Kitkowskiland!

So usually when I go to Japan, one thing I almost always end up with is a suitcase full of manga (most of it from used bookstores and the like when possible), about 23 kilos/50 pounds worth. This time was no exception. Here’s the breakdown of what I picked up, that I can remember off the top of my head from work.

Rinshi!! Ekoda-chan vol 3 (”Ekoda-chan, dying inside!”)- This is the picture from above. Pretty much my favorite manga these days, it’s a four-panel (4koma) manga about the real (?) life of the author, a single woman in Tokyo who drifts through relationships and works at various hostess clubs and the like. Lots of commentary on “Birds of Prey” (Moukin), girls who use their cuteness and affect stupidity in order to try to score men (who the author is constantly fighting against). It’s really fun, kinda dark, but I don’t know anyone who’s read this manga who hasn’t liked it.

Sumomomo Momomo vol 10-11 - The two latest volumes of my other favorite manga, the headlining Square-Enix comic about the “world’s strongest bride”, and one guy’s journey through the crazy world of martial arts families. The only problem with these comics are that, to me, they’re simply too interesting/fun, and I ended up reading both in a single evening. It’s like brain candy, but so much fun. Even now it continues to retain its humor, while at the same time actually advancing the plot and having characters change. Mad props to the author, who includes a new unpublished manga story in every single volume (some rough sketches, but still solid). Great manga. I hope it gets released in the US. Avoid the anime, it’s total shit.

Sketchbook vol 1-2 - Got this on Ewen’s recommendation. At first I thought it was too much trying to recreate the feel of Azumanga Daioh. But after giving it a second shot, it really grew on me. I like all the characters (though some of them just seem to blend together without having quirks/personalities of their own), and the little bits about art club knowledge, art club materials and the like are really interesting. I plan on picking up the rest of the series eventually. Not “blew my mind”, but it’s a solid contender.

Saint Young Men vol 1-2 - I mentioned this one earlier in my LJ: Jesus and Buddha come down to earth, and split an apartment in Tokyo. Hilarious sacrilegious antics ensue. Overall, it’s a really clever manga that plays out pretty well. Not “LOL” laughs, but lots of snickers, especially if you understand some Christianity and Buddhism.

Sakuran - The manga version of the movie about an Edo period prostitute’s life. It’s a single story wrapped up in one manga.

Nichijou 1-2 - Bought it on a whim. It ended up being a solid comedy manga, so I picked up the second one as well. It’s… Imagine Azumanga Daioh with child mad professors, cyborg students, possibly aliens. An absurd manga that still relies on the honobono feel of Azumanga. It’s pretty crazy, but worth a peek.

Arakawa Under the Bridge vol 1-7 - So the first volume was a gift from my cousin Eikichi, who give me a stack of manga as a “reimerse in geek culture” present. Another absurdist manga of the kind I love. I ended up buying all 6 other volumes, however on a deeper read it might not be *quite* as interesting as I first thought. I’ll have to back up and start over. It’s the story of an elite young businessman who lives by the motto of “never owe anyone for anything”. Unfortunately, due to some incidents, he ends up owing his life to a really strange girl who lives under a huge bridge crossing the Arakawa river. Eventually, he comes to live there, and meets with all the strange others that live there too: A man who is always dressed in a “kappa” suit, an ex-military nun, a man with a giant star for a head, and so on. Bizarre adventures in the grasslands under the bridge ensue.

Nononono vol 1 - Another manga given to me by my cousin. “It’s be the guy that wrote the story behind Elfen Lied”. I was like, “OK, I’ll have to find a polite way to throw this manga away”. However, Nononono is totally different - I checked. It’s basically a simple sports manga story about a girl joining the world of snow ski-jumping. Honobono. No one dying or peeing in shame.

Yotsuba to! vol 8 - A given. I mean, seriously. Azuma Kiyohiko is the greatest manga-storyteller writing today, period.

Manyu Hikkenjou vol 1 (Secret Scrolls of the Demon Tits) - This is another gift from Eikichi. Hmmm. The weird thing about this manga is that it’s so popular… even with women. It’s basically a reconceptualizing of the Sengoku era, but instead of “those with power control everything”, the phrase is turned into “those with breasts control everything”. It’s a manga that focuses on… tits. The drawing is excellent, the story is engaging, the characters, mostly all female, are strong leading characters with interesting personalities… and yet, it’s still all about tits. Maybe its popularity is due to the bizarre mix of “sexy and feudal era”? I don’t quite get it. It’s hard to give it a serious read, but I’ll try later and report if it’s worth a look. Normally I avoid this sensational stuff like the plague, but a lot of my friends, even women, recommended this one to me. Huh. Must be something more to it. Maybe.

Blame Gakuen -　The latest manga, or better said, “artbook” from Nihei Tsutomu. As always, the art is gorgeous, unqiue and individualistic (and damned creepy) while the stories are lackluster. Still, it’s fun to see the “Blame!” setting of isolationist techno-horror done up as a high school comedy in this one-shot.

Detroit Metal City vol 1-7 - This is the other latest craze in Japan, started with a manga but is now an anime and full-length movie. But it flies because it is awesome. It’s the story of Soichiro, a kid who just graduated from music school, living in Tokyo, whose dream is to start a gentle light pop band in the style of Pizzicato Five and the like. However, he ends up the frontman of an underground death metal band called Detroit Metal City, “Johannes Krauser the Second”. He lives a double-life, and although he hates death metal and everything it encompasses, he can not help to be totally awesome at it. He can play the guitar with his teeth. He can scream “Rape!” /11/ times in one second. He can out “FUCK!” the legendary American death metal artist Jack Il Dark.

Manga seven and it’s still going strong. I actually like the pace and feel of the anime a little more than the manga, but even at the completion of the anime, they haven’t gotten to manga 3 of the series. But the story still continues to be awesome and funny, with no sign of letting up yet. A must have.

Mitsurugi vol 1 - Another gift from Eikichi. As far as I can tell, it’s about a glamous school council that rules a school ala the likes of Utena, but it’s a comedy of sorts. Basically, they’re the elite of the elite, and they go around solving totally mundane problems. Glamorously. I’ll give it a read.

Franken-Fran vol 1 - Another gift from Eikichi: This manga is about a classic mad scientist, Frankenfran. Each chapter is a complete little story, usually involving gruesomeness and mad science. THe mad science is internally consistent and makes sense, which makes it even freakier and unsettling. Franken-Fran uses surgery to create crazy biological nightmares, which are the focus of the stories. In the first story, a father’s son gets in an accident and dies, save for his brain. THe father says that he’ll do anything to save him. Surgery ensues. When it’s over, she’s basically fused their two brains together, connecting their nervous tissue and eyes so that they can literally share each others’ thoughts… and the son’s face is on the back of the father’s head… Another story is about high school kids who go to Frankenfran for plastic surgery: It starts out small (rounder eyes, facelifts) and gets stranger and stranger. The last page shows basically a twisted school campus with bizarre kids crawling all over it, each the embodiment of their own twisted version of beauty.

Moyashimon vol 1 - It’s basically a biology/microbiology-themed manga that’s 1/3 comical, 1/3 mystery, 1/3 academic. It’s about a guy who comes from a long line of people who can actually see bacteria and microbes… and to them, they look like cute little figures (like those plushie disease dolls), and talk as well (not at length). Each time a new bacteria is introduced, there’s a sidebar that shows its cute picture, a biological description, and a psychological profile. Streppococcus, for example, doesn’t like talking about its parents.

It’s really entertaining, especially if you’re up for reading something that teaches about biology as it entertains.

Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru vol 1-4 - This was a total fluke. I looked up one of my must-buys (Yotsuba?) on Amazon.jp. I looked up 2-3 manga, and each time at the bottom there was a recommendation for this manga. I read some reviews, then picked up the first book. Then, shortly later, I got the other three. “Soremachi” is the best manga find I’ve made this trip, period. It’s incredible. Another honobono comedy story manga, in the end. It’s about a 16-year-old girl named Arashiyama Hayato, and her family and friend life. It focuses on her part-time job as a waitress at a cafe that recently was remodeled as a maid cafe. For the manga fans out there who know Azumanga Daioh, imagine a manga where Tomo (Ayashiyama) and Yomi (her friend and classmate Tattsun) work together at a part-time waitressing job.

Sumomomo-momomo was the best find I made three years ago, and Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru is this year’s find (DMC is hands-down awesome all around, but this one is the best “snuck up on me” manga). If you like manga, especially slice-of-life (ish) manga with memorable characters, you’ll love “Soremachi”. It’s incredible. I hope it makes its way over in English soon.
Orie picked up:
A pile of OL Shinkaron, Crayon Shin-Chan, and Ebi-chu (classics)

Didn’t Buy:
Mugen no Juunin/Blade of the Immortal - One of the manga that really got me into learning Japanese. But lately? I’ve just gotten tired of it. Once it ends, I’ll pick up the rest maybe at a used bookstore. It just dragged on too fucking long.
Ganmu (Battle Angel Alita) Last Order - The “new ending” of Battle Angel is taking far, far longer than the author anticipated. However, my friends tell me that it’s totally worth looking into, that Last Order rocks hard. So again, I’m going to wait for more volumes to be released (maybe once the series is complete) then pick them all up.

Anyway, that’s the report on the manga I bought. Next is console games, books and extras, and tabletop RPGs and materials.

The next day, we calculated the price of the family heading into town by subway, and driving in by car. For one or two people, Kobe’s public transport is sweetness. You can also pretty much walk from anyplace to any other place without too much difficulty. But in the end, for 4 adults and a child, the car is the way to go.

Oh, speaking of which, this rocks:

You can get this element installed in your glove compartment: You slide your credit card in. Then, when you travel on highways through toll booths, it automatically scans your device and deducts the correct amount, so you barely have to slow down. You even get a discount for using this over the coin toll (normally it costs 600 yen to go through the mountain tunnel pass to Kobe, with this it is just 450 yen).

Kobe is famous for a lot of things, but here’s the top few:

Kobe is famous for Western-style sweets, cakes and the like. It’s because it has a rich history of being an open port, so they’ve been doing cakes and snacks for longer than any other city in Japan.
Kobe is famous for sake: Good sake requires clean water, and the mountain springs of Kobe deliver the goods.
Kobe is famous for being richly international, again because of the open port thing.
So this day we “did” all three. Before lunch, we hit up a classical brewery and museum, and watched a video on how sake was classically made in Kobe (as well as took a tour of the place). Man, if I could travel through time, I’d totally be a fermentation director of a 1600s-era brewery. Anyway, it rocked, and I’ve got lots of pictures over in my Japan 2008 folder at Picasaweb. In short, it impressed the hell out of me, and not just the dozens of free samples they gave me.

What?

After the brewery, we headed to Kobe proper: Hit up the local NHK broadcasting office, passed a Mosque (beautiful architecture. The only problem is that before I left for Japan, I was playing a lot of Assassin’s Creed on the PS3, so my first instinct when I saw it was to climb up to the top and survey the land for evildoers), and visited a shopping arcade of small, distinctive crafts stores, all of which are housed in a building which used to be an elementary school (they even play up that fact, keeping a lot of the architecture the same, and posting pics of school life around the place).

On our way back to town, we passed a coffee house (apparently one of the most famous ones, I’m trying to hunt the name down), and through the window we saw the owner roasting some beans. Yasuaki is a huge coffee hound, and watching him watch the bean-roasting was like seeing a kid looking at the Macy’s Christmas window display or something. As we left, the often popped out and gave us a handful of Blue Mountain, which is a pretty high-end blend in Japan. Sweet!

After the coffee adventure, we went for cakes at a restaurant nearby. Gotta find the name of the place: Okiko, who knows her cakes, says that it’s hands-down the best cake place in Kobe. I’ve been to three cake specialty stores in Kobe, and I had to agree. Even now I still remember the taste of that heavenly tart. Better than anything I’ve had in the US, wow.

The picture doesn’t give it justice. It’s like that orgasm-tart from the second Matrix movie, but for both sexes.

I tried, I tried so hard to keep my stomach empty so that I could have two cakes (the proper method for the die-hard sweet-tooth). But man, one was enough. It hit the spot like an atomic bomb, and even though I had my eye on another, my taste buds were too shattered to be able to process another wonderful cake: I had room for it, but if I ate it it would have been “Ok”, and not “phantasmorgasmic”.

We were halfway home when Okiko said, “Oh, we should have just gotten another cake in a to-go box to eat later”. D’oh.

And that was Kobe. We got home, talked, partied with the cats, and got packed up and ready for the 24 hours of travel to get home.

Kobe is lovely. House construction aside, and the lowed temp from being in the mountains, Kobe/Hyogo prefetcure is a land of high mountains and deep valleys, forests everywhere. Looking around Gunma and the Kanto region, I can totaly see places where famous battles went down. In this area, though, one could barely imagine anything more than a single line of soldiers walking from one place to another. There’s no place for anything to happen.

Nowadays, it’s far more industrialized. Roads criss-cross the deep valleys, restaurants spot the rivers, and where there used to be enough room for a squad to march from one place to another, there’s a department store-ish/Target-ish place. The air is still fresh, though. The nights are dark. There’s still nature that can’t be developed on.

Kobe Saiko! Banzai!

Anyway, I spent the day exploring Kobe with Okiko and Yasuaki, but first it was kitty playtime:

Kikumaru likes sitting on peoples’ laps. And I love lap cats. Ahhhhhhhhh.

We went to lunch at a local French restaurant that was overlooking a cliff. The ewird thing is that when you look over the cliff from the parking lot, it’s like the top of a 4-story apartment complex…

What the hell? The left side… is a mountain. And the level that Orie and Yasuaki there are standing on is the ground floor, which means that the bottom floor is “-4″? In any case, we looked around for a bit but for the life of us we couldn’t tell where the people who lived there (had to be several dozen families) parked their cars… or how they even got down to their apartments. Secret elevator? In any case, it’s an interesting concept for an apartment, but you’re surrounded on all sides by tons of rock. I can’t imagine anyone with clausterphobia being able to stand it.

After the French restaurant, we went to Arima Onsen, which is like 10 minutes away by car or train from their place. While I don’t have any pictures of the place, it was really nice. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures.

The problem with hot springs arose again, though: Although they were “authentic”, they were too hot. Not just for the whitey, either: They had two baths at the hot spring I went to (a more famous one called “Kin no Yuu”/”The Springs of Gold”), one called “The hot bath”, one called “the warm bath”. There were 12 people, aged 5 to 80, all in the warm bath (which was still pretty hot) and not a single person in the hot bath. I hope in the future folks figure that shit out and make hot springs more like the sento that are achieving popularity recently.

At night, we cruised over to Kobe downtown, hit the Loft, and Orie fulfilled one of her shopping goals: going to the pillow specialty area and talking to a “pillow coordinator”, who helped her find a perfect pillow for her body type and sleep patterns.

There’s only a few places in the country (and the world) that have such a department/specialty. I thought it was kind of eccentric at first, but when I saw what they went through, I was impressed.  Orie got this awesome super pillow that’s like made up of four smaller pillows arranged like tetris pieces in a pillow-shell, all of which contain not feathers or soba kernels, but rather a kind of coal substance. Mission accomplished.

The next day we drove to town and wandered around all day.

Inside the office of Group SNE, one of the two largest RPG/tabletop game companies in Japan.

So after the cafe, we went back to the Group SNE offices and hung out there, talking for a few more hours. I met with the CEO over there, Kariya, who I hadn’t seen in ages. It was interesting seeing the gang at work, and I just hope I didn’t disrupt them too much: Yet even though I’m currently not doing any work for them (the Japanese RPG I’m translating is for the other company, FEAR) they still treated me like a special guest. It was an honor just to chill out and talk to them, sharing stories about gaming in the US vs Japan.

That night, the four of us, plus another member (the one in the middle above, Rikizo) went out for dinner. We went to basically a chicken specialty hibachi place, and ate there until about 11 at night. Among other things, their specialty platter includes raw chicken sashimi. I gave it a try (after a beer), and dug into the hibachi meat.

Rikizo and Sanae prepping to throw more livers and hearts and stuff on the grill.

All in all, a wonderful day. I also got to see Kobe at night again. I really like Kobe, it’s a simple, small yet stylish city: Mountains on the right, the sea on the left.

That’s me eating raw chicken heart. Or liver. I forget. That’s Tomono Sho back there, a career writer.
My plans for Tuesday were basically to bounce over to Kobe station and visit some old friends and a few new ones: THe folks at Group SNE, the other big RPG company in Japan. I’ve been friends with a lot of them (including the boss) since back in like 2003 or so when we met accidentally at GenCon (a yearly game convention in Indianapolis). My plans were to meet up with them for lunch, hang out a bit, and then go home. The latter was my plan: I didn’t really have any night plans, but just two days previous I was almost delerious from exhaustion at speaking Kansai-dialect Japanese for several hours nonstop.

What I didn’t realize is that that was a one-on-one meetup. This time, it was me with several people. For some reason, even though I myself was flipping back and forth between normal and Kansai-dialect (and about half the folks I met spoke in that dialect), I didn’t get tired at all. I think it was because of the additional pressures in one-on-one conversations to steer the conversation, think of topics, keep the topic going, etc. With a group of people there’s always someone saying something, so it’s a lot easier. So I decided to stay with them through dinner, etc.
Anyway, we talked about the company, games, gaming, culture, life all through the day. It was a really awesome time, actually. We also ended up hitting a number of restaurants. After lunch, frex, we spent a few hours at a local cafe that specializes in desserts. Oversized desserts. We each asked for a “float”:

Tomono’s float.

My strawberry float, and my hand to compare. It’s basically a strawberry icre cream float, in a strawberry-milk juice, in a fishbowl.

My good friend Kitazawa Kei, and his coffee parfait.

Fujisawa Sanae and her banana float.

OK, so there is a trick, and that is that the fishbowl is pretty much filled up entirely with ice. So it’s basically a scoop of icecream (maybe a hair more) with about a cup and a half or more juice. Take away the ice, and I doubt you have a “large milkshake” at Chik-Fil-A.

In any case, this was the gang I pretty much hung around with for the first part of the day. They all work as writers or designers in the Japanese RPG biz at the company Group SNE, so the hours flew by.

That’s a lot of pictures. I’ll post the second half of the day in another post.

It’s not even November yet, come the fuck on!

Anyway, that’s the giant-ass Christmas tree over in Kyoto station.

Speaking of Kyoto station, here’s a truth about the Japan Rail Pass that I keep forgetting. It’s wonderful for getting from one city to another. In Tokyo, it’s great for getting from place to place through the city (you’ll have to use the subway as well, of course, but you can get to the main cultural hubs by train). Once you get to Kobe, Osaka, or Kyoto, though, you’re screwed. There’s no trains in any of those cities: It’s all subway-only (or bus for Kyoto). So don’t forget that (like I did) if you’re budgeting for traveling around in those areas. Still, though, nothing like being able to use that pass to kickly jump between the three major kansai cities: The alternative is a 30-60 minute train ride.

I love Kyoto. At least, I loved my memory of Kyoto: More temples here than Starbucks in Seattle, lots of cool cultural sites, lots of nooks and crannies of the old city to get lost in.

I planned to go to Kyomizudera and Sanjusangendo, which are kind of like old haunts for me, and then just wander around for the rest. We eneded up passing on Kyomizudera (because I realized that I’ve been there like 4 times, yet there were other places nearby that I hadn’t been, phenomenal places that didn’t make it into the popular guidebooks for some reason or another), and going to Chionji temple. Orie had fond memories of it from a school trip long ago. I’d never been there, but I loved it: It’s a large temple complex made up of a few central temples and lots of side-buildings, built right into the mountainside. On top of that, it’s extremely quiet and peaceful, compared to the hustle and bustle of more famous temples. Unfortunately, we got there kind of late in the day, so we weren’t able to see it all before it closed at 4:00.

We did make it to Sanjusangendo. I love this place a lot, but I realized that even too much of a good thing… It was like my fourth trip or so to see it, and more than being impressed with it, I was like, “Oh yeah, I remember this. Huh.” However, I did spend far more time reading the inscriptions in Japanese than I did on previous trips, which filled in a lot of the blanks about the history regarding the place.

It was hustling from there to Chionji, and then ascending to the top of the mountains near Chionji, that we realized: Kyoto is totally fucking polluted.

So unlike other cities, Kyoto only has like two subway rails (which aren’t that useful other than getting to and from the shopping districts), and no trains, so most public transport here is by bus (and taxi to a lesser degree), far more than the other big cities. What this means is that you realize after a while that you’re breathing exhaust everywhere you go. Climb up into the quiet mountains, and the smell is there, too. It kind of sucks, Kyoto is a gorgeous culturally-rich city, but to me now it’s become a lot “uglier” due to the constant air pollution contaminating pretty much everything. Hopefully, the government will look into doing something about that, but I’m not holding my breath (save for when I walk around in Kyoto).

In one of the old districts, we ran into some maiko-san, basically geisha-in-training. Here’s some other random guy (he apparently only spoke Portuguese) taking his picture with them:

I didn’t really want to get my picture taken with them, but I took the picture to remind myself of something that I recalled years ago and forgot: Geisha? Not hot, really, when you see them up close. The makeup is unique, the kimonos are exquisite and their skill at classic instruments and dance are probably unparalleled, but the concept of the “totally beautiful geisha that makes men swoon… Heh, a rarity.
Anyway, that night Orie and I wandered some old districts, walked over to the Gion, then wandered around the main streets looking for a good place to eat. We settled on an izakaya called KI CHI RI, a place that specializes in more “gourmet”-ish izakaya foods while at the same time keeping a more quiet, subdued atmosphere. We had a cream croquette, fried root salad, some sashimi and crabcakes. We took a long walk back to Kyoto station, and on the way we spotted this specialty okonomiyaki place:

We didn’t end up eating there, but that was just too much not to take a picture: On top of the okonomiyaki they have arranged 12 tako-yaki, in the middle are soba noodles (hiroshima-style) with seafood, and three eggs.  It’s like one okonomiyaki a family could eat, yikes.

About an hour later we made it back to Kyoto station: At the izakaya we ate light, just wanting to sit down and try some unique food. We were really planning on sitting down to a more economical (yet delicious) dinner back at the station.

Kyoto station is awesome. Period. It’s a bizarre blend of modern architecture and almost Escher-like “fucking around”. Namely, the station and the buildings inside of it are 11 stories tall: Outside there’s a huge staircase that takes you up (or down) the entire thing. I didn’t get a good picture of it, but this guy did:

Click here to see just 5 of the 11 stories of the stairs.

There’s not one person who goes down that thing without thinking, “I wonder what it would be like to trip and fall down all 11 stories’ worth of stairs?”

We grabbed dinner at a pork cutlet specialty place, and made our way back to Kobe.

Two weeks ago today, actually, at the time of this writing. I’ll talk about it later, but basically it was a busy week in the Kansai area, followed by getting the sickest I’ve been in about a year. Finally, that’s all behind me.

So on Sunday, I woke up, had some breakfast with Okiko and her son, and made off to Osaka.

Overall, a really quick trip. The cool thing about being a foreigner is that whole “Japan Rail Pass” thing that you can get, where for about $280 you can travel anywhere you want on any train you want, including Shinkansen/bullet trains (except for “Nozomi” trains. But they’d never know anyway). Anyway, it’s about an hour by normal train from Kobe to Osaka, or approximately 15 minutes by bullet train.

In Osaka, I met up with a friend (Kamiya Ryo, the dude who wrote the Maid RPG and Yuuyake Koyake, among other games) at Namba, which is pretty much the center of Osaka: It’s kind of the sprawling commercial metroplex that’s become the de-facto cultural center of the city. He took me over to a kushiyaki restaurant, a place where they basically deep-fry (tempura style) anything on a stick. I had hard-boiled eggs, asparagus, chicken, beef with onion, konnyaku (kinda like gelatin), mochi, and all sorts of bizarre things in a unique werstoshire glaze. Pretty good overall.

After that, we wandered around a bit, including to Nihonbashi, which is like a “Mini-Akihabara”. The only difference is that in Akihabara all the adult video stores are underground or hard-to-find, in Osaka there’ll be an electronic store and a manga store sandwiching an adult video store that has life-sized posters of AV models sitting in the middle of the sidewalk in front of the store. Kind of an interesting thing, selling porn like it was just vegetables or fish, but I’m told that this is a thing that’s unique to Osaka (”no shame”). Apparently the latest AV release was “Hitomi Tanaka”, a gravure model who made her way over to the porn industry, to the delight of horndogs across the planet. They had a life-sized poster/stand of her in the front of the store.

Over in the otaku areas was something interesting that I didn’t see in Akiba: There is a parking spot right near the shopping area, and it was filled with cars of otaku, who basically not only souped up their cars hashiriya/ricer style, but who also plastered cheesy anime figures all over their car as well. Like, instead of racing for “Gatorade” or “Ny-Quil”, they’re racing for “Princess Panty-Shot”. I figured Matt G would get a kick out of these.

So I spent about 4 hours talking to Kamiya, which was really interesting language-wise. Basically, he was raised in Osaka but now lives in Wakayama. Which means that he’s got a pretty outrageous Osaka accent. Normally I’m totally ok with Osaka accents, but for four hours of talking on fringe topics in a frenzied pace… really can take a toll. By the end of the day, my eyes were rolling in the back of my head with exhaustion, almost like when I do interpretation work.

Anyway, it was a fun time, althought I didn’t get a chance to make my way to the port (I like some of those areas of Osaka, like the “full biosphere” aquariums they have there.

That night, I headed back to Kobe and we all went out for dinner. We went to a pretty awesome Hokkaido-themed sushi place (a sit-down family style kaitenzushi), where we ate and ate and ate and ate… I’m not exactly sure what happened, but we paid the bill, drove away, and realized at some point that they must have calculated the plates wrong. I love sushi, but it’s expensive in the US so I always order Something Else Plus Some Sushi: I never make a meal out of sushi. Here, I made a meal out of sushi, and so did everyone else, and the bill ended up coming out to something like $7.50 per person. Huh.

Back at Okiko’s, I played around with Minato some. Cute kid, but deep in those Terrible Twos (”Ma no nisai”, almost the same in Japanese interestingly enough).

The next day we headed out to Kyoto, just Orie and I.

I love the totally pure-indie indie scene in Japan, filled with guys and girls who basically write complete RPGs, photocopy or print them loosely, then sell them for like no more than $3 cost at local conventions. I often feel these days that the western scene is tainted by the fact that since one *can* make a buck, everyone feels entitled to do just that. I’m working on something on that front, though.

But for now, here’s a picture of the cover of “The Call of Moe“:

In this game, which uses the Call of Cthulhu system as a backbone, you play normal humans, salarymen, police officers and teachers who somehow come into contact with vile, dark tomes of otaku lore (basically your run-of-the-mill anime/otaku geek shit). From that point, you lose SAN. You keep losing SAN as you do things like:

Buy your first doujinshi (1d4 SAN loss)
Write your first doujinshi (1d8 SAN loss)
Attend your first Comic Market Convention (2d10 SAN loss)

and so on. This interior illustration of San Loss sums up the game pretty well:

Man, this is some self-referentual hilariousness.

Not much going on today: Currently on a Shinkansen (bullet train), currently going from Tokyo (the station) to Shin-Kobe (the station). Nothing much going on save for some rreading of manga, watching the scenery and the like. It’s interesting seeing the scenery change every few minutes.  Now I’ve got mountains to my right, a suburb of small houses to the left and shortly beyond that the ocean.

One cool thing happened this AM, though. So I’ve been in Gunma for about a week now, but there’s been no sign of Mount Akagi. It’s a giant mountain in Gunma (if you’ve seen the manga/anime/movie “Initial D”, that’s the mountain they do the drift racing on). It’s the symbol of the prefecture, and just a really distinguished landmark… when cloud cover doesn’t make it simply disappear. Every day I’ve peeked northwards towards the mountain, but haven’t seen anything. But this morning, the last day, I saw the top of the mountain peeking out of the clouds.

Anyway, on the train from Isesaki to Takasaki to hit up the first shinkansen (to Tokyo), Akagi was quite visible: Lots of mist and cloud cover, but Akagi peeked out like a mini Himalaya… It was about then that I realized that my camera was stuck at the bottom of my bag, so no pictures of Akagi this time around…

I’ll be on trains from 11AM until about 6:00 or so, but luckily most of the trip will be sitting in a rather comfortable chair.

I grabbed an eki-ben, this one teriyaki chicken with rice and vegetables, and between that and some wheat tea, I’ll be dealing some serious lunch from my seat on the bullet train.

For the rest of the weekend and until I leave I’ll be staying with Okiko and Yasuaki, some friends of Orie and mine from back in America: Yasuaki has a PhD in Cellular Biology, but switched careers to… Advertising: “???” is what I thought, too, but apparently it’s advertising for science-related businesses and goods, so that kinda makes sense. It was mostly because he, like a lot of other Japanese scientists who work or have worked in America or Europe, hated the environment of science and research in Japan: Very little experimentation is done, most is blind copying of already known results with only minor variance. Folks who really want to explore new things either flock to top positions at Tokyo university, are pushed into the dirt elsewhere in return for a stable job, or flee to other positions or countries. It’s a kind of downward trend that’s been accelerating recently. Science in Japan is being affected by this trend, and people know deep down that more experimentation (and more leeway given to those who want to experiement) is needed, but no one seems to be making the move to change the culture.

Aaaanyway, Okiko’s (who also has a master’s degree in biology, but is now busy being a mom) mother’s family comes from a line of Buddhist priests, so they apparently have a big house. I can’t wait to finally meet them in Japan, on their “home turf”.

(Okiko and her son Minato)
Orie has more things to take care of in Gunma, so she’ll be coming tomorrow afternoon.

Today I spent the day basically unwinding. In the afternoon I did some packing, then Eikichi came over and we hung out for the rest of the day, talking, watching TV and the like. At night, we went out for Okonomiyaki and Monjayaki (flavors: Soba-Monjayaki and “Gyoza Okonomiyaki” (basically niira onion, garlic, and ground pork).

After that we talked long into the night. It was hard leaving Eikichi, he’s my best friend in Japan and all - Knowing that we won’t be able to meet for another two years or so. Still, we’ll keep in touch as always over email and the like.

I was actually planning on sleeping in a little late, but for some reason I sprang awake when Eikichi’s first (of 3) alarms for work went off, and couldn’t get back to sleep after that. Watched AM TV (which is pretty fun, a lot of it consists of people reading from that morning’s paper on TV, and giving comments). Eikichi went to work, and I went to.. work.

Well, not at first anyway. I hit up Tokyu Hands in Shinjuku again, and gathered a bunch of small gifts for friends, and more for myself (I love picking up strange dice, cards, games, toys and Japanese goods in this place). Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to hit the stationery floor to pick up paper and writing goods, as I wanted to hit up Netapp (my company) to meet friends and head to lunch.

Got there at about 11:30, and while I planned on saying “hi”, sticking around and talking to friends, using the free wireless to send some emails, and head to lunch with buddies then splitting (at about 2:00), I ended up staying until about 5:30. Talked with friends, and then… I forget how it happened. A conversation with my buddies Hiroaki and Fumihito about filer (storage PC) performance (my specialty) led to one topic, then another… next thing I know, after lunch we’ve reserved a meeting room, and I’m giving a lecture in front of the entire support department on ‘advanced storage computer and network troubleshooting, from CIFS to NFS to SAN to WAFL to RAID, complete with demonstration of performance-analysis software tools, and hands-on demonstrations using real-world client data’. Originally penned for 30 minutes of ad-libbing, I went for about 2 hours from the basics to deep deep into core OS functionality and processes. And it was FUN. I came half way around the world for vacation, and found myself spending half a day enjoying work. Weird.

Anyway, with little time after that (I was planning on making a raid on a few ecclectic collectibles stores and Japanese stationery stores) before I had to meet up with Eikichi after work, I made a run to a place that he recommended to me called “Nakano Broadway”.

In Nakano there’s a traditional shopping arcade, like the more famous ones in Asakusa, Ueon, Kichijouji and the like. The thing is, at the end of Nakano’s hike is a 4-story building that used to be a department store, that is now known as “Nakano Broadway”, a 5-story (inlcuding the basement floor’s “fashion wonderland”) collection of… tons of shit. Mostly maniac stuff, any way you look at it. Dozens of little stores on each floor: One focusing on 80-s era anime laser disks. Another on US Army surplus uniforms and equipment. Another on airsoft weapons. Another on pulp samurai books. Another on games from the Famicon/Nintendo era. Another on track suits. Another on old gangster and samurai DVDs. Another on collectible robot figurines. 5 floors of that. I actually managed to See It All and get back to the station in about 30 minutes.  Mostly because in the end, it was a little too maniac out of my interests (frex, even if there was a TRPG store, it would focus on older collectible stuff, and I’m just not interested in collectibles all that much). Still, though, it was a cute experience.

On the way back, I bought some cold medicine, of the “do not drive heavy vehicles after swallowing” variety. I fought to maintain my stamina, though, and luckily didn’t become too drowsy.

Met up with Eikichi, we went to a unique place called “The Yoyogi Robot” ( http://www.ro-bo-ta.com/ ), a small theme bar with model robot toys plastered everywhere. THey constantly play theme music from robot and mecha-themed anime, while a TV constantly plays anime DVDs. There are some specialty drinks that are named after famous lines from various robot/mecha anime and the like. I ended up having a beer and a peach-cassis cocktail, and we both chatted up the barmaid: A girl in her mid/late 20s wearing a mecha pilot suit and glasses. She gave us each a card and stamped it with a stamp that said “Megane” (”glasses”), explaining that she’s a maniac for glasses. Cute girl in a “hot goth librarian” kind of way. Anyway, unfortunately due to creepy weirdos about they have a policy about no taking pictures of the barmaids, but you are allowed to take other pictures inside and outside the bar, so I did so.

THe stamp cards we received were funky: Basically, you get a stamp for every drink you order (and most drinks are 500 yen). You write a “code name/handle” on the card, and bring it. When you get 15 stamps, you retire your card and get a new one, of a higher military rank (captain, lieutenant, etc). The last rank is “Shogun”, and to get that rank you basically have to go through 10 cards. 150 drinks, at 500 yen per drink, I figured comes out to about $750 to become a Shogun. If ever I hit the lottery, I’d love to just pull out a fat stack of bills and be like, “148 drinks please” (basically buying rounds for everyone in the bar)..In reality, though, I can think of about 40 more interesting ways to blow close to a thousand bucks.

After that, we hit up Akihabara to get a carrying case for the dictionary I ordered, and then took some trains back to Gunma. Talked for a while, then took Eikichi back home, and crashed.

(Krispy Kreme, Tokyo Shinjuku : That’s a 30-minute line of people lined up to buy Krispy Kremes)
After some time, and being a little sick, and wanting to spend more time in culturally-rich Kansai, that I would cut down my time in Tokyo, down from 3 days to just little over one day (and one night). In that time, sightseeing and cultural activities (frex, I love to visit the Edo Museum, it’s probably one of the coolest historic museums on the planet) kinda go out the window in a mad dash of meeting friends and doing shopping.

With no other real plans, I went over to Akiba to check out some electronic dictionaries. Orie is going back to school (in America!) for a little bit, and needed one. Interesting thing is that the prices rarely change over the years (even when I was pricing them about 13 years ago!), but the functions keep inproving. After a lot of waffling and comparing definitions in Japanese and English for accuracy, I settled on the Casio XD-GW9600

Walked around Akihabara, visited some old haunts, namely the Yellow Submarine RPG shop there. By the time I left, the employees were walking me to the elevator bowing on their hands and knees at my passing. I figure two more trips like this and they’ll know me by name, even if I come to the store only once every few years. :-)

I hit up Kinokuniya as well, picking up a few Japanese language books. Unfortunately, there’s very few books that are written specifically at my level, so one of these days I’m going to have to break down and simply start reading Japanese novels and the like exclusively. But currently I just don’t have the patience.  I saw that Kodansha released the Advanced Grammar Dictionary, the long-awaited 3rd book of the set (Beginner and Inetermediate guides are shit-hot) that began some 13 years ago or so. It’s a solid, and I started cutting through it on the train.

Did a lot of walking around, visitng spots that have a lot of memories for me from back when I was a student in Tokyo 12-13 years ago, then living in the area 10 years ago. Certain smells, turning certain corners, seeing certain buildings, feeling a certain breeze on the bridge over the Shinjuku south exit train tracks… send me spiralling into a vortex of memories. Mostly good, some bittersweet.

A lot of what I found fun to do in Tokyo sucks now with the passing of my friend Satoru three years ago. It’s just not the same alone. There’s not much for me in Tokyo other than a little shopping and some minor sightseeing; I simply don’t get “Into the Scene” as much as I used to when Satoru was alive and we used to tear up the city long into the night.

Ate a crepe, one of those from a stand run by gangsters (blueberry and whipped cream). It was yakuzalicious.

At night, I got Eikichi after work and we hit up one of my favorite Japanese restaurants, “Tambo” (”Rice Paddy”). It’s kind of a rice specialty place, and the owners have their own ricefield in the boonies where they harvest the rice that is eventually sold in the store. That’s crazy-eclectic. Had a classic tekka-don style fish bowl with miso soup and sides, which then became an ochazuke (rice in a tea soup). Dee-licious. After that, we hiked it back past Akihabara to Kinshicho, where his apartment is. We talked for a long while, read manga, played PS3 (Yakuza/Ryuu Ga Gotoku: Kenzan, Metal Gear Solid, etc), watched some anime, and slept together in a 6-ricemat apartment where 4 of the ricemats are taken up by manga, figures, anime DVD and games. I slept on a bed of ricemat and manga, with a towel for a pillow, holding an airsoft replica firearm, mmmmm otaku life.

I found out Eikichi didn’t have Persona 4 yet. For that, I called him a traitor to his culture. But we agreed that it’s probably best to wait for it to come down in price a little, it’s still pretty high even in used stores.

Ahh, my cold was also starting to ramp up, so I ended up wearing a mask most of the day. In Japan they wear them not to “protect from pollution” as is commonly perceived, but rather sick people wear them so that they don’t spread germs to others out of politeness when they cough on the densely-packed trains and subways. This pic is for Daniel, who inquired into my “Dragonball Gangster Cut”:

Man, it’s been a whirlwind for the past three days. Two days ago I went to the Best Sento (public bath) I’ve ever been to, and believe me I’ve been to a lot. It’s a more recent entry in Maebashi called “Shichifuku no Yuu” (Waters of the Seven Fortunes). Normally in Japan, in Sento or Onsen, they crank the heat up so that only total maniacs can enjoy the bath. “Foreigners can’t stand the hot waters for long” is a commonly held position (even among foreigners), but the truth is that most Japanese don’t like the water all that hot either (43 degrees, etc). You can’t relax, you can’t stay in the water the whole time, etc.

After that, I went to get a haircut with Orie. The owner of the salon did me up like a Dragonball character in a punk rock show. I love it.
Went to a bookstore/game store (all bookstores seem to sell music, movies and games these days), and there I took a picture of the above: Something that’s been getting popular lately is this whole “Pen Spinning” thing. Basically pen tricks. If you hunt Youtube, you can find some really awesome ones. But there’s a number of books on the subject (in the counterculture section), and it just seemed like an awesome thing to write a how-to guide for. I like the one on the right: “THE SOUL OF PEN-SPINNING”.
Bought an armful of Japan-history themed PS2 games, some novels and manga (more manga, whee), then went to the sento. They had 3 large regular baths (about 41-42 degrees, which is the upper range of what I can enjoy, which in itself is awesome), a sauna (the saunas in Japan have TVs and speakers behind protective covering, so you can watch weird dramas while you are sweating your balls off), a steam bath and pool, 3 “barrel baths”, a jacuzzi bath at about 39 degrees (nice!), a waterfall bath, a bath where you lay completely flat with a rock for a pillow in about an inch of hot water, and of course the cold-water-bath.

I have a  love-hate relationship with the cold water bath. I always end up going in, haitng myself as I do so, but man once you slip in it feels SO good. I literally had a conversation in my head where I was like,

“Andy, fuck you. You are NOT going to go into this bath. You are not going to… OK, ok, fine, up to your knees. But that’s IT. Do NOT sit down. You are not going to sit do…SON OF A BITCH, why did you sit down? OK, whatever. You are not going to slide in up to your neck. You’re just going to stay where you are HOLY CRAP WHAT ARE YOU DOING STOP IT NOW. OK, now you’re in up to your neck. You can bear this. You don’t have to move your arms and legs around in the water, just remain perfectly still and all will be OK, just don’t wave your arms and legs arHOLY FUCK ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME???”

It’s quite painful at first, but it feels so good once you’re in.

That night, we ate a korean-style hotpot (Kimchee Nabe), and afterwards I started prepping for going to Tokyo the next day.

One of the problems with keeping a blog while on a trip, is that you spend more time relaying the few experiences that you have, instead of spending that time experiencing more experiences. Writing about your life rather than living it. To that end, until I have some sit-down time, the next few updates will be brief I think. Not too many details. But if anyone has a question or wants me to talk more about something, hit me up and I’ll dig into more detail.

They’re totally uncategorized, but they can be found over here for now:

http://picasaweb.google.com/ziggurat/Japan2008#

I’ll caption them later. For now, that’s where I’m dumping them every few days.