TOKYOMANGO

Get your hand-printed limited edition TokyoMango t-shirt now (2 weeks only)

My friend Ben and I made a test run of TokyoMango t-shirts on Saturday. They're really nice, do you want one? If so, you can buy one here. Below are the details:

- All shirts are 100% cotton.
- Each t-shirt will be hand-silk screened by me and Ben on his Yudu machine. The shirt logo was custom-designed by Ben. Mango design courtesy of my web designer James.
- The Women's tees come in a t-shirt style (pistacio and white) and a spaghetti strap ribbed tank (yellow).
- The Men's tees come in orange and white. In the pic above, Ben is actually accidentally wearing a girl's tee, but you get the idea... the sleeves will be more manly on the one you get.
- You can choose a custom colored tee for $25. Just shoot me an email with your preference after you place the order.
- The sizes tend to run a little big (except for the tanktops). They might shrink in the wash.
- Some of you will receive a free surprise Japanese toy or gadget with your t-shirt! I'm just gonna randomly stick them into bags, so keep an eye out.
- We're taking orders over the next two weeks only, at least for this first printing. They'll ship at the end of those two weeks, when Ben & I will silkscreen them by hand.
- Last day to order is Monday, October 5th.

UPDATE: T-shirts are no longer for sale. Maybe we'll do another round sometime!

Urawaza is a great holiday gift! Buy it.

It's been a while since I pimped my book Urawaza on TokyoMango, but I really think you should buy it for someone — your mom, your brother, your friend, a White Elephant party — for the holidays. It's green and red, colors reminiscent of Christmas Trees and Santa hats, it's not heavy reading, you'll learn lots of cool quirky tricks, and it's 30% off on Amazon and at Chronicle Books' web site with the discount code Family — which brings the grand total cost to about $10. Totally affordable holiday fun!

Buy Urawaza: Secret Everyday Tips and Tricks from Japan

New magazine for people living with facial scars

A new magazine aimed towards people with physical disfigurations will launch next spring. It's called My Face, and it's the pet project of a self esteem support group called MFMS, or My Face My Style. The magazine will include interviews, medical information, and advice on how to fight discrimination at work and at school for the estimated one million people in Japan who suffer from facial injuries or deformities. These people aren't legally considered as physically handicapped, so there's little support. The founder, 42-year old Hiroko Togawa, told Mainichi:

You never know when something like this can happen, such as those of us who have been involved in an accident. I hope the magazine will help take the worry out of finding hospitals and dealing with symptoms.

Link

How to recreate a scene from Zelda in your lunchbox

There's a wonderful cookbook in bookstores & on Amazon now called Face Food:The Visual Creativity of Japanese Bento Boxes. It's a bento book that teaches you how to make delicious, nutritious meals that resemble your favorite anime, video game, or zoo animal. The art is simply amazing — here are Astro Boy and Zelda.

Face Food:The Visual Creativity of Japanese Bento Boxes by Christopher Salyers

More book reviews & recommendations on TokyoMango

Otaku Encyclopedia, a book that teaches you everything about otaku culture

Great news for those of you who have always wanted to know everything there is to ever know about the otaku world! A new book called The Otaku Encyclopedia: An Insider's Guide to the Subculture of Cool Japan, written by Patrick Galbraith, is now available on Amazon. I have a copy, and was impressed by the thoroughness of his research &mdash he is doing his PhD at Todai, after all. Ever wonder what "moe" really means? Want to know more about Shokotan, itasha, or maid cafes? It's all here.

The super awesome Fred Schodt wrote the foreword.

The Otaku Encyclopedia by Patrick Galbraith

Bento Love: how to cook Japanese food that fits into a lunch box

When I was in elementary school, I was always jealous of the kids who had them &mdash all I wanted in my packed lunch was a sandwich, a fruit roll-up and a juice box in a brown paper bag. Later I found out that the kids who had brown paper bags wished they had the bento box in a cloth purse that my mom always made for me, even though it made me a little embarrassed that my mom cared so much about what I ate. Funny.

But if you're the PB&J type and are looking for an alternative for lunches, a new book called Easy Japanese Cooking: Bento Love might help you. In it, there are dozens of easy delicious Japanese cooking recipes that can fit right into a standard, rectangular bento box. Some examples: Salt-Grilled Chicken Steak Bento, the two-tiered Spicy Miso Pork Stir-Fry Bento, Stir-Fried Spaghetti Bento. Even if you don't end up packing it as a lunch, it's a great resource for simple Japanese meals.

Easy Japanese Cooking: Bento Love by Kentaro Kobayashi

Related stories:
Gourmet bento for dogs now sold at a highway stop near you
Review: Japantown bento
Froggy lunch wins top spot at award show

Barefoot Gen, a shocking manga about the atomic bomb

On my nightstand right now: Barefoot Gen, Vol. 1: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima. It's a manga that is famous in Japan for being heart-wrenchingly sad and true. In it, author Keiji Nakazawa tells the story of Gen, a boy who survived the atomic bomb. I am still only halfway through the first volume, and the bomb has not dropped yet, but it's about to. Even the author's foreword is a total tear-jerker &mdash he tells the story of how he survived the bomb with his mom, who was pregnant and had to watch her husband and other child burn to death because she didn't have the strength to remove the debris that was burying them.

Barefoot Gen was actually one of the first manga to ever be published in English &mdash a group of volunteers who called themselves Project Gen took it upon themselves to translate several volumes (there are ten total) in the 70s. Currently, there are eight volumes available in English through Last Gasp. I am looking forward to reading all of them because this is one of those manga that I never read as a kid, but have always wanted to.

Barefoot Gen by Keiji Nakazawa

Urawaza at my neighborhood travel store

I was at the lovely Get Lost travel bookstore on Market Street in San Francisco just now looking at travel books, and was pleasantly surprised by Urawaza being displayed right by the cash register. By the way, if you've been reading this blog for awhile and you still don't own the book, you should maybe get a copy. It's a great time suck if you need an easy read on a beach vacation.

Urawaza, my Japanese tips and tricks book, on Amazon

Learn to speak English with Barack Obama's speeches

My mom tells me that one of the most popular English-language learning books on the market right now is this "Speeches of Barack Obama" booklet set, which includes a page-by-page translation of Obama's iconic speeches throughout the years &mdash his keynote at the Democratic National Congress in 2004, his battles at the primaries, and his acceptance speech among them. The booklet also includes a CD of the actual speeches by the president. At 1000 yen ($10), it's way cheaper than enrolling in an English lesson taught by amateurs at Gaba, and who better to learn how to speak English than the president in all his motivational oratory glory! Also worth noting that the publisher, Asahi Press, didn't have to pay anybody for the rights to his speeches nor to write original content, so this is just a huge profit-making venture.

Sixth volume of Tezuka's Black Jack to publish this month

On July 28th, Vertical Inc will release volume six of Black Jack, the amazing manga about a mercenary genius doctor by Osamu Tezuka. I just got my preview copy, and it's awesome.

Black Jack, Vol. 6 by Osamu Tezuka (If you want the entire collection, you can already buy Vol 1-5 and pre-order 6-8.)

Related stories:
Black Jack on MangoBot
Tezuka's Phoenix now available on DS
60s SciFi anime by Osamu Tezuka

Oishinbo, a famous manga that teaches you all about Japanese food

I read a lot of manga when I was growing up, and so did my mom. She was obsessed with this one series called Oishinbo, a story about a food critic and his culinary adventures across the country &mdash it was so detailed and precise that you learned a ton about Japanese food and how to enjoy it just from reading.

Several volumes of Oishinbo are already available in English &mdash Oishinbo: Ramen and Gyoza, Oishinbo: Sake, Oishinbo: Izakaya--Pub Food, and Oishinbo: The Joy of Rice are some of them.

I can confidently say that, if you want to learn about the intricacies of Japanese food, or if you want to know why Japanese people are so obsessed with white rice (last winter, I went to a restaurant in Tokyo where their specialty was white rice), reading this series is the best and most fun way to do it. The newest volume, Oishinbo: Fish, Sushi, and Sashimi, comes out in July and is available for pre-order on Amazon.

Oishinbo, Volume 1 by Tetsu Kariya

Sayonara Mr. Fatty, a magical dieting book for otaku

Toshio Okada is best known for founding Gainax, the famous animation company that created Neon Genesis Evangelion, but did you know he is also the author of a revolutionary dieting book for otaku? Sayonara, Mr. Fatty!: A Geek's Diet Memoir was a huge hit in Japan &mdash a friend told me a couple years ago about how he lost 15 kilos just by reading a book. I bought the Japanese version of the book, but never read it. Now, it's available in English.

Okada used a simple technique to lose weight. An excerpt from the prologue:

I didn't to anything special, or use any special technique. I didn't spend extra money. I didn't suffer. I didn't limit myself to particular foods. I didn't fast. I didn't have liposuction. I didn't go to a gym. I didn't take any special supplements. I didn't buy a fitness machine or a sweat suit. I never visited a health spa or a weight-loss clinic. I didn't eat any diet food.

What he did do, it turns out, had less to do with changing his behavior and more to do with using his otaku-ness to his healthy advantage. A must-read if you're a geek who wants to lose weight, or if you know one, or if you just want to read some literature by Japan's "ota-king."

Get Sayonara, Mr. Fatty! on Amazon.

Reader photo: The temple that Matsuo Basho wrote a poem about

TokyoMango reader Martijn Kuik, who took this photo, writes:

In May last year I traveled through Tohoku together with my Japanese wife, at times in the footsteps of Matsuo Basho on a journey he took in the spring of 1689.
I visited a temple called Houjusan-Risshakuji, also known as "Yamadera", near Yamagata city. This temple was founded in 860 by Jikaku Daishi, a priest of the Tendai sect who founded many of the most important temples in Tohoku. After climbing 1100 stairs one reaches the main tempel building and one can't help but be overwhelmed by the magnificent view.

In "Oku no Hosomichi" Matsuo Basho writes:

How still it is here-
Stinging into the stones,
The locusts' trill.

I was pleasantly surprised by the beauty of this temple and its surroundings.

Sexpert book teaches men how to find the new G-spot

Adam Tokunaga looks like an ordinary ojisan (old man), but apparently he's Japan's #1 sexpert. And his book, called Slow Sex Secrets, is now available in English. I didn't read the whole thing because the thought of an ojisan teaching me about sex was a little bit... um... interesting. But I did find it highly entertaining and interesting that Tokunaga claims to have found several additional erogenous zones in the female body. They're located kinda near the G-spot, he explains through diagrams and text, and he has called them the T-spot, the A-spot and the Adam G-spot. He writes:

The T in T-spot stands for Tokunaga. I named it this just the way the G-spot is named after the scientist who found it...It is not easy to compare the level of pleasure derived from the T-spot and the G-spot, but there are women who say the T-spot feels better. One woman described the pleasure as a "bolt of lightning shooting from my cervix right into my brain." In other words, this is a hand technique that can literally blow your partner's mind.

To learn more about the hand technique, I guess you'll have to buy the book.

Slow Sex Secrets: Lessons from the Master Masseur by Adam Tokunaga

Yakuza Moon, a book about a yakuza's daughter

If you've ever wondered what it's like to be a yakuza boss' daughter, Yakuza Moon: Memoirs of a Gangster's Daughter is a must-read. The author, Shoko Tendo, tells her story with brutal honesty. We all know how big a role family plays in shaping one's life, and it's amazingly interesting to see how being raised by a volatile yakuza boss influenced Tendo's. She had, to put it mildly, a crazy life from childhood &mdash bullied in school, addicted to drugs and sex and the yanki lifestyle as a teen, and stuck in a series of awful, awful relationships with horrible men throughout her teens and twenties. In this book, she does a great job of relating all these experiences back to her family, her upbringing, and the conflicting desires within her to have fun, to appease others, and to stick with her convictions.

This was a quick read &mdash shocking, but very good.A total eye-opener to a part of Japanese culture that all of us who have lived in Japan have touched upon but probably not given that much genuine thought to. Tendo is a great narrator and protagonist who is easy to like and admire despite her shortcomings. You should read it!

Yakuza Moon: Memoirs of a Gangster's Daughter by Shoko Tendo [Amazon]

More book reviews on TokyoMango

Father-daughter team recreate The Pillow Book on silk scrolls to save the embroidery industry

Yoshihiro Kimura, a 65-year old man in Shimane Prefecture, is collaborating with his 41-year old daughter Chizuru to recreate the 11th century classic Makura no Soshi, or The Pillow Book, in embroidery on silk screen rolls. It's symbolic of their desire to keep embroidery alive in Japan, which has been losing sewing jobs to China and Southeast Asia. They expect it will take years. The Pillow Book is a famous piece of literature written by Lady Sei Shonagon, a court lady in the Heian period. It was made into a Hollywood film starring Ewan McGregor in 1996.

Link

Toilet paper has horror story by the author of Ring printed on it

Are you the type of person who likes to read while pooping? A new type of Japanese toilet paper has horror stories printed on it, a 9-chapter novella by Koji Suzuki, the author of Ring. The story printed on paper is aptly called Drop, and costs just $2 a roll. Hey, that's cheaper than buying a paperback! In Japan (and in Harry Potter), we believe that ghosts hide in toilets. So this is super scary, especially because the guy who wrote the Ring is like the country's horror master. Printed toilet paper, however, is nothing new &mdash we used to have it when we were kids. That's how I learned kanji.

Link

The Cat in the Coffin, a crazy story by one of Japan's greatest female mystery novelists

I finally took some time off this weekend to read. I recently got a short translated mystery novel called The Cat in the Coffin, which I finished in about an hour. It's a quick read, and it was also one of the best mystery novel build-ups I've ever read.

The author is Mariko Koike, an award-winning, well-respected female mystery writer in Japan. The book is a flashback, a story told in the future by a lady reminiscing about an experience she had when she was in her early twenties. She was a live-in tutor for a little 9-year old girl who belonged to a widower, a good-looking, charismatic Great Gatsby-like artist named Goro. For the first half of the book, it's a cute story about the little girl with her cat and the tutor with her secret crush on the dad. And then Koike starts dropping hints at the totally unpredictable crazy ending to come.

Like most human beings, I have a dark and evil side. I am a person who could witness something truly terrible and go on living as if nothing had happened. I could put the desire for atonement out of my mind, if that seemed to be in my own best interest. And I was capable of rationalizing the most horrific reality, if that was what I needed to do in order to go on living.

I thought the way Koike set up the story was really interesting. Some mystery novels blatantly drop clues early on to get the blood rushing, but she doesn't do this until the end. Instead, her hints are placed gently within the smooth narrative and then suddenly, right before the ball drops, you realize that this was coming all along. I was reading it late at night and saying to myself, oh holy shit wow. The quote above, for example, doesn't show up until the very end.

The English translation was just published &mdash it's a great book for the beach or a lazy afternoon on the couch.

The Cat in the Coffin by Mariko Koike

David Sedaris on quitting smoking in Japan = hilariously insightful

The Smoking Section is a short story about quitting smoking in Tokyo by humorist David Sedaris. You can find it in his newest book, When You Are Engulfed in Flames. Determined that he needed a complete change of scenery to quit smoking cold turkey, Sedaris—who normally lives in Paris with his boyfriend Hugh—spent two months in Tokyo living on the 26th floor of the apartment building on top of Peacock supermarket in Azabu Juban. He isn't a Japan expert per se, but his description of the two months he spend are some of the funniest and most insightful I have read in a long time. Here's an excerpt:

A Japanese woman we'd met in Paris came to the apartment yesterday and spent several hours explaining our appliances. The microwave, the water kettle, the electric bathtub: everything blinks and bleeps and calls out in the middle of the night. I'd wondered what the rice maker was carrying on about, and Reiko told us that it was on a timer and simply wanted us to know that it was present and ready for duty. That was the kettle's story as well, while the tub was just being an asshole and waking us up for no reason.

"The Smoking Section", in When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris = 5/5

Woman publishes book full of text messages sent to her dead husband's cell phone

65-year old Toshiko Fukuda of Hyogo Prefecture, Japan, lost her husband to asbestos on April 17th last year. Her husband, Motoo, was diagnosed with mesothelioma in 2006, probably from the steel pipe factory he worked at. He got worker's comp, but the disease ultimately destroyed his lungs and left him with hallucinations for the remainder of his life. Shocked, the widowed Fukuda started sending text messages to her dead husband every time she thought of something she wanted to say to him. Continue reading at BBG

Famous Japan writer Donald Richie in Berkeley April 21

Donald Richie, one of the most respected living Japan writers of today, will be giving a talk about Japanese film at Berkeley's First Congregational Church on Tuesday, April 21. He is the author of books like Old Kyoto: The Updated Guide to Traditional Shops, Restaurants, and Inns and The Inland Sea. His newest book is A Tractate on Japanese Aesthetics, which is kind of entering into Richie's brain—it's written in a free form, random rambling thought type of way. Man, I wish I could gain enough cred so that I can get my random thoughts published one day.

More info about the event here.

Donburi Mania, a cookbook for bachelors who love rice bowls

Donburi Mania is a fun Japanese cookbook full of creative recipes for rice bowls. I haven't tried any yet, but I really want to make a killer oyakodon and I also kinda wanna try the Melty Cheesy Meat Sauce Donburi.

Novelist Haruki Murakami claims support for the underdog in Israel speech

Ask anyone who their favorite Japanese author is, and chances are they will say Haruki Murakami. The guy has a penchant for winning foreign literary prizes, the most recent being this year's Jerusalem Prize, awarded by the Israeli president to the best foreign writer. Murakami pondered whether he should go to accept the award because of all the mayhem in Gaza. But he went, and gave a riveting speech to an international crowd in which he made a cool statement about a wall and an egg. He prefaced the metaphor by explaining his decision to be there—he's a rumored hikikomori, but he decided it's better to say something than to say nothing at all—and then said:

"If there is a hard, high wall and an egg that breaks against it, no matter how right the wall or how wrong the egg, I will stand on the side of the egg."

Homeless Japanese women dubbed "love hotel refugees"

Nikkan Gendai recently wrote about what they call "love hotel refugees," a subset of jobless, homeless women who sleep in love hotel rooms.This trend comes after Internet and manga cafe refugees made headlines around the world over the last few years. I met an Internet cafe refugee once. Apparently there are even "Makku" refugees—people who sleep in McDonalds.

Love hotel refugees are women and girls who hang out near love hotels looking for guys to bunk up with for the night, securing a good night's rest on the bed they paid for. (The idea is that the guys will leave after sex, and let the women use the room until checkout.)

Speaking of love hotels, a book called Love Hotels: An Inside Look at Japan's Sexual Playgrounds came out last year and gives a very comprehensive explanation of the whole phenomenon. For some beautiful photos of love hotels, check out Love Hotels: The Hidden Fantasy Rooms of Japan by Natsuo Kirino.

Related:
The most provocative love hotel rooms ever
Love hotels go public

via Tokyo Reporter

Dear Miye: radio show about a Nisei woman during WW2

On the car yesterday, I was listening to a great radio show by Soundprint, about a Japanese-American woman who got stuck in Japan during World War 2—her ship was headed home to America when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, so it turned back, and she ended up staying in Japan, getting married there, and finally—finally!—being able to go back to America years later. It was a great show that blended real commentary by the woman, now-elderly Mary Kimoto Tomita—with a younger voice reading her the letters she wrote to her best friend, Miye, from Japan circal 1939-1946. The letters are showcased in a book called Dear Miye: Letters Home From Japan 1939-1946 (Asian America); but if you're interested, I highly recommend you listen to the radio show, which you can get here.

Arcade Mania, a book about Japanese video game culture

I hung out in Shibuya a lot during middle and high school. It was just the place to be—cheap food, Tower Records, sticker pictures, karaoke, and yes, before any of that stuff existed, there were the video game arcades. My favorite was a five-story little building in the middle of Center-Gai on the left side. I don't remember what it was called. It was tiny and narrow and smoky but that was where most of my friends and I met, so that if somebody was late you could just play games until they showed up.

Fellow Wired writer Brian Ashcraft and blogger Jean Snow have a new book out called Arcade Mania: The Turbo-charged World of Japan's Game Centers in which they neatly dissect the world of Japanese video gaming. It talks about rhythm games (BeatMania came way before DDR or Rock Band. I swear. I remember playing it every weekend when I was a kid); dating sims (dating in-game can be much more passionate than in real life); and UFO catchers (these days you can win everything from ice cream to blow fish). Gaming is a big part of Japanese mass culture—and was, even before the Wii—and I found this book to be a delightful peek back into that part of my history. You should check it out!

Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms: a manga about the atomic bomb

Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms is a fictional manga that tells two stories of atomic bomb survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in one compact volume. Okay, kind of fictional. Artist and author Fumiyo Kouno actually based her story on the experiences of several real survivors—the protagonist is a lovable young girl who survived the bomb ten years earlier. I don't want to give away too much, but the manga was a huge hit in Japan and became the basis for a live action feature and an award-winning Internet radio show. The English translation is available from Last Gasp. Recommended to anyone who's interested in reading about the aftermath of the atomic bomb in a very human way.

Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms by Fumiyo Kouno = 4.5/5 stars

Boys Over Flowers, the movie made from my favorite manga

One of my favorite manga growing up was Hana Yori Dango, or Boys Over Flowers. It's an unconventional shojo series by Yoko Kamio. The heroine is a girl named Tsukushi Makino—she's neither rich nor pretty, but her parents decide to dig into their savings and send her to a snobby private school. There, Tsukushi has multiple run-ins with the Flower 4—four handsome, wealthy, extremely cocky guys who dominate the school's social life. My girl friends and I loved the story so much that four of us called ourselves the Flower 4 all throughout high school. Stupid, I know.

In the movie—which came out in theaters last month—Tsukushi and the leader of the F4, Tsukasa Domyoji, are about to get married but get sent on a transnational adventure in search of a missing tiara. I watched it on the airplane over to Tokyo (like JAL, ANA has great food and a highly maneuvrable entertainment system). I missed the entire TV series so was super curious to see how they portrayed my favorite manga with real humans. The verdict? It was okay. I was slightly disappointed by the random plot and the nonsensical turns it took (if they're in a rush to get to Vegas, why are they driving idly through the desert and not flying into Las Vegas airport??), but still, I was entertained and I didn't fall asleep. That says a lot, because I usually fall asleep during movies.

The Ginger Tree, a historical novel about a Scotswoman's affair with a Japanese soldier

I just finished reading The Ginger Tree, a 1977 historical novel by Oswald Wynd. The entire book is written as letters and diary entries by the protagonist, a young Scottish woman named Mary Mackenzie who leaves home by ship to marry a British guy stationed in China. Mary ends up spending most of her life in Japan, though, as a result of an affair she has with a good-looking Japanese guy who lives on top of a mountain and writes her a sensual poem that sweeps her off her feet.

The takeoff was a little slow—I impatiently trekked through the winding descriptions of 20-year old Mary's quabblings, waiting to get to the adulterous affair part—but I immediately took to Mary's character. Even though she's from a good Scottish family and she has her values intact, her mind is rebellious and rational and you see her metamorphose from a good mama's girl into her own person. By the end of the journey, she admits that she's turned into someone entirely different, and by the time she hooks up with the Japanese guy, she's not even surprised herself at what she's done. The part that follows the affair is a lot more up-tempo, and once she's banished from the Western community in China, Wynd takes us to early 20th century Japan, which he portrays much more colorfully than he did China. (Wynd—who is Scottish—was born in Tokyo, and spend three years as a POW in Japan during WW2.)

I'm a big fan of historical novels. When done right, you get this awesome combination of exciting fiction and educational history. (My all-time favorite: Moloka'i by Alan Brennert, about a little Hawaiian girl who gets sent to a leprosy colony.)

The Ginger Tree by Oswald Wynd = 4/5 stars

(Check the TokyoMango Books tag for more recommendations.)

Manga about wine triggers new wine boom

In Japan, manga is used to teach a lot of things. In the case of Kami no Shizuku, it helped revive the country's interest in fine wines. The manga, written by Tadashi Agi, is a 15-volume series about a wine connoisseur named Shizuku, the son of a famous wine critic who is on a mission to find the 12 best wines in the world. Real world critics are saying that this imaginary character's opinions are influencing the nation's taste buds more than any sommelier or wine magazine. Half a million Japanese read its installations every week, and the translated versions are a huge hit in other parts of Asia, too.

Anyway, I just thought of it because my mom's a huge fan and left a giant stack of these manga in my room. Link

Haruki Murakami Book Covers, and his Upcoming Talk in Berkeley

Stonebridge Press' A Wild Haruki Chase has a great collection of international Haruki Murakami book covers. It's really interesting to see how different they are—the above two, for example, are both for Sputnik Sweetheart, a story about a woman who disappears in Greece. I can't tell what languages they are in, but the covers are both remarkably different (and much more sensual) from the US version and the Japanese version.

My Darling is a Foreigner: A Manga about Dating a White Guy

My Darling is a Foreigner (Darling wa Gaikokujin) is a funny manga that came out in 2002 about what it's like to be married to a foreigner in Japan. I know, it sounds like it will be drenched in prejudice, but it is actually a hilarious account of the quirks of Japanese culture and how they are perceived by others, and of co-habitation in general. It's actually an autobiographical comedy based on the lives of author Saori Oguri and her white husband Tony Laszlo, a Hungarian-American journalist. Tony is a mellow but hard-working guy who isn't afraid to complain to the waiter about bad-tasting wine and likes to sneak to the fridge to get chocolate ice cream when Saori's not looking. Saori, the manga artist, is sometimes embarrassed by him and often annoyed at little things, like how he doesn't do dishes right away or how he stacks them in the dish rack the wrong way—but mostly she finds his quirks endearing and his insights on the culture fascinating—fascinating enough that they're the subject of her best-selling manga. Anyway, I gave my aunt a copy of parts 1 and 2 of this manga (there are a total of 3, apparently, written over a span of several years) because the white guy looks like her husband. I'm in Hawaii right now visiting them!

Kazuo Ishiguro's Time- and Space-Bending Novels

I just finished reading When We Were Orphans, a 2000 novel by British-Japanese author Kazuo Ishiguro. Several years ago, when I was a grad student, I read and analyzed The Unconsoled for a literature class. It's not his most popular novel—The Remains of the Day, which was later adapted into an Anthony Hopkins movie, is by far his most famous—but it was one of my favorite reads ever. Ishiguro has a way of conveying human thought and emotion that is really relatable to me. I understand internal battles between duty and desire; I relate to how the zoom lens of urgency can distort time and space.

Must Read: Dog Man, a Story About Akitas

I just finished reading a book called Dog Man by journalist Martha Sherrill. It's a simple biography of a man named Morie who spends his life in the mountains breeding Akitas. It was one of the best stories about Japan that I've read in a long, long time.

Sherrill follows the lives of Morie and Kitako Sawataishi from the moment they met in wartime Tokyo to their present day life as elderly mountain dwellers. While it has a seemingly simple plot on surface level, it's one of those books where, when you're done reading, you think, wow. This book works on so many levels. There isn't a single fluffy adjective or expression of emotion anywhere, and it's written with the snappiness of good magazine journalism—yet you'll find yourself close to tears at the end of several chapters. Morie, the husband, is a super Asian patriarch who makes decisions without consulting his wife and hardly shows any emotions. But he has one gigantic soft spot that he dedicates his life too, and that's the Akitas.

Johnny Bunko, A Career Guide in Manga Format by Dan Pink

Last month, I worked briefly with journalist Dan Pink on his book The Adventures of Johnny Bunko. It's a fun, insightful career guide written in manga format authored by the guy who wrote the manga feature in Wired a few months ago. (I just wrote the sound f/x that are scattered throughout.) I recommend it even if you already have a cushy job you like, because the illustrations are fantastic and the advice is indispensable. Well, that, and Dan Pink is an awesome writer (he was Al Gore's speech writer a decade ago!) and if you can't get through a magazine article to save your life then you can at least read this manga.

Get your copy here.

Tezuka's Phoenix Manga Now Available on DS

I've always wanted to read Osamu Tezuka's classic manga anthology, Phoenix, but it goes for volumes and volumes and would take up too much room in my bag. Well, now, a company called Compile Heart has collaborated with Tezuka Productions and Nintendo to create a DS software that includes the graphic novel in its entirety. It's in Japanese, of course, but what a genius idea to put novels on a DS cartridge, right?

If you prefer the English version in print, it's been published by Viz Media.

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The Four Immigrants Manga

Anyone interested in manga, Japanese humor, Asian-American history,or immigration should pick up a copy of The Four Immigrants Manga. It's a series of comic strips drawn and written by Henry Kiyama at the turn of the 20th century. Kiyama was a young Japanese man who came to San Francisco with three of his friends in search of work and a better life. What he finds there isn't exactly what he expected.

Kiyama's adventures span from mishaps with his rich white employers to surviving the great earthquake to finding a picture bride. Sure, it's funny. But it's also a great insight into the experience and resilience of Japanese immigrants of that era.

Author and translator Fred Schodt discovered Kiyama's work over half a century after it was written, and got permission from his descendants to publish it in the US. Amazing stuff.

After the Quake: A Theater Performance Based on a Haruki Murakami Book

After the Quake was originally a short story collection written by Haruki Murakami shortly after the Kobe earthquake. The Berkeley Repertory Theater put together two of the short stories into a 90-minute theater production. Pretty neat. I had to see it, so I took the Bay Bridge to the East Bay and decided to check it out.

One of the stories was about a love triangle and a girl who had nightmares about the earthquake man. Another story was about a strange frog who predicts a giant earthquake below Tokyo and recruits an uber-ordinary bank employee to help him save the city. Both were executed beautifully with a simple, modern set and really good actors.

Anyway! This performance ends on Sunday, so if you're dying to see it like I was, you better make your way to Berkeley ASAP!

 

Apollo's Song: A Tezuka Classic, First Time in English

Like all great artists with careers that span decades, Tezuka Osamu's work can be divided into different periods. Most of us have seen or read episodes of Astro Boy or watched Metropolis, both from his early career (late 1940s-early 50s).

Apollo's Song is one of Tezuka's mid-career works, from the manga artist's transitional period. It was completed in 1970, and it's about a boy who has never known love. He was born to a slutty mom, and as a result, every time he sees public displays of affection, it triggers an uncontrollable rage in him. After killing several animals mid-mating, he is checked into a hospital where the doctors put him through an intense and unusual reconfiguration regime. What follows is an amazingly creative and introspective adventure into hallucinations, hypnotic states, and glimpses of the past and future including Nazi soldiers, cyborg queens, and zoo animals on an abandoned island. And at the center of it all, a boy who needs to learn to love in order to be left alone. Pretty amazing.

Vertical Inc—the Japanese publishing house that puts out beautiful reproductions of Japanese manga and other great Japanese lit with awesome covers designed by Chip Kidd—just came out with the English version of Apollo's Song this June. It's a really quick fun read with all original drawings by Tezuka.

Get your copy here.

Kids' Stories By Beat Takeshi

Who knew that actor/director/TV show host Takeshi Kitano writes children's books? Not me. Not until I sat down this afternoon to read Boy, his new collection of short stories that came out last week.

The first story starts off with a man reminiscing about sports day in elementary school with his nerdy big brother. There are a lot of moments of what Japanese people would call seishun—nostalgic adolescence (though it has a much softer and beautiful connotation to it than the words "nostalgic adolescence").

The stories are chock full of intricate details on Japanese boyhood and family life, despite the simple, deadpan prose and the bite-sized length of each.
It only takes maybe an hour to finish the entire book, yet you get to know a whole new side of the man you've gotten acquainted with through legendary movies like Zatoichi, Battle Royale, and Hana-bi. Perfect summertime reading for the Japanophile!

Buy your copy here.

Paint-by-Sudoku Puzzle Book

I thought the Sudoku craze might have peaked and subsided by now, but no. I was just combing through Vertical Inc's catalog when I saw this book, titled: Oekaki: Paint by Sudoku. It works exactly as it sounds—by solving Sudoku puzzles of varying degrees of difficulty, you end up drawing pictures of things like geisha girls and the Statue of Liberty. Sound like something you or your Sudoku-obsessed mother would want for her birthday? You can buy the book here.

In the Miso Soup: Sex, Serial Killers, and the Japanese Psyche

Sex, serial killers, and the psyche of Japanese youth. That pretty much sums up Ryu Murakami's awesome 1997 novel, In the Miso Soup, which came out as a translated paperback in the US last spring.

The protagonist of the story is Kenji, an ordinary Japanese guy in his twenties who gives red light district tours to foreigners. He speaks good English, knows all the sex club owners in the area, and has a forgiving girlfriend who waits around at his house while his clients are getting off. He makes good money doing it, and hasn't had much of problem—that is, until he gets a phone call from an American named Frank. In this page-turning thriller, Murakami takes us on a journey through blowjob bars and batting cages in the back streets of Kabukicho AND through the twisted mind of this scary American man, who has these random dark psychotic moments and a horrendous New Years Eve killing spree. The story is peppered with Murakami's insightful analysis of Japanese culture and youth, so really, it's a psycho thriller, a lesson in Japanese culture, and engaging entertainment all in one book.

I finished it in one day.

In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami = 3.5/5 stars

Order Books Online, Pick Up At Convenience Store

Rakuten Books just started a cool new service that lets you order books online and then have them delivered for free to your nearest Family Mart. (Family Mart is a convenience store chain with 7000 branches nationwide. i.e. there's one in every neighborhood.) You don't have to put any of your personal information online to do it, either. Here's how it works, and refer to the lovely red-and-white illos above for reference:

1. Pick your desired products online.
2. Choose "pay at convenience store" from the drop-down payment option menu.
3. Choose the Family Mart nearest you from the delivery method menu.
4. Wait for an email that says "Your books are on their way to the convenience store."
5. Go to Family Mart and pick up your books at the cash register.

So easy and cool! Plus I love going to convenience stores because they have the best candy selection ever.

Shakespeare, The Yakuza Manga Series

Check out London publishing house Metro Media's new Shakespeare manga series. The company collected some of the best manga artists in town and collaborated their efforts into the release of Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet, both adapted to take place in modern-day Tokyo.

Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare's most famous love story, unfurls in a dramatic manga setting, in which Verona becomes a street in the highly fashionable Shibuya district of Tokyo. The star-crossed lovers, touching in their youth and innocence, are caught up in a bitter feud between two Yakuza families (Japan's 'mafia') whose rivalry erupts into violence and killing on the streets. Romeo, a rock star, is a Montague who falls in love with Juliet, a Capulet. They defy their parents and consummate their passion in secret. This is a story of love, revenge, violence and tragedy.

Pretty awesome, huh? It's part of an effort to teach kids about classic literature so they actually enjoy it. Just released this month.

The Imperial Family vs. Ben Hills

This book is causing all types of trouble in Japan right now. Written by an Australian journalist named Ben Hills, Princess Masako: Prisoner of the Chrysanthemum Throne tells the story of Crown Princess Masako in a way that the government finds disrespectful and inaccurate. On Monday, Random House Australia was served with a letter from the Japanese government stating, in much more eloquent terms, that the book was full of shit.

Ben Hills, on the other hand, responded with what we Japanese call "gyaku gire." Literally meaning "reverse anger," that's when you respond with rage to someone else's discomfort.

Hills said: "I regard this as an attempt by the Japanese government to suppress and censor my book, and I think it is absolutely outrageous."

I haven't read the book, so I don't really know where I stand on this. I wouldn't be surprised if Hills pulled one of those dirty journalistic moves that lack cultural and professional integrity that has made my profession among the top 5 most hated professions in the world, but I also
wouldn't be surprised if the government is overreacting in a desperate attempt to thwart any badmouthing of the Imperial family. While rumors of Princess Masako's mental breakdown and birthing difficulties have been whispered among housewives throughout the country, the press has continued to display reverence and respect for the Emperor's descendants.

Either way, I bet now that the book has gotten so much attention, it's going to sell pretty well and Hills is going to be happy in the same way OJ Simpson was happy when he wrote If I Did It.

Every Japanese Kid Has This Notebook

I was surfing J-list today and came across this Japonica notebook.

Every little Japanese kid has at least half a dozen of these notebooks, because they make one for each subject. They're lined differently depending on what they're for. For example, the one in the picture is for language class. That means you'll probably be writing a lot of sentences using new kanji in it, so the pages are lined with blocks, one for each letter. (Kinda like how those notebooks you first learned cursive on had four lines to remind you where to loop up or down.)

My favorite was the one called "diary." The top half of the page was blank, and the bottom half had squares. So you get to draw a picture to go with your story. My story was always about going shopping with my mom or fighting with my brother or eating dinner with my dad. And the picture was always of a girl with straight black hair and big bright anime eyes, smiling and holding a dog on a leash.

It was supposed to be me, except I didn't have straight black hair, anime eyes, or a dog. But the written part was always true. A child's memory is always part fact, part fiction. In my case, the line that divided the page into text and illustrations neatly separated my childhood fantasies from my day-to-day life.

Vagina book is the new Akiba bestseller.

You just never know what Akiba geeks will get obsessed with next. First it's robots. Then it's Gundam. Then it's PDAs. Now it's medical books about female genitalia. That's right, the newest craze is over a book called "A Guide to Pain and the Female Reproductive System," which, on the streets, is simply referred to as "the vagina book."

Why a bunch of nerdy guys who have probably never touched a woman--never mind experienced reproductive pain--would be placing orders at geeky Akiba bookstores for the already-sold-out, 12-page, 1,900 yen medical guide book is totally beyond me.

"We started selling it in September and news spread over the web, which sent sales skyrocketing. Salarymen in their 20s and 30s are buying most of the copies. But I still have absolutely no idea why it's selling so well," says a bookstore keeper.

One brave 30-something year old salaryman shared his thoughts with us. He says:

I thought I'd buy it to give me some help seducing any women I could bring back to my home.

IF you ever bring a woman home, that is. Good luck to you Mr. Salaryman.

Full story here.

Haruki Murakami wins literary award in the Czech Republic

Yesterday, Haruki Murakami--one of my favorite fiction writers ever--received the Franz Kafka Prize in Prague. His specialty is observing Japanese psyche and portraying it via surreal, mysteriously disappearing characters who often have unique insights on Western literary or musical classics. His most recent novel is called Kafka on the Shore, and I think it's one of his best so far. (No, I don't know if the title's reference to the celebrated existentialist had to do with him getting the award.) I liked Wind-Up Bird Chronicles, too, and his interviews with victims and perpetrators of the Sarin gas attacks orchestrated by the Aum cult (non-fiction). And then of course there's Norwegian Wood, the book that made him famous back in the 80s.

So if you haven't read any of his novels, stop reading this stupid blog and go pick one up now! It's better for you brain, and much more entertaining.

Japanese politics: the man who can explain it all and make you laugh.

Does the political scene in Japan put you in a confused frenzy? Do hours of contemplating why Abe got elected prime minister leave you in a cerebral pretzel? Well, there's a man out there who can explain the most intricate factional labyrinth to you in a nutshell. Gerald Curtis. I salute you for teaching the best politics class ever in the whole world. For painting these hard-shelled Japanese men who run the country as simple humans that we lay people can understand. According to Professor Curtis, Abe is an ideologue where Koizumi was a sentimentalist.

Read Professor Curtis' opinion on Shinzo Abe's challenges here. Or get one of his books on Amazon. They're actually really insightful and fun.
(Thanks, Mary, for sending me the article!)

The Logic of Japanese Politics by Gerald L. Curtis = 5/5 stars
The Japanese Way of Politics by Gerald L. Curtis = 4/5 stars

Bubble Wrap Mania

The Puchi Puchi ("Bubble Wrap") Cultural Research Center published the Puchi Puchi Official Book, which went on sale this month. It teaches 88 different ways you can use bubble wrap beyond protecting mail and answers those questions that always lingered in your head, like: What happens if you bubble-wrap an egg and drop it from a second story balcony? And will a person wrapped in bubble wrap float in water?

The Japanese love bubble wrap so much, Puchi Puchi Day is actually a registered memorial holiday. It's August 8, if anyone wants to mark their calendars.