Mari - diary

Subarashi!

"SUBARASHI!" This word means wonderful, but it sounds a little exaggerated for casual conversation. Since today is meeting day I won't write long,  but will correct some SUBARASHI topics today.

This is a SUBARASHI clay animation movie. There are many pretty Sanrio characters, but I can sense some poison. I love such irony. I don't know why, but I feel that cat is my natural nemesis. avarice creature in Japan. You can see it everywhere like this, this, this.

I saw this news while I was in a meeting :-p. It's very hard to hold back my laughter, what a SUBARASHI piledriver in figure skating Euro 2007.

Wow, I am so impressed to read this news "Sweden to be first country with official embassy in Second Life". What a pliable idea. SUBARASHI! At any rate, this country's government won't have such idea, they are too old and have no sense.

This is a very SUBARASHI photo site "Every Sunday". You will feel some real Tokyo night as if you are walking silent down town on Sunday night.*

Your ideal partner

"match.com" is the world wide largest online dating site. I found a little bit old but very interesting article about the trend of Japanese women on the Japan match.com. In the Bubble days, Japanese women's prerequisite for a partner was "Sanko"(三高). Sanko means "three high levels." These were high income, high educational background, and high height. Haughty? Yeah, everything was bubble. The Bubble had such craziness, right? But after the Bubble, Japanese women tried to survive in a dwindling economy for about 13 years and their ideal partner changed into "Santei"(三低). Santei means low posture, low risk and low dependency. It means that he adopts a low profile (the lady is first, of course ), he has a stable job and he can take care of himself. Still haughty? I may agree with them, sure :-). But they talk about a new nice trend too. It's "Sanshu" (三手). 手(shu/te) means hand, Sanshu means helping each other, taking each others’ hands and holding hands with each other. Hmm, it sounds very nice, but too mild. I think women will be more severe :-P

As a recent report of match.com was the trend of 2006, they said there were two big trends. One was the increase of love refugees. Late 30s guys can't get married and get to be parasite, career women tend to choose being single, and only Internet matching sites support those single people. And another trend was community perception of remarriage.

Anyway economically  "the bubble"  caused serious damage for Japan. But in a cultural line, Juliana, nopan shabu shabu, Onelen (one length hair), Bodicon (Body conscious)　etc,. everything was funny now. The new movie  "Bubble he go" (go Bubble) is such a movie, going back to the Bubble era by time machine and trying to stop the breaking up Bubble. Here is the trailer. Hiroshi Abe matches the main character.

Seaman2 and eco Cup noodle

I got a PSP last year end, but accidentally the LCD was broken. The repair charge is 12600yen! Ah, expensive...orz. Seaman is a virtual pet video game for Play Station2. That weird ironic character was popular as kimokawaii. There are rumore about Seaman2 on the net and finally they opened the official site. This time, we will rise Peking man . The hand type cursor arouse my sadistic playful spirit...let's wait.

Al Gore's movie An inconvenient truth was released in theaters. It is a choice moive of the Ministry of Education, Culure, Sports, Sicience and Technology (what a long name). In Japan, Team Minus 6% is a big campaign to reduce global heating. Individuals, organizations and corporations join and take appropriate actions where necessary. For individuals, there are 6 types of actions. 1.How to use AC, 2.How to use water, 3.How to drive, 4.How to choose products, 5.How to use electric, 6.Shopping and gavage.  Cool biz, Warm biz, and furoshiki are projects of team minus. I joined already.

Regarding this eco topic, Nissin has released refill noodle and plastic "my cup" for Cup Noodle. You can change picture of "my cup" like a Starbucks cup. Cup Noodle is a typical disposable food, so this choice is very impressive for me. By the way, I found they update animation ad seriess freedom directed by Otomo Katsuhiro, check it out.*

Edamame?

I read Edamame is very hotin UK. Edamame is young soy beans (wow edamame.com!). And since we Japanese eat soy beans as miso, tofu, natto, kinako in such various ways. I might say Japanese have image as a kind of "supporting actor" for Edamame. Actually I eat it in the summer with beer, but I hardly eat it except for summer. Why? we can eat fresh Edamame only in the summer, in any other season, we can get only frozen type. If you can get fresh Edamame you boil it. Don't forget the best way is 4%. 1L of water, 40g of salt, 250g of Edamame, put Edamame into boiled water with salt and boil it around 5 minutes. After that, wave it with a Japanese fan or leave it for a while, at any rate, don't use water to cool it down.

There are many ways to cook Edamame. I love Edamame rice. If you don't have soy sauce or sake, don't worry. You can add some boiled Edamame and salt to rice and cook it. usually, that is okay. If you cook tempura before, please try kakiage with shrimp, boiled edamame, corn and chopped onion. It's delicious. You may add boiled edamame to minced meat and cook hamburger, it is delicious too. Grated edamame with sugar is called Zunda. Eating it with rice cake is Zunda mochi which is the special food of Tohoku area.

bag closer??

Spring-Summer 2007 Haute Couture collections are held in Paris. I read that a theme of John Galliano for Christian Dior was Origami, and its complex design was praised. Look at this video. Beautiful? To be honest with you, I laughed a little. (Bamboo on head??) Yeah yeah, I know, Iknow, I don't have any fashion sense.

It's a small thing but I am so impressed. You know, you may have something which you use every day, you see it everywhere, but you don't know the name of it. It is "That." For example, you get a coffee at Starbucks and you drink from small slit on the cup cover. Do you know what "THAT" is? Some say it痴 a "traveller lid," but traveller lids are this flap type, not "THAT" with a small hole. I am so glad to know the name of "THAT". Then I wonder, I saw this when I went to the U.S or in another countries. I saw this every morning when I ate breakfast. This one is called "bag closer". It's a clip of a vinyl bag of food, mainly a bag for bread. This is the result of "bag closer" in English. So maybe you won't call it bag closer,・or you don't have it.

I read this piggy bank sells well to adults. The bank has a small LCD window and a small guy lives in there. The more you save, the better he lives. I can tell this is a bank version of Tamagocchi. The goal is 100000yen. Do you want it? If I don't save money he will be living in a small, dirty apartment. No no, I don't need such pressure.

Original pizza and Yokoso Japan video

My cold got to be worse again. I took Pabron which I think is the strongest cold medicine in Japan and drank ginger honey (grated ginger, honey and hotwater) and whisky and then laughed at silly TV show "don't laugh" and "original pizza" 1.2.3. Then I will go to bed! This is the best course of healing for me.

So for today's post, I will put up these videos for the English lesson TV program "Eigo de shabera night" (talk in English ) All video talk is in English. Hopefully you enjoy this. video1 .2. 3. 4.5.

Mushishi will be into film

I know we have a lot of useless items. But they are jokes, we know it. But how about this American product? They look serious. Good grief!

I am a little bit disappointed about the announcement of nominations for the 79th Academy Awards. Nino from "letter from Iwo Jima" was not nominated. A few days ago, I wrote about new Japanese new movies which I won't see at any rate. Today's news says another new movie "Mushi-shi" got many offers from other countries. The director is Katsuhiro Otomo. Yes! He is the director of AKIRA. Here is the story. Here is the trailer. Very exotic and visual. Check it out.

When I can't find a good topic to post, Chiba prefecture is very helpful. I wrote about a local train company's part time job and people protested their new "cool" logo. Actually I have to doubt Chiba's design sense -- this is the dog character of the Chiba Prefecture Environment Foundation. What's wrong with his face? No, his face is the shape of Chiba pref. itself. They say the dog has no gender, the dog's favorite flower is field mustard (the flower of Chiba) and what the dog likes to do is support the warm hearts of residents of Chiba prefecture. What the dog can't do well is looking way (ha ha ha) and dreaming that Chiba can be the most ecological pref....well if you say so. Chiba has released the new character of the National Athletic Meet which is held in Chiba 2010. It is this....orz. again? Maybe Chiba people are really proud of the shape of their land and also they like "yuru chara" (loose character). Yuru chara is very hard to explain, but it's popular in Japan. I found an article about Yuru chara in Japanese wikipedia, I hope this helps you to understand it more. (web translated).

The show betrayed the trust viewers

I think the super popular health and wellness TV show "Aru Aru Daijiten" will be over. Natto disappeared from super markets after the show aired the effects of DHEA included in natto. Even foreign media picked the topic as "It's smelly, slimy and Japan can't get enough". But on 20th, we got this news. they used data from a DHEA study and experimental results of DHEA diet effects from U.S. colleges. But the TV show used extraneous dieter pictures. The show introduced the comments of a professor of Temple College, but he did not talk about Natto. However in Japanese subtitles, they wrote as if he recommended natto as a rich DHEA food, etc.  Here is another article too.

Last night, they aired an apology and explained which parts were false.  Here is the video which someone put up on YouTube. Maybe it is true that DHEA and natto work for diet, but it will be impossible to get viewers・trust anymore. This morning I read Natto makers had canceled for over ordering already, the share price of natto makers was down today in Nikkei and the sole sponsor KAO quit sponsorship of the show today.

I don't know what my friend will do with the mountain of refrigerated natto she bought up. Aru - Aru was a sensation and the show contributed to promoting health consciousness. But the show will be over.

Saturday night

It is Saturday night. I am drinking Shochu and this video, I can't stop laughing now. Sometimes I need silly laughing.

$0.99 shop and 100yen shop

Let me be honest. My trip to the U.S was really nice. But if you asked me what I was dissapointed about, I would reply it's the bathroom situation and Super Markets. I went to a nice Super Market in Santa Monica. But I did not receive a good impression from others. Especially I had a bad experience at a Wal-Mart in LA. (Not only inside -- I was asked for money from someone in the parking lot). I found this page today: "Filthy Wal-Mart". The LA Wal-Mart was not like this, but my impression of Wal-Mart was like this, he he he. But!! Super Markets were still better than $0.99 shops. I am sorry to say this: American $0.99 shops are really useless. I won't forget a dolphin figurine I found in a $0.99 shop in Arizona. It was the funniest and the worst design stuff in 2006 for me.

In Japan, 100yen shops can't survive without some effort anymore. So they池e very different from American $0.99 shops. Look at this, this and this is the official web page of a nice 100yen shop "Natural Kitchen." Check their items here. Cute!

Not only talking about the U.S., I will show Japanese wacky crazy shame too. Look at this: "Japan's New Teen Rebels?・Hmm, a very positive title it was. I will title it "Ganguro Returns."