An Eternal Thought in the Mind of Godzilla

Podcast: Hot Tears of Shame -€“ Episode Twenty-Eight

Pat and Matt return to the Tokyo Super Festival toy and model show after two years only to find that a catastrophic war has nearly destroyed all civilization, leaving only ragged bands of weary survivors to fight over the remaining scraps of society. Meanwhile, orbiting in space is a capsule containing a single man, Hiroshi Miyauchi, who was bioengineered to be the ultimate warrior, but was exiled because he was simply too dangerous to be allowed on television anymore. As his craft returns to Earth to be greeted by feral packs of cosplaying youngsters, Superfest proves to be the final battleground between the forces of Shorinji Kempo and the Government of Darkness....but has Miyauchi returned as a savior or a destroyer?

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© Hot Tears of Shame Production Committee/jaPRESS

Hot Links
Super Festival 47 homepage
Super Festival 2006 HToS podcast
Zubat opening
AltJapan on Star Wars Karuta

Coming soon: A shitload of pics from Super Festival 47!!!

Deep Sorrow & Burning Rage

http://rambo.sega.jp/

Individual Fashion Expo IV - Exit Music

Just before the Individual Fashion Expo IV, my OIOI homeboys tossed me the new limited edition mercury Maruione Hedorah figure. Made by Character Contents Productions (who also serve up a mean set of Ultra Brothers being crucified), it looks like this item was limited to 100 pieces and sold only to Japanese customers on the maruione.jp website. The bright and shiny figure depicts the Smog Monster sucking bong-style on a factory chimney emblazoned with the majestic maruione.jp URL. The text on the header card cracks me up:

Do you remember these Monsters?
They were so cool & everybody loved there.
You must miss them after they disappeared,
but don’t worry, they are back now and they are never leave you.

Good to know, especially when you are surrounded by thousands of headbanging Lolitas...

Individual Fashion Expo IV Report Part 2 - The Final Revelation

- The Mainichi online currently has the best runway pics. Unfortunately, I can’t hotlink or save them. The best I can do is screencap just one and move on. The first row in the pic above are all Baby and Angelic Pretty. The girls with the huge bows and hair in the second row are Emily Temple cute. The Mainichi is reporting 2,400 attendees with about 100 foreigners on package tours from the US and France.

- I just realized I’ve unconsciously been copping this format from Marxy’s coverage of the Kobe Collection. You might want to read that, too.

- Kannon Wakeshima looked amazing while playing the cello in a floor length white gown, but only did one song. The boys in the visual bands did 20 min sets at least.

- Intermission at the show came in the form of a promo video for a new anime called Kuroshitsuji (“Black Butler”). Touches of Black Jack and 19th century aristocratic maids and shota bound to please…someone? The pitch continued as the guys from jealkb came out wearing clothes inspired by the show designed by ATELIER BOZ and others.

- Sexy Dynamite London used 20th Century Boy by T.Rex as their catwalk music. That’s all I’m going to say about that.

- I think I’m on the verge of getting catty. I blame the jetlag.

- Super Lovers plays a song that I think I misheard as having lyrics that go “Let’s give our money to a great big company.”

- Lots of engineer boots. I think all the SDL models were wearing them, including some straight-up gold ones. Please take note and start wearing them too.

- Black Peace Now, Peace Now, and sixh. were where the real hardcore goth action was at. But even they were breaking tradition with touches of sparkly pika pika. The latter even had some male models that looked downright host-club ready.

- h.Naoto suspiciously absent from the show, although their parent company sixh. more than held their ground without ‘em.

- How did I not know that the lead singer of jealkb is Atsushi from London Boots? Probably because I get most of my music nowadays from the Power Pop Criminals blog.

- The mini-gig by Plastic Tree was a fairly big deal. They played “Only Shallow” by My Bloody Valentine as their entrance music, which is a fairly sizeable tipoff to where they are coming from: shoegazer meets emo in a heavy but melodic groove. This actually worked more than not for me. Girls were screaming between the tunes, the Lolis were headbanging again, and we’d fully crossed over into something extremely awesome.

- Kenji Otsuki of legendary indies band Kinnikushojotai (and Gothic & Lolita Bible columnist) jumped in for one song with the Tree sporting a skullcap and a tokkofuku.

- All the models emerged from the mist again at the end for the final curtain call, along with the boys from the bands. In a perfect world, the show’s director Hiroshi Moriyama would have come out and taken a bow, but he was too busy standing at the exit thanking people for coming.

- I can’t remember what happened next. Where do we go from here?

Individual Fashion Expo IV Report Part 1 - The Lolitas Are Headbanging

No time for formatting or HTML links. Doing this as fast as I can. Liveblogging basically, but a day late jetlagged and on a very empty stomach.

- Reuters has the best pics from the event right now, although we can expect Maruione.jp to release more images and video shortly.

- Get off the train at Suidobashi. Lines and columns of Goth Loli Punk Rock girls marching towards JCB Hall. Makeshift gathering outside the event. Photogs from Kera and Reuters snapping the best. Others hiding in corners preening in mirrors, getting ready for the show inside. I’m seeing pink and black in heroic quantities with the Lolis slightly outnumbering the other tribes for sheer numbers.

- Everyone gets goody bags containing dozens of fliers for stuff ranging from Hide Rock metal accessories, the Yatterman movie, a bunch of visual bands, Maruione.jp propaganga, and situation-appropriate samples of grape gummy candy. Wat?

- This is like that Tsubasa concert I went to a few years back in that I’m one of the few males who isn’t staff and a weird looking gaijin to boot. As before no one cares, which is nice.

- The hall itself is all black with a lingering haze. An ambient tone plays over the PA while a trio of video screens show dripping water. We’re somewhere between theater, an art installation, and Castle Dracula. The seats are full and anout 2/3rds of the audience are dressed to the max. I see Choconyan and her inner circle holding court near the very front. A contingent of gaijin have been placed on the 1st floor balcony. I’m sitting dead center surrounded by what seems like the plastic tree fan club. I think lots of people have come just to see them play.

- The show opens with Baby, the Stars Shine Bright and Alice and the Pirates and then Angelic Pretty. There are audible cries of “kawaii” from the audience. This stuff is absolutely unbeatable when you have professional models and stylists working it. Gold standards for everyone to defer to. Angelic Pretty’s new stuff is more sparkly than before while the Baby gets downright bridal at times.

- We have our first special guest: Kamijo from Versailles walks the runway in Alice and the Pirates and don’t the ladies love it? Note that the band is not billed as the Versailles Philharmonic Orchestra.

- Metamorphose’s new stuff is a mash-up of classic Lolita and Rock style. I like.

- Everyone’s catwalk music is playing at stadium concert levels. Marxy says this is the norm and I should not panic.

- Visual band jealkb hit the stage with mock yaoi kisses and homocore theatrics. I guess they are doing the theme for the next Hokuto no Ken movie. They play three songs and the Lolitas are head banging. I repeat: the Lolitas are head banging. Everyone else seems to be doing para-para style synchronized hand motions.

- Emily Temple cute gets Best of Show from me for going off the deep end with outrageous ’50 to early ‘60s boo- boo kitty and black poodle sweaters, girl group hair, stripey socks and shirts. Mad warbly Francopop plays in the background. The spirit of France Gall somewhere lends her approval.

- Victorian Maiden: still good, still the same but I’m fixated for some reason on the props the models are carrying; empty birdcages and wreaths of dying rose vines. I think I spot some vintage Popples among the toy store accessories favored by other brands. Must investigate further.

- Listen Flavor, one of the Kera Shop Arena brands, should get a lot more love stateside. The look is pure club-ready nurave: all neon colors and plastic accessories.

- Our next special guest is Gou from Megamasso sporting Hide Rock. The fan club loses it.

- I have to get some lunch now or I'm going to die.

Oh What Strange Animals We Are

This is just the official heads up that I WON'T be attending the New York Anime Fest this weekend. I know they have me as being there in the program and such, but it just 'aint happening. So there.

Heiwa Bros

Crows crows crows screaming and cawking greeting sunny Musashi Koganei morning. I’m here on the floor of the new apartment, hereby christened Draft Two, feeling like part of me is still on some airplane shifting around, trying to fight turbulence with some of my own. We’re next to an elementary school, it seems, one where they play Imagine by Some Old Dead White Guy every day on the dot at 5pm, which will take getting used to. Google-mapping my conbini and crow’s nest options while a plushy of Gatchapin dressed as one of the Black Birds hangs from a curtain rod starring out into rising sun. Jet lag, hungry for dinner/breakfast, wanting to savor being on the ground before the wars begin. First salvo, as always, at Narita Immigration. Lines of red faced hakujin in cowboy hats, Asian exiles in barely-jeans who refuse to, or can’t figure out, how to fill out both sides of the entry form, that jrock guy from SFO with a patch that reads “Shock” sewn into his hoodie. A detail missed from before: he has a cloth English schoolboy’s book bag slung over his shoulder, customized with a patch depicting geisha and samurai and Mt. Fuji. I am not making this up. Nor the rickety wooden Suggestion Box that rests in a part of passport control that would be impossible to actually get to without being clubbed to death by agents of G.O.D., which gives the place an air of a roadside motel or a really ironic twist on jail.

They take one look at my passport, and as has always been the case since 2006, they need to put me in the “special room” for interrogation (a legacy of the Battle of Shinagawa). This is the real suggestion box, the real shit right here, with classic deportation slogans liked GO FUCK keyed into the walls and similar sentiments in Korean and Tagalong. They usually play nice and always let me through, but I’m usually required to do a bit of a song and dance to pass the audition. But this time, the migra obasan takes one look at me and says, “Oh, I think I remember you from Eigo De Shabera Night” and I’m out in seconds with a new world record presumably set free to dance in the streets of Akiba to celebrate the new era of Rozen Asao with the maids.

Alleria USA

The third airport in 24 hours. Boarding gate six. J-rock white kid nearby in kanji hoodie and designer jeans. Indian families. Korean dude hunched over laptop playing avi. action film. Not much time to unpack from AWA. "Fear the Gooberzilla" pen scribbling in the forms at check-in. Guy next to me trying to make the most out of mediocre sandwich. Hoodie kid pacing now, pursing his lips, and twitching his fingers like he's playing guitar or Rock Band. I guess we're supposed to get out of here now...

Aladdin the Second - The Sun Will Rise Again

I was feeling done in. Couldn't win. I don't have a plasma TV and probably never will now that the economy is fucked. Then Aladdin the Second, a super group comprised of the admittedly dumbest panelists from the TV show Quiz Hexagon, went and set the record straight. Japan is where the party is at. Japan invented instant ramen. Japan invented karaoke. The bullet train, etc. all. Fuck you, recession. THE SUN WILL RISE AGAIN!

Unless it won't. In that case, I'm blaming you. And you. And you. But in the meantime...GAMBARRE NIPPON! Aladdin the Second cheers up the nation's OL and salarymen, they do!

Harajuku Unlimited Generation vol. 3: "KAWAII!"

Harajuku Unlimited Generation (AKA H.U.G.) is throwing their 3rd event on 9/23 at the Harajuku Quest Hall.

The theme is "KAWAII will save the world!...What is kawaii? What is the secret power of kawaii? What are the new possibilities of kawaii?" Artist and toy designer Noriya Takeyama will lead the discussion and finds the answers while the amazing nipponia electronica will be supplying music and video. Sebastian Matsuda of rad Harajuku store %6 DOKIDOKI is directing the event with support from Takara Tomy and Harajuku Kiddyland. Expect cameos from the Care Bears, Blythe, Rilakkuma, and other icons of kawaii.

Tickets are 500 yen in advance and 800 day of show with 20 yen from every purchase going towards children's medical charities.

Full info on the event here.

Anime Weekend Atlanta

I don't know what else to say except that I'm going to be at Anime Weekend Atlanta from 9/19-9/20 and I'm currently going out of my mind getting ready. I'll be participating in at least 4 panels and lord knows what else will go down in that part of town.

I really think this is the best anime con in the US for so many reasons and I can't wait to hang with Dave Merrill, Carl Horn, the AWO kidz, Paul Thomas Chapman, Darius Washington and the staff of the Waffle House and Paschal's at the airport.

To the best of my knowledge, this is the line-up for the panels and such...

Fri/19, 3PM, Japanese Schoolgirl Inferno, Main Events, Grand Ballroom
Sat/20, 10AM, Mondo Otaku USA, Main Events, Grand Ballroom
Sat/20, 12PM, Anime Podcast Roundtable, Special Events, Kennesaw
Sat/20, 1PM, Message From Space, Special Events, Kennesaw

Handy Dandy Pocket Program here.

I Wanna Hounyouhan

Tamori Club, 2002?

men's egg HAIRS - Price 600 Yen

Godzilla: Der allesvernmichtende Kampf der Monster-Giganten!

Kinyobi no usotsuki - Marina Watanabe

Cool Japan: Why Japanese remakes are so popular on American TV, and where we’re getting it wrong

Ok, I'm in the new issue of Asian Week alongside Alvin Lu and Lisa Katayama talking trash about your favourite Japanese-inspired game shows. Click the headline above to read.

As with the MSNBC story, feel free to come at me with filament wire or razor floss if you even slightly disagree with anything I said. I've covered the place with Claymore mines and I'm armed with Martyrdom perks and an Andrew W.K. CD.

Zero thinks it's overpriced

anime-erotic-subculture-goes-mainstream#comments

Marukin Family Cake

Isadora Sholaas gave this to me a long time ago.

Shofukucho locker key #10

MSNBC: Anime erotic subculture goes mainstream
More Americans drawn to the 'moral-free zone' of cute, sexual comics

With Lawrence Eng and Patrick 'moral-free' Macias.

Update: Ever been misquoted before?

Invader Game

The 9/16 issue of Weekly ASCII, a fine publication catering to the needs of PC and tech otaku, has a feature on overseas TV games that have yet to get a wide release in Japan. Maybe they'll come out some sunny day, maybe never ever...either way, scarcity has inspired the staff to skillfully disguise themselves as foreigners and make for the import stores of Akihabara where they shout out magic words in all-caps English (you know, just like real gaijin do).

The Gaijin Gambit actually works! The gang are soon losing weight, baggin' bucks, and hunting men with the very best of them. Now let's see if this trick works in reverse. What would you do to finally get a chance to play Capcom Vs. Tatsunoko in your neck of the woods?

YES MY SWEETEST I WANNA GET BACK WHERE YOU WERE itoshii hito yo mou ichido

Ok. I'm going to Tokyo on 9/23 for the Individual Fashion Expo IV and will stuck around for a while thereafter for some ESPY, Counter ESPY, Government of Darkness and Business and Death related skulduggery. There will probably also be some nonsense at Superfest and some DJ ESPY action at the Acid Panda Cafe. As usual, give me a jingle if something is cracking.