Mari - diary

Parody opening of Eva

Have you ever seen Neon Genesis Evangelion? My friends got addicted very much, I watched all the episodes but it was so-so for me. But this is funny, Evangelion opening theme parody, please check after 1:35. You can watch a comparison between the original and parody both.

Wikipedia Germany released the TOP 100 pages people checked. This is the result of August. I am not very happy for this, because there is 2 Japanese-related subjects ranked in. 85 is Sudoku and 43 is...guess what... Hentai. But look at the rank again, except for welcome pages, the No.1 keyword is Stockholm syndrome and No.2 is Natascha Kampusch. The news is not so big in Japan though, the news of Natashca seems to be very big in other cuntries. I think the Stockholm syndrome and Hentai should be related to this news.

Booooooooom

Check! This is a great video, and I like this hybrid animal page. Sorry those two are not from Tokyo but I could not find a good topic today. I tried to write about this Ganguro girls. however, I couldn't put my mind to it..... Maybe I will write later about the new Japanese monsters.

Wasabi and egg

Is snorting wasabi the boom in the U.S now? Check Youtube, many guys and boys are sniffing wasabi. Check these videos wasabi1. wasabi2. wasabi3. wasabi4. wasabi5. wasabi6. Most of all, I was surprised to know everybody has wasabi at home. Do you have wasabi in the refrigerator? And is it the powder type which you can sniff like that?

At some Soba shop (dark Japanese noodle), they serve wasabi root and small grater made from shark skin. Then we grate wasabi by ourself and enjoy a fresh strong smell. And at home, we usually use paste type in tubes like this. So we hardly see powder wasabi at shops and powder wasbi doesn't sound so fresh to us.
But powder would be nice for wasabi cooking. For example, mix wasabi powder and mayonnaise (butter), it is refreshing wasabi mayonnaise (butter), I think it's good for salad, steak and roast salmon. Mix creamy french dressing and wasabi powder, oil and vinegar, it is wasabi dressing, it's good for sandwishes. Mix wasabi, soy sauce and butter, it can be easy quick, but tasty pasta sauce. Try it!

One more cooking topic. Look at this, inverted yolk and white boiled egg. And they say it is easy to make by panty stocking. Twirl an egg in a stocking for 70-80 times (not less than this, not more than this).  Then. Then put it into lukewarm water water and boil it while rolling. They say possibility of success is 30-40%. Here is the original article in Japanese. *

The Belgian Penguin Man

I love this

This is the translated page of Bayer Japan report. According to research, over 30's Japanese couple have sex 17 times in a year. *

Blue food?

Here is "Top 10 most beautiful cellphones". No.1 is my favorite cell phone Penck. But I don't use it because I am using one which my company lets me use, it is N901 white. Businessweek has an article "Cell phones of the Future".

This is the book "Food Package Design", each package looks very nice, and they look more colorful than Japanese food packages. Did I write this? Gold, Red,Orange are the most "delicious looking" color in Japan, so those colors are used in many packages. Is this common throughout the world?

How about blue? Except for mint taste candy and gum, blue packages will be hard to find in the Japanese market. So that Japanese were surprised to see blue cakes in the U.S and they post them on their site like this, this. Actually, we say blue is a color reduces our appetite. The funny sample is this; "blue diet furikake". (Furikake is topping for white rice) ....orz. I don't think I can eat it rather than diet.  Nifty PortalZ had the funny post too "make foods blue". Ewwww it is impossible to eat blue curry for me. They made the comment "taste like Monster's ink". Ha ha ha.

Now they have a new contest "the deco cup cake". How gorgeous, grotesque edible cup cake you can make. I will write the results when they are publisehd. I really like the site, they are crazy and lovely. This week, I like this most "real eye label". He copies and prints his real eye pics and labels it on his eyes.

Japanese love web 2.0?

This is very interesting. The language distribution of the blogosphere. No.1 is English. What is the number 2?  They say 1/3 of languagethe world's blogs are in Japanese. Wow the districution language on the Intenet is No.5. That is amazing enough, but 1/3 of bloggers in the world may be Japanese?! Thinking of the youtube case, Japanese were hooked by web 2.0. Why? Because broadband is cheap in this country? Because Japanese tend to be monomania? otaku? addiction?　I don't know.

By the way, a Japanese word "Mieha"(ミーハー) refers to a person who is a mindless follower of fashion, fads, and celeb. It has a mildly disparaging tone and is often used in a self-deprecatory way. Jim Breen dictionary said like this. Now in Japan, we have such craze now. It's really silly and crazy.

I wrote in Japan, all-Japan Senior High School Baseball Championship Tournament is really popular and it's a big event in summer. This year, Waseda (Tokyo) and Komadai Tomakomai(Hokkaido) had a great final over two days.　People were glued to the TV, they said TV ratings for high school baseball final average 29 percent in Kanto region. I did not watch the game, but according to news, it was a really nice game. So I understand very well people were so impressed to watch boys played baseball in a sweat over two days in such crazy hot days. It would be a touching game.

BUT I can't understand after the game. The Picther of Waseda Jitsugyo high school is Saito kun. He used blue towel during the final. So people call him "prince of handkerchief" and many called and asked the department shop "I want the same hand-towel that Saito-kun used at the game!!". Yesterday the maker of towel was made known but that towel went out of production already. So some started to sell the same model towel on the auction. Check the price in pretty good price, who want such a dirty old towel. Then some handkerchief makers gained the attention of the public and their share price went up. 2channel will start a festival about the fake autographed ball on yahoo auction....orz... Well I may tell, next week we will forget about this craze.

past some festival
Hyde 156cm
Avex vs 2channel
Sunday night

Several topics

Ghost car! Is this real? What do you think? I looked for some Japanese horror video on Youtube, which have a similar Japanese title. One is this, something on the railway. Then another is this, the dog blinked very rapidly　. By the way, do you know him? He is Mamoru Oshii, the director of the movie Ghost in the Shell.

Talking about Ghost in the Shell, this mini Tachikoma is so exquisite. You can check the movie here and here. And talking about exquisite, can you imagine?  This Shokugan Gundam ADAPT are just 600yen ($5 or so). They are released in Tokyo Toy Show. They say recent Shokugan have been really been upgraded.

Procambarus clarkii is called "American crayfish" (America zarigani) in Japan because it is native to the south-eastern United States. Only 20 American crayfishs were imported to Japan in 1927 as bullfrog bait. But now they breed proliferously too much and damage fields of rice everywhre in Japan. In Miyagi pref, they had a "eat American crayfish event" on 22nd and people ate boiled crayfishs and crayfish Tendon. It would be delicious, I want to try crayfish Tendon. Will you? Here is recipe and here is easy Tempra recipe too, please try.

making of wax food samples

Kappabashi is the famous kitchen town where we can buy regular kitchen appliance, tableware, dishs and they also sell products for professional use products and food samples.

In Japan, some restauratns display food samples maded from wax near the entrance, so that we may know visually what kind of food they have. Those food sample were made by craftworker of small sample factories. I wrote about those craftmen when I picked "making a food sample competition" in TV Champion post.　Today　I found some manufacturing movies. They are interesting, please check them out.

Making wax Tempra
Making wax crape
Making wax melon soda

I I have to say, food samples are old fashioned and very nice restaurants don't use them. (Even though the samples are excellent, wax is wax. I can't think it looks delicious.) So sooner or later, food sample displays will disappear. Maybe small key chain stuff will be retired as a Kappabashi souvenir.

Anyway some will notice I am getting tired and my post is getting shorter everyday. I am okay, but there is nothing good to write. But we have a proverb "Perseverance leads to skill." gambarimasu!!

Japan-in-America arts

This is great! Nature is sexy and this is funny Hitler Cats!

Mathers Museum of World Cultures Indiana Univ has "Japan-in- America" exhibition. This is their official site and we can enjoy a nice gallery.　Seteroviews, Advertisements, the Russo-Japanese War in Political Cartoons, etc.

I picked silly and funny movies about Sushi and Dogeza. The same group made a new movie about relationship :1, 2, 3*.

bastard

UK magazine Dazed and confused shows a erotic and grotesque manga book by Suehiro Maruo. Wow some of them are pretty nice, and some of them are absolute edge what I can see. I am weak for grotesque stuff. I like this.

A Japanese art and design site shift has a blog now.　Then I found two interesting "bastard" topics there. One is "Bastard Choose my identity".　They traveled around the world hot spots in 21 days to know the result of the culture mix. They came to Tokyo. Another one is Junior Lucky Bastard. 55DSL made and advertised for a new "kick ass department". The job of the section is to travel around the world in 55 days and write a blog. Their slogan is "live at least 55 seconds per day". Two guys were chosen and they are traveling now. According to their schedule, they should be in Tokyo now. But they are still in the USA now. Check out their blog.