An Eternal Thought in the Mind of Godzilla

Oshare Husky

In about a month or so, I’ll be starting a new column for Japan’s sexy Studio Voice magazine. It’s tentatively titled “Dempa in USA” and will be about contemporary conspiracy theories and the beautiful people behind them. All of this nuttiness will culminate in a new book for the Japanese market, hopefully before the year 20XX.

Also, I provided all the INTEL for Tomo Machiyama’s weekly segment on TBS’ Stream radio last night. His subject is the shadowy world of Morning Musume fandom in America. Marvel as he ties together Jonbenet Ramsey, the USA Musume cosplay group, the Colbert Report, ex-Animerica reviewer Brian Camp, and tries his best to out me as a “MoMuse Maniac.” Warning: it be in Japper-knees. Link here.

Symphonic Rhapsody – Love in the Cosmozone

Released by Nippon Columbia in 198X, Symphonic Rhapsody – Love in the Cosmozone was a combination drama LP and arrangement of music chosen by the staff to illustrate the main theme of Hot Tears of Shame: Season Two – The Way to Virgin Space.

The record also introduced two concepts crucial to the Way to Virgin Space storyline: the Letter People Space Agency, and the supercomputer system MAL (Marvelous, Analytical, and Logical). The album, long out of print and highly valued by collectors, has now been re-released by Nippon Columbia as part of their budget-priced “Animex 1200” reissue series.

Click here to listen

Producer’s note:

I was in prison when I first envisioned the story that would become Hot Tears of Shame. Production started shortly in my cell soon after I was incarcerated. I was unable to witness the Gerotan invasion with my own eyes, but I immediately felt its impact. This visitation by an alien species* demonstrated to an economically prosperous Japan that human happiness and prosperity would soon end. This sense of collapse was felt not only in Japan, but also in my personal life.

I wanted to demonstrate that there was something more than desperation and cynicism for people to believe in. Humans have a greater power that can overcome desperation, and that power is love. Unfortunately, alone behind bars, I confess to often wondering if love alone was truly strong enough to combat the abstract forces of The Government of Darkness.

The Way to Virgin Space was an attempt to further explore these sometimes difficult emotions and the moral decisions we must make as we each seek the fulfillment of our dreams. I hope listeners can grasp these specific concepts as they enjoy “Love in the Cosmozone.”

* (editor’s note) From the center of the Earth, actually.

Omake to furuku

God help you if I ever want to interview you. Carl Gustav Horn gets all creative and deals with the trauma like this...

Manga Matsuri

Nippon! Cha! Cha! Cha!

A selection of images from various SPACE CRUSIER YAMATO dojinshi found at Comiket 70...

Onagi Asa

The BBC/PRI finally aired their piece on Leekspin. I manage to eek out a couple of sentences and Anime City gets a plug. You can listen to it here.

Podcast: Hot Tears of Shame - Episode Eleven

“Yasukuni Shrine, Fat People, and You"

Hot Tears of Shame – The Way to Virgin Space – Episode Eleven
The James T. Hong Interview

Click here to listen

James T. Hong is an Asian-American film and video maker based in San Francisco, California, whose works tend to focus on controversial race and class issues. His films and videos include Behold the Asian: How One Becomes What One Is, Condor: A Film from California, The Form of the Good, Taipei 101: A Travelogue of Symptoms, and The Spear of Destiny.

Opening crawl read by Clarissa Graffeo, featuring Daryl Surat as “Alphabet Drake”

(excerpt)
The forces of Counter-ESPY have heroically triumphed over the
Mysterian invaders. But the experimental sonic weaponry employed in
the battle has caused immense damage to the Earth's harmonic frequency
range, and the Overtones -sentient sound vibrations created by the
planet's magnetic field - are now threatened with extinction.

In a desperate bid for survival, Mystery Frequency 109 assumes the
guise of a Beautiful and Alluring Space Woman, and vanishes altogether
from the solar system. The loss of its ambient magical energy may
prove to be fatal. Unless the Frequency is restored to the Overtones,
the Earth will descend into the lower astral regions in exactly one
leap year.

To avert this disaster, Counter-EPSY has created a mammoth
electro-graavic anti-gravity space cruiser out of Heavy Element 115.
Equipped with hyper-motion missiles, re-orientable runways, a shopping
district and an extra-sensory third bridge, the ship is named the
"Cosmo Jack" and Patrick has been narrowcasted deep inside its hull.
His mission: to pilot the ship into the unknown super-galaxy known as
Virgin Space where the Mystery Frequency is believed to be hiding.

But blocking the Cosmo Jack's way is the villainous Alphabet Drake, a
being dedicated to infiltrating the English language with the use of
his demonic Letter People. Drake also seeks the way to Virgin Space
and has already announced his intentions to the world by using our
upper ionosphere as his own personal one-way walkie-talkie…

Relevant Links
James T. Hong’s ZUKUNFTSMUSIK homepage
The Coldest War Illustrated Screenplay
San Francisco Bay Guardian Interview with James T. Hong

Hyakugojyuuichi 2.1

I was interviewed today by the BBC/PRI radio show The World. I tried to explain the recent anime-Finish folksong mash-up meme known as “Leekspin” as best I could.

The piece will air in the USA sometime next week and I’ll put up more info when it does. For now, thanks to Daryl and Gerald of Anime World Order for helping me to realize that "this movement based on nonsensical collages of sound and image is merely a reflection of the larger dissaccociation one feels when they encounter a foreign culture for the first time."

Or maybe not.

Let's ask this gentleman...

Kaimasu Ka

Another taste of the bass. Here's a Mamba...or is that a Manba...from THE JAPANESE SCHOOLGIRL INFERNO. Illustration by Nonaka Kazumi.

Ashka hi ka

I wrote this week’s cover story for Metropolis, “Japan’s No.1 English Language Magazine.” It’s very much a Cliff’s Notes version of THE JAPANESE SCHOOLGIRL INFERNO and as close as you’ll get to reading my sexy new book until spring ’07. You can pick the issue up in the usual places or read the whole ding dong thing here.

I also did an interview for their weekly Metropolis podcast, which can be downloaded here (the file is the one labeled 646.mp3). My bit begins at 15:40.

The magazine used their own illustrator for the piece, so just to add a bit of cosmic balance, here’s a sample of Nonaka Kazumi’s (AKA Batty Cheese) art for the book itself. This was her first pass at the cover. It will probably end up looking entirely different.

Ima wa

オタク・イン・USA 愛と誤解のAnime輸入史

Amazon.co.jp ランキング: 本で26位

Kuchusen

Tomo and I will be on the TBS Radio show Stream live Tues/8, 2pm Tokyo time. We will be talking about OTAKU IN USA. The show, which will be in Japper-knees, will be archived as a podcast on the Stream site. In the meantime, all functional Espionage Rejects should tune into 954 kHz on your portable Overtone clackboxes...

Studio Voice Strip Club

My sexy new book OTAKU IN USA is here! Sorta. Kinda.

I just got my sample copies in the mail from the publisher. The book comes out for reals in Japan on Thurs/10.

Here’s the front of the book, as seen underneath the protective dustjacket: a classic illustration by Kojiro Abe (AKA Jules Carrozza) like the flesh peeled off all the pretty cosplay girls on the cover.

Buckwheat Lifestream

Banana Sutra

Gonna get drunk and watch Pinocchio...

Gorilla Shuppan

Recent re-classification of crucial Government of Darkness documents are leading independent researchers to conclude that Pedro Edogawa may have been groomed by the Military-Occult complex since childhood (emphasis mine) to be a patsy during the Goka Jyu-pun senso. This startling conclusion is based on alleged copies of GOD documents said to have been smuggled out of Tokyo2 prior to the commencement of the Taishomei jidai.

It is already verified that Edogawa was raised in the Greenhaven district of Sacramento, California which was famously wiped off the face of the Earth during a Violent Unknown Event in 1987. Witcover and others believe that the area’s public schools were home to the 1st US branch of the experimental ESPY program, originally developed by US Army and Japanese interests during the Vietnam War. The US program, along with its lesser-known sister program Counter-ESPY, is claimed by Reidy to have been headed by “less of a person and more of a brand name, one that is certain to ring bells in the usual conspiracy theory circles: Col. Baldwin.”

Kleckner and others have long pointed to evidence of numerous persons identified as “Col. Baldwin” operating in various levels of the US military since the Truman administration (For now, we leave it to them to further explore the possibilities of familial relations or multiple operative positions codenamed “Baldwin”).

Those who have claimed to have seen the controversial GOD documents note the mention of a “Col. Baldwin” stationed in Yokohama during the events of the Goka Jyu-pun senso. Says Infante, “Given the nature of the person(s) involved, it is reasonable to assume at least some direct G.O.D. involvement in Baldwin’s handling. And that opens up a trail which leads all the way to Edogawa, Greenhaven, and the exact nature of the Violent Unknown Event.”

Gekitotsu! Shosetsu shinzui-ken

Excerpt from the liner notes...

"A sequel in name-only, FIFTH LEVEL FIST does away with the characters and continuity of the first three SISTER STREET FIGHTER films and instead swerves continually between comedy and tragedy with large sections of dialogue spoken by an international cast in English. Without the overtly grotesque touches that marked the core films (ala gratuitous nudity, nut-job karate killers right out of a comic book) the movie seems to be on a quest to incriminate the very studio that produced it. Toei’s Kyoto facilities, the home of many classic period films and television programs, actually doubles here as the front for an international drug smuggling ring."

Natsy Senso

Jaytack, Tomo Machiyama, and me are marching into a studio soon to record an audio commentary for a Certain Japanese Film That Shall Remain Nameless For Now. Here we are in our Taishomei Action Club mugshots.

What else is going on?

Much busting on the keytar to get out the extras for the upcoming SISTER STREET FIGHTER DVD box from BCI/Eclipse. Liners for four films, Etsuko Shihomi bio, and director Kazuhiko Yamaguchi interview (translated by AltJapan Co., Ltd., AKA Matt and Hiroko).

Akihabara story for Kateigaho International.

Interviewed up and down for the Summer 2006 issue of Now Playing magazine. You can read excertps from "Rise of the Otome" here and "Where is Pop Culture?" here.

Sexy new book OTAKU IN USA drops in one week...