Posts Tagged ‘miyazaki’

Top hotels for Japanese train lovers

The “Mezamashi TV” morning show recently had this countdown of the top 5 hotels for railway fans:

1. Keio Plaza Hotel Sapporo – This hotel overlooks Sapporo station. You can see the trains of Hokkaido, as well as the many special trains from Honshu such as the Hokutosei and the Twilight Express.

2. Miyazaki Kanko Hotel – From certain rooms in this hotel you can see a railway bridge over the river. Many different rail lines share the bridge, allowing railfans to observe a wide variety of trains one wouldn’t find in the Tokyo area.

3. Hotel Associa Shin-Yokohama – This hotel, which opened just a few months ago, offers a fantastic view of the bullet trains that pass through Shin-Yokohama station. It offers special rooms for railfans that are decorated with shinkansen-themed items. The hotel also has kid-sized shinkansen conductor uniforms so that parents of little railfans can take some cosplay photos.

4. Hotel Century Southern Tower – Located by Shinjuku Station, this hotel offers a great few of the many trains that travel through the busiest train station in the world. Guests can also receive a special paper weight created from track used by Odakyu railways.

5. The Kawasaki Nikko Hotel – Its rooms overlook JR Kawasaki station, allowing railfans to view trains from several major lines: the Tokkaido main line, the Keihin-Tohoku line, and the Nambu line. Fans who want to get a last look at the 208-Series trains used by the Keihin-Tohoku line should hurry up and get a room now, since they will be replaced by the end of this year.

Each of these hotels has an English language homepage, which means they probably have staff members that can speak English. If you’re a railfan and want to experience the best these hotels can offer, you should probably contact them directly and inquire about any special plans they have for railway viewing.

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

Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea is a hit

Jason Gray reports that Hayao Miyazaki’s latest film is having a very nice opening weekend:

First day attendance figures, up until afternoon matinee shows, compared to Spirited Away (biggest hit in Japanese history at 30.4 billion yen): 83%. Mathematically this works out to a 25.23 billion yen (US$235.9 million) final total. Although this type of math is popular in the media here, totals almost always end up being less.

Nonetheless, Ponyo is on course to become Miyazaki’s, and the territory’s, 2nd biggest hit ever.

More info on Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea can be found in these Yomiuri and AFP articles.

[Commercial via Fanboy.com]

The World’s Most Expensive Mangoes

A new record:

A pair of Japanese mangoes known as “Eggs of the Sun” for their fiery colour and juicy flesh hatched a sweet deal for their owner on Thursday, fetching a record 2,000 dollars at auction.

The mangoes, produced in southern Miyazaki Prefecture, were sold for 200,000 yen in the season’s first auction here, an official at fruit wholesaler Tokyo Seika said. The buyer’s identity was not disclosed.

The price far surpassed the previous Japanese record of 38,000 yen bid last year for a similar pair.

The Long Road to Miyazaki

The Japan Society of New York City is currently presenting a film program entitled, The Dawn of Japanese Animation, a look back at Japanese animation from the late 20′s and 30′s. As a Nipponophile and a member of the Japan Society, I’ve got to say, I was pretty excited by this program. Here was an opportunity to see the very roots of what would grow into films like Tonari no Totoro and Spirited Away or film makers like Miyazaki.

However, what was presented were badly drawn, badly animated shorts. Now, I know that animation was just learning to crawl in Japan during this time, but come on. By comparison, in the early 30′s Max Fleischer Studios was releasing Popeye and Betty Boop shorts. A little later, Disney released Snow White in 1937 (the year of the second Sino-Japan War) while in Japan audiences were treated to the 1938 propaganda film Taro Overseas.

So, how did Japan eventually catch up and surpass the rest of the world in quality animation? It began in 1958 with Toei Studios’ Panda and the Magic Serpent[clip below], the first color full-length animated film in Japan. And one of the first to be made in the Disney-style studio system.

More on the history of Japanese animation check out this excellent article from Midnight Eye.