Alright, for those hoping for an exciting and dynamic post, look elsewhere. Today I’m talking about exams, oh yes. In this particular round of exams, I have 3 three hour long papers to sit;

1. Contemporary Japanese Society
2. Postwar Japanese Politics
3. Japanese Language

I thought I’d break down each one, hopefully you guys might find it interesting, and potential future Sheffield students might think ‘Hey, I want to answer questions on the effect of the bureaucracy on Japanese politics, I should go to Sheffield!’

Contemporary Japanese Society is a mandatory module for Japanese studies students, and it’s not hugely popular with the students, because we took a very similar module (‘Understanding Japan’) last year. Still, it covers a wide range of topics so it’s a useful subject to study. Still, I have to admit I wouldn’t jump at choosing it. The exam was three essays, I answered one question on the toll on society the economic drive of the 1970’s and 1980’s took (looking at suicide, homelessness and 過労死 or death from overwork), one question on Japan’s homogeneity (not the first time I’ve answered that question!) and one question on how article 9 has changed Japan’s outlooks. It wasn’t too challenging an exam as it’s all stuff I studied last year. Hopefully I actually remembered some of it. (Probably not)

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Yes it’s true! After nearly 8 months of having nothing to say, I shot a video today with my new flip mino camera for everyone to enjoy! I have to say this video isn’t particularly exciting, but it does feature a long and in depth discussion with my dog. So here’s the link! Click it loud and proud!

久しぶり！Big Catch Up (feat. my dog) video

If you’re interested in my videos, please feel free to subscribe to my channel, too. :) I have all my drink test videos on there as well as all the other ones I shot in Japan.

In this entry, (which is now on JapanSoc please soc it!) I will attempt to cover every general topic popular JapanSoc stories deal with in a single article, thus guaranteeing it will get so many socs that the site itself will be sucked into a black hole and the world will end, thus doing the job the Large Hadron Collider couldn’t manage.

Alright, the first thing I need to do is look at some of the most popular stories of all time. There have only been five articles that have collected 30 or more socs;

1. New Extra Social JapanSoc!
   JapanSoc manager Nick finally allowing freedom of speech. Prior to this all communication had to be done in the form of binary code, written out by hand onto pieces of paper and sent to Nick’s house.
2. JapanSoc Chooses the Best Japanese News
   An article praising the site and it’s users for choosing the most appropriately interesting news. Apparently “Japan Is Doomed author Mike loses sandwich, please donate generously to fund a replacement” isn’t suitable.
3. Japan Blog Matsuri April 2009 Edition
   The theme was ‘Slow times in Japan’, and over 30 writers wrote about what they do on their slower days in Japan. I was going to write an article, but I was having a slow day so I did what I usually do on those days: nothing, then lunch, then more nothing.
4. Japanese people know, “you’ve been living in America too long” when…
   Apparently some Japanese people cited reasons to start worrying you’ve been living in the US for too long. My personal suggestion? You understand what’s going on in Boston Legal.
5. THAT Is One Exhausted Salaryman (PIC)
   A picture of a poor salaryman who fell asleep on the train whilst rocking out to some Bon Jovi or something. Personally I don’t think it’s nice to laugh at people’s tiredness. So I refuse to post it here… alright alright I was joking.

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Update: At the request of readers, I have been asked to re-review this album after I’ve had chance to listen to it a few more times, and I think that’s a great idea. So I will leave this review up until the new one is ready. When I post the new one I will move this one onto that page as well. Thanks.

Whilst I’m somewhat of a fan of the Japanese rock scene, I find there’s a small gap between generic dullness and far-too-far out there madness that I enjoy. For example, the newest Dir En Grey album Uroboros (which I reviewed) was very progressive but still maintained some of the intensity of the Visual Kei style.

One album that I have always loved is D’EspairsRay – Mirror. It’s a fantastic industrial heavy rock album, with similarities in places to both Rammstein in terms of power and use of electronic sounds, but they still maintained a rock rather than metal styling – comparisons to lighter X JAPAN and L’Arc~En~Ciel spring to mind, especially with vocals.

The band have gone through an undeniable change with this new album. Firstly there is no doubt they are making more mature music than before – the most obvious example is PARADOX 5, a fantastic mid tempo ballad (I never thought I’d call a mid-tempo balance fantastic…) with all sorts of Eastern European sounding influences. It starts off a bit slow, and it will definitely not impress die hard fans of their older material too much, but it’s a refreshing sound from a band who’s sound could quite easily have gone stale.

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電車男 tells the story of a Japanese Otaku (nerd) who falls in love with a girl he meets on a train, and overcomes his nerdy nature to ask her out and blah blah blah. Very standard romance stuff. So why am I writing about it? Well, the gimmick of the film is that we see the posts the kid made asking strangers over famous Japanese message board 2channel  what to do next, and throughout the film we meet a few of these faceless helpers. The mix of classic love film and contemporary internet team spirit (if that even exists?) leads to a lovely, enjoyable film. What makes it even better is that it’s based on a true story.

Whilst I have to admit ‘Hermes’ the girl (named after the brand of cups she sends to train man for saving her from a drunk businessman on a train) kind of annoyed me, it didn’t really impact on the film simply because of the outstanding performance of Takayuki Yamada, who played train man. At the start of the film he was so convincing in his stuttering, stumbling and heavy breathing I actually found myself becoming embarrassed for him. His body language and facial expressions were pretty convincing too – I genuinely found myself feeling sorry for him throughout the film.

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