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!

This week on MangoBot: Black Jack by Tezuka

This week on MangoBot, I wrote about Black Jack, the awesome sci-fi manga series about a ruthless mercenary doctor:

Mad scientists. Beautiful women who specialize in amputations. Supercomputers that threaten to starve an entire hospital full of patients. Tumors that take on human form. Sounds like a freakish B-list horror movie, right? Actually, these are all seminal elements of a classic cult favorite manga by Tezuka Osamu. Black Jack is one of his darkest yet most appreciated works, but it hasn't had much exposure in the US market until now.

Continue reading Black Jack, the Greatest Gory-Cute Scifi Manga Ever

5 Japanese monsters on MangoBot

This week on MangoBot, my Asian futurism column on io9.com, I wrote about 5 Japanese monsters I encountered before I turned 20. An excerpt:

When I was in elementary school somebody told me the story of Kuchisake Onna, a superhuman madwoman who lurks in dark alleys and asks you death trap questions. The former beauty wears a surgical mask to hide an Ichi-the-Killer-esque gash on both sides of her mouth inflicted by a crazed relative when she was a kid. She spent her whole life in utter misery and gradually developed a serious complex about her appearance. Eventually, she turned into a monster. Legend has it that she asks passersby if they think she's pretty. It's a trick question—if you say YES, she takes off her mask and says "Even now?" and kills you. If you say NO, she gets mad and kills you. If you run away, she'll run after you at lightning speed and kill you.

Read the full story

Last week on MangoBot: Tokyo's most dynamic 3D planetarium

Last week on MangoBot, I wrote a first-person narrative about my experience at Synra Dome, a newly opened 3D theater at Tokyo's national Science Museum that totally blew my mind out of this world. It was truly amazing. For details, please read:

My Virtual Journey on a Ribosome Spaceship and to the Far Ends of the Galaxy

MangoBot: How to buy figurines in Tokyo

This week on MangoBot, I wrote a guide to figurine shopping in Tokyo with a bunch of photos I took last week on my trip to Akiba. I also did a quick phone interview with blogger Danny Choo to get the deets. Here's an excerpt, and a link to the full article:

In Akiba, fans don't just buy figurines in boxes. A subset of talented geeks pick up kits and then fine tune the products into perfectly painted, customized collectors items that they then resell in little glass windows rented by the hour for about $500/week. Why buy figurines that have been modded by other fans? With kits, you often don't know what you're going to get inside, but this way you can pick and choose what character you're getting. The more skilled fans also add extra super-intricate coloring and detail to the standard finish, enhancing the aesthetic. It's kind of like getting any product customized—cookie cutter factory-made goods transform into one-of-a-kind collectors' items. Radio Kaikan, a famous seven-story department store built in the 60s, used to exclusively sell music components, but as the demand for music players dropped and the demand for figurines soared, the display of stereos have been replaced by rows and rows of figurine-encasing glass windows.

Read How to buy figurines in Tokyo: An Illustrated Guide

Today on MangoBot: Tokyo Zombie!

Today on io9's MangoBot, I wrote about an awesome zombie comic book and movie called Tokyo Zombie, which is just making its way stateside:

What if zombies took over Tokyo? How would a slow zombie fare in a cage fight against a martial arts expert? Has a zombie ever offered you a blowjob? These questions and more are answered in a funny, slightly X-rated Japanese comic book and movie called Tokyo Zombie.

Read Tokyo Zombie: Zombies, Cage Fights, Oral Sex, and Martial Arts

Last Week on MangoBot: Yellow Peril Science Fiction

Last week on MangoBot, I wrote about the history of yellow peril science fiction and the role of Asians in present-day science fiction.

Back in the 1920s and 30s, when Asian immigration to the US and Europe was picking up steam, prominent science fiction writers like Philip Nowlan and H.P. Lovecraft created speculative scenarios starring massive hordes of horrible, slanty-eyed, intelligent Asians who were either taking over or destroying the world.

MangoBot: The Yellow Peril, Fu Manchu, and the Ethnic Future (io9)

This Week on MangoBot: I Predict China's Future

On my io9 column, I talked to a couple of experts about the social, political, and economic future of China.

I'm a total sports nut. Olympic season makes my bones shiver with excitement. But this year, I took my mind off record-breaking swim relays and super-twisty gymnastics routines for a minute to consider the host country's techno-socio-political future. The opening ceremony confirmed my theory that China is breeding robots. (We already know that the cute girl who performed the patriotic song was lip-syncing and that the fireworks shown on TV were fake. I'm pretty sure that the 2008 drummers who kicked off the five-hour technological spectacularity were androids, too.) But what else is up in the giant nation that many believe will be the next world superpower? I called some experts and came away with a list of five predictions for China's next half-century.

Keep reading "Coming Soon from China: Dystopic Futures, the Next Steve Jobs, and a World Full of Drumming Androids"

This Week on MangoBot: Mac Funamizu's Gadget Designs from the Future

Mac Funamizu is a tech geek, designer, and futurist who has created quite a lot of buzz among design circles for his innovative gadgets from the future. The 38-year old Tokyo native has always loved Apple, Google, and Starbucks, but he always felt inconvenienced by the extra steps involved in using them. (Why mouth off a complex multi-conditional order of coffee when you could just customize your cup of joe online? Why doesn't Google Maps give you more than just a topographic image of what you're looking at?) At first, his ideas were just rough sketches in his Moleskine. But then he started posting his neat, provocative ideas online, and now developers are contacting him to try and make some of them a reality.

Keep reading...

Mangobot: Cool Futurist Female Artists from Japan

This week on Mangobot, I profiled two of my favorite female futurist artists, Yayoi Kusama and Mariko Mori. Although they're from two different generations, both are well-known in global contemporary art circles, especially in Tokyo and New York City. There are lots of awesome images and interesting details about each in the article.

Read Mangobot: Futurist Japanese Artists Show us Life in the Next Century

Mangobot: Four Anime Robots That Made Me More Human

On Mangobot, my biweekly futurism column, I write about four anime robots that influenced my childhood—Astro Boy, Arale-chan, Doraemon, and Gundam.

My childhood hero was a purple-haired robot who spends all her free time poking poop with a stick. Like all good Japanese children, my formative years were influenced by manga robot heroes—two-dimensional, two-legged machines that first existed in simple black-and-white on newsprint.

Keep reading...

Mangobot: How Alternate Reality Helped Me Survive the Dentist

On Mangobot this week, I write about my trip to an alternate reality via the dentist chair:

While Dr. Wong was putting dental dam in my mouth, I was watching three hot women singing the penis song in a Chinese restaurant downtown. It happened last Thursday, when I discovered a gadget that can warp my brain to a blissful alternate reality.

Continue reading...

Mangobot: Aliens Will Make Contact with Japan First

On this week's Mangobot:

I contemplate 5 viable reasons why aliens might make contact with the Japanese first. Reasons include our defense minister's stubborn insistence that aliens exist, the presence of a real optical signal-seeking observatory in Hyogo Prefecture, and covert operations by Kim Jong Il.

Read about the 5 reasons why aliens will make contact with the Japanese first.

Mangobot: Hot Asian Women with Machine Guns

My MangoBot column this week is about two movies featuring hot Asian women with machine guns: The Gene Generation and The Machine Girl:

Asian women with machine guns are sexy, scary, and fetishistic. If you're in San Francisco in June, you're in luck—you can get a double dose of ass-busting Asian women at the Another Hole in the Head horror movie fest, where two crazy, ruthless Oriental beauties battle evil in a cumulative three hours of gory revenge and fantastical sci-fi crime-fighting.

Keep reading...

Mangobot: The Original Speed Racer

From my bimonthly futurism column on io9:

Way before Speed Racer became fodder for one of the season's most highly anticipated blockbusters, it was a simple 60s-style Japanese cartoon. The original Speed Racer was a TV anime series called Mach GoGoGo, aired on Fuji TV—one of Japan's major television networks—in 1967 and 1968. Like many other sources of entertainment in Japan at the time, Go's determination and the superior technology of Mach 5 were symbolic of the country's rapid post-war recovery and the determination that drove it. While you're waiting to head to your multiplex to watch the Hollywood version tonight, let me take you back in time and show you a glimpse of the original.

Continue reading...

Fred Schodt on MangoBot

I wrote about Fred Schodt, Tezuka's long-time interpreter and predictor of Japan's humanoid robot craze, on io9 last week:

In the spring of 1988, Japanese publisher Kodansha released a revealing English-language book titled Inside the Robot Kingdom: Japan, Mechatronics, and the Coming Robotopia. The book predicted a new era when humanoid robots would dominate Japanese society in the same way that industrial robots were then dominating behind-the-scenes manufacturing in the country. It was a topic that nobody in the Western world knew much about at all.

Continue reading...

Mangobot: Japan Gears Up to Become A Full-On Robot Nation

On this week's Mangobot, I have a story about Japan's national plan to become a robot nation by 2010:

If you've noticed an unusually large number of utilitarian humanoids hailing from Japan in the last few years, then you probably won't be surprised to hear about the country's official robot initiative. Right now, Japan is in the midst of executing a grand plan to make robots an integrated part of everyday life. To compensate for the shortage of young workers willing to do menial tasks, the Japan Robot Association, the government, and several technology institutions drafted a formal plan to create a society in which robots live side by side with humans by the year 2010. Since 2010 is just a couple years away, I called up a roboticist at the forefront of this movement to find out how it's going.

Continue reading Japan Gears Up to Become a Full-On Robot Nation

On io9: Will Brain Age Help Me Reverse My Aging Process?

This week, I wrote about how I'm playing Brain Age 2 to stay young:

I've been trying to figure out ways that I can defy age. I'm turning 30 this year, which means I will have a harder time remembering things, filtering information, and staying in shape. Since I'm not Ray Kurzweil and I can't afford plastic surgery, I'm banking on Brain Age 2, Nintendo's cognitive training software, to keep me away from wrinkles and Alzheimer's.

Keep reading...

I Met Cornelius! (And Video Commentary on MangoBot)

One of the coolest things about being in Tokyo this time around was that I got to meet Cornelius. I think if I had to choose one musician to represent Japan in the summer Olympics or something, I'd pick him. Or the Southern All Stars.

We met at his studio in Nakameguro and hung out for a bit, and watched mash-up videos people made with his music.

He also gave me live commentary of his Fit Song video, which I put up on my io9 column today.
See it here!

Oh! And I decided to call my io9 column Mangobot. 

My Tetris Brain: Feature on io9

Did I ever tell you guys how I was a total Tetris addict as a child? I wrote a feature about it for io9:

At a young age, my brain was hijacked by the game of Tetris. Now it helps me navigate through life. When I was in the sixth grade, my friend Chiyo and I used to play this addictive puzzle game--developed in 1985 by a Russian engineer--for hours on end with a single 100 yen coin at an arcade in Tokyo. We probably should have been doing homework or at least pretending to, but instead, there we were, every day after school, sitting side by side executing crazy maneuvers with our joysticks. The mantras that I repeated in my head while playing the game at max speed as a pre-teen are totally in sync with some basic tenets of Asian philosophy.

Keep reading!

From io9: Japan's Wackiest Inventor Saves the World with Super Viagra

My column on io9 today features a story about our favorite inventor/politician, Dr. NakaMats:

Yoshihiro NakaMats, 79, is Japan's most prolific - and bizarre - inventor. He claims to have 3,350 patents (Thomas Edison only had 1,093), and that several of them are for the floppy disk. "Everyone knows about the floppy disk," he says. "But I also invented the fax machine, automatic pachinko, and the taxi meter." While running for mayor of Tokyo last spring, he announced that he possessed three secret tools that would save the world from mass destruction: a device capable of turning North Korean missiles around in mid-air, a love potion more effective than Viagra that would reverse the declining birth rate, and a new water-to-fuel technology that fights global warming. The weird thing is that he could be telling the truth.

Read the full story here

Feature About Tezuka's Apollo's Song on io9

I've been asked to write a bi-monthly column on io9 about Japanese culture and sci-fi/futurism. It'll be every other Friday, starting yesterday, and I kicked it off with a piece about Osamu Tezuka's Apollo's Song, a manga about love and sex and clones which is now finally available in English 28 years after it was written.

Read "Can Clones Learn to Love?"...