Archive for December, 2010

China’s Big Yellow Gundam Knock-Off

There is some new information to report about the giant fake Gundam that was built at Floraland park in Chengdu, China. It turns out that the first photos were kind of dark, and that it’s more yellowish than orange. Also, it’s supposedly a totally original product of a Chinese person’s imagination, not a copy of something.

An article in Nikkan Sports says that the amusement park is denying that it is a Gundam:

　遊園地では、こうしたパクリ疑惑に対し「模倣ではなくオリジナル。ガンダムのまねではなく、自分たちでデザインを考えた」などと主張している。しかし遊園地のホームページでは中国語でガンダムを意味する「高達」という言葉も、ガンダムに似たイラストとともに書かれている。

They say it is an original design that they made themselves without copying anything. However, the amusement park’s homepage labels an image of a Gundam-like mobile suit as “高達,” which is apparently the Chinese word for Gundam.

Here are some images from a blogger:

Oh, and these things have nothing to do with Ultraman. Totally original Chinese heroes, mmkay?

Here’s a report from Japan’s FTV:

The report confirms that almost every aspect of the Chinese giant robot is a copied from Japan’s Gundam. It also mocks the shoddy appearance of the Chinese robot, which is made with fabric.

The report includes the audio of a phone call made to the park, with a park spokesman saying it’s not a copy and he doesn’t see any resemblance between it and the Japanese Gundam.

FTV closes the report by comparing it to the infamous fake Disneyland. Its narrator wonders if the fake Gundam will still be around by Christmas….

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Tokyoites Don’t Get Enough Sleep

A survey comparing Tokyo residents to people who live in other cities around the world has found that Tokyoites tend to get the least sleep:

Food company Ajinomoto Co. asked 891 people living in Tokyo, New York, Paris, Stockholm and Shanghai about their sleeping habits over the Internet between July and August.

Tokyo residents on average slept for five hours and 59 minutes, nearly 90 minutes shorter than Shanghai residents and about 35 minutes shorter than New Yorkers.

Shanghai residents got the most sleep, with an average of seven hours, 28 minutes. Stockholm residents followed with seven hours, eight minutes, while Parisians slept for six hours, 55 minutes and New Yorkers six hours, 35 minutes.

Residents in all five cities on average awoke around 6:40 a.m. However, the times when they went to bed differed greatly.

Tokyo residents were the only ones up until after midnight, going to bed at 12:19 a.m. on average.

The survey seems to measure sleep people get at home. If it included the sleep that some Tokyo residents can cram into their train commutes, the numbers might be higher…

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Tokyo Women vs. Other Asian Women

Kanebo recently conducted a study comparing women in Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing, Taipei, and Seoul:

“The biggest difference we saw was the emphasis that Japanese women place on human relationships – in particular they care about being liked by others – while the women in the other cities are more concerned with personal growth through their work or studies,” said Sakae Nomura, director of Kanebo’s Beauty Research Institute.

According to the survey, which covered around 450 women between the ages of 18 and 59 in the five cities, women in Tokyo place more emphasis on personal relationships and achieving a work-life balance, while the women of the four other cities want a high income and “personal development.”

When asked what sort of person they wished to be, Tokyo women most frequently replied “someone who is considerate to others.” Their counterparts, however, tended to reply they wanted to be “cheerful” and “feminine.”

While women in the Japanese capital like to be praised for their appearance – and particularly like to be described as “stylish” and having good taste – the respondents in Beijing, Taipei and Seoul most like being praised for their work abilities.

Tokyo women use makeup more frequently and extensively than their counterparts, the report identifying that 79.5 percent of women apply makeup five days a week. That figure fell to 38.7 percent in Shanghai, 44.5 percent in Beijing, 45.1 percent in Taipei and 58.7 percent in Seoul.

Read more in the Independent and the WSJ.

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Al Jazeera Report on Tokyo Anime/Manga Restrictions

Al Jazeera’s English language channel filed this report about Tokyo’s new restrictions on “harmful” manga and anime:

Reporter Rob McBride visits Akihabara, the center of Japan’s “manga trade” to do some sensational reporting. They turn up at a bookstore with a camera crew and ignore signs on the door that ban the use of cameras. A shopkeeper appears and asks them not to film.

McBride concludes that it all must be part of a devious Japanese plot to hide the dark truth about dirty manga. Al Jazeera sneaks a hidden camera into the store to film what’s up, but doesn’t seem to find anything other than a few adult males browsing for comics, some of which contain 2D characters doing violent or sexual things. (Can’t find any children in the store? No sweat – just show random footage of elementary schoolers getting on a bus!)

Like many news reports about the issue, it does not report that there are already rules restricting the sale of pornographic manga and anime.　　Straight-up porn manga is already sold separately from the non-porn stuff, and this new restriction seems to be trying to expand the definition of “adults only” to include manga that might contain sexually suggestive or violent scenes.

Here’s a quote from ANN forum posting by user Cryssoberyl, someone who seems to know more about anime and manga than I do:

The people whose reaction is “this is just an age restriction, slap an 18+ sticker on and call it a day” do not understand how the distinction works in Japan and how it affects the marketability of a product.

In Japan, there is only “general audience” and “adults only”, and “adults only” works are, for most distributors, untouchable. Those 18+ stickers you want might as well be nuclear radiation warnings.

In Japan, “adults only” anime is not shown on TV. On any channel. Ever. No matter how violent or racy it may have seemed to you, no anime ever shown on Japanese television was officially designated as 18+.

In Japan, “adults only” manga are not sold in most book stores (both online and brick-and-mortar). As has been stated, 18+ manga works are almost always produced as magazines and anthologies, almost never as stand-alone tankoubon.

The results from this should be obvious. The marketability, and thus profitability, of “adults only” works are extremely limited. Publishing companies will not risk time, money, and effort on creating works that may be judged as such, and thus have their profit potential destroyed by the inaccessibility that comes with it. They will be forced to restrict themselves to works that they can safely market within the “general audience” sphere.

This is not an age restriction. It is censorship by way of enforceable lack of profitability – either you toe the line, or they make your stuff unsellable.

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“Extinct” Fish Species Found Alive in Japan

A species of fresh water salmon thought to have been extinct for decades has been found alive and well, thanks in part to the efforts of a wacky TV personality:

The last known living “kunimasu” had been in Lake Tazawa in Akita Prefecture around 1940, making the discovery in Lake Saiko the first recorded sighting of the fish in about 70 years. The discovery is the first time for a fish listed by the Japanese government as “extinct” to be found living.

Tetsuji Nakabo, a professor involved in the research, says what led to the discovery was a visit by acquaintance and entertainment personality “Sakana-kun” (Fish Boy), who is also an affiliate associate professor at the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology. After being asked by Nakabo for a sketch of the kunimasu, Sakana-kun brought in a blackish fish that had been caught in Lake Saiko.

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Tokyo Assembly Passes Bill Restricting Sale of “Harmful” Manga & Anime

The Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly on Wednesday enacted an ordinance that vastly expands a law meant to restrict people younger than 18 from purchasing or flipping through manga depicting rape, sex crimes, incest and “sexually explicit acts and graphic images that are not acceptable morally.” By making previous rules broader and more clear, the Tokyo government will have the authority to deem more manga as “unwholesome books,” which restrict where and how they can be sold.

A group of 10 major Japanese publishers, including Kodansha Ltd., Shueisha Inc. and Kadokawa Group Publishing Co., said they will refuse to take part in the anime fair, which this year attracted more than 100,000 people, a record. The publishers said that the Tokyo government, led by Gov. Shintaro Ishihara, didn’t discuss the ordinance in advance with publishers and artists. Artists said the new rules will stifle their freedom of expression and creativity.

“We cannot help but say it is a vicious act that [the Tokyo metropolitan assembly] enacted the ordinance without full-fledged discussions,” said the group, which includes the Japan Magazine Publishers Association.

More info from the Telegraph:

“Ishihara has very cleverly pushed this through at the last minute, without any input from the publishing industry and by using lots of rhetoric about the ‘porn protectors’ in the opposition in the chamber,” Roland Kelts, author of “Japanamerica: How Japanese pop culture has invaded the U.S.,” told The Daily Telegraph.

[...]

“It’s a question of a breakdown of trust,” said Dan Kanemitsu, a translator of movies and comic books. “The Tokyo government already has the power to regulate anything that is deemed too sexual or likely to be harmful to youths, but this bill specifically pertains to material through the media of manga and anime.

“Both sides should have been able to talk about this a lot sooner and then it would not have felt like a sneak attack,” Mr Kanemitsu said.

The new law restricts comics and animated images that contain sexual images that are “unjustifiably glorified or exaggerated.”

And a little bit more from ANN:

The assembly also approved a non-binding supplemental resolution urging newly designated harmful publications to be carefully regulated, with the work’s merits based on artistic, social, and other criteria to be taken into account in the evaluation process.

The voluntary self-regulation clauses will go into effect on April 1 of next year, and the restrictions on sales and renting will go into effect on July 1.

The image at the top of this post is from a comic strip floating around 2-channel. Ishihara is shown a military dictator calling for the destruction of dirty anime, Akihabara, and Comiket. You can view the exciting and unwholesome conclusion to the comic here.

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