Viewing items with Tag: "books"

SO it IS getting bigger in japan. I thought it was just the dirty little shops around me.

Theres quite a bit of discussion going on at the moment on this guys Flickr concerning those people that just lurk in the aisles of combinis and book stores leeching manga without paying a cent for the privilege. The discussion is regarding a fitting name for these folk, with the current winner being "hobotaku".

Got something better? Post in the comments here for my personal entertainment, and then try and beat hobotaku off the top spot over at Flickr.

One can only assume this nerve-touching magazine was published in direct retaliation for the war-time classic "How to Spot a Jap" - I am of course joking but the magazine itself is no joke, and is bound to cause some problems.

It is basically a look at how 'most' foreigners in Japan are criminals, and how we should all "go back were we came from", and stop mugging, raping and pilaging everything we see.

The entire publication was of course written entirely in Japanese with no intention of any translations, but enough 'criminal westerners' can read, write, speak, listen to and understand a lot more Japanese than the author was counting on.

Particularly harsh 'highlight' from the mag, courtesy of Debito.org:
Picture of black guy touching a J.girls ass in Shibuya (obviously consensual too) おいニガー！！日本婦女子のケツさわってんじゃねえ！！
Oi Nigger!! Get your fuckin’ hands off that Japanese lady’s ass!!
(… yes. It really does say ニガー)

Quote by Magazine author, from Japan Today:
On the Japanese side, the "foreign criminal" is a beast who lurks everywhere and wants nothing more than to destroy Japanese people and their way of life. Whether it's a North Korean agent kidnapping our daughters or a Chinese thief invading our homes, many Japanese are convinced that foreigners should be treated with suspicion and fear.

Article Source: Debito
Editor defends the publication: Japan Today

A book just came out from my favorite source on Japanese films, Midnight Eye. The book serves as a companion to the Midnight Eye website which has festival news, interviews with directors, and lots of reviews. Among other things, they credit Svankmajer-influenced "Tetsuo: The Iron Man" as resurrecting the current Japanese film industry.




"In his foreword, Nakata paints a very grim picture of the Japanese film industry in the late 1980s/early ’90s. Talented and creative directors were forced to work like slaves for the struggling studios, cranking out soft-core porn or cookie-cutter yakuza flicks for the straight-to-video market. Japanese contributions to international film festivals had all but come to a halt, and many outside Japan wondered what happened to the country that gave the world Kurosawa and Ozu. In the early ’90s, the major film studios, all with histories of nearly a century, started to severely cut back on production or go bankrupt, and it seemed as if the entire industry was prepared to finally concede defeat to TV and the internet.

Then the unexpected happened: a renaissance revitalized Japan cinema. Shinya Tsukamoto’s ultra-low budget "Tetsuo: The Iron Man" (1989) took Rome’s Fantastic Film Festival by storm, winning its top award and sparking a new international interest in Japanese film. "Shall We Dance" (1996) became the top grossing foreign film in the U.S. and inspired a Hollywood remake. Nakata’s "Ring" (1998) introduced J-horror to the world, and was remade first in Korea and later in Hollywood. In 1999, Kiyoshi Kurosawa accomplished the astonishing feat of having three separate films play in three of the world’s biggest film festivals in Cannes, Berlin and Venice. Hayao Miyazaki’s animated spectacle "Spirited Away" (2001) became the biggest earner of all time at the Japanese box office, a record previously held by Titanic."


Japan Today has a book review,
Or check out the Midnight Eye website.