Japanese Superstitions and Mt. Fear

Although the Japanese are a very level-headed people who generally have their feet firmly planted on the ground, they can also be quite superstitious. I'll regularly encounter odd (to me) Japanese beliefs in my daily life, like the other day when my daughter found a spider in her room and my wife warned us not to kill it because it was night, and it's bad luck to kill a spider at night. Or when someone sticks their chopsticks into their rice accidentally. When I planned my trip to Aomori Prefecture, I was going to take my son to both the eastern Tsugaru Peninsula, so famous in enka songs, and the facing Shimokita Peninsula, location of Mt. Osore-zan, a terrifying volcanic place with a name that literally means Mt. Fear. This unearthly spot has been revered for more than 1000 years, a place where blind shamen tell people's fortunes and women leave offerings at a very solemn shrine to babies miscarried before they could be born. When my mother-in-law heard I was planning to go, she got really animated and made me promise not to, so fearful was she that I would bring home some evil spirit or something. I'd been to the place before and I wanted to see Hirosaki with my son too, so we opted to go there and not bother with Mt. Fear.

Osore-zan is the gateway to hell in Japan, or something like that.

Zettai Ryoiki T-Shirts @ J-List

For more than a decade, J-List has sold a line of popular T-shirts with wacky anime and kanji designs, like our best-selling "Now Accepting Applications for a Japanese Girlfriend" T-shirt, or the currently popular Haruhi "No Normal Humans" design. Today we're posting a new T-shirt that's a tribute to one of the most popular genres in anime these days, called zettai ryoiki or "the Absolute Zone," which is the 3-cm space between the top of a girl's stockings and where her skirt begins. That little patch of visible skin is an important part of the design of certain anime characters, from Rin Tosaka in Fate/Stay Night to Taiga in Toradora! and if you're a fan of this unique aesthetic design element, we invite you to check out our new T-shirt!

Silver Week

Japan is currently enjoying a second "Golden Week" holiday this year, naturally called "Silver Week," thanks to three holidays -- Respect for the Aged Day, the Autumnal Equinox and a free-floating holiday that kicks in whenever holidays appear on either side of a normal work day -- arriving in the same week. It's a rare treat for the country that has many hoping the extra leisure time will deliver an economic shot in the arm for hotels and similar industries. So far, many Japanese do seem to be taking advantage of the opportunity to get some quality relaxing time in, which in the Tokyo area means the usual packed roads and trains as everyone tries to leave then return at the same time. Since today is Respect for the Aged Day, my kids are going to make a special dinner for Ojiichan and Obaachan (grandfather and grandmother).

Yay -- another Golden Week-style traffic jam out, then back, into Tokyo.

The Art of Apologizing in Japan

One thing about Japan: they are really are good at apologizing and showing reflection when they've done something wrong. When Alico Japan accidentally leaked sensitive customer data, they ran TV ads during prime time apologizing directly to their customers in the deepest possible way. Similarly, a big part of the reason SMAP member Kusanagi was able to return to work after his arrest for public nudity was that he showed true reflection to his fans over the embarrassment he'd caused everyone. But when actress/singer Noriko Sakai was released from prison last week after her arrest for stimulant use, she was criticized because she didn't look like she was truly sorry for her crimes, appearing in public wearing fashionable clothes and expertly-applied make-up rather than fitting the image of a repentant star who had made a mistake that everyone expected. "She's an actress, performing in a drama about a women who was arrested," one commentator said, "I thought she was going to sing for us, not issue a public apology." I'm a big fan of Noripi and hope she gets back on her feet after this unpleasantness.

Apologizing is a highly developed art form in Japan.

RIP Crayon Shinchan Creator Yoshito Usui

Tragedy has struck the manga world with the sad loss of Yoshito Usui, who died after falling a terrifying 300 feet off a cliff while hiking in the mountains in my home prefecture of Gunma. Usui is the creator of Crayon Shin-chan, the spirited kindergartner who is often called the Bart Simpson of Japan, and the manga-ka created comics featuring his trademark characters every month since 1990. Combining sharp-witted humor and interesting social commentary from the point-of-view of a five-year-old, Crayon Shin-chan won fans all over the world, from India and China to Spain and the Netherlands as well as the U.S. While I've enjoyed reading the series over the years, Crayon Shin-chan can be a challenge for parents, since kids love to copy his bad behavior, exposing their butts and calling their mothers by their first names, or asking embarrassing questions like, "Why does the box of tissues in Mom and Dad's room run out faster than in any other room in the house?" Mr. Usui's cause of death is not yet known. Although there was no suicide note or any direct evidence to believe the artist wanted to die, some of the themes in his manga had been causing some to wonder about his mental state, for example a story he drew in 2007 in which the fiancee of the teacher Ume Matsuzaka was killed in a terrorist act while overseas, forcing Matsuzaka to contemplate suicide herself.

The creator of Crayon Shin-chan will be missed by his many fans.

The Golden Rule of Japanese Society

If there's a Golden Rule to Japanese society, it's this: don't cause meiwaku (may-wah-ku), meaning inconvenience or bother, to others. Whether it's trying to keep from making too much noise and annoying your neighbors or avoiding using a cell phone on a crowded train, most Japanese do strive to avoid bothering others, which is something I really like about the country. Sometimes, of course, it can be difficult to keep from causing inconvenience, a fact I learned when I took the overnight bus to Aomori. As soon as the bus pulled out, the lights were switched off completely, and to my amazement everyone in the bus seemed to curl up and go to sleep. I certainly didn't want to destroy the wa around me by switching on my little light and getting some work done on my Macbook, but I wasn't about to go to sleep that early.

You've never had stress until you tried to make no sound and emit no light for 12 hours.

Other Stuff: Onigiri & Conventions

Onigiri (also called omusubi) are the "soul food" of Japan, rice balls that are eaten almost daily here, very similar to sandwiches in the West. Usually triangle shaped, they can in fact come in just about any shape you like, and the staff of J-List loves to find fun items that help you make, say, Pikachu or Hello Kitty shaped rice balls. Why not browse our selection of fun onigiri products now?

J-List will be attending the first-annual Long Beach Comic Con, a new convention that looks like it's going to be loads of fun, from the first-ever appearance of Berkeley Breathed to the Robot Chicken staff, plus (heh). Our staff be in booth 117, so if you're going to be at the show, come say hi!

Japan's General Motors: JAL

The General Motors of Japan, meaning the company that's come to represent the recession more than any other, is Japan Airlines (JAL), currently struggling with a massive debt and lagging operations as the weak economy keeps people from flying. Because the company is partially state-owned, it's going to prove a headache for the new government, although the newly appointed transport minister has already said that bankruptcy will not be considered. JAL certainly is a nice airline, and I like flying with them whenever I get the chance, but I'm pretty sure they have a ways to go when it comes to improving efficiency. When we flew down from Aomori to Tokyo we used JAL, and in the airport I happened to see two flight attendants standing in the lobby, holding little signs that advertised the benefits of signing up for a JAL frequent flyer card. Paying people to stand around and hold signs isn't that rare in Japan -- one of my wife's first jobs standing in the background at events holding a "no smoking" sign and smiling -- but the idea of these highly trained professional women being paid to do absolutely nothing seemed to speak volumes about the company. A decade ago Nissan had a similar problem, an odd psychological resistance to eliminating jobs that couldn't be supported by their business, and it took outside help in the form of Brazillian-French-Lebanese Carlos Ghosn to turn things around.

Struggling JAL is the poster-child of the recession in Japan.

Takarazuka: Girls Who Look Like Boys

It seems that every time I notice a really attractive Japanese actress on TV, like the talented Hitomi Kuroki, my wife tells me, "Yes, she was a Takarazuka performer, that's why she has a kind of power about her." Takarazuka is an all-female theatre troupe founded in 1914 that's kind of the female answer to Kabuki, the all-male theatre tradition that dates back to the Edo Period. In Takarazuka, all the performances are done by women, and the skill with which the male roles are performed is really amazing to see. Just as Kabuki deals with Japanese stories, Takarazuka gets its inspiration from the West, performing stories like Gone with the Wind, Casablanca and to the Rose of Versailles -- there's even a stage version of the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney game ("Objection!"). To be a Takarazuka performer is a hard life, and those who succeed seem to have an aura of poise and grace around them, often going on to enjoy amazing careers. Another former Takarazuka being talked about these days is Miyuki Hatoyama, the wife of the new Prime Minister. (Yes, the one who insists she flew to Venus in a UFO.)

I'm fascinated by the enigmatic women of Takarazuka.

Additional Info on Tolls

I got some feedback on the free road post from a reader and thought I'd throw out some more information for any who are interested.

Basically, everyone dislikes having to pay to use the freeways, of course. Spending $25 to drive down to Tokyo is no fun, and spending $150 to go all the way up to Aomori would be equally bad. One of my thoughts though is, suddenly making this stable structure obsolete raises a ton of issues. Like, do you make the roads free for everyone, or just families? Do you do it all the time, or just on weekends, as the current "go anywhere for $10 on Sat-Sun and holidays" policy works.

How about for trucks that bring goods around the country, will they drive for free? If so, how will that effect the wholesale pricing structure of every company in Japan? When Yamato (the delivery company, not the battleship) delivers Totoro plush toys to J-List, we pay shipping, obviously. But what's to stop us from demanding that Yamato halve their shipping rates since the freeways no longer cost them as much? What about the few thousand employees work work to collect the tolls now, where will they go when they have no jobs? How many vacations will be cancelled ahead of time because everyone is so worried about the traffic jams that will clog every freeway? Everyone in Japan just shelled out $120 for these little ETC readers so they could get the $10 freeway discount, but now if they make all roads free, where do we apply for a refund? These are the kinds of things being discussed in the country these days.

I'm really torn between liking and hating the new Prime Minister. On the one hand, the old LDP was a joke, unable to bring about the slightest reforms and basically unable to lead without changing PM's every year, just about. (Aside, Japan has had 12 leaders since I came here in 1991, while the U.K. has had just three.) They were extremely wasteful, tearing up roads just to create jobs, damming every river in the country, and doing things like building a Shinkansen to Hokkaido despite the fact that airplanes are clearly more efficient than trains. Yet the new DPJ are so foolish, being so anti-business that they're going to do things like set arbitrary emissions reduction targets without even asking business leaders what they think is possible. And it's hilarious how they talk about the environment while basically giving everyone a reason to drive for free.

I feel sad for Japan, since I love the country so much is such a basket case. Hope things look better soon.

Politics Update from Japan

Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) leader Yukio Hatoyama is all over the news these days as he prepares to take over administration of the government after his party's landslide victory last month, creating what will be only the third cabinet not led by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) since 1955. It may be rough going, though, and already some of the DPJs's plans are facing difficulty, such as the proposal to make all of Japan's freeways "free." The idea is getting little support from local governments who depend on the income from tolls to build roads, and also from green-minded politicians who point out that encouraging people to drive more than they do will increase carbon emissions. Although Hatoyama has positioned his party as a down-to-Earth group focused on protecting the average voter, even going so far as to refuse to work with a well-known business organization (Keidanren) to avoid its influencing his government, he's not exactly the Japanese version of Joe Six-Pack. His party criticized the LDP for its dynasties of politicians -- all three of Japan's last three prime ministers are sons or grandsons of former prime ministers, a concept referred to as "thoroughbred" here -- yet Hatoyama is no different there, as his grandfather held the job back in the 1950s. I just hope Japan can get some actual leadership this time, since that's what Japan seems to be lacking in more than anything.

Japan might make its freeways truly "free," but what repercussions would there be?

Long and Short Vowels in Japanese

What a difference an elongated vowel can make. Japanese is quite different from English, having had a totally unique developmental history -- it's supposedly related to Mongolian, Basque, Turkish and possibly Hungarian, don't ask me how -- and it sport linguistic concepts that are strange to English speakers at first. One is a strong differentiation between short vowels (like the o in ocha) and long vowels (the first syllable of tofu, the second syllable of Shirow's name). If you've ever wondered why someone whose last name is Sato writes it as Satoh or Satou, it's because he's trying to express the longer second syllable as accurately as he can, even though it might not make any different to how we pronounce his name in English. Sometimes these vowels can cause transliteration issues. For example, shoujo (with a long vowel) means "girl," while shojo (short vowel) means something else entirely (a girl who is still, ahem, pure). Which spelling is correct? It can be hard to say. Accuracy can only be taken so far -- otherwise we'd be wearing Doumo-kun T-shirts and listing Japan's capital as Toukyou.

Doumo attack...?!

Harajuku for Old Folks: Sugamo

The combination of one of the lowest birthrates in the world coupled with the lack of an inflow of new blood in the form of immigration threatens to start taking its toll in Japanese society, and already you can see signs of the country's graying. Like the time I went to go to a toy store that I'd been to many times, only to find that it had gone out of business and been replaced by a store selling...Buddhist altars and grave stones. (That was a shocker.) These days an area of Tokyo called Sugamo is popular with older Japanese as a place to buy products to help you live a long and healthy life, like bright red underwear, said to bring good luck and good health in Japan. They sell many healthy foods, like garlic miso, too-- sounds delicious. There's also a Shinto shrine where people can pray for good health and long life, and it's said if you wash a particular statue of Buddha with your own towel that part of your body will be healed. I love the tag line for Sugamo: they bill themselves as the toshiyori no Harajuku, or Harajuku for older people.

Red underwear is considered lucky by older Japanese.

Japan and England

Being an American in Japan has been a good opportunity to learn more about...England. Yes, Japan has always had a special affinity for the British Isles, and some aspects of Japan that can seem strange to us Yanks actually come from Great Britain. When I got to Japan I wondered at the way some trains were called nobori ("climbing") while others were kudari ("descending"), and after a while I figured out that it referred to whether the train was going in the direction of Tokyo or not, which was likely borrowed from England back in the day. Some other U.K.-derived cultural elements include a British-style teatime in the afternoon and the idea of eating "Christmas cake" during the holidays. In addition to driving on the left-hand side of the road, the Japanese have imported words like "bonnet" (the hood of a car) and "saloon" (for a sedan), plus other terms like dustbox and, er, water closet (W.C.). Like the British, the Japanese use the word "pants" to mean underwear, which of course comes through as pantsu in anime. This can be potentially embarrassing for people who use the word a general term for trousers.

A British train table from 1850, showing "up" and "down" trains just like in Japan.

Learning to "Think" in Japanese

I try to promote study of Japanese on J-List because it's been such a satisfying journey for me. One challenge for anyone learning a new language is the elusive goal of "thinking" in that language, of having ideas and expressing emotions without your brain using its native tongue first and converting those thoughts into the target language. One feature of the Japanese people is that they usually dislike making errors, and many of my students would spent a few seconds "pre-caching" what they were going to say before speaking, which can really drag the conversation down. In my own case, I found wrapping my brain around Japanese grammar difficult at first, until I learned to treat sentences like mathematical equations, memorizing, say, watashi wa ko-hi ga suki desu (as for coffee, I like it), then practicing swapping out the subject and object until I could use that one sentence type to express a lot of ideas without thinking about it. I never fretted about making mistakes in front of others, and I'm sure the Japanese members of the Japan-America Friendship Club at SDSU were quite entertained by me.

Thinking in a foreign language is really not as difficult as it seems at first.

Ohaguro: Black Teeth in Japan

Perhaps it's because I come from a country without a very long history, but I really love walking in old places like Kyoto, strolling down streets that have been used for 1500 years or more. You can almost see the beautiful women of the Edo Period and earlier, wearing elegant kimono and flashing a smile complete with black teeth. Black teeth? Yes, it's true: for much of Japan's history women had a strange custom of applying black makeup to the teeth to stain them. Called ohaguro, the custom was associated with married women and was done because black things were considered especially beautiful. Based on archeological evidence from Japanese burial mounds historians know that the practice of dying teeth existed in prehistoric times, and it shows up in the famous Tale of Genji and the ukiyoe art of the Edo Period. If you think it sounds a little terrifying, you're not alone: there's a classic Japanese ghost story about a specter (yokai) called Ohaguro-bettari, who haunts old shrines while wearing a bridal kimono and smiling with a mouth full of blackened teeth. Kowai! (Scary!)

In days of old, married women would paint their teeth black.

Differences Between Tokyo and Gunma

I took a trip down to Tokyo yesterday for a meeting with a company about some dating-sim games. As usual, it was nice to get down to the city and feel the urban chaos all around me, and engage in one of my favorite activities, people watching. Whenever you go from my home prefecture of Gunma into Tokyo -- a 100 km journey which takes about 45 minutes on the fast Shinkansen train -- you notice a few differences. First of all, everything in Tokyo is smaller and more cramped, and even the tables in Starbucks are about 40% narrower than what I'm used to. People in Tokyo are much more fashionable, of course, and walking around Shibuya is like being transported into an issue of FRUiTs or Kera, and it can be hard not to openly gawk at all the hip people who pass you on the street. Tokyo is an interesting city to compare with other world capitals -- for one thing, although it holds 12 million people, it's one of the cleanest cities in the world. Although Tokyo does have its attraction, it can be quite a tiring place to spend the day, and I'm usually glad to take the train back home, where the population density is much less than 5500 people per square km.

Tokyo is the center of fashion and culture in Japan. But then you knew this already.

Seasonal Japan and Autumn-Limited Beer

Perhaps it's because I'm from San Diego, where the only two seasons are "nice" and "slightly less nice," but I never thought that much about the four seasons before coming to Japan. All of that went out the window when I got here and suddenly found my life changing a little bit each month as the calendar marched forward. Japan is a very seasonal place, and there are strong customs defining what should be done at each time of year -- for example, cold noodles are great in the summer, and once summer is over suddenly no one eats them anymore. It's part of the Japanese psyche that they look strangely at anyone who isn't perfectly in sync with this invisible seasonal timetable. For example, once I decided to go down to the famous Shonan Beach near Yokohama to check it out, but there was one problem: I was planning my trip during the first week of September. This caused everyone I knew to warn me about how dangerous it was to go to the seaside, and how typhoons could easily sweep me out to sea ...despite the fact that it was only a few days after the end of August. Right now, everyone is getting into "Autumn mode," ready to enjoy delicious matsutake mushrooms and the tinting of the leaves on the trees while drinking the limited Aki-Aji ("Taste of Autumn") beer from Kirin.

Autumn is time for appreciating the golden leaves while drinking Kirin Aki-Aji beer.

Fun Japanese Vocabulary Words: Sukkiri Shita and Beyond

The other day my wife gave me a haircut, since she insists that the place I usually go to -- the barber shop located inside an onsen near my house, surely one of the greatest achievements known to man -- makes it too short. When she was done giving me a trim, I shook my head and said, "Sukkiri shita!" (pronounced soo-KEE-REE shta, with a tiny pause after the first syllable and a final syllable that sounds like a cross between dee and ree), which meant, "I feel really refreshed [to have my long hair cut off]!" Sukkiri is one of an extensive group of commonly-used short adjectives that are loaded with information, and they're fun to study because they're so different from anything we have in English. Some others are bikkuri (bi-KOO-ree), meaning "I was so surprised"; sokkuri (so-KOO-ree), said when two people look exactly the same, pittari (pee-TAH-ree), said when something fits extremely well, e.g. that jacket fits you to a "T"; and yappari (ya-PAH-ree), meaning "on second thought" or "just as I suspected." Some of these words are already known to some fans of Japan, like pokkari (po-KAH-ree, "to float in the air like a cloud") which is where Pocari Sweat gets its name from, and yukkuri (yu-KOO-ree), from the famous Touhou "Take it Easy!" meme.

Let me tell you, washing off freshly cut hair in hot springs is to die for.

Bento Article at New York Times = Awesomeness

Big shout out to the New York Times, who wrote an interesting article about Japanese bento culture (registration required) mentioning us, and our friend Maki over at JustBento.com. Bento, which J-List is proud to off to the world, is a fun way to enjoy a delicious and beautiful lunch. In addition to being much more economical than eating out, bento is healthier because it features "built in portion control." Seeing my wife make bento for my daughter, I can say that bento can bring families closer together, too. You can view the best-selling bento boxes on J-List with this link, browse the most popular bento and onigiri accessories here, or view all the bento products we sell here.

The #1 bento box at J-List right, the classic Hello Kitty Wagara Traditional Bento Set.

Japan [hearts] The Beatles

It's hard to over-estimate the cultural impact the Beatles have had on Japan, and over the decades many a student of English has learned the language by translating and analyzing Beatles song lyrics. This is true of Tomo, the J-List employee who keeps our site stocked with interesting DVDs and Hello Kitty shoulder massagers. When he came to work here ten years ago, I'm sure he never expected to meet an American quite like me, who had embraced Japanese popular culture to learn about Japan just as he had done the opposite to learn about American and Europe. One day we were talking about the classic 1972 song "Alone Again (Naturally)" by Gilbert O'Sullivan, which a former student of mine had ironically played at her wedding, clearly not understanding the words of the song. For some reason I'd been sure that the song had been sung by the Beatles, and I'll never forget the look of utter shock on his face that an American could get a fact like that wrong -- it was quite a surprise for him. Tomo was tickled to receive his copy of the Beatles Box Set of remastered discs today, which he got a day earlier than the rest of the world thanks to Japan being a day ahead. He picked up the "stereo" version, but also plans to get the "mono" version -- a total outlay of $700!

As Peter proves once again that his favorite anime is K-On, and he can't use any other anime for a web graphic.

Nosebleeds in Anime

When you start to watch anime, you naturally encounter some concepts that may seem strange at first. Like those giant, emotion-filled eyes, the way a character will get a huge sweat drop on their head to show they're frustrated, or the strange phenomenon of sneezes being caused by people gossiping about you. As you watch, you learn some of the more subtle nuances, like the concepts of senpai and kohai I talked about last time, or the way certain characters will become enamored of someone of the same sex in an extremely dramatic and/or entertaining way without warning. Another odd concept that took me a while to figure out were the nosebleeds that happened whenever a character (usually male) suddenly sees a female in a provocative situation. The joke, which has its origins in gag manga from the 1960s like Dokonjo Gaeru and Inakappe Taisho, is a euphemism for blood flow to another region of the body entirely, and it's a fun way to express the concept on-screen. Today, the anime nosebleed has come to be a meme all by itself -- there are even anime/manga in which nosebleeds are a central part of the story.

What weird anime thing confused you at first?

The anime nosebleed took me a while to get used to.

Taxes in Japan

I got a question about how taxes work in Japan the other day from a Twitter follower, so I thought I'd write about that. By and large, Japan models its tax system on that of the United States, and the details of how taxes are declared and collected are quite similar between the two countries, as are the tax rates. Some differences do exist, however. For example, when J-List pays the salaries of our employees, the equivalent of Social Security (the National Pension System) is not automatically deducted but must be paid by the individual manually. Although everyone who isn't enrolled in the similar Welfare Pension System (for employees of larger companies) is required to make National Pension payments, many young people don't bother since the consensus is that the system won't be worth much when it comes time for them to retire. Another difference is how taxes must be pre-deducted when making some payments to individuals. For example, if we were going to pay a designer to create a spiffy T-shirt for our site, we'd have to withhold 10% of his payment and send it to the National Tax Office on his behalf, something that's not done in the U.S. The consumption tax in Japan is a reasonable 5%, and since the tax is always hidden in the displayed price, no one thinks about it much.

Taxes in Japan are similar to the U.S., with a few differences.

Japanese Test English

The other day my son took a standardized test to measure his academic ability compared with other students in Japan. While he aced the math and science sections, his English test result was a surprising 86%. How could a boy whose English is so good he can watch any movie without subtitles and appreciate the subtle humor of Monty Python have gotten anything but an A? It turns out that in Japan, "test English" is a unique subject unto itself, completely separate from the living language used to communicate ideas to people, and when students translate a sentence from English into Japanese they need to follow certain forms to show they understand the underlying grammar. For example, there are different ways to translate "I will study tomorrow" and "I'm going to study tomorrow," although the two concepts are pretty much the same, and not knowing how to do this hurt my son's score. Now that he's starting juken hell, preparing for his high school entrance exams, I'm sure he'll have questions about the correct use of English grammar that I won't be able to answer to his satisfaction. For example, the Japanese spend a lot of time learning the proper use of the pronoun "whom," yet at least in my dialect of English (West Coast United States), it's a totally dead word, only used in certain specific situations (e.g. "To whom it may concern").

Japanese test English is quite unrelated to the living language you or I use.

Internet-Influenced Advertising in Japan

It's interesting to see how the Internet continues to change the world we live in. In Japan, it's common for print advertisements and TV commercials to present viewers with a computer search box suggesting a keyword they might use to find the company's website later, a practice called uebu yudo or "web guidance" in the advertising industry here. I guess there's something "organic" about customers doing a search for a product themselves compared with typing a URL in manually or clicking a link, though since so many companies are employing this technique, I have to wonder how effective it is. Another variation: ads that present an interesting story then end with the phrase, "To see the rest, visit our website," like the SoftBank commercial in which the cute dog Otosan saves a girl from being hit by a piano, after which viewers must access the company's website to see if the dog was killed by the piano or not. Recently I noticed another new change leaking from the net into realspace: right-to-left scrolling comments, the kind seen on Nico Douga, Japan's local answer to YouTube. In Nico videos, users can type in comments (like "Nice Boat") which will scroll by while other people watch the video, a visual annoyance to some yet an interesting way to feel like you're contributing to the wider shared popular culture. I caught a variety show adding these scrolling comments to video it was showing in an attempt to make its program more interesting to web-savvy viewers. Could this be the next big mega-trend from Japan?

Could Nico Video-style scrolling comments be the Next Big Thing?

Senpai and Kohai in Japan

I write a lot about the Japanese concepts of senpai, an upperclassman in a school or a senior in an organization, and kohai, the opposite, and how important these concepts are for understanding the country. Foreigners in Japan unconsciously pick up on the senior/junior system, too, and try to help newly arrived visitors get their "gaijin legs" as quickly as possible, just as they were helped by others when they got here. Back when I was an English teacher, a friend of mine and I took a newly-arrived teacher at our school out for drinks so we could get to know him. I suddenly realized the situation we were in, and said to my friend (in Japanese, so the new teacher wouldn't understand), "You and I are the senpai here. We have to pay for these drinks." He nodded, aware of the social obligation of our situation, and the two of us picked up the tab over the protests of the new guy. The role of a senpai is a complex one: you get extra respect, but you must act as a mentor and help those under you.

What was your first senpai anime? I'd have to go with the classic Orange Road.

Innovation and Recession

It's interesting to see the way economic hard times bring out new innovation in people and companies. I read a news report that the convenience store chain Lawson was going to join forces with a popular line of drug stores to allow customers to buy medicine more conveniently. There are many laws that govern how medicine is sold in Japan, and even "over the counter" medicines can only be carried in stores that employs a licensed pharmacist to give advice about this product or that. Under the new plan, there'll be a pharmacist on site at your local convenience store, ready to help answer questions and give basic medical advice -- maybe it will catch on and be the Next Big Thing in convenience stores. I've been through so many economic downturns here in Japan that I'm convinced that Japanese companies are unable to discard their business-as-usual attitudes and innovate at any other time.

Lawson is "Your Town's 'Hot Station.'"

Pop Stars and Jidai-geki

The other day I turned on my TV and was greeted with an unexpected sight: popular SMAP singer and "talent" Tsuyoshi Kusanagi -- yes, the guy who got arrested for public nudity in a Tokyo park at 3 am a few months ago -- dressed up in full samurai armor as he promoted his new film. Jidai-geki, or samurai period dramas, are a big part of popular culture in Japan, and there are several quality historical dramas on every week, such as the ongoing adventures of Mito Komon, a traveling cloth merchant who is secretly an agent of the Shogun, and who pulls out his official Tokugawa crest exactly at 8:46 in every episode since the series began in 1969. Virtually every major actor or actress comes to a point in their career when they'll be called on to perform in one of these historical dramas, and it's quite interesting to see how stars like Gackt will translate historical personas into their own style on camera. One interesting subset of the jidai geki genre is the "time traveling samurai drama," such as the Sengoku Jieitai movies in which Japan's modern military is conveniently transported back to the country's "Warring States" period where they have a chance to change history with their advanced weapons. In Kusanagi's new film, he plays a warlord who is visited by a Japanese boy who has accidentally time-slipped into the past from modern-day Japan. (Hmm, that sounds kind of familiar.)

Scenes from the upcoming time-slip samurai drama Ballad, said to be the "Titanic" of Japan.

Hamburg Steak, the Other Red Meat

Before I came to Japan I had many preconceptions about the place. For example, I expected everything to be sleek and modern, yet in reality the country is both technologically advanced and very old-fashioned, with gleaming glass buildings standing next to delapidated old homes made of corrugated tin, and women pecking away on cell phones while wearing a traditional kimono. For some reason, I also assumed the Japanese would not eat meat very often since it surely must cost too much. In reality, one of the cornerstones of the Japanese diet is the "hamburg steak" (e.g. Salsbury steak), made from hamburger (no, not that kind), seasoned bread crumbs and sliced vegetables, and whether it's covered with a French demi-glace or a Japanese-style sauce made from grated radish, it's a delicious and affordable meal for families. The name is quite interesting by the way: to the Japanese, a "hamburg" steak is made from hamburger meat and lacks bread around it, while a "frankfurt" is a frankfurter eaten alone, without a hot dog bun around it. If you're interested in learning to make Japanese home-style dishes, J-List happens to have a large number of bilingual recipe books in stock -- browse them now!

I swear, I am not going to write about food anymore -- I'm starving now!

Hamburg steak is a popular dish in Japan, and great with steamed white rice.

Moero Downhill Night Golden Master!

If you're a fan of PC dating-sim games from Japan, we've got a treat for you: the awesome Moero Downhill Night has been declared "Golden Master" and is on its way to the factory to be duplicated. An innovative game that blends Initial D-style "drift" racing, fast cars and super-cute girls, you play Daichi, an average Japanese youth who finds himself in the role of a legendary racing navigator who can guide any driver to victory. In order to win the hearts of the beautiful girls as you race, you'll need to bring them across the finish line first. Features beautiful 3D animated racing scenes made by the staff of Initial D! The first game in the trilogy will be released soon, but you can still preorder it for free shipping when it's ready in a few weeks. We're happy to let everyone know that the Moero Downhill Night official website is up and ready for you to check out the characters.

Cute Characters in Japan: Commodore Perry??

Japan certainly is a country that's in touch with its "inner cute," and it's amazing how easily boring products can be turned into adorable objets d'art, like these everyday household items we sell on J-List. For reasons that are unfathomable to me, it's common for cities or organizations to create "mascot characters" to represent themselves, and when I took my trip to northern Japan I knew I'd encounter a few of these cute creations. Commodore Perry is the man who forced Japan to end its isolationaist policies and trade with the West, and since he's very popular in Japan I wasn't surprised to see a cute-ified version of him in Hakodate -- of course named Perry-kun -- and I couldn't resist buying little cookies with his face as a gift for the J-List staff. They had also transformed the historical character of Toshizo Hijikata, who founded the famous Shinsengumi samurai brigade which fought on the side of the Tokugawa Shogunate during the Meiji Restoration and died at the Battle of Hakodate in 1868, into a similarly cuddly mascot to promote the city and its local products.

There's nothing that can't be made kawaii in Japan.

All About Japanese Toilets

For whaever reason, Japanese toilets seem to hold a special fascination for us gajin. Whether it's the convenience of toilet seats that wash and dry your butt for you while emitting negatively charged ions and playing music via a dedicated SD card slot, or the cultural challenge of using a traditional Japanese-style seatless toilet without falling in, Japan's porcelain altars never disappoint. Japanese toilets can even save you from the embarrassment of others hearing the various bodily sounds you make when you use them, thanks to a device known as an Oto-hime (a play on the name of a princess from a famous Chinese fairy tale with the characters rearranged to mean "Sound Princess"), which is an electronic box that makes chirping noises or white noise when a toilet is being used. I noticed that a smart iPhone developer has brought this concept into the 21st century, with OtoKun (iTunes store link), a .99 cent software application that makes these noises for you. I'm sure the person will sell a ton of copies here in Japan.

Japanese toilets are the most advanced in the world.

Japanese Coverage of the Election

The fallout from the Japanese election continues, with many hours of TV coverage dedidated to discussing the various issues related to the change of ruling party. As always, I'm impressed with how open Japan's media is about discussing topics in public forums, without a lot of emotional self-serving and posturing that can often be seen on American news. In one live news show I saw, Secretary General Katsuya Okada of the newly elected Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) was talking about his party's stance on various issues with a panel of various experts. The interesting thing was, the topics they were going over were being pulled in live from emails and faxes that viewers were sending in live, not pre-scripted ahead of time as you'd expect. Thus many thoughtful questions were brought out into the open, like, if the DPJ is going to give extra financial support to families with children, what about married couples who are trying but are unable to get pregant? Or, what is the official policy on yutori kyoiku, the policy of "easy does it" education that's being pushed by teachers' unions yet which caused a sharp reduction in test scores by Japanese children compared to other Asian countries. Another show I like to watch is "If I Were Prime Minister..." in which the comedy team Bakusho Mondai have hard-hitting discussions with real politicians, talking about usually tabboo subjects like, should Japan arm itself with nuclear weapons in response to the threats from North Korea. In short, the level of professionalism and open political discussion I see on Japanese TV seems to be to be quite good, and it'd be nice for some of the ideas in use here to be imported back to America.

I have no ides what they mean by Ion! but this picture is cool, so I'm posting it.

Pictures from Aomori and Hokkaido, if you want them

Yes, I am finally getting around to posting my pictures from my trip to frozen (well, slightly cool) northern Japan. Enjoy, if you like. All pictures should be clickable so you can get the large versions.

Well, it was time for our trip to northern Japan, a trip I've always wanted to take with my son. Since he was going to be a jukensei or test student, studying for his high school entrance test, it was now or never. High schools are not required as in the U.S. and there's competition to get into good high schools.

We took an overnight highway bus up to save time, since driving the 9 hours up Japan would have left little time to do actual stuff while there. Here's the world famous gaijin in Japan with his laptop, cookies and some chu-hai, computing during the drive up via his iPhone with the 3.0 tethering hack. I was having loads of fun in that bus, let me tell you.

Arrived in Aomori City too early to do anything useful. Even McDonald's was closed. Here's the Prefectural Office of Aomori that we decided to check out.

They have Japan's most pathetic Animate branch, a tiny shop on the 4th floor of a building.

Aomori is a slightly more rural area than Gunma, although the city itself is larger than our city of Isesaki. Here's a roadside stand selling scarecrows, something I've never seen before.

Have I mentioned that I love Japan? Always something to entertain you. Happy drug!

Driving around in a rented Mazda Demio around the tip of northern Tsugaru, the penninsula on the left of the prefecture. Incidentally, the penninsula on the right is called Shimokita, and there's supposedly a lot of rivalry between from the two people, or so enka singers on TV say.

This is Hirosaki Castle, a beautiful castle in Aomori. Although it started out as a small castle town, it's grown to a very large city. Interesting to see the mix of modern and very old in Japan.

We took the ferry across the Tsugaru Straights, the scene of so many enka songs. The most famous of these songs is Tsugaru Kaikyo Fuyu-geshiki or Winter View of Tsugaru Straights. Another really famous song is Kaikyo sung by the famous Yoshi Ikuzo, whose hometown we visited while in Aomori.

Now that we were in Hakodate, Hokkaido, we had to enjoy some real sushi. We found a great kaiten-zushi (conveyor belt sushi) place that was fabulous.

This being a Japanese city, it must have a tower, since everyone knows Japanese cities all need towers. This was near a star-shaped former fortress that played a historical role in the formation of modern Japan at the beginning of the Meiji Era. This is my son, who was trying to take in all the Meiji Era history I was throwing at him.

The fort as seen from inside the tower. It was pretty amazing, as far as 150 year old Japanese forts go.

This is Perori-kun, a cutified version of Admiral Perry, who visited Hakodate as one of the Japanese cities that were to be opened by treaty.

Hakodate is a really nice city if you like San Francisco. The two were clearly founded near each other and have the same kind of feel.

Awesome Hokkaido sunset is awesome. We were freezing up there while we waited for the sun to set.

This is the "Million Dollar View" as seen from the restaurant up on Hakodate-san. Incidentally, they could have charged an arm and a leg for the the food here, but it was very reasonable -- $13 for curry with pork cutlet, $5 for beer. Japan is amazing that way. The food was even outstanding.

The view, after dark. It was breathtaking, and there were hundreds of people there snapping photos.

The day we were to leave we woke up and took in the asa-ichi or morning fish market. I had tuna bowl and beer for breakfast and my son had crab bowl.

This is the Seikan Tunnel, and the Tappi Undersea Station. While I expected a normal station with little shops, the reality was slightly less fun, since the station is really there for evacuation in case of a fire or other disaster.

We walked and walked through these tunnels. It was interesting, and a little clausotropobic. I was sure I was being crushed by the weight of the air around me, but they said it was about the same pressure as on the surface.

The sign for Tappi Kaitei Station is quite famous. I gather densha otaku types make their way down here, since that's what I'd do if I were a train otaku.

Mm, want some Nazi Beer from Hokkaido? Actually this mark denotes Buddhist temples and has nothing to do with the Nazis. Just another one of those little curve balls that Japan throws at you.

Last picture. This was me and my son, and two girls who happened to ask us to take their picture at the top of Mt. Hakodate. We were like, what are the chances of the two girls we met on this mountain taking the Tappi tour with us, hundreds of miles away? Japan and coincidences go hand-in-hand for some reason. Like me learning Japanese from the Touch baseball manga, then happening to come to live in the city Adachi Mitsuru was born in, and marry a woman from here who shares the artist's fricking birthday.

Well that's all -- hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Our Hokkaido Adventure, Continued

My son and I are safely back home after our great adventure in northern Japan. On Saturday we did more sightseeing, of course visiting Mt. Hakodate to take in the famous night view and hitting the fish market the next morning. Then it was time to head for home, so we crossed back to Aomori using the Seikan Tunnel, taking a special train that stopped at the Tappi Undersea Station so we could take a tour of the only train station located 140 meters below sea level. Completed in 1988, the Seikan Tunnel is the longest and deepest in the world, spanning 53 km (33 miles) from end to end. The tunnel was built in response to a lack of capacity at the ferry docks that shuttled people and vehicles between the two islands, along with a series of terrible ferry accidents that claimed the lives of 1430 passengers in a single year. The tunnel was a very difficult dream to realize: it employed 1.4 million people and cost $7 billion, including 34 lives due to various accidents during construction.

Passing through the tunnel, we got to see the Shinkansen track they were laying which will eventually allow people to travel by speedy bullet train from Tokyo to Hokkaido. While I love riding these comfortable trains and appreciate that they've become an international symbol of Japan to the world, I wasn't sure how to feel about the country's eventual plan to bring its iconic high-speed trains all the way to Sapporo. Japan is a country positively addicted to construction, and while its engineering is probably the best in the world -- something I could really appreciate, walking through concrete tunnels hewn out of the ocean floor -- there's a time when not building something might be a good idea, too. Like when you've got a falling population, as Japan does, and when you have popular alternatives to rail, like the perfectly good network of domestic airlines. Already 90% of travelers heading from Tokyo to northern Japan opt to travel by air, since a 4-6 hour train journey just isn't convenient or most people, and I doubt this trend will change in the near future. I'd like to see Japan acknowledge that it's no longer a scrappy economic powerhouse and start making good decisions about the country's future based on a realistic world-view.

The night view from Hakodate is beautiful to behold.

Japan Election: My View

The Japanese election is over, and as expected, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) won a significant victory over the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) that ruled the country almost continuously since 1955. Japanese voters appear to have lost patience with the LDP and Prime Minister Aso, who managed to oversee a staggering 15% annualized drop in GDP during his tenure -- oops! There were several reasons for the DPJ's landslide. First, they had a more organized game plan, spelling out their promises to voters in their now-famous "Manifesto" (clearly modeled on the old Contract with America). Another factor was the poor relationship Prime Minister Aso had with the media, being openly combatative with them at times, which affected the coverage his party received, especially from certain news channels. And as has been pointed out on political talk shows here, another factor in the change of parties was what's known as migi ni narae, (migi ni nah-rah-eh), an old army command that literally means "copy the person on your right!" Translatable as "me, too-ism," the word describes the tendency for Japanese to suddenly decide to move as a group towards a certain goal when they perceive that others are headed that way, too. The DPJ has made certain specific promises to voters, including monthly payments of $280 per child to families with kids while ending deductions for spouses (to encourage women to get into the workforce), and making all the freeways free -- of course all without any discussion of how the revenue for these programs will be generated. It'll be interesting to see how it all plays out.

After a decisive election win, Japan's next Prime Minister will be Mr. Hatoyama.

How the Confederate States of America Helped Japan

Quick: name one way that the Confederate States of America contributed to the creation of modern Japan? Well, I'll tell you. In 1864 the Confederate government commissioned the C.S.S. Stonewall, a state-of-the-art ironclad built in France to serve as a commercial raider against Union ships. After the war ended, the ship reverted to the U.S., and was eventually sold to the new Meiji government. During a conflict known as the Boshin War, in which forces loyal to the Tokugawa Shogunate fought against the new government built around the Emperor of Japan (who they figuratively "restored" to power after centuries of being a political figurehead, an event known as the Meiji Restoration), the pro-Shogun forces fled to Hokkaido and declared the island to be the independent Republic of Ezo. After a failed attempt by the famous Shinsengumi samurai to steal control of the powerful ironclad (now renamed the Kotetsu), there was a big naval battle in which the ship acted as a veritable Death Star, laying waste to the opposing vessels while suffering no damage itself. As a result of the Naval Battle of Hakodate, the Meiji Government was victorious, and modernization of the country could continue.

The C.S.S. Stonewall played an important role in the formation of Japan as a modern nation.

Aomori and Hokkaido Update

My son and I are enjoying our trip to northern Japan. We had fun exploring Aomori, visiting the windswept beauty of the Tsugaru Peninsula on the western side of the prefecture, birthplace of enka singer Yoshi Ikuzo, who has belted out many songs about drinking sake while lamenting lost love, and one really famous song about how rural the village he came from is ("we have no traffic lights because...we have no electricity there"). Then we took in the city of Hirosaki, a beautiful castle town from the Edo Period, which was great fun to explore. While we were here, we got to experience one of the most unintelligle dialects of nihongo there is, Tsugaru-ben, which is said to be closer to French than Japanese, and I believe it. Then it was off to the ferry terminal to take a boat to Hokkaido...

Now we're in Hakodate (hah-ko-DAH-tay), a beautiful city on the southern tip of Hokkaido. While northern Honshu has been inhabited continuously since the stone age, Hokkaido itself was sparsely populated when the Meiji Era began. Japan's new government realized the island might be in danger of being seized by Russia, so in the 1870s they opened the land up to mass settlement. Perhaps as a result, many cities here such as Hakodate and Otaru have a San Francisco-esque feel to them, complete with pleasant streetcars that have been running for over a century by now. Hakodate was one of the cities visited by Admiral Perry and his famous "Black Ships" (this year is the 150th anniversary of the opening of the city's port), and the first American to be buried in Japan lies in the city's gaijin bochi (foreigners' grave yard). The city lies at the foot of Mt. Hakodate, and is famous for having one of the most beautiful night views of the world, up there with Hong Kong and Naples, according to a list someone made up. We'll be sure and check it out.

We took the ferry to Hokkaido, the home of diary products and potatoes in Japan.

Strange English Product Names

The other day I went into a store and saw an advertisement for a chair that used bags of compressed air to massage your body. What caught my eye wasn't the design of the chair, but the weird English name they'd given it: PLIM UP. It's a good example of how the Japanese love to get creative with English product names, giving birth to linguistic concepts that would never occur to native speakers since little things like grammar don't get in the way. Hence, you have a floor cleaner called Quickle Wiper, microwaved chicken with the name of Perky Bit, a map company called Mapple, a construction company that sold houses under the brand name of "Home, Homer, Homest," and the popular sports drink Pocari Sweat. It's funny how easily you can grow accustomed to some of these odd-sounding names, like the Sony Walkman, which must have sounded really weird to people when it first came out, or the Rebuild of Evangelion movies that are so awesome despite the strange name.

When you think about it, "Fate/stay night" is a pretty strange name to get used to, too.

My Trip to Aomori

Tomorrow I'm going on a bit of a vacation to northern Japan with my son, a fun trip that we're taking now since next summer he'll be a jukensei or test student, and will be doing little except for studying for his high school entrance exams. We'll be taking one of those overnight busses all the way up to Aomori Prefecture, at the top of the main Japanese island of Honshu, where we'll do some sightseeing in Hirosaki and (knowing me) find an onsen hot springs bath to take a dip in. After that we'll catch the ferry across to Hokkaido to visit one of my favorite cities, Hakodate (ha-ko-DAH-tay), checking out some cool historical sites as well as the most beautiful night view in Japan. Then we'll do something we've always wanted to do: take the train from Hokkaido back to Aomori, which goes through the Seikan Tunnel, the longest and deepest tunnel in the world. Our real goal is to visit the train station that exists under the sea, because damn, it's a train station under the sea! We just have to go there. (If you're a fan of Twitter and are so inclined, you can follow us on our journey.)

Aomori lies at the extreme end of the Tohoku (lit. "east-north") region of Japan, an area that's historically been so far from the cultural heart of the nation (Kyoto, then Edo/Tokyo) that it didn't develop at the same pace at the rest of the country. As you travel farther north, the place names start to sound funny, and the kanji characters used to write them get equally bizarre, so that a person from Tokyo will actually have to stop and ask locals how to read a certain kanji on his map. (Heh, give them a taste of what it's like to be a foreigner in Japan.) The reason for this, of course, is that northern Japan was settled by the Ainu, who were once everywhere in the region before they were pushed northward by the expanding Yamato Japanese. The Ainu possess a separate language and culture which among other things involves -- I am not making this up -- tattooing moustaches on the upper lips of their women. Which may or may not be one reason why they're not running the country these days.

Aomori Prefecture is famous for apples,Nebuta, and snow; Hirosaki is the "Kyoto of the North."

Japan [hearts] Mayonnaise

There are certain things the Japanese just seem to really like for reasons that are difficult for foreigners to understand. Like the Carpenters, whose music seems to be far more popular here than in the U.S. Or Colombo, whose crime-solving gruffness is popular enough that he can still be seen regularly on TV here. Or novels by Sydney Sheldon, who has large number of fans in Japan. Another thing the Japanese like a lot is...mayonnaise! It's true: the Japanese eat it all the time, putting it in salads, on traditional Japanese dishes like Okonomiyaki, and even on pizza. When you order french fries at a Denny's, they'll bring you two little dishes, one containing ketchup and the other mayonnaise, and you can dip the fries in whichever condiment you like, or go for both (which is my own preference).

A popular way to eat mayonnaise. Yech!

Japanese Election and Manifesto Update

The Japanese election season is in full swing, with the two major parties -- the currently ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the upstart Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) -- campaigning hard to try to win enough votes to form the next government. Unlike the U.S. with its two-party system, several of the smaller political parties enjoy quite a lot of influence for their size, and you see (and hear) candidates representing the Japan Communist Party and New Komeito (a party related to the Sokka Gakkai Buddhist religion which has nothing to do with any religious organization at all, nope) quite a lot. It's interesting to observe the election, as issues like the low birthrate and economic recession are fervently discussed. While I can't say that the LDP has impressed me with its leadership (far from it), I don't think that much good will come of the DPJ victory that everyone seems to be expecting. The party is only eleven years old, formed in 1998 by members of smaller parties, most of whom defected from the LDP at some point. The platform -- or "manifesto" -- of the DPJ was formed when the group was the minority party, and while it's easy for politicians to make statements about making all the freeways actually free, or about Japan's military relationship with the U.S., things change when you're suddenly in power. If the DPJ does win on August 30, I don't expect a lot to change, since the vast majority of Japan's bureaucracy remains in place even if the party in power changes.

Some Japanese politicians really like the word "manifesto."

Japan and France

This week J-List's own Tomo, the employee who keeps our site well stocked with interesting DVDs, Hello Kitty shoulder massagers and microwave potato chip makers, is taking a week off and heading to Paris, France. It's his honeymoon, and he wanted to take his new wife (who happens to be from near the now-famous Japanese city of Obama) someplace special. While the Japanese all study English and enjoy traveling to the U.S. and U.K., no place can match France for raw je ne sais quoi. Japan may be famous for its creative "Engrish" on T-shirts and shop signs, but French is also a popular language of decoration here, messed-up grammar and all. Japan's love affair with France can be seen in anime, starting with the famous Rose of Versailles which galvanized a generation of girls with the drama of Oscar François de Jarjayes and Marie Antoinette. There are several anime characters who have hilarious parodies of French names, too, like Louise Françoise De La Bamue Le Blanc De La Vallièr from Zero no Tsukaima. My theory is that the more distant a place is culturally and linguistically, the more exotic it will seem, and since many Japanese visit places like Hawaii or Los Angeles all the time, the U.S. doesn't have the same pure mystique as France, which seems "farther away." Anyway, if you've got a J-List T-shirt and live in Paris, why not wear it this week? I told Tomo to keep his eyes open and say hi to any customers he runs into.

This is the image that comes up when Japanese think of France.