothers.”

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Amazon Kindle 2 International reviews from residents of Japan

JJ of Fatblueman reviews the new Kindle 2 International e-book reader:

For further thoughts on the new Kindle, check out blog posts by Sandbaggerone and Steve Nagata.

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Sengoku period samurai reborn as cute animal mascots

NTV’s “Zoom In” morning show did a feature report from the scene of the mascot summit recently held in Hikone:

The most popular non-Hikonyan mascots at the event were the cuddly animal versions of famous Sengoku period samurai. Ishida Mitsunyan, a feline mascot based on Ishida Mitsunari was especially popular with the ladies, many of whom no doubt became his fans due to his manly portrayal in the Sengoku Basara video games.

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