Otage

Scenes from a Shinjuku ni-chome ero-video shop...

Ladies and gentlemen, the truth about Dragonball Z! Is there any wonder why that magazine to the right is called “Humiliation”?

Meet the “Strong Army of Handsome Gay Boys”. They like tanning salons, Mobile Suit Gundam, Liza Minnelli, and perhaps even the same manga you do!

Leave it to "Les Chevaliers du Zodiaque" to oversee the lube section of the store…

Which is stronger? The Fist of the North Star or videos with titles like "Freshman Foreskin" and "Big Penis Summer Camp"?

Comments

[Steve Harrison]

Patrick?

What....the...hell?

Why? why...this? what?

I think I have to file this under "fucked up"

[Patrick Macias]

Steve! In Japan, you can find anime characters everywhere!

Also, no, I am not a big Liza fan myself. It's pretty common for people to get drinks in ni-chome because stoopid shit always seems to happen.

[Carl Horn]

I always knew anime was totally gay.

[Carl Horn]

Although Japan is a bit behind America in the arena of sexual equality (whereas a reactionary attitude to a U.S. feminist in the early 1970s might be "what she needs is a man," the Kazuo Koike attitude in that period would have been "what she needs is a film of her committing lesbian acts projected against the side of a skyscraper in midtown Manhattan"), the sausage-fest that was the Yamato still remains a bit of a shock; by contrast, the Enterprise was a model of gender balance despite being commanded by "the Stokely Carmichael of Space," James T. Kirk.

When Yoshinobu Nishizaki originally conceived the project that would become SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO, its tone had been planned as something different from the series fans now know. At first an early lay-by on the Yamato's voyage of destiny was to have been to a world called Filipinlas, in the episode "The Planet of the 14-Year Old Comfort Women Who All Came Along Voluntarily Because They Heard Japanese Dicks Were Twice the Size of Black American G.I.s, And That's Absolutely True, You Know." It had gotten as far as the storyboard stage when it was scotched, and reports at the later theatrical premieres of the YAMATO movie of girls tossing floral wreaths at the screen generally left out the rumor of a despondent "Nish," drunk and visibly erect, lying naked below the front row and calling for a game of horseshoes.

Leiji Matsumoto's entry, as it were, into the YAMATO project led to a number of design changes, including a gradually observable widening of the Wave Motion Gun's aperture, and the infamous "down arrow" uniform shirts, whose seemingly backwards symbolism for a crew launching upwards to the stars is explainable by their accompanying blacklight lettering--visible only under space radiation--with such mottos as SUCK IT AND SEE and 10cm UNCUT. The latter caused a moment of controversy in the generally well-regarded STAR BLAZERS adaptation, as Matsumoto reportedly insisted it was the equivalent of ten inches, whereas the U.S. dub gave the more accurate rendering of 3.9".

But just because some nervous Nellies at the Japanese PTA objected to this sort of thing in a children's show, it doesn't mean it didn't happen. Yet except for a few cryptic references in a Roman Album (including sketches of the "phantom" Black Tiger cock ring, seen occasionally as a scratch-built NFS at Wonder Fest), there is no official acknowledgment of the first season episode "Challenge of the Hundred-Man J/O"--whose humorous denouement hinged on the question of whether Analyzer counted as a man, and, moreover, whether his manipulators counted as a dick.

Indeed, it has only been rarely shown either in America or Japan, with only two confirmed screenings ever on low-power UHF stations in Nagoya (March 1978) and (as part of STAR BLAZERS) sometime in the fall of 1982, in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Keeping the five known Betamax copies of the Council Bluffs edition from further multiplying is believed to be the real reason for Randall Stuckey's later attempt to ban tape copying at C/FO meetings. There's said furthermore to be some sort of tontine that keeps it off of YouTube, etc., about which I notice Steve Harrison remains conspicuously silent.

[Patrick Macias]

I just spit out my Volvic over Carl's last comment.

[Steve Harrison]

Were I to discuss secret vaults buried in the gypsum mine just north of me, I would endanger my life and that of all those who read this.

So I am not mentioning that.

[Clarissa]

If it's wrong that this makes me giddy, then I don't want to be right.

Actually, I'm almost more shocked that they don't have actual Saint Seiya *branded* lube. Japan *is* the king of merchandise whoring, after all.

Also, Carl's comment caused me to laugh so hard I almost cried. Beautiful.

[pyaolyangshen]

Carl Horn is an amazing writer. whoever that commenter was, he needs to write pieces in a column.