Archive for December, 2009

Kirin Golden Moment

There are some nice images of traditional Japan in autumn in this commercial for Kirin’s Koku no Jikan (Golden Moment) beer happoshu mixed with barley spirits:

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American and Japanese battleships team up to fight space aliens

Chud.com reports some details about “Battleship,” a upcoming American movie inspired by the board game of the same name. Director Peter Berg has said that it will involve a fleet of battleships fighting against space aliens:

- This is more strategic warfare. Again, since the alien tech is not unbeatable or far beyond our own, and since Berg wants to reflect the game, the battle won’t be about our Navy fighting an unstoppable opponent but rather about two evenly matched groups out-thinking one another through strategy.

Berg: Some take more shots to sink and kill than do others. Just like our ships. But they’re killable.

- Someone will say ‘You sank my battleship!’ in the movie. In fact, Berg is adamant that it has to be there. He also said there will be other nods to the game.

Berg: Hells yeah!

- The hero fleet will be cut off from the rest of the world in some way. There will be a five ship fleet taking on The Regents, and for whatever reason, they cannot communicate with the rest of the Navy and so must handle the threat on their own.

- The hero fleet will have an international component. One of the ships will be Japanese. Will this Japanese ship be part of the WWII component? Unclear.

- There will be close quarters fighting. In the Navy they call it a ‘knife fight,’ when two ships are close enough to fire small caliber weapons at one another (keep in mind that in the Navy a small caliber weapon is a huge machine gun. That’s small when compared to the mammoth 5 inch rounds the destroyer’s main gun fires).

- Berg wants to make Battleship as realistic a look at naval battle as possible, considering the bad guys are aliens. Berg opted not to have any Earthly foe because he thought the plot gymanstics required to explain why the US Navy is at war with any of the comparable navies would be too much.

Berg: The idea of finding a credible context for that eluded me. The idea of a film where America goes to war against China, or a movie where America goes to war against England or Australia or Japan, one of the countries that has a credible navy, felt like it would borderline on some kind of jingoistic American military exercise I couldn’t get my head around. I like the idea of something bigger, larger than life and the challenge it presented.

Perhaps he can draw some inspiration from anime and have the Japanese revive the Yamato to battle against evil aliens.

[hat tip to Ryuganji]

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The Solaryman project: jumping salarymen

Holy jumping salarymen! Yukio Aoyama’s Solaryman project(aka “Jumping Papas”), which aims to capture images of Japanese salarymen in flight, has been released in book form.

“One ordinary office worker (called “salary-man” in Jinglish), who is a typical father figure in Japan, could be a hero for others, and be a humorous individual.”

I started to have more respect to my father since he has passed away, who has had a whole life as a salary-man.

I, who have never lived as a salary-man, develop a thrill and hope in myself when I see salary-man find a moment to transform into a superhero, who normally dedicate all the time to working for company.

It’s possible to let them show us their individuality through a jump from ordinary life, and this is the very moment when I intend to take their photographs, thinking about an ideal figure of my own father.

ソラリーマン・プロジェクト ｜ Solary-MAN PROJECT

Solary-MAN means salary-man, who jumps in the sky, is another of my projects, directing a spotlight on Solary-MAN, a bearer of our present society.

In this project, photo session, questionnaire and interview are done for salary man.

Then, recognition of Solary-MAN is supposed to be gained through website, magazine, photo collection, and exhibition as well.

I intend to express each Solary-MAN’s drama hidden in their business suits.

Besides, I try to approach to our society for better impression of salary-man, in order that there will be lots of kids saying “I want to be a salary-man in future!”.

Here’s a short TV report from FTV. They ask famous politicians and showbiz salarymen to jump:

The Solaryman photos are on exhibition at Wada Garou in Tokyo until December 6th.

Oddly enough, I could not find this title on Amazon. It is available at PieBooks.com, as well as at Kinokuniya book stores across Japan. http://www.kinokuniya.co.jp/04f/index.htm

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U.S. military refuses to cooperate with Japanese police – will not hand over teens accused of attempted murder

The Asahi Shimbun reports that U.S. military authorities are refusing to hand over the teens whose alleged mischief nearly killed a woman:

According to police, the four, aged between 15 and 18, stretched a rope across a road, knocking a 23-year-old company employee from her motorcycle around 11:30 p.m. on Aug. 13. The woman suffered a fractured skull.

Japanese police are treating the case as attempted murder.

Police obtained an arrest warrant for the teens, whose parents serve at Yokota Air Base, on Nov. 24, but the U.S. military has refused to comply, the sources said.

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Right winger smashes Hatoyama’s computer

The Asahi Shimbun reports on a 24-year-old man in a suit was able to enter the DPJ headquarters in Tokyo and make his way into Yukio Hatoyama’s office and smash a computer:

When he arrived, he brandished a 53-centimeter-long wooden sword in front of a female receptionist and raced up an emergency staircase to Hatoyama’s empty office, where he headed straight for the desk and proceeded to smash the prime minister’s computer until he was overpowered by guards.

He was arrested on the spot on suspicion of trespassing.

The part-time worker from Yamanashi Prefecture said he was furious with DPJ policy pledges that would grant suffrage for permanent foreign residents and permit married couples to use different surnames.

“I thought I could thwart those policies if I destroyed the computer,” he was quoted by investigators as saying.

The incident has exposed some very serious security problems at the DPJ HQ.

According to an article on 47 news, the man became enraged about the issue after hearing about the DPJ’s possible new policies on the internet.

[via JapanSoc]

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Yukio Hatoyama included in Platon’s Portraits Of Power

The New Yorker has a interactive portfolio of portraits of world leaders, including Yukio Hatoyama, who apparently dresses like Fred Astaire:

Check out the portraits and audio commentary here. You can also listen to an interview with the photographer on NPR dot org.

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