News Blast: Manga News, Kan's First Week, Rice Ball Day And More!

Manga News reports on the BP oil spill. Image via.

Manga Brings News into the Now

A new Japanese website publishes the latest news in manga format. Many 1-2 page stories are commissioned from famous manga artists, and range from a 2-pager on the BP oil spill to a new study which proves that monkeys enjoy watching TV. We're hoping Hiroki Otsuka will be available to illustrate our news blasts!

Prime Minister Kan’s First Week   

The New York Times reports Naoto Kan is off to good start, breaking politics as usual with tough talk and giving his party a poll bounce.Only a week in office, and Kan, the new Japanese PM with a whistleblower’s reputation, has been making waves. He unveiled a campaign to halve Japan's debt in 6 years, saying "Politics is power, and power must be used to remove the cause of people's unhappiness." In his first meeting with a foreign leader, Afghan president Hamid Karzai visited to promise effective use of  Tokyo's pledged $5bn in aid. Party members have even designed and distributed 'Yes We Kan'  T-Shirts, punning on his name and U.S. President Obama’s campaign slogan from 2008.

Kan said Tuesday that he would not visit the Yasukuni War Shrine in Tokyo during his time as Prime Minister. Yasukuni is a shrine for World War II dead, and has long been associated with ultra-nationalist sentiment in Japan. Protests frequently occur in and around it about Japanese foreign policy and immigration policies – it has symbolic significance for both right-wingers and left-wingers. When PM Koizumi visited frequently between 2001 and 2006, it caused a foreign policy rift with China. Kan says "I think it is a problem for the prime minister or cabinet ministers to officially pay their respects at the Yasukuni Shrine because Class A war criminals are honored there."

Controversial off the record comments Kan made a year ago are resurfacing. According to a new book written by Shokichi Kina, a DPJ party member, Kan told him that Okinawa "should just become independent" and that negotiations to remove the U.S. bases in the prefecture "aren't resolvable." The comments have come to light only days after Kan expressed his support of Futenma, and his intent to continue Hatoyama’s policies in respect to it.

Tokyo Indie Music Scene

CNNGo goes to a Go!Go!7188 gig and gets blown away. Writer/Photographer Alex Zolbert interviewed the local Tokyo indie band before the show. They were reticent and answered many of his questions only with blank stares, so he wasn’t expecting much. He ended up being pleasantly surprised by their "relentless" performance, and "their throngs of fans were surging and pumping their fists."

If you want to hear more great Japanese indie bands with attitude, check out this list from the end of the decade with acts like Shugo Tokumaru and Macdonald Duck Éclair. My personal favorites for the record: The Boredoms and Cokiyu.

JAPAN CUTS Watch

The Japan Times gives an intriguing review of Confessions, which opened June 5th in Japan and receives its U.S. premiere at our JAPAN CUTS festival in July. Reviewer Mark Schilling says director Nakashima’s work "turns genre on its head," and that Confessions has "a strange power."

Also playing at JAPAN CUTS is omnibus film Mutant Girl’s Squad. Asahi gives an overview of the film’s drunken genesis at last year’s NYAFF and its international screening schedule.

World Cupdate – Samurai Blue Victorious

Samurai Blue defeated Cameroon 1-0 this week. The victory marks Team Japan’s first-ever in World Cup finals, and response to it in Japan was jubilant. Public viewings of the televised match happened in stadiums throughout the country, and late-night parties spilled out from bars into the streets after the winning goals .

Keisuke Honda, who scored the winning goal, said: "This goal was a nice birthday present for me. I am so happy now and there is a great atmosphere in the team. We were able to stop Cameroon’s attacking players and I think that was why we were able to get a good result. We had confidence before the game."

Fans at home were overjoyed, though many Japanese on the street don’t predict Samurai Blue progressing past the next matches. The World Cup Blog previews Japan v. Netherlands. Our fingers are crossed!

World Cup fans, or Japan Society's proposed staff uniforms? Via. 

  
Bite-Sized News:

►Happy Rice Ball Day! Celebrating the world's oldest existing rice ball (aprx. 2000 y.o.).

►U.S. bans military forces in Okinawa from drinking at off-base bars and clubs after midnight 

►June 16 was the 150th anniversary of the first Japanese delegation sent to the U.S. New York City holds three events to celebrate.

►Though recuperating from cancer treatments, maestro Seji Ozawa cancels more concerts, but still plans to appear at Carnegie Hall in December to launch their Japan NYC season.

►Taliban holds Japanese journalist for $1m. He says he's in good health, but giving into demands would have the incident repeated.

►In news about news, The Japan Times reports over 90% of Japanese still read newspapers every day--a consistent figure over the past decade where U.S. readerships have steadily declined .

►The Japanese government launches sexy new ad campaign... for bonds. One real-life testimony: "I want my future husband to be diligent about money. Playboys are no good."

►A space capsule that may contain the first-ever asteroid samples heads for its final destination from Australia to Japan. Related, Discovery News shows first photos of Japan's experimental solar sail spacecraft sailing.

►Japan-U.S. panel called to maintain a program inviting English and other foreign language instructors to Japan, challenging a government view that it is an unnecessary public project.

►The Wall Street Journal reports about Japan's quirkier inventions becoming an economic conerstone, the rise of Tokyo’s bike commuters, revival of Japanese blood-type personality indicators, development of a baby robot, and not one but two Japan news recaps.

►The Economist reports e-commerce bucks Japan's economic downs.

►Time Out takes a Japanese 'staycation' in New York City. Getting hungry just looking at the food page.

►For drinking devotionals, CNNGo lists Tokyo bars affiliated with religious organizations. At Bozu’s Vow Bar  (Monk’s Vow Bar), the Buddhist décor isn’t fake and the bartenders are ordained Buddhist priests.

►Author Shoichi Uchiyama tells the Daily Telegraph that he's had to increase his monthly insect tasting sessions in restaurants across Japan because of their popularity.

►Not sure what pairs best with hornet larvae, but we may have something for escargot: Kanazawa brews sake fit for French restaurants.

N.O., S.J.

News Blast: Kickin' It With Samurai Blue

Artwork via Vanity Fair , ESPN and the AM I Collective.

World Cupdate

Japan's men's soccer team (affectionately nicknamed the Samurai Blue) landed in South Africa on Sunday to gear up for another warm-up World Cup match for 2010. Japan faced Zimbabwe on Thursday and came to a tie 0-0. Fans at home geared up too by holding a screaming competition in honor of their team. Whoever screamed the word 'GOAL!' the loudest got unofficial bragging rights. Norio Nakayama won (32 seconds) and said in regards to Japan’s fate in the World Cup the "The ball is round and everything may happen." But added: "Of course I'd like them to do their best and be hell-bent on winning." Watch a video of his winning scream here.

Naoto Kan Chosen as Next PM

The Democratic Party of Japan chose ex-PM Hatoyama’s Finance Minister, Naoto Kan, for Japan's next Prime Minister. Kan, 63, was elected last Friday by a wide margin in an internal Party vote. He has a reputation as a whistleblower and a civil rights activist. Early in his career in the 1970s, he served on the election campaign of Fusae Ishikawa, a major figure in the Women’s Rights movement. Also, while serving as a Health Minister in 1996, when his political party formed a ruling coalition with the Liberal Democratic Party, he exposed and apologized for his government’s accidental distribution of blood tainted with HIV. His frankness and candor won him many allies both within the political sphere and in the public’s eyes.

While Hatoyama’s Cabinet resigned en-masse to make way for Kan’s picks, Kan re-instated most officials in the same positions they previously held.

Kan will continue many of Hatoyama’s policies – most notably on the U.S. military base on Okinawa. He telephoned President Obama to discuss Futenma, saying  both the U.S. and Japan should do more to resolve the base issue. In his first press conference as PM, he said he wants to "drastically rebuild Japan" and that fiscal challenges are "the biggest issue the country must tackle and must be discussed beyond our party’s boundaries."

Almost immediately following his formal appointment earlier this week, a number of fake Twitter accounts purporting to be Kan himself cropped up, though they were quickly shuttered.

Beard Burn in Isesaki City

In Isesaki City, about 60 miles north of Tokyo, the municipal government has banned beards on all city officials. The ban follows a number of public complaints that found beards on some workers to be "unpleasant." Local barbers and 'beard advocacy groups,' such as the Hige (Beard) Club are trying to work within the confines of the ban: Minoru Fujii, a Tokyo member says "I am designing beards for my customers that are considered acceptable in the company workplace." According to The Japan Times’ 'Views from the Street' public opinion column, most people agree that public officials should be neat and tidy, but that banning all facial hair is going a bit too far. Isesaki is the only municipality in Japan to instate such a ban.

Government Adds 'Sexy' Kanji to Everyday Use List

The Council for Cultural Affairs added 191 new characters to the jōyō kanji list, the list of kanji approved for everyday usage and taught to elementary- and middle-schoolers. Most of the new kanji had been omitted when the last list was compiled in 1981, because they were considered too complex to have to write longhand on a regular basis. However, because most people nowadays write on computers or cell phones, there is no longer as much need to write by hand. New kanji includes: 額 (ton – stop or pause), 藤 (fuji – creeper plant), and 艶 (en – sexy/ voluptuous) .

Bite-Sized News:

►Construction on a golf course in Japan’s ancient capital Nara disturbed some ancient tombs. We're hoping nobody picked up a curse!

►The spread of foot-and-mouth disease in Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan’s livestock center, continues.

►Japanese and American manga publishers fight scanlations.

►Japanese construction conglomerate Shimizu, Corp. unveiled plans to build a floating eco-city. It’s a joint project between 14 Japanese universities and the corporation to be completed in 15 years. "We would like to make it a utopia that belongs to no particular state," says Makoto Kajitani, director of the Super Collaborative Graduate School project director and president of the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo.

►A UK vet will publish a book about his experience as a prisoner of war during WWII, detailing his resulting lifelong friendship with one of his Japanese prison guards.

►A moving memorial for butoh legend Kazuo Ohno by Antony Hegarty from Antony and the Johnsons.

►NYT profiles director Shu Matsuri, noting "contemporary Japanese theater remains by and large terra incognita" around the world. The paper also profiled vernerable Japanese dance duo Eiko & Koma.

►Arthur R. Miller, one of America's top legal minds collects the ukiyo-e woodblock prints of Utagawa Kuniyoshi because of the artist's championship of free speech.

►Kuniyoshi in closing: "Graphic Heroes, Magic Monsters… is part history lesson, part barometer of Japan's political climate of the day, part manga precursor. It is all exquisitely created, boldly rendered, and remarkably preserved."

►Asahi reports "wacky candy says 'Japan' like no other gift"

►Finally, Japan Society launched a Japanese-language Twitter feed @js_desu  in addition to @japansociety, @Education_JS, @Innovators_JS, and @JSNY_Film. Happy following!

N.O.

News Blast: Back to Earth

Soichi Noguchi waves goodbye to space via his Twitpic page.

 

Prime Minister Hatoyama Resigns

Eight months after taking office, Japan's Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama announced his resignation on Wednesday. When the left-leaning, Hatoyama-led Democratic Party of Japan came into office last September, it was the first time in decades the parliamentary majority didn’t go to the center-right Liberal Democratic Party. He promised large-scale change in Japan’s foreign and domestic policies -- most notably to move a U.S. military base called Futenma  on the southern island of Okinawa. When the debate over the base stalemated, and it was decided to leave it where it was, lawmakers within the Democratic Party as well as the Japanese public called for his resignation. However, because the Democratic Party still has a commanding majority in Parliament, Hatoyama’s resignation won’t force another election. A new prime minister will be announced Friday.

American military presence is concentrated on the southern island of Okinawa where Futenma hosts about 47,000 U.S. troops. The base, a reminder of post-war American occupation, is a controversial topic for many Okinawans. On May 17th, a reported 17,000 protesters formed a human chain around the base. A good overview of the debate, with many interesting testimonials from Okinawans, can be found here, and an American soldier based in Okinawa gives his side here.

Astronaut Returns

Astronaut Soichi Noguchi returned to Earth on Wednesday. He stayed on the International Space Station  for 163 consecutive days -- the longest stint for any Japanese astronaut. "The air on Earth tastes good," he said when he touched down in Kazakhstan. "I can powerfully smell grass and soil." While in space, Noguchi took part in a number of experiments, and built and installed a robotic arm in Japan’s Kibo module. When he had a free moment, he posted incredible images from space on from his Twitter account, @astro_soichi.

Japan at World Cup 2010

Japan World played its penultimate warm-up match for the 2010 World Cup in Austria on May 31. They were defeated by England, 2-1, but remain upbeat for their prospects for the actual thing in South Africa. Goalie Eiji Kawashima said, "Everyone was a bit down in the dressing room but we have another warm-up (against Cote d'Ivoire in Switzerland on Friday) coming up and there is still time to turn things around." Follow Team Japan’s travails at their team blog.

Japanese Summer Blockbusters

The summer blockbuster season is in full swing in Japan as well. Big releases include: Shodo Girls (trailer), about a girls’rural high school calligraphy team; Zebraman 2 (trailer), Takashi Miike’s new movie about a cosplay-superhero in a future totalitarian Japan; and My Darling is a Foreigner (trailer), about a young Japanese woman who finds love with a scruffily bearded American.

Related, Japan's top blockbusters and indie smashes from the last 10 years land in New York City July 1 at Japan Society's fourth annual JAPAN CUTS festival of contemporary Japanese cinema. Tickets go on sale June 10!

Nobuyoshi Araki’s Bday

Bad-boy photographer Nobuyoshi Araki celebrated his koki, or 70th birthday, on May 25th. The Japan Times' Jae Lee sat down with Araki at his favorite Shinjuku bar. Araki speaks about the plastic dinosaurs he considers his alter-egos, the death of his cat, photographing Lady Gaga, and his favorite subject matter: women. Says Araki: "I see women as female gods who protect me from the God of Death." There’s currently an exhibition of Araki’s work at Taka Ishii Gallery in Tokyo -- check out some images here [link contains some explicit material].

N.O.