Japan Is Doomed

A while back I did an article called ‘The Horrors of jPop‘ which was great fun to write and was generally well received. It earned me a few hate mail but in general people enjoyed it, so I’ve wanted to do another ‘horrors’ update for a while. So you can imagine how happy I was when this popped up on Mainichi;

A female duo dressed as characters from Hayao Miyazaki’s animated film “Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind” qualified to represent Japan in the upcoming “World Cosplay Summit 2008″ after winning the Tokyo qualifying round on Sunday.

Now I’m not going to lie - I know basically nothing about the weird world of cosplay. I don’t watch any anime or read any manga, so I don’t recognise the characters these guys are dressing up as. Actually, if I posted pictures of them on this blog and made fun of them, it would be totally unfair hilarious. So without further ado;

So we start our tour of horrors on a great foot, and a fantastic pair of ears. These guys must be able to hear fake tan salesmen coming from miles away. I can’t make out what it says on those little wooden things she’s holding up, but I assume it’s instructions to help you turn your shower curtain into a cool outfit, just like these guys did.

Next we have the super cardboard robot. In case you’re wondering about the horn, his mother was a unicorn. If you’re wondering about the giant cardboard knees, his father was…er… well I don’t know. So why did this guy make it into the update? One word. Chafing.

Apparently this giant vegetable is from some Studio Ghibli film but regardless if I walked into that room and saw that I’d be out in a flash. Notice that it is in the process of devouring a spider. That girl is awfully close considering it’s a giant cauliflower with eight eyes.

The brightly colored twins spot another free hair dye sample. The girl on the left has gone for the Windows 3.1 teal screen saver look, always a bold choice. She’s easily beaten by her friend, however, who has gone for the always popular ‘rabbit goes insane, dresses like milk carton’ look.

You can’t quite see it in this photo, but this performer’s just taken their hands off an electric fence. Ok, I do know who this character is meant to be, I’m not that far behind. It’s Pikachu.

Cauliflower girl has managed to escape from her killer plant, and everyone who’s dressed as oddly as she is rushes to celebrate. Another safe day in cosplay land.

Ok, I had far, far too much fun writing those comments. Sorry if they were too mean. If there’s one of these conventions on in the summer when I’m out there, I’m totally going with my camera. I promise.

According to those lovely guys at Yahoo News, talk-along anime machines are on the way. These machines will appear in Karaoke parlors across the country and allow people to talk along with their favourite animated weirdo before having it played back to them. According to some nerdy spokesman;

“You are unbuttoned at karaoke places where you drink with friends,” he said. “The freer you are from your usual persona, the more fun you can have. You can also easily change your sex.
A quiet person can be a courageous hero while a straight-laced businessman can turn into a delicate young girl.”

That’s odd, I don’t remember being unbuttoned at a karaoke place. I don’t think that’s even legal. Anyway, the whole thing is going to kick off this weekend, and I’m sure it will have a great following and will probably be quite good fun, if you’re into that sort of thing. There’s really just one big problem.

It’s lame!

I mean, come on. They could have had anything and they went for talk-along anime! But worry not, intrepid reader, for I have created a handful of wonderful alternatives. Read on and be amazed!

1. Complain-Along Machine

Boy oh boy do I love complaining. So does everyone, and reguardless of how nice you are, when the doors are closed there’s nothing better than to have a good whine about the weather, or young people or something. So I’m planning to harness the mighty power of the whine to create the ultimate complaining paradise.

There is one big problem with what I have dubbed the “Angryoke Machine”. Almost as soon as it comes out, people will use it to complain about the machine itself. This will of course lead to a loop in the time-space continuum, and we’ll all be sucked into a black hole and the world will end. But to be honest, I think I’m OK with that. Imagine the advertising. “Come complain with Japan Is Doomed’s Angryoke Machines, or we’ll end your world! “. I’d go.

2. Beeroke

Admit it, this would be awesome. The majority of people who head to the Karaoke bars use it as a weak excuse to mask their near-dangerous alcohol consuption, myself included. I suggest we just cut out the middleman altogether and have Beeroke - the machine that tells you to drink beers, which you do, whilst drinking beers. Hurrah! Once this great idea takes off, I can follow up with Wineoke, Vodkaoke and, for the kids, Juiceoke. Dogoke and Catoke will launch late 2008, and by 2011 I plan to have a BeerOkeOke machine in every house, which tells you to tell yourself to drink beer, whilst drinking beers, and drinking a beer. Oops, I think I just ended the universe again…

I should probably release my own beer brand too. The sales would be astronomical!

3. Silent Movie Karaoke

This would be a simple change to the tried and tested Karaoke formula. Rather than sing the words, you write them down on card and hold them up. That way, everyone still gets to perform their favourite song, but if like me you’re a terrible singer, you don’t have to suffer the usual embarrassments of forgetting you sound like a frog being shot.

I feel this particular brand of Karaoke will prove popular with mimes. That’s right, I shall finally conquer the elusive mime market.

4. Ekoarak

So you think you’re a good singer, huh? Think you’ve mastered Karaoke? Well you should try my latest, craziest invention - Eroarak! It’s Karaoke backwards! But wait, not only do the songs play backwards, you must infact do everything backwards! You need to walk into the shop, backwards, thank the sales assistant for the wonderful time you had, she’ll then hand you some money, then you sing all your songs backwards, then you book the room, then finally leave.

I will allow two things to be done forward; drinking and using the bathrooms. Gross. Unfortunatly this latest scheme would lose me an awful lot of money as I’d end up paying people to come, and I’m just not that nice a guy. Sorry!

5. Elimination Karaoke

This is the same as regular Karaoke, except the songs available are all 15 hours long. Last one standing gets to choose the next song. Everyone else recieves medical treatment.

So there we go! Five perfectly good ways to enhance the Karaoke experience! Now I’ll just write these up and send them off to be processed, and await the inevitable excited phonecall and business class trip to Japan where I will be heralded as the sole creator of a new age of Karaoke. Wait, what’s this? Hello Officer. What? No, I never said I’d give beer to dogs and cats? Dogoke? Oh yeah, whoops.

Countdown To Japan : 77 Days! Woohoo!

“Hello Kitty is no sexist” according to The Japan Times, who reported recently that Japan’s much loved character Hello Kitty, who for years has adorned everything every girl could ever want, will now be launching a range aimed at men.

“We think Hello Kitty is accepted by young men as a design statement in fashion”

~Tohmatsu Kazuo

I’m not sure it’s accepted but whatever - if Tohmatsu says Kitty is going male, then she will. He proudly proclaimed that the current youth of Japan grew up with Hello Kitty and “feel no embarrassment” over wearing clothing that the pink cuteness adorns.

Before we go any further, I feel we should look at this highly scientific diagram I have drawn which serves to highlight some of the character’s most important attributes. Bear in mind this image is totally fair.

That’s right. Hello Kitty is pretty much all pink. Now whilst I have no problem with men wearing pink, apparently it’s the new blue which is the new green which in turn is the new pink, this evidence does lead me to doubt that Japanese school boys would “feel no embarrassment” over sticking what looks like an inflated strawberry marshmallow on their schoolbag.

Luckily however, the Hello Kitty team have thought of this and gone for a dark look for what they are calling “Hello Kitty Men’s Range” and what I am calling “ManKitty” as it’s a funny name.

Pretty rock and roll. I especially like the way they’ve carved her face off, written Hello Kitty in it’s place, then flung it onto a passing cloud/breath of air/head fart. That’s pretty edgy. But is it edgy enough? The answer is no. Here is how it would be acceptable;

1. Hello Kitty should always appear with her new friends Raku The Enraged Rhino, Johnny The 12″ Katana and everyone’s favourite Frequently Explod-y Man.

2. Hello Kitty should always appear in an interesting situation, such as being the only living creature strong enough to stop evil Russian bad guys left over from Bond films, or extreme snowboarding down a cliff whilst playing an amazing guitar solo.

3. Hello Kitty should only appear on items suitable for the modern man. Guitar straps, battleaxes and incredibly fast cars, for example.

4. Hello Kitty should always appear with a snappy one-liner to remind everyone how awesome she is, for example “Hello! I’m Hello Kitty! I’m going to snap your neck off!” … I’d buy a t-shirt with that on.

5. Hello Kitty should be able to fly, punch through walls and create beer out of nothing.

These are the five steps to Kitty success in a man’s world. You’ve heard the instructions, Tohmatsu, now go make our dreams a reality.

One of my favourite websites, What Japan Thinks, came up with their top 30 ways to find Otaku in the wild. Otaku, for those lucky enough not to know what they are, are people who are so utterly obsessed with anime and video games that they retract from normal social interaction. At least, that’s the Japanese definition of them. Western Otaku are just people who are almost too interested in anime and so forth. There are some nice ones out there, but there are also plenty that justify the ‘dork’ stereotype.

The top 5 ways to spot a male Otaku, then, are;

1. Anime print T-Shirt
This is the big one. If you have one of these, look at it carefully. Is it covered in the remains of meals you ate a long time ago? Is it so worn that it has faded from black to a light grey? Is it XXXXXXL? Any of these signs point to Otakudom. Although just owning it is probably bad enough.

2. Anime print paper bag
I’m not totally sure what this means. The voters in these polls are all Japanese but I’m guessing it’s something to do with a bag into which you put many of your ten billion manga magazines. I don’t know and frankly I’m glad I don’t.

3. Bum bag/Fanny pack
Not just Japan related at all. If you have one of these and wear it anywhere except on a mountain you deserve anything you get. Including being run over.

4. Wearing a bandana around the head
A Hachimaki (鉢巻) is a bandana, usually red or white, which was traditionally worn to show the wearer is working hard. Now however it is worn to show the wearer is a huge nerd.

5. Bag plastered with anime-related patches & stickers
If you have time to cover your bag in Naruto patches, you probably have time to get showered, shaved and head to a few job interviews.

Now I know what you’re thinking. “Mike, it’s not fair that men alone should suffer this assault. What of lady Otaku?” Well, female otaku (apparently called Otakette according to WJT) also have thirty telltale signs to suggest they have nothing better to do than read tattered copies of Sailor Moon and dream of real human interaction. Quite a few of the things in the list featured in the men’s one (T-shirts, bags ect.) so here are a few of my favourites;

3. Gothic-Lolita Fashion
Oh dear. This one will cause a lot of arguements. Whilst this unique Harajuku does have roots in nerdom, I would argue that nowadays it’s quite apart from geeks. If you agree please don’t hate me, I didn’t make this list. Go tell the 1,101 people who took the survey that spending £900 on a skirt was totally justified. Or something.

5. Big Thick Glasses
Harry Potter likes anime!

8. Pink Or Green Hair
I am absoloutly, 100% agreed on this one. Why girls dye their hair these colours I’ll never know. The pink hair makes them look like they’ve recently been injected with serious amounts of nitrogen whilst the green one makes me want to shove them back into the soil and let them grow for another three years.

15. Lots Of Straps On Mobile Phone
One or two is mandatory in Japan. When I had my mobile phone I didn’t put any straps on it at all and people thought that was weird. So I bought one or two and put them on, and it was normal. Then one of my students brought out her phone and it had at least twenty on it. The thing weighed about three stone. Insanity.

22. “I *heart shape* something” T-Shirt
That said, I’m considering buying an “I *heart shape* destroying “I *heartshape* things” t-shirt” t-shirt, thus logically destroying myself, and ending the universe.

So there you are. Whilst this list features the more extreme fashions of the dork, there’s something for everyone here. Do not buy anime t-shirts is the golden rule that echoes throughout the ages. There’s nothing wrong with liking anime or liking the culture that surrounds it, but the day you wake up and think you really saw Pikachu walking down your street is the day you need to seriously consider becoming an alcoholic. It’s safer.

Congatulations to °C-ute for winning “Best New Artist” at the recent 49th Japan Record Awards. I was really impressed to see a band who’s ages range from 11 to 15 win an award that is hotly contested by many bands. When I heard the news, I thought it would be appropriate to head over to Youtube and listen to one of their songs. The first song that popped up on the Youtube search was “Ookina Ai de Motenashite”. Whilst I’m not totally sure if this translation is 100% correct, I believe it means “We’re going to kill music for three minutes”. Or something.

Here’s the video. Watch it, stem the bleeding from your ears then return. I want us to be on the same page here.

I did warn you. This is quite literally the worst music ever.

PURE EVIL

These are children! Why are their parents allowing them to become figures of international loathing? Beloved by Japanese school kids but absoloutly nobody else! Imagine if you were a parent of one of these kids and you wanted to take them on holiday. Where are you going to take them? If you visit England you can rest assured I’m going to tape you to a rocket and blast you to the moon. Even then I still wouldn’t be able to get the horror of Ookina Ai de Motenashite out of my head. If I formed a band with my friends asnd made music like this my parents would shoot me. I’d thank them for it. Frankly this lapse of judgement has gone on long enough. Stop the insanity!

If you enjoyed the song, please leave a comment including your name, address and what time you’d like me to come round and beat you with a spanner. Many thanks.