And the guys in the taco truck eat Popeye's

Naohito Tanobe wipes the sweat off his forehead with a pocket cloth. He looks out of breath, winded, but the long walk from Fisherman’s Wharf to the Virgin Megastore on Market Street will do that to you.

“Are you hungry? Thirsty?” he asks. “Let’s go to Burger King. I know where one is.”

Tanobe is the editor in chief of Eiga Hi-Ho, Japan’s Movie Treasures magazine. He’s come all the way from Tokyo to Los Angeles and then to San Francisco to cover the US opening of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

“Why Burger King?” I ask.

I don't get an answer until we arrive at our destination. Tanobe is collecting the 31 different Star Wars toys that come with the BK Kid’s Meals.

Homeless nutters and tourists make up the bulk of the clientele of the Burger King at the Powell Street cable car turnaround. It’s Cantina-esque for sure. Once inside, Tanobe launches into a well-rehearsed routine honed while in Los Angeles.

He orders four BK Kids Meals. That's right. Four.

He scores a Han Solo in Carbonite, Jabba the Hutt, R2-D2, and a Wicket the Ewok. Then he proceeds to devour the food like a man possessed.

There’s a young couple next to us, late twenties probably. Seems they’ve also bought kid’s meals and will be seeing “the movie” later that evening. And, like a pair of bounty hunters, they want to know if Tanobe is willing to sell his Han Solo to them.

The answer is no. This is a non-profit operation. But the alternative doesn't sound so bad.  The Jabba Water Squirter is going for 20 bucks alone in Japanese collector shops.

In between mouthfuls of Chicken Tenders, Tanobe considers his quartet of Kid’s Meal bags, pondering all the items he’s yet to acquire. After a few seconds, he steadies himself for the great task ahead.

“Ok. Ok.” He says. Then he jumps up and goes straight back into line, bringing back *two more* Kid’s Meals with him. Now the table looks like something out of Super-Size Me, like a crime scene. Tanobe is rewarded with a Yoda wind-up and yet another R2-D2 for his efforts.

And I can only thank George Lucas for a day that will be long remembered.

Comments

[Daniel Zelter]

Do they even have BK in Japan? Or just McDonald's?

[Carl Horn]

At the notorious Otakon 1995 (notorious, for its odd early venue--at a student center deep in Pennsylvania's farm country) Toshio Okada boasted of his journeys to the America of James Earl Carter, returning to Japan in a great many-pocketed trenchcoat full of four-inch Kenners for resale ("How'd you get that scar? Eatin' Pocky?").

At Anime Weekend Atlanta 2003 it was a different story. Much of Okada's storied bulk was gone, and his personal separation in time from the underground base of Daicon Film and Gainax, into the realm of writing and academia (he was in fact at AWA on his way to lecture at MIT) was much more evident in his manner. It was instead the director, Hiroyuki Kitakubo, who talked all night, bouncing fast-thinking film ideas around, carried through the great courtesy of Taka's interpretation.

I don't say this to complain and certainly not to sound unappreciative--in his decade as a producer, from Daicon III to OTAKU NO VIDEO, Okada seemed not to waste a single day, or ever the audience's time. Looking at the current attention towards fan films in America, we can see that Okada was twenty years ahead of the curve. The way Daicon Film let their nuts hang is still, unfortunately, more of a legend than an inspiration to actual work by American fans.

But just to note the transformation. And: something else people here have likely already realized--not being born Japanese gives us not only ignorance, but a margin of safety, hopefully saving us from having to either blow up the outside world like EVA or try and filter out the poison through running it through the alembics of art catalogs, theses, and talk shows.

No--there's something to it, but as a complete answer that's...too much. Both options I cite, after all, can also be considered merely the new higher levels. If Anno and Okada seem to renounce the devil and his works, they do so as those who elevated their game to the level of capo di tutti capo.

Time to catch the noon matinee of MASCULINE FEMININE ("The children of Miyazaki and Coca-Cola") at my local artsy theater--no more than a four-block stroll. OLD BOY in 35 coming up there quite soon.

[Carl Horn]

“Il faut confronter des idées vagues avec des images claires.”
—Jean-Luc Godard, 1965
—Postcard bought at Taco Ché, 2001

I just returned from the movie house: "It was a time of James Bond and Vietnam." "'Pinball Champ' is #6 in Japan," and of course, "When it's dubbed, we're duped." MASCULINE FEMININE stars the lovely, the talented Chantal Goya, whom lest we forget sang the theme to the French version of KUMANOKO JACKIE.

A good film to make you think about the difference between right now and 21 (and what the diffference will be between 47 and right now).

[Carl Horn]

“Il faut confronter des idées vagues avec des images claires.”
—Jean-Luc Godard, 1965
—Postcard bought at Taco Ché, 2001

I just returned from the movie house: "It was a time of James Bond and Vietnam." "'Pinball Champ' is #6 in Japan," and of course, "When it's dubbed, we're duped." MASCULINE FEMININE stars the lovely, the talented Chantal Goya, whom lest we forget sang the theme to the French version of KUMANOKO JACKIE.

A good film to make you think about the difference between right now and 21 (and what the diffference will be between 47 and right now).

[fko-san]

Dahahahaha.