An Eternal Thought in the Mind of Godzilla

Yagyu ichizoku no imbo

Here’s another murder rap to keep you dancing.

According to my Eiga Hi-Ho homies Yoshiki and Yanashita, Sengoku Jietai 1549, the recent hit remake of Sonny Chiba’s old Time Slip (AKA G.I. Samurai) - an adaptation of a 1971 novel by Ryo Hanmura - was originally to have been directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Cure, Kairo). His original vision for the film, about a company of modern day soldiers sent back in time to the era of the Warring States, was to have been modeled after Robert Aldrich’s harrowing World War II film Attack! (1956) rife with crisis of command and solders behaving badly. But when his scenario was shown to the Japanese Self Defense Forces, who were to provide logistic and technical support for the film, they said that the JSDF must not be shown in a negative light and all the orders given out by superior officers in the film must be carried out perfectly to the letter. Exit Kurosawa. Enter less distinguished Godzilla film director Masaaki Tezuka to fill his place. 

Something like this kinda happened before. As I wrote in the US DVD notes for the original 1979 Sengoku Jietai film, “The Japanese Self Defense Forces were asked to lend their support to the production, but upon reading the script - full of mutiny and soldiers going AWOL - they declined to assist. So the filmmakers had to find surplus military hardware, or, in the case of the featured tank, actually build it themselves.”

The military telling the Japanese film industry how to make movies? As Yoshiki points out, this is not a phenomenon particluar to this strange planet called Nippon. “It’s just like Top Gun,” he says.

For a conspiratorial encore, he mentions to me the next day that the Hachiko, the famed and beloved loyal dog who waited for his dead master everyday at Shibuya station, only went there because the owner of some yakitori house was feeding him scraps.

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Even more Yoshiki: he is currently designing the new DVD Teruo Ishii box set, to be released by Toei Video in October. Here’s the sublime poster he's whipped up for the project, which is being produced in collaboration with Eiga Hi-Ho.

Koribito ga Frankenstein

The Star Wars font. Yellow, friendly, familiar. Crawling up the screen in homage to Flash Gordon. Sound of a John Williams fanfare .

You asked me what the downside of my trip was this
time, and here's something else that hadn't occurred
to me: being gawked at by children. I expected it in
Koriyama, where most of the foreigners you see seem to
be Russian mail-order brides, not sweaty chubby nerds,
but I figured when I got back to Tokyo it would end.
On the Chuo line back to Kichijoji, it began again
when two little 9-year old school girls started
pointing and giggling at me. "Teeheehee, gaijin!" I
remember one kid at the Ghibli museum even screamed at
me.

Then the earthquake hits.

Not a nasty jolt, a connecting jab to the face, like the one in Ikebukuro last year, but a sustained rowdy jelly roll that sends the lamps and kitchen utensils in the Fireman Caf? swaying. Nothing falls over, but it sure comes close. I keep an eye on the import beer bottles perched behind my head in the hopes that maybe I can catch one in my mouth, like a baby bird, during the short tumble south.

Then the earthquake stops.

Scrolling kanji slides horizontal across the widescreen TV. Shit centered in the Chiba prefecture. Five point something, they say. Pretty good on the buzzer scale, but not enough to go down in the tourist  idea of history.

Mustang Jerx concert in Shinjyuku. And I figure a mild shifting of the earth’s crust isn’t going to knock the rock. Wrong city. The JR and Tokyo is flat out fucked.

Unemotional men, women, children, ninja and geisha wait at the platform for the proverbial non-existent next Chuo train, whose non-departure is pretty much a Second Coming by this point. After 20 min of standing around on a crowded platform, and several calm announcements of infinite delays, people start giving up and make for the exits. Nothing else to do, so I shadow a guy in his late teens, who’s wearing the best vintage tee I’ve seen all hellishly hot summer long. It says in blue Crazy Shirt letters on a red background, “No Sweat.”

Long line to redeem the now useless ticket, like an interment camp soup kitchen where they pay you 210 yen to exit. I want to jump over the railing, because god knows the people down at 16th and Mission sure would. Instead, I wait like a good little robot, wanting to scream the whole time. This is how you die, waiting in line for shit that has nothing to do with you.

When I finally make it to Inokashira Exit, the sidewalk is covered in what looks like curds and whey. Oatmeal or something? Raw gobs of paper mache maybe from some elementary school classroom; gray with yellow corn-like highlights; thick, and lumpy. I look closer: there are bits of Wendy’s and McDonald’s in there. Toblerone chocolate and a bag of Fritos that cost five times what you’d think was possible or fair. I almost want to go over to the Koban to complain about the implications on free trade, but I don’t really give a fuck, and I think they’re too busy anyways.

The pop-up book cop near Naka Guchi is surrounded by wanted posters for Aum cult members still at large along with ESPY agents who left their posts during the opening salvo of the Muji Jyu-nen Senso.  He’s making an announcement on the station loudspeakers, which spills out into the streets, which are filling up with people leaving the station only to find the crosswalks, and shopping center covered in lukewarm puke.

It is the Japanese version of the Voice of Reason, culled from a melting pot of train conductors, brain conductors, station agents, CM pitchmen, and narrators from classic Showa anime set in outer space.

“Minna-san, please do not panic. The earthquake is over. The trains will begin running on schedule shortly. In the meantime, please do not be alarmed by the appearance of small unusual creatures lurking everywhere.”

I see my first one in the Sunroad shotengai, between the Shakey’s Pizza and the Starbucks. It looks like a fat hairy spider, about the size of a little kid, but minus the rosy glow of heath. It stands in front of the bookstore flipping through the fashion magazines. One set of pinchers holds a copy of Fine Boys, the rest shuffle through a stack of Men’s Non-No, Smart, and Men’s Egg. Thin trails of digestive juices stream from its slit-like mouth and seep across the ground.

The earthquake killed the trains, but the phones are still fine. Even if we all died, swallowed up by sidewalks, those lovely invisible  lines would continue to work. Even my geto Tu-Ka prepaid gives me the news, cleared by Colonel Baldwin personally over in his Yokosuka coffee shop.

Gerotan. That’s what the fat little spider fucks are called. Seems they are emerging from the sewers and the unclean streams and rivers that make up Tokyo’s waterways. The earthquake caused a disaster of some sort in their own underground city, causing them to scurry forth to the surface. So far, they are not hostile.

And why is that, you ask?

Time stops. A Super Deformed Tetsuro Tamba appears in the center of the screen. The animation is limited, but it’s his actual voice, its rich sonorous tone the perfect contrast to the fat spider’s penguin squawk that now fills the air, and the information is solid gold.

The Gerotan are connected by a single unified insect-like hive mind. Or at least, they are supposed to be. But the vibration of the quake has caused an imbalance to their brains. Now, the Gerotan can’t stop arguing over petty shit. They can’t tell the difference between what they are thinking, experiencing and seeing and the possibility that someone else might be thinking, or seeing, something else. And this simple fact upsets them right down to their very stomachs, hence the epic frat house vomiting.

Then Tamba’s head makes a sound like a creaking door, then a watermelon being karate chopped. It falls off, the reassuring smile never leaving the face. A fat hairy football of a head pops up between his shoulders. Coarse hot puke sprays out and covers the Korean in-between animators.

By episode three, the people of Japan have adjusted to the inconvenience. Most wear gauze surgical masks now, and soon there are even Snoopy, Tweety Bird, and Barbie ones for the girls at 109. Little kids wade through the now-ankle high slime in Spider-Man and Star Wars rubber boots. There are even still a few stragglers waiting for the next train, even though the electric current shorted out long ago.

When the Gerotan first invaded Tokyo, it was kind of fun. While they fought and killed one another, Gyaku-ESPY and me stood around in our Neo-Muji hazmats suits, driking beer,  listening to the debates.

Are the Japanese ancient astronauts? Samurai from outer space? Cavemen from China and Korea who became mecha pilots in the blink of an eye…minus much of the eyelid part? Are they the bastard children of Douglas MacArthur; weaned on hot dogs, jazz, and Coke? Will wearing a designer shirt make them look fat or help them fit in? When they think no one is hearing, they save the best for last:  maybe it’s the Japanese who are the insect-derived race, the theory goes; or is that just a displaced reflection of the Gerotan’s penchant for self-hatred?

Some of the observations and arguments are interesting and worth at least a click. At least one Gero manages to get a book deal. But the finished work sells poorly. It’s a bore to read. There are no jokes, quotes from other sources, and Gerotan-mania only lasts a few weeks anyways.

That's because the Japanese government finds a solution to the invasion via the Sugamo branch of the International Science Organization. First, the assets of various designer toy companies are seized. Then manufacturing plants in China begin making vibrating butt plugs. At first, the Gerotan are skeptical, but when they are told that the plugs are limited-edition they start lining up admirably and sticking them in. The vibrations of the plugs restore the Gerotan hive mind. They finally agree on what Japan is, after all. Seems it’s like China, Seoul, Shanghai: the same, only different.   

The puking stops. The trains finally start going to Shinjyuku again.

Then the typhoon hits.

Epil------ogue:

“I get up around 5am. Then I walk through Omotesando with two huge bags full of groceries under my arms. When I get to the salon in Aoyama, there are still people there from the night before. They’ve been up all night practicing cutting hair (giving motherly love to a wig planted upon an unsmiling mannequin head). If I didn’t come and cook for them everyday, I think some of them might die.”

Bikuru

Matt Alt, AKA God Jesus  Robot,  chimes in with the first review of  Takashi Miike`s  latest  -  Yokai  Daiseno. He also plays a yokai in the film. The sexy one. He also wrote a book.

"The Great Spirit War"?  "The Great War of the Yokai"? "Battle of Yokai
Without Honor or Humanity"? However you want to translate the title,
Hiroko and I just caught a sneak preview screening of "Yokai Daisenso."
The plot, in a nutshell: when elementary schooler Tadashi's pet yokai
is kidnapped (by a beehived, whip-weilding Chiaki Kuriyama), he doesn't
just get mad -- he enlists his alcoholic, doddering grandfather (Bunta
Sugawara, in his most challenging role yet) to school him about the
yokai legends of the sleepy seaside town they live in.

But what's a yokai? To most Americans they'll look like little more
than actors in wacky foam suits, but there's more here than meets the
eye. In times of old, the Japanese believed the world around them was
filled with spirits and supernatural creatures, collectively referred
to as "yokai." Some lived alongside humans, in the form of everyday
items and objects. Some symbolized natural phenomena in the oceans and
forests and mountains. Some were physical incarnations of human
emotions and habits. Some were helpful. Others were angry. Many were
indifferent. But they were always there. In fact, they're a charmingly
literal extension of the Japanese traditions of polytheism and animism.
You could even go so far as to say that they subtly inform modern
Japanese culture in the same way that Judeo-Christian traditions infuse
American life. The yokai represent the very first Japanese character
designs. They are the great-great-great granddaddies of the Pokemons
and and Godzillas and Ultra-kaiju that populate Japanese fantasies
today.

A brief panel discussion kicked off the festivities. On hand were
director Takashi Miike, novelist and co-producer Natsuhiko Kyogoku,
screenwriter Hiroshi Aramata, and eighty two year old "Ge ge ge no
Kitaro" creator Shigeru Mizuki (who regaled the crowd with tales of
sleepwalking into a pit latrine on the front lines during World War
II). A Richter-five earthquake capped the presentation, gently shaking
the building as if the yokai themselves were giving their blessing to
the proceedings.

I'll leave the analysis of where "Yokai Daisenso" falls into the Miike
oeuvre to the "professionals," but If you're expecting the usual
exploitation fare -- vomit consumption, S&M gangsters, limb amputation,
crybaby hitmen, or salarymen huffing enormous lines of coke -- you may
be disappointed. But hey, what did you expect? This is Miike's first
film for kids. Guys in suits! Giant computer-animated robots!
Prepubescent swordsmen! Fun for the whole family!

Then again, this is Takashi Miike we're talking about, so don't expect
bubblegum. It's a peculiarly Japanese mix of fuzzy-wuzzy Pokemon-cute,
PG-rated slapstick humor, grotesque imagery, and casual apocalypse,
topped off with a surprisingly downbeat finale. In the end analysis
it's a film with a message, articulated at the end of the movie by no
less a figure than the Lord of Yokai: "War is bad; it just makes you
hungry." It's a sentiment that would sound unbearably simplistic and
cheesy if it weren't being uttered by Mizuki himself, who in real life
(as the audience was reminded during the panel discussion) lost his
left arm when his Imperial Army unit was wiped out in combat in the
South Pacific. Hammering the point home, the film also opens nationwide
on August 6th, which happens to coincide with the anniversary of the
bombing of Hiroshima.

While the anti-war message may come through loud and clear, the
subtleties of the yokai themselves will undoubtedly be lost on most
non-Japanese. If you aren't aware of the lengths to which Miike and his
staff went to research and portray the various creatures, they may
grate more than they enchant. C'est la vie, because if you ain't
Japanese, you ain't the intended target audience. On the other hand,
the crowd at the preview screening -- a good quarter of which consisted
of kiddies -- appeared to eat it up. "Yokai Daisenso" is that rarity in
the world of current big-budget Japanese horror/fantasy cinema: a
production designed by and for Japanese, with little to no worry of
international audiences or marketing. Here's to hoping we see more of
them. (And in fact, we probably will: rumor has it that "Yokai
Daisenso" is but the first in a trilogy of films to be directed by
different people.)

(And the best news? Hiroko, in full frog-yokai regalia, is clearly
visible in one of the major scenes. She's famous! Sort of.)

How to rewrite Japper-knees:

The this thing is not that this thing then but another thing, thing, thing adjective incomplete run-on sentence with the subject placed last, whammy. The shitting whammy.

Ashka Hika

It is a Sunday afternoon in Greenhaven, circa 1985.

Mark stares long and hard at the poster for Be Forever Yamato taped up on his sliding closet doors, the corners dotted with star fields, already frayed from pushpins. Mom and Dad can’t smell the pot, he hopes, and he’s hedged his bets with the smell of incense, an open window, and a wet towel where the door meets the floor. Sasha, nude from the waste-up and shoulder exposed just diagonal to a space battleship, above a spiral galaxy, stares back unblinking at Mark, he in his faded overwashed Happi-coat. Where did it come from?

He has to travel to Tokyo. Now. But at 15, he figures he's too young to buy a plane ticket. It’s not clear when you become old enough, but this much is clear. Mowing all the lawns and delivering all the papers in the Greenbelt still wouldn’t be enough to afford the fare in time.

Mark saw it while the others were making out; drunk on some shit while Adam’s mom was away. South Sacramento is going to be destroyed. It was already. Where John F. Kennedy High School is now, a crater will appear stretching all the way to the drinking fountains near the entrance of Sam Brannon. What causes it, and what happens when it does, will one day be called “The Battle of Greenhaven.”

Many Espionage Rejects will either die that day, or, like Jason, will vanish forever, never returning from their own last-second shifts to Espace. The worst part is, Mark knows there’s no way to stop it, no one event in the long chain that can be avoided, that can preventing the  landslide.

The Black Pope and the Letter People will storm though the Greenbelt in search of the ER. And when it happens, too bad for Mark. He will be in the wintry tundra of Antarctica, just off the boat from Argentina in fact, looking for the spot where the ozone layer is at it’s weakest. He and Laura will try to make some kind of difference in the Earth’s harmonic vibration as best they can. No evolutionary leap into 4th dimensional consciousness can happen without it.

But by then, Mark will no longer be able to access Espace, or any of the overtones in-between the Frequencies. This one trip to Tokyo now will strip him forever more of the ability to teleport; because real psychic energy is like a battery. Everyone has a certain amount stored up, but they waste it in dreams, in prayers, or else it all comes tumbling out at once at the moment before death.

Tokyo. That’s where the ESPY program has its roots. Where the movie was made. Where the book was published. Fiction, they said, but Mark stared out across the overpass on Florin Road yesterday and saw Hiroshi Fujioka sitting in a wheelchair in what he knew to be Koenji.

Old now. Infirm. He used up his points when he was younger too, but here’s the catch. Fujioka is still alive, somehow, even if now most of the city, perched on the 5th and 6th floor of a post-war world, is largely inaccessible to him now.

Mark stares at the poster, unblinking back at Sasha until he goes to The Place. Elevated blood-sugar from Botan Rice Candy. He made sure to do this after a bowel of Top Ramen. Soon, “time and space are backing up, the stars are cracking up.”

He materializes in an alley in Jimbocho, between an air conditioner, laundry, someone’s rubber boots. About a mile away from the intended destination of Akihabara. Finding Fujioka’s exact location, by way of his EMF signature, will require a trip to the Radio Center for some vacuum tubes, LED lights, and low-end generic cable.

Meanwhile, over in a bright and clean Yokosuka coffee shop, Col. Baldwin waits for his briefcase sized cell phone to finally ring. After Psy-Ops closed down the Mister Space storage unit and research facility, this is what he's been reduced to: brining in thick leather bag for the burgeoning Kanto chapter of the Extra Sensory Perception Youth. The dogs smelt it at customs, but Immigration waved him right through just as they were supposed to.

He smells of sweat and cigarettes, feels his nose begin to itch. Then a drop of water that isn’t there at all seems to drop on his head. He's felt it before. At Mister Space. Over at the Snack Shack in the Wenzel baseball diamond.

But forget about the past, the future, and the dull little moments you spend in-between just being a serviceman. The Espionage Rejects, or at least one of them, is in Japan. Now. And it suddenly seems like anything could happen. But it probably won't. This was all planned for by things that don't even resemble minds and never will.

Karakuri Book

Colin Powell in Japan today, presumably for the Tokyo Toy Show and to lay pipe at Studio Gonzo for the new G.I. Joe series. The Agents of ESPY and G.O.D. (Gaijin of Darkness) wish him welly welly welly well.

Also, file under 'Trap Them and Kill Them.'

http://www.2weeksinjapan.com/

I must admit to a certain curiosity about “discovering the mysterious but tremendously fun culture, food, geography and people of Japan.”

I hear the mystery over here in Za Orient tends to be very mysterious. And tremendous.

Da Brat tai 'Lil Kim

Cue: Star Wars opening theme.  The performers make their entrance.

Soon, Mr. Ryuhei is on stage dancing in a white doctor’s smock. He is surrounded by nurses while 'She Works Hard for the Money’ pounds on the soundtrack. Oh, the irony. It causes him to miss a step and almost fall to Earth.

“He’s 36. His future is black. He has no chance to make big money. He dances with trannies every night and gets drunk. He lives in Shin Okubo. The Mama-san told me once, ‘maybe he’s Korean.’ But I don’t care. He’s the worst dancer. The instructor always yells at him. And he always says, 'I’m sorry. I’m sorry.' The best part is, he says he's an actor.”

An infinite trail of Mr. Ryuhei's suddenly spiraling off into space: Kido Senshi Ryuhei, Ultraman Ryuhei, and Ryuhei Family Restrurant where all the portions are small…especially the hot dogs.

Being a bancho. Shopping in Shibuya. Summer. Sequins are massive, as are shirts emphasizing shame. “I’m Sorry, Daddy” one says, a picture of a nude woman being spanked by the devil. Nice.

Marui City. Men’s floor. 'Twilight' by ELO on the in-store radio, followed by 'Sugar Baby Love.' I buy some sunglasses that look for all the world  like Blue Blockers. I cave in for a white belt, the massive buckle encrusted with faux diamond crystals. Good thing Elvis is dead. He’d probably try and steal it from me.

Looking for Paris Hilton or the Olsen Twins at 109. Instead, lots of schoolgirls (like ourselves) hunting for drag queen disgrace and bored men waiting for their girlfriends to hurry the fuck up. Little boy with eyes bulging behind giant glasses peeps at me from under the bikini rack. What's he doing here, a  hyper intelligent  baby chick from an old Warner’s cartoon? Mom’s brought the whole family. Baby Stinky in his carriage as women in pegged jeans and shocking pink halter tops clatter around him.

Zat you, Mr. Ryuhei?

----

Yeah, yeah, yeah. New article on Yankee culture over at the Kamikaze Girls website. They're calling it 'culture essay #2,' or something.

Pay me now. I want to go shopping again.

 

Hidoi

White people are so cool. They can do anything. But they could work on eating with little sticks a bit more.

Mass Games

Loft Plus One in Shinjuku Kabuki-cho: A public space for sub-cultural discussion and performance for ten years and running.

I’ve seen women tied up and hung from the rafters here, under the supervision of S&M author Dan Oniroku. I’ve sat on stage here before, calling Machiyama on the house phone long distance, then showing clips from the live-action Taiwanese Fist of the North Star movie.

Kinji Fukasaku came once to talk Battle Royale.

Roman Porche. Jun Mirai, Kiichiro Yanashita, Godzilla movie actors. Artists. Writers. Lovers. Muggers. And theives.  They’ve all been to Loft at one time or another.

Matt knows someone who went to a scat show here.

And while I wouldn't want to eat anything from the kitchen (although the curry is supposed to be good...bad associations though), I feel the same about the place as I felt about Artists’ Television Access in San Francisco when I was in my teens. Meaning, I want to live there, or at least go for a bit every night, just to be nestled for a bit in the bosom of the ankogugai.

Saturday. Toru Honda, the author of Akihabara’s best-seller Dempa Otoko, whom you are going to read about in this very good Asahi.com article, is the main event at what’s he’s calling a Dempa Shimai Matsuri; an all night celebration of the very worst of otaku trends: little sister complex, sick jokes about Galge addicted salarymen, and those shades that were only cool for a year or so after The Matrix came out. Everyone is on stage wearing them, including Honda’s homeboy, Yanashita-san.

Honda reveals the Otaku Super Archetypal Meta-Narrative in Three E-Z pieces. Sounds boring, I know, but it’s not. Everyone is laughing, cracking jokes, and having a drink.

He begins with a 20 min reel of highlights from Taxi Driver.

Travis, God’s Lonely Man, is a textbook otaku. He’s terrible with women. He takes Cybill Shepherd to a porno movie (but who among us hasn’t wanted to from time to time?). She recoils in disgust, but her rejection only serves to turn Travis into a gun nut, collecting all the weapons he can like Virtual On gashapon toys. He becomes a masturbatory adolescent, devoting the solitary hours to regimes of push-ups, and tests of his own strength.

The next stop is a no-brainer: the infatuation with Jodie Foster is Loli-Con, pure and simple.

From here, Travis plays his own personal simulation game. The “you talkin’ to me” patter with the mirror is every bit as menacing as a post-Columbine game of Doom.

By the time Travis storms the fleabag hotel where the forces of evil are keeping innocent little Iris hostage, he has become a kaizo ningen: a cyborg who can transform his hands into guns with a flip of wrist.

A pile of dead bodies later and Game Over.

Act Two is 1983’s Ushimitsu no mura, the film version of the Tsuyama Shotgun Massacre, directed by famed Roman Porno director Noboru Tanaka, who also helmed Woman Called Sada Abe and Noburo Ando’s Chronicle of Fugitive Days & Sex.

World War II.

Everyone is sleeping with each other in a dirty little inbred village in the Tohoku region. Mutsuo Toi, a walking case of the Young Man Blues, calls it home. As if to underline this point, Mutsuo gets a handjob from the town slut number twenty-two while her man is miles away, but somehow, the whole thing leaves him feeling very very sick.

Mutsuo wants to join the army, to fight and kill for the glory of Japan. But at the induction center, where young men parade around the Imperial flag in their underwear, the doc tells him to beat it. He’s too weak and ill.

Rejected by the army, Mutsuo becomes a total social outcast. He is wearing an invisible dunce cap. Women usher their children away from him whenever he passes by. Other men simply make fun of him. He was engaged to a beautiful young bride, but his failure to be a “real man” means, like a wooden leg, she has to break it off.

Bad times. He begins to cough up blood. Tuberculosis, which also put the squeeze on Ando’s gang, is such a bring-down.

Just like Travis before him, Mutsuo becomes a gun freak and plays sim-games in the woods; practicing his aim on a straw dummy shaped like a human being.

He makes a map of his village and pours gunpowder over it. He equips himself with a sword, a pistol, and a very wicked pump-action shotgun. Then, he straps two flashlights to his head and puts a miner’s light on his chest. It’s dark out there at night. But the low-tech also serves to make him a henshin hero of sorts, like Flashman, even if only in reverse.

Mutsuo yells “Banzai!” and goes on a killing spree. Victim one is his grandmother, his only living family relation. He reaches for a shovel, literally, then grannies on her way to meet the devil. 

He catches town slut twenty-two with a man in her bed. He blows his head up zombie-style. She gets it with a sword in the tits. Mutsuo has gone beyond sex and violence, and director Tanaka can’t resist the temptation to follow him either.

The shotgun goes between her legs. There is silence on the soundtrack as a big splash of blood erupts in slow-mo.

The next morning we find Mutsuo high on a hill overlooking the peaceful village as the sun comes up.

“Minna-san, gomen nasai,” he says, in a deranged voice that’s neither apologetic nor actually very sorry. Just cool and crazy.

Then he puts the shotgun in his mouth. Fingers fumble trying to find the trigger. The barrel tastes funny. He takes it out and stares at it, as if to ask, is this thing on?

Then the camera pans away politely for a freeze frame of God’s green Earth. The end.

Great flick. True story. Dude killed thirty people in all in less than half an hour. It’s not so boring in the sticks after all. But I guess you got to make your own fun.

Having knocked us out already, Honda decides to go for three direct hits. The next one is being advertised to children and families: Revenge of the Sith. Perhaps you've heard about it.

Anakin. Into hot rods and robots. Bad with women.  He only scored Amidala because she thought they were going to die. And the last time he saw her, he choked the bitch. He thinks he’s The Greatest, but when it really counts, his peers on the council turn their backs on him. So it's up to the devil on his shoulder to tell him what to do next: become a man-machine spree killer named Darth Vader.

The Tsuyama Shotgun Massacre was a true story. Taxi Driver became real when John Hinckley pulled a trigger. And Star Wars, prequel that it is, already happened, a long time ago, far, far away. So what's next?

I look around at the crowd at Loft Tonight. The grid pattern button up shirts, the glasses, and hasty haircuts of lonely men in their late twenties and early thirties stare back at me in silence.

Are they planning the next stop on the Otaku highway to hell? I’ve no fucking idea. But I bet Toru Honda is going to be behind the wheel somehow.

The Great and Secret Showa

Matt and I are drinking and setting off fireworks in Inokashira park having a Gay Olde Tyme. Suddenly, I see red flashing lights coming our way. It’s the goddamn cops.

Within seconds, they are upon us; hands steady on their Blue SWAT Dictator pistols. I wonder if I’m going home in a body bag.

Matt steps forward and becomes the gaijin Flash Gordon. Here’s how he remembers it:

TRANSCRIPT:

Space Sheriff Gavan: I think these are the guys making all the noise.

Matt (In Japanese): Good evening!

Space Sheriff Gavan: Oh, a gaijin! Do you speak Japanese.

Matt: Yes. Are we doing something... wrong?

Robot Keiji K: Well, what were you doing?

Matt: Um, drinking. And lighting off fireworks. But we got them at that
convenience store over there, so we thought it was okay.

Space Sheriff Gavan: Oh, there's no problem with drinking and setting
off fireworks. The issue is noise.

Matt: Noise?

Space Sheriff Gavan: You speak Japanese, right? Noise. You were making
a lot of noise, right?

Matt: Not really. I mean, these are just sparklers.

Space Sheriff Gavan: I mean yelling.

Matt: No. I don't think so.

Robot Keiji K: Well, do you know of anyone who was making noise?

Matt: Well, you know Inokashira Park. (Nervous laugh). There's always
someone. Like... (makes sly pointing motion at group of suddenly quiet
Japanese teenagers.)

Robot Keiji K: Aha. Well, have a good night. And stay quiet!

Matt: We'll party quietly, officer. I promise.

The cops waddle over to the mangy pack of kids nearby and start harassing them instead.

A fire fight breaks out, and the cops hose the place down with optical effects. The kids burn up, but before they go, one of them says something about how they bought their mazer cannons at Wal-Mart, so they thought it was OK.

If only they'd put the silencers on.

Konshu wa...

I took the Inokashira line to Shibuya and got shitfaced drank. That’s the only way I could handle reading the incredibly dumb Samurai From Outer Space and the incredibly perceptive, yet still sleep-inducing Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke : Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation .  The things I do for Big Entertainment.

Also, because I'm a big Sleestack, I racked up non-redeemable otaku points at Mandarake.

Hardcover Matsumoto Leiji Cockpit collection on the cheap. Two Best of Shonen Magazine 1965-1975 compilations for cheaper. Big splurge on a Final Yamato Animedia special.

Mori Yuki is so hot in that wedding dress

Kirei ja nai

  Shinjuku Club Doctor. July 9. “Girls Shoot the Curl” night.

Charlie and the Hot Wheels are on stage. I’m in front. The band is playing something that’s a cross between Jan & Dean, Number Girl, and The Dirtbombs. Fatal surf power punk rock. These are the days, etc. all.

Special guest lead singer, “Kummy” is mad crazy drunk, swigging from a bottle of something bad and hard the second he hits the stage. He grabs my damn fool head and sticks the mic in my mouth. I get a few nutty “yeah, yeah, yeahs” in on the chorus, before he abandons me for the Joey Ramone clone to my right.

The headliners are The Pebbles, a trio of girls who are cute, cute, cute and have pretty harmonies to go with their matching outfits. Unfortunately, they lack R&R’s most crucial ingredient: bad intentions.

Charlie and the Hot Wheels are trying to kill the crowd with peanut butter rock and roll. At least twice, I think I’m going to get kicked in the teeth just for being the gaijin standing in front. The lead singer looks like a bobcat in the headlights. Then he’s scared. Bored. Fucked. The set ends with him angrily throwing the mic down on the stage, just to my left.

I think I’m in love.

I can’t remember the last time I went to a concert that felt like it might break out into a fight. Nirvana at the Crest? The Meat Puppets at Slims when those guys ripped my shirt?

Two weeks earlier, I’m at Shinjuku Red Cloth with Batty Cheese and her friend Cherry. The Mighty Moguls are up there dressed in saber tooth tiger togas playing that “wild caveman stomp.” Louie Louie chord changes shot out of a Wave Motion Cannon.

The other bands on the bill cannot even begin to compete. There’s The Bunnies, yet another kawaii all-girl band, with perfect French Twist hairstyles and vintage equipment. There’s Money Spider from Osaka, a weird grinning rock combo who dole out their awkward New Orleans electric piano boogie a little too lightly for my taste.

But they there are competing with Miffy, the lead singer of the Mighty Moguls, who plays and sings like her soul is on fire, frying up in the crucible of rawk.

About Batty. She is one of the world’s greatest living illustrators. One day, the human race will wake up and realize what a rip-off the whole Superflat thing was. And Batty will be there with what Jaytack has already dubbed ”Superbumpy.” Behold her works mighty, and go surfin’.

Batty used to play guitar in the Mighty Moguls, and was also affiliated with the pre-Kill Bill 5,6,7,8s. She even drew some of their record sleeves. I ask her what she thinks of them now. “Too technical,” she says.

Batty’s last band was named Mmmmmmmms. She told everyone she wants to stop drawing to concentrate on playing music.

Cherry says she’s not hungry, but she orders up a storm at the izakaya. “You never saw Batty play guitar with the Moguls?”

Nope. Was it better, I ask?

“Not better. Just different. She plays very…sweetly. Very unique.”

There’s at least two other dasai gaijin at Club Doctor tonight, sticking out like pudding in a cloud with the Japanese rock nuts. But one fearless white guy has got it down: greased up ducktail ‘do, sunglasses, torn jeans, leather jacket flipped over his shoulder. A total dropout from Rydell High. The only mistake are his shoes, which are like, red Asics sneakers or something. I almost want to tell him to invest in some pointy-toed boots.

But he’s hooting and hollering. Clearly there for The Pebbles,

Cherry lived in a Whale for a year.

“Kujira?” I ask.

Wales, she explains. The food was fucking terrible. She only ate bread and baked potatoes.

Everyone thought she was Chinese.

Shukudai

Lawson’s – No Beer. No Porno Mags. Tickets to the Ghibli Museum.

7-11 – Beer. No Porno Mags. No Slurpees©.

Family Mart – Porno Mags. Beer. Me.

Teikoku no Gyakushu

Grab your sex organs. Pizza Hut coupons came in the mail. Complete with Full Metal Alchemist promo. Watch anime all day and eat that shit. It's like that Everquest pizza delivery promo from a few months back, only much less amazing. Trust.

Somehow, we wound up ordering Domino's for hirugohan, which is like, The Shit here apparently (shades of Mexico). Pounding down the leftover pie as The Empire Strikes showed up on the tube. Seconds in, Honda-san broke down the voice actors. Luke Skywalker plays Krusty the Clown in the Japanese dub of the Simpsons. Boba Fett is Apu. Darth Vader is Professor Nambu from Gatchaman.

Tomorrow is Umi no Hi. Ocean Day. I'm hoping that something not boring will happen involving a giant squid, crab, and turtle.

Hidoi

Email from Kiichiro Yanashita.

From today Cinema Arton Simokitazawa has Yamatoya collection (-7/22)
http://www.cinekita.co.jp/
http://www.cinekita.co.jp/schedule.html
He's a famous writer for Seijun and Koji Wakamatsu.
"Kouya no dutch wife" is must see. Also there's a showing for "Hishu
Monogatari" ( by Seijun Suzuki, very weird film... but everything
Seijun does is weird, isn't it?)

And also there's a tribute for the late pink actress Yumika Hayashi
at Shinjuku Kokusai Meiga-za
(7/12-18)
The place is very near to where Shouwa-kan once was. From Shinjuku
street turn right at Tsutaya corner and you'll see it at the right
side.
And theater is really, really bad. You cannot hear the half of
dialogues here. Still the program was very nice. and "Petting
lesbian" (by Sato Toshiki) is really great one.

For the showings of Japanese old films you should check out for this homepage.
http://homepage3.nifty.com/showcine/

Shin tomodachi, shin teiki

Chuo Rapid Train. Maybe two weeks ago. Baby in a stroller holding two metal cars in each tiny hand. Mom sits next to him in the commuter seats. She’s holding out a little book in front of his face and turns the pages. It looks handmade: pink crepe paper with cutout pictures of trucks inside. Red pen hiragana words to memorize. It’s the education of a future Truck Yaro, maybe.

Chuo Local. Senshu. A moderately to severe deranged oyaji is sliding all over his seat. He looks too retarded to be drunk, too retarded to be able to buy a drink. He is sitting somewhere between his seat and the floor, face contorted by the terrible will to try and control his body. It’s like his spine is melting down by the second. But somehow, he won’t go down for the count. He’s restlessly organizing a pile of business cards (Prospective business partners? Lovers? Doctors?) and fiddling noisily with a wrinkly white plastic bag. What is it about crazy people and plastic bags? I figure this guy has been on this train for days now. It’s nice and air conditioned, and it’s hot and nasty outside, so it’s not a bad idea. But when the train comes to a stop, he jolts up and stumbles out the door effortless. Shinjuku. It all makes sense now.

They made us write down our wishes on little colored pieces of paper. Then we tied them to the branches of a tree. I think it’s some kind of holiday to commemorate the Battle of Greenhaven. One guy drew a picture of a boxer on his. I just wrote ‘Okane’ as big as I could. That got a laugh. Then I told them “Watashi wa wagamama desu.”

Tendon to kake soba at the local Denny’s. They play the Muzak here unbearably loud, maybe to mask subliminal messages of “either order something or get the fuck out.” Sounds like Leopaldon is DJ-ing. “To the Beat of the Rhythm of the Night

Long outro of Nothing’s Gonna Cheer You Up on the dasaiPod. Little kid with spiky hair is putting on a pair of black leather gloves, trying them on for size. Mom is in the bathroom. He removes a giant steel bat from a green kaban. He’s drinking orange juice with a straw. Mom orders a bottle of wine. Junior eats a plate of French Fries. Then he orders what looks like Mac and Cheese, but it can’t possibly be. What’s next? Skippy Peanut Butter?

Lone oyaji in front of me. Egan Loo hair, work shirt, and glasses. Big booths here, but not tall enough to make your neighbors invisible. He’s eating curry rice and reading something. He’s all by himself. It’s like a staring contest. He gets up and splits. I win.

Machine gun schoolgirl waltzes in (bang bang) with a boyfriend she probably scored at Marui. She leans in, smiling at him while he peruses the menu. His feet tap manically in his white straw slippers. Seems like a neutral enough place for a date. By the time the food arrives, he slumps in the corner of the booth, long legs changing positions from crossed, to dangling over the edge.

I think she likes him more than he likes her.

Vital bitches of Japan. I love your sandals and shoes, especially the ones with the fake diamonds and emeralds on them. Honto ni. And I love the sparkly Barbie jewelry that you adorn your clothes and hair with. You've gone and made everything cheap and glamorous.

Dempa kei

Kannon, the ever-popular Goddess of Wisdom, chimes in on the whole Dasai Gaijin thing.

To be cool to be cynical to be a sanest, in real, it'd turn out to be extremely twisted. It's complicated and not easy. Can't speak honestly or being passionate, or cry for justice.

Simple minded (both being white trash OR liking Super-Flat or iPod without any doubt). This is how non American see Americas from out side. Regardless, if it's true or not, or like it or not.   America became a symbol of it.

It's a bit of envy ness, and "wow" to the bravely  phrase yourself as "we're
number1!" without any doubt.

Yeah, maybe this is a America of 80's.
80's=every world are aiming for it.
90's=getting tired of it
00'=start hating it
2005= (at some small area of Japan) they are enjoying it.

Japanese are laughing at them, so that at least they can forget about the
fact, that the complicated mind of themselves.

"we are stupid and pathetic and uncool yeah!!!" is (at least right at the
moment) the most tough way of thinking. & who knows how long this will
last...

Kurikaeshite kudasai

Long ago, and oh so far away, two Japanese guys were sitting around watching skate videos.

As the wheeled warriors did their “totally awesome” tricks to an eXtreme musical accompaniment, one of the guys on the couch went over the top. He said in all seriousness, “wow, gaijin are so cool. They can do anything!”

But this didn’t exactly fly with the person sitting next to him. Decades having to wave back at grinning gaijin on television, in print ads, everywhere in Japan, had finally reached critical mass. Schwarzenegger for instant ramen. Richard Gere for “I Love Tokyo.”

It could not be allowed to go on forever. A counter culture had to be created. And thus, the concept “Dasai Gaijin” was born.

Originally, I thought the phrase simply meant “uncool foreigner.” But it’s much, much worse than that. Yoshiki corrects me, “it’s more like pathetic foreigner.”

At least sixty people are crammed into the Acid Panda Café in Ookayama tonight for Dasai Gajin Night Vol. 2, a sequel to a previous event a few months back.

Two-man techno band Leopaldon not only runs the Acid Panda, but they’re also dedicated to hunting down the most fucked up foreigners they can find. They scour the Internet for pics and post them on the Dasai Gaijin community on Mixi - the Japanese equivalent of Myspace - which currently numbers nearly two thousand members.

Now Leopaldon sit on stage, breaking down their massive collection of jpegs into categories.

The Monster – The thing that must not be. Fat, hideous, and savage. Eats giant hamburgers in clothes that are forever too small.

The Royals – Family portraits straight out of the Sears catalog. Everyone with the same funny/pathetic look on their best face. Brush strokes on the backgrounds behind them.

Gamers – Nerds, basically. Little kids and teens with nothing better to do but line up at networked computers happily trying to kill each other.

The Last Samurai – Pictures of wayward gaijin with their host families out in Bumfuck, Japan. Helps if they are wearing a stylish yukata and glasses combo.

The Creator – The proud owners of science fair projects, ugly clay sculptures, and homemade Star Trek props.

Cosplay – Yeah. You know how that one goes. Paint yourself blue and be a Smurf or dress up like a cardboard Transformer for confirmation.

And so on, and so on into oblivion. Every picture and category is greeted with hoots and shouts of “Dasai!!!”

Next comes a Power Point presentation, graphs and pie charts explain the aesthetics of Dasai Gajin.

At the first level is the unconsciousness, a lack of concern for one’s own self image. The next level is ugliness, plain and simple. Overlapping that is humor. Dasai gaijin have to be funny looking, otherwise, what’s the point? But there is another shadow aspect. It’s also not funny. You should feel bad about the whole situation somewhere deep in your cynical black heart. Add everything up, and you have the formidable Dasai Gaijin effect.

Next is a session of real time hunting for Dasai Gaijin. Google is the best place to find their pastures and grazing fields. The top searches that yield bountiful harvests are “Party” and “Crazy Dancing.”

Then they announce a special guest in the house. An actual, for real, real Dasai Gaijin.

Naturally, it’s my dumb ass.

“What would Americans think if they found out about this event?”

“Maybe it would start a war. Americans don’t want to be Dasai and don’t want other people laughing at them. Eventually, they would start hunting for Dasai Nihonjin.”

“What words do you search for when looking for Dasai Gaijin?”

“Let’s face it: most Dasai Gaijin are white people. So just type ‘white people’ into the search engine and let it rip. ‘Stoned’ is also good. So is
‘heavy metal fans.’”

We search and find a dating site for men with long hair. At least I’m not wearing a Tie-dye shirt.

Next, Leopaldon take some of most Dasai images they’ve found, and paste them where normally “cool” gaijin reside: ads for iPods, covers for Newsweek, sales campaigns for Tower Records. It’s pretty satisfying to see.

The rest of the evening is blur of beers, Baggy cocktails, and bitter laughter. I ask a pair of girls, why are you here? What is it about Dasai Gaijin that made you come all the way out to Ookayama?

“Dasai Gaijin are funny. They look so happy. They’re cute.”

We’ve gone from being cool to being the Muppets, it seems, but at least there’s still come affection to be had.

A revolving door of DJs opens up for Dasai Gaijin dancing. Yoshiki takes over the turntables and plays the Ghostbusters theme, Kenny Loggins, Andrew W.K. Around 4am, the set is almost exclusively culled from music that’s two decades old. Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, Mr. Roboto.

Yoshiki sits at the bar mulling it over. “This started out as Dasai Gaijin night, but somehow it’s turned into ‘80s night.”

I can only figure it’s because that was when the power of the gaijin was at it’s mightiest in Japan. And time, the missing element until now, has aged their works once mighty into laughable bits of crappy ear candy.

Cool ages to fool.

5am. It’s all over, but the 30 or so survivors still have to pose for pictures. Everyone makes their best stupid grinning Dasai Gaijin faces, fingers spread out into Vs. They put me on a pedestal. Literally. At first, I refuse. But I’ve been proclaimed Mr. Dasai Gaijin just for showing up.

It takes two hours to get home. I feel like hammered shit the next day. Is it the toll for nothing but booze and cigs for the last 12 hours?

Anonymous and countless Dasai Gaijin out there on the Net don’t know what’s hit them either.

And now...in anticipation of your insight into the future

Dasai

So what you all be thankin' about the new look? Ass Sashimi, right? Some technical bullshit going on with the TypePad Tenno. Everything will be as right as humid summer rain soon. Or else it won't.

Also, for the record, this is the 69th post.

Can I just stick the tip in?