SPECIAL GUEST POST! What follow is some text written by the mysterious Jaytack (not me, I swear) meant as a companion piece to our friend Matt Alt's recent piece for CNNGo "Flower power protest hits downtown Tokyo: Shinjuku revelers stage a ‘hanami demonstration’ in defiance of interfering politicians". - P.M.
I met Tomohiro Machiyama (or simply “Tomo”, as we tend to call him) in 2000 in the USA. He moved here from Tokyo after making a big sensation in Japanese subcultural media.
Tomo is a movie critic and he established a magazine called “Eiga Hiho” (aka “Movie Treasures”) in 1995. Tomo was responsible for many notable events and happening while editing Eiga Hiho. Then most notorious was when he and his editors threw pies at the staff of
A rival magazine, “Kinema Junpo”, as a reply to their negative review of Eiga Hiho’s articles.
This made people viewed Tomo as both a heroic and a problematic figure. To pay the price for his actions, he left his company and moved to the US with his family in 2000.
Eiga Hiho magazine was formed as a “movie magazine for men”. Tomo said of it’s creation, “At the time, movie magazines were for woman who liked Hollywood stars or magazine written by publisher employees who actually didn’t know anything about movies. This made me mad and I decided to make a magazine for guys like us (who like cult films, action movies, B-films, horror, and such).”
Before the Internet age, people like Tomo were grouped in hardcore niche or subculture magazines or radio talk shows made for non mainstream Japanese people. Japanese subculture was hidden from the mass media.
For a long time, most “common people” consumed information via mass media such as TV, newspapers or major publisher’s magazines. And as you probably know, Japanese are known to be very “obedient” and “passive”.
Employees of Japanese major media companies are no exception. They are (or must be) loyal to the rules of the company and rules of the media industry. You cannot go against your boss, the sponsor, never against your masters -- even if you sense things are not right.
As a hard-core information junkie, I had been following these niche cultures and noticed lots of ideas and stories that were missing from the mainstream Japanese media. So, it became my hobby to dig into subculture to try and view an alternative side of Japan.
Otaku used to spend time and energy and even money to access hard-to-find music or movies. But after the Internet, such things are much more easier to discover. And those “niche” voices, which were once on the margins, are also no longer hard to find.
Recently, Tomo rose his voice again. This time, he encouraged his Twitter followers and blog readers to support one of his gang: Yoshiki Takahasi, who is Eiga Hiho’s art director, a scriptwriter, and a Japanese Satanist. Yoshiki had set up an charity fund for earthquake relief called “Devil Press Fund Raising”. Within 1 day, he reached his goal of 1,000,000 yen so he decided to extended it. People responded to Yoshiki’s message of, “I love splatter and disaster films and I am so satisfied to see them on screen. It is enough to see them only in the movies, not in the reality!”
On March 30th, Tomo replied to Yumi Toyozaki, a freelance writer and critic on Twitter who asked him to do a hanami (“cherry blossom viewing party”) in defiance of Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara – who discouraged people from celebrating cherry blossom season in the wake of the recent disaster. Tomo flew over from the USA and visited Japan within few days.
He said, “I decided to do a Hanami on 4/3 in front of Tokyo City Hall in Shinjuku. It’s called “The gathering to protest flower viewing self-restraint promotion announcement by the Governor of Tokyo, and singing of RC SUCCESSION’s ‘Summertime Blues’”.
RC SUCCESSION was a Japanese very well known band, lead by Kiyoshiro Imawano.
On August 6th, 1988 (the anniversary day of when the nuclear bomb was dropped in Japan), a cover album “Covers” that included versions of “Summertime Blues” and “Love Me Tender” with new anti-nuclear power plant lyrics was scheduled to be released. However, it was canceled by the band’s major record label because it included protest songs against the nuclear power industry. Instead, another smaller record label released it on the day of August 15th, the anniversary of the end of World War 2.
At that time, most of us (except his fans and some protesters) didn’t really care or know about Imawano’s protest songs. After the 1960s and 1970s, the heat from the student movement had cooled down, Japan lost it’s intention to check on authority or raise ideological voices. In some ways, there was no need to. Japan had been a happy, peaceful country for a long time for most people. Society and companies guaranteed your security as long as you obeyed and did not bother the people on top. Only few niche journalists dug up news concerning problems in Japanese society and made noise about it on a small scale.
But movie and music fans were attracted to (and more than a little envious of) the radical energy of the ‘60s and ‘70s, when young people had the passion to fight against the powers that be.
RC SUCCESSION’s Imawano passed away in 2009, after battling with cancer. If he was alive, he would have become 60 years old on April 2nd of this year. Hearing Tomo’s call, many Eiga Hiho and subculture writers, musicians, and movie creators had gathered along with about 300 followers for the hanami party.
Tomo called for people to bring musical instruments. And Noriwo Yamakawa, aka Guitar Panda, who used to be a guitarist of Kiyoshiro Imawano’s solo band, replied to Tomo and came from Osaka just for this event.
I was watching the live show of this event on Ustream in the USA. At the peak time, a total of 3,000 people were also watching remotely.
Tomo asked everyone to bring own flashlights, drinks and snacks with trash bags. He called for a “good manner” gathering. Someone commented at the end of the party, every one cleared up the location and the scene was free of any troubles.
For Guitar Panda’s performance, at first they were using an amplifier with a mic stand. One security guard approached them and said not to use a mic.So, he ended up performing unplugged. It seemed not to interrupted the quality of the performance. Someone said that the security guard actually ended up dancing and clapping along with the songs.
I saw Tomo overjoyed by this outcome. So many people heard his call and gathered. They celebrated Imawano’s 60th birthday while his guitarist played protest songs in front of the Tokyo Governor’s Office surrounded by beautiful cherry blossoms.
Since 3.11, I sense something began in Japan instead of ended.
- Jaytack
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