Japan Is Doomed

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!

Japanese rock and metal has really exploded in international popularity recently, with bands like Dir En Grey and L’Arc~En~Ciel winning fans and rocking stadiums all over the world. As I proved a few weeks ago, the vast majority of Japanese pop music is pure evil, and I’m sure a large percentage of it’s rock is too.

Thank god for these bands then, who are frankly wonderful. I’ve included a little about each band, my own personal opinions, similar artists, and some tracks or albums you should check out. For those not aware what Visual Kei is, check out Wikipedia. Enjoy!

1. D’espairsRay

Starting in 1999 with their roots firmly in the Japanese movement, D’espairsRay have evolved into an industrial metal band, whilst still holding onto their Visual roots. Definitely one for fans of earlier Dir En Grey, the heavier offerings from X Japan or fans of Strapping Young Lad, Die Apokalyptischen Reiter or Rammstein.

The band have released two full albums, 2005’s Coll:set and my personal favorite, Mirror which was released last year. I only managed to hear it a few weeks ago but I would consider it already one of my top albums of 2007. A stunning masterpiece. My top three tracks are all from Mirror, and are the first track Damned, fan favorite Squall and the track that ends the album and my personal favorite, Kaleidoscope.

2. Plastic Tree

A band I discovered only very recently, Plastic Tree come from a similar Visual background as D’espairs but have gone a totally different way - they sound like a mixture of modern progressive rock (Porcupine Tree, Green Carnation) and British Rock. Definitly one for fans of the lighter side of JRock (think L’Arc~En~C’iel). I’ve only heard one album, namely Cell, but it’s belting.

Check out Melancholic (from cell) which is a really funky track, and for a change of pace, check out Ghost.

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.

My apologies, but as this week’s essay contains quite a lot of personal information about me, I’d rather not post it on this blog. That means that next week’s essay, assuming we are set one, will be the last one I write before my exams, and will be the final one I post on this blog. Whilst it has been great fun translating them for you guys to read, and then enjoying the “You are utterly insane” emails I get on a somewhat shockingly regular basis, I want to move away from relying on my work for content for Japan Is Doomed.

I’m going to start a new series of updates which introduce grammar points that I found very useful or very difficult. I’m doing this for two reasons - the first is to create a useful resource for anyone wishing to learn Japanese. The second reason is it will help me solidify my understanding of grammatical points.

The winter is nearly over, and as a result I will be able to go outside without freezing to death. I really want to get around Sheffield with my camera at some point and take lots of photos of the city I call home. I really should do one set now and one set in the summer. Sheffield, despite it’s size, is a city with plenty of nature, which is really nice in the summer, so I shall endevour to get some photos during the two nice days a year we experience in the north of England.

In the meantime, here is a lovely song by Japanese rock band L’Arc~En~Ciel. It’s called Daybreak’s Bell and is the themetune to some anime program. I don’t know which one, but the song is fantastic, which is a suprise L’Arc~En~C’iel usually play boring Dad-rock.

As I said, next week is my final week at university, which means more frequent updates! Hurrah!