watashi to tokyo

A word has spiritual power, it is a Japanese

I checked Amazon's Top Selling books page today. Well, I am a little bit disappointed to see that in Japan most of them are manga. In the UK, I could see how British people love Harry Potter and fantasy novels. And in the U.S people like to control things: money, success, work, weight, their life by positive thinking, religion, healing :-) Actually, those types of books, like new age, healing and rules for achieving success, are popular in Japan too. "The science of getting rich" by Wallace D. Wattles was ranked a top seller in Japan.

Speaking of new age, it was a big fad in the 90s and "Bashar" is still popular in Japan. "I had it all the time" by Alan Cohen was a well known positive thinking book, and Yoko Ono endorsed a book called "Your life can be full of good things" by Mayumi Harada. As for rules for success books Napoleon Hill is famous, of course, and "As A Man Thinketh" by James Allen made pretty good sales. In the last few years the Japanese book "Lessons from a Jewish multimillionaire" by Ken Honda was big in Japan. He wrote some wisdom about money and how he was taught by wealthy Jewish men in the U.S.

Me?? I am a curious person. I love surprise, mystery, wondering at the world. If it seems to be interesting, I will read it, I will try anything. You know, things beyond all imagination could happen at any time, like this (Ghost!!) and this (Horn on head!!). I am open to those types of books too.

Then I found an interesting page today. The word "Arigato"= Thank you has power (JP). Actually we used the word "Kotodama" originally. It is a Shinto idea that each word has spiritual power. The page said that when you say Arigato 50,000 times, you will cry automatically full of a grateful feeling, and that some small happiness would happen to you. If you say Arigato 100,000 times, some better thing would happen. So, more Arigato will bring you more happiness. Look at this page, this page talks about the effect of Arigato too and they did an experiment. Three bottles of rice were filled up [is a bottle of rice a specific thing? or were three bottles just filled with rice?]. One bottle had a "baka" = A-hole, one bottle had no label, and one was labeled "Arigato". Then one year later, the Arigato bottle looked completely different from the others.

I tried to find the same idea (that a word has power or that saying Thank You can bring happiness to you) on Google, but I couldn't find any foreign sites. (Do you know of any?)  So, foreign people, does this make any sense? Will you tell me to stop kidding around? I am very curious if it will happen or not [if what will happen or not?]. What do you think?

Tokyo GEO project

"Tokyo GEO project". It is a trial to use an underground multipurpose tunnel for cultural purposes for just a few days a year. The project began two years ago in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of a law about development of public underground multipurpose tunnels. In 2003, the first event title was "A city's unconsciousness is awake" (direct translating, it means like that), the main point was to inform people about existence of underground interspace . Actually I supposed there would be such underground tunnel, but I had never seen that. Geo project was first time when we could know and see the detail of underground tunnel, "Kyogen" (traditional play) and light up event were held. In the last year the project was held twice, the second event title was "Silence of shield machine". We could see gigantic shield machine digging its way. Third event was titled "Ground site supporters" , it showed us how long shield machine was going forward and people that were working in tunnel underground.

Please click here, you can see Tokyo underground in big screen with a 360-degree field of vision, It is amazing, strong visuals . Here is another photo... I love that. They remind me of La Sagrada Familia, Both looks like an inside of a living organism. Zion of Matrix?? Yes I can agree with that too. And the site introduces people that are working there. It is very rare, but I like this idea, And you can see a short movie in this page too. I laughed to see this movie, because they use UltraSeven Sound track for BGM. (Yes, for 30s and 40s, UltraSeven is a special something.) Now I am thinking to go underground next time, I want to experience a deep inside of Tokyo!!

Yoshida sauce? What is that?

Yesterday I went to Manazuru to enjoy a BBQ. Someone brought a big bottle of BBQ sauce which I have never seen before. He said he got it at Cosco Japan. It was Yoshida sauce. Do you know that? My American friend said it is well known in the U.S. However I can tell you most Japanese have never heard about it. I could find their web site in Japanese, but its weird that the TV ads are all in English. Hmm interesting.

Talking of a domestic market, many Tokyo people (including me) tend to think we can eat any local special food here in Tokyo. Actually they say most good expensive materials come to Tokyo market/restaurant because there is a demand and a pretty good price. However it is not true. Actually "sauce" is good sample. Okonomiyaki is Osaka soul food. (Here is Osaka Okonomi yaki recipe.) and Hiroshima has Hiroshima Okonomiyaki too. (Here is the recipe in both Osaka version and Hiroshima version). A difference to them is that in the Osaka way the flour and other ingredients are mixed first and the Hiroshima way is placing one top of the other. And another important difference is Osaka use "Doro sauce" and Hiroshima use "Otafuku sauce". As a Tokyo woman, I can't tell the difference of those sauces (both are very sweet) but I suppose Osaka people and Hiroshima people will say they can't use other sauce for their Okonomiyaki. In Tokyo some supermarkets have Otakufuku sauce, but I hardly see Doro sauce here.

And today I found another local sauce/dressing. It is Fundokin dressing. I have never heard of it or seen it before. Hmm Fundokin has an office in Kyushu. Maybe Kushu area people know and eat it. By the way their TV ads are so crazy. It is so meaningless but so funny. Please check this and this. Rabbit say "Kabosu-!!", kabosu is juicy green citrus fruit like Yuzu. And this Lion and Rabbit is cute too.

Who appears in Japanese Ad on TV?

I heard Hollywood actors do not work for commercials on TV in the U.S. Is this true? How about in the UK? In Japan, we can see Ewan and Jay Kay on TV CM(commercial ad on TV) now. Does this mean commercials have a cheap image, or something? Although Japan had a big recession and companies cut their budgets for ads, the Japanese commercial market still seems to be a good part-time job for Hollywood actors.

I will now introduce some commercials with Hollywood TV stars in them.

Liv Tyler : Morinaga Caffe Latte
Check out this CM, the comments say "Caffe Latte brings some happiness always". The CM is pretty, however I feel Liv is not suitable for this role - the Jody Foster and Winona Ryder versions were better than this one. I mean, I feel Liv's image is much too gorgeous for this type of CM.

Lucy Liu : Suntory Diet Beer
In the old version she was running on the surface of a lake and falls into the water, ha! Now she is running on the surface of a building.

Natalie Portman/Charlize Theron/Kiera Knightly : Lux Super Rich
Lux always use young actresses, I remember that Penelope Crus, Gabrielle Anwar, and Brooke Shields appeared before.

David Bowie : Vittle
Coooooooooooooooooooool!!! How old is he? I don't know, no need to know. He is still so beautiful.

CM Collections.
Here is a great archive site, Japander.com. I am a little worried that he may have to close his site because of claims that the authorities were concerned. I was surprised to know we had so many CM with Hollywood actors in them. Okay, I will pick some, good and awful.

Nice CM
Brad Pitt : Edwin
This series is still on the air, but we cannot see any of Brad on EDWIN site. All the CM are very cool. Kakkoii!

George Clooney : Toyota Mark2
Car CM tend to be boring, but this was chic.

Dan Akroyd : Fuji TV Network
Old American comedy style.

Thunderbird : NTT
I love Thunderbird! I heard this was made with a very low budget, at a very small studio, by only a husband and wife in the UK. Thunderbird always tickles my Otaku heart. I don't like Hollywood Thunderbird, it reminds me of McDonalds Happy Meal toys.

Wired CM
Dennis Hopper : Bath Aroma
I suppose he lost some Japanese fans because of this.

Nicoras Cage : PACHINKO SANKYO.
I can not understand why he accepted this job, in a sense I can suppose his wired but friendly character.

Arnold Schwarzenegger : All
Everybody has a history. Who can blame it, right?

Sean Connery : Goo
Scotch CM were really good. Bio goo with a rabbit! That crossed off every other good job.

Kevin Costner : Canned Coffee
Drinking coffee in a miserable performance.

Whoopi Goldberg : Morinaga Hi Chew
Kamu Kamu Gokkun. ....sigh.

Bruce Willis : All of them
In the movies, he saves the earth and its people many times, but in Japanese CM, he always looks weird. That is fun, I have Brucephobia. la la la.

Bronsons
I suppose the very first foreign actor who appeared in Japanese CM was Charles Bronson.
It was a face lotion CM by MANDAM. He used the lotion and said "Hmm Mandam". He would have looked so tough, wild, and so cool for Japanese in those old days. So the CM became very popular and the CM song was popular too, when someone touched their jaw, they would say "Hmm Mandam"! It became a kid's play. This is the biggest Charles Bronson fan site, by Mandam T. Click it! A small "Hmm Mandam" window will pop up first.

Then famous middle-aged artists made a tribute CD. All of the songs were arrangements of one CM song, ha ha. This was made from mixed feelings of respect and satire, maybe? I think the Mandam CM is a symbol of their good, young days. Charles Bronson still survives in our memories this way.

Let's bake cake with your rice cooker!

Do you have a rice cooker? Do you have rice cooker? You use it to cook rice only? A rice cooker can work as an electric pan, pressure cooker or oven. Materials are the same as usual, preparation for cake and bread are the same as usual. Just put them into the cooker, and push the cook button. When you cook rice, you can't open cover, but when you cook potato, meat, cake, you don't need to be nervous.
Here is the site to introduce rice cooker cooking. Unfortunately it is in Japanese, but you can see the baked potato page. Nothing is difficult. 500g potato and 60cc water and push button! When it switches off, you can eat baked potato. This page say she could cook them all by rice cooker.

Here is Pork and Daikon = Buta no Kakuni (His recipe is so easy. Pork, daikon, sauce is small coke and soysauce! That is all.)
Here is Nikujyaga (you can use this recipe for materials)

But But I can not guarantee your rice cooker is okay for all. At least Japanese cooker is intelligent and tough (for everyday cooking.) Please start easy one, like baked potato or how about simple cake mix?. If your cooker shows an error or stops to soon, your cooker cannot work for another food. When cooker turns off, if the centre of the cake or food is not cooked well, please turn on switch again until it is cooked well.
Please don't complain if you fail or cooker is broken <(_ _)> Onegai shimasuyo!

Yoshinoya is in survival mode

Today's news. Nebraska upset over Japan beef ban, Japanese panel: more study needed before reopening to U.S. beef . I don't know how the US media treated this article a few weeks ago, but it was big in top page on Yahoo Japan. The US cattlemen would have a hard time because of ban, also some Japanese company is in survival mode too.

Do you know beef bowl Yoshinoya had experienced bankruptcy once in 1980 because of too-rapid extension of business. But they could rebuild business by radical structural reforming by themselves. They keep "single item policy" =beef bowl and work for drastic efficiency driving of business, each shop. They made a strict manual and also each staff in shop has training for "how to have a bowl, learn size of rice, how to ladle beef and soup". Since that their revitalization was so quick and amazing. Some books about Yoshinoya have been published, also Yoshinoya beef bowl game looks so funny, when you serve a bowl nice and quick to customer, beef bowl will shine! pika pika pika!  Anyway such Yoshinoya have really tough time again. Here is their financial report, they sank into the red again. They are doing their best, serving pork bowl, chicken bowl, but people need beef bowl. When they sold beef bowl only a day in Feb 2005, there was a long line in each shop.

And there are shops which have more serious damage. Sendai city in Miyagi Pref is well know as their beef tongue dish. They have "a beef tongue street" and every night people enjoyed soft delicious tongue around there. But now 60% of beef tongue restaurants had to be closed. Only 40% of restaurants can keep their business in this crisis with Aussie beef. But they say the price of Aussie beef tongue has risen 10 times before, things are getting more and more difficult.

I heard Japan's drug legislation is strict. Actually my American friends complain, he can't get stick type deodorants, and I don't know about a level of food-safety. I will talk about that to him (Hi! Martin. Thanks for your great blog). As a member of the general consuming public, I need a safety beef. I will buy and eat safety beef.

A trouble Nathans Japan had.

Another Otaku topic.
On August 12-14 a comic market was held in Tokyo. Comic market (Comiket) is an event to sell fanzines (We call it Doujinshi). Anime fan groups, manga fan groups, such some fan groups rent a space and sell their magazines in this convention. Here is the site to show inside market. I laughed to see this panel "You can't enter the market with costume". ha ha ha. Anyway we can easily suppose the Comic market would be full of Otaku for four days..

During the event, some food booths stood around the market place. An American hotdog shop Nathans was one of them. Then here is the catch, one of the part-time workers at Nathans had a blog and she wrote about her part-time job at that place with some photos. "I am working at Nathans in comic market!", "I am enjoying and we all are doing our best!" , "Our customers are all Otaku!", "there are Otaku! Otaku! Otaku!, ahhh weird! scary!".  Well maybe she updated her blog in such a way usually, Today I was happy! lucky! cute! lovely! scary! weird! , Yes typical harmless girls blog, maybe I did the same sometimes. But things had to go differently in this case. Some 2channeler caught her blog and comments quickly and a thread on the 2channel-message board was made. Yes, the festival has begun. Many people accessed her site and protested "you look down your customers!" and some complained to Nathans directly too "Your employee looked down us!". Nathans researched what was going on, then she deleted her blog. Yesterday this issue was published on some site. I was a little bit amused to read their apology. Sorry for my rough translation.

"We Nathans came from racial melting pot -New York-. People love us always regardless of nationality, values. Such company quality should be taken over here in Japan.....blah blah blah.
As a result of our research, our franchise company hired a part-time worker by themselves and the part-time worker's inappropriate comments caused this. That comments were completely diametrically opposed to our company compliance...blah blah blah.

Hmm...like it matters??
I understand their feeling to make this end, and maybe that would be the best way to do as soon as possible. But I am bothered by a feeling of strangeness. Do you think Nathans reacted like this? I also understand Otaku people felt bad to read such her words, but then they could complain to Nathans??
I don't think so. She was so careless, she was the one who be complained and apologised. Ahh I suppose sooner or later you will be asked in job interview, "Do you have blog? Could you sign this paper to promise you will not write about us?"

Anyway I could find her deleted blog (yes, here is another internet otaku) on someone's archive but I won't link there. She looks pretty girl, she was so smiling on her blog. Well she would never supposed to be named "MOLE" (actually she had a pretty one ) by otaku and her blog made a news on Yahoo Japan....Yes she was careless.  Wow what a scary! weird! I don't like people who overreact! :-)

Napoleon Dynamite has come Japan, but!!

This made my American friend very pissed off!
Napoleon Dynamite was not released in theatres here. But many Japanese checked out its trailer, and read about it's success on the Internet. Actually I think many guys were waiting for its release. But ND did not release it (I don't know why), and now the DVD has been released in this month. Guess what! someone changed the title. It is Bus otoko = Bus man....orz. Of course it came from the boom of Densha otoko = Train man. (one more)

Look at DVD cover, title font is so similar to train man and you will see 2channel mark
"ｷﾀ━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━ｯ!!.
It is Ascii Art to show his surprising or emotion, which means "finally". Actually when you see train man drama site, you will see that mark. I don't have any interested in train man, and although I was forced to see Napoleon Dynamite by a friend, but I could not find any timing to laugh:-p  However I think this title change idea was so senseless.

Napoleon Dynamite is good title because of the gap between its lordly big name and cheap poor characters, right? Usually foreign movies title had to be changed when they do not make sense for Japanese but "Napoleon" and "Dynamite" are both easy words. (Even though Japanese English level is lower in Asia, we can understand!). Did you see Napoleon riding on bus so often? My friend said it was just one time in an early part of the movie (I don't remember). Yes yes There is no reason they have to change the title. Maybe 20th century Fox Japan thought "Yeah yeah, since this is an American Otaku movie, let's ride on the train man boom! hya hya hya (^o^)/  it is good timing!".  I wonder if such a title makes regular movie fans hesitate, because it's too cheap-jack, it has too fake a cover.  Thinking of big hit in the U.S, this dealing in Japan is so bad. Don't you think so?  But listen, as far as I checked on internet, many people are angry too. They would complain to 20th Century Fox now.  But such complaining may be a topic!  The odds are all on Fox's side and they will do the same in the future! 

5million yen Kitty neckless.

Do you know Hello Kitty? It is popular character created by Sanrio. Not only Japan, Hello Kitty seems to be poplar in the U.S too, look! Cameron Diaz wearing Hello Kitty necklace.

Hello Kitty is 31 years old this year. Ikuko Shimizu designed in 1974. Now she work as a freelance designer and made new cat character named Angel cat sugar. (Ah kawaiku nai) Here is the 30 years anniversary site. When Hello Kitty was first created, its target was young children. In the 70s, elementary school girls hung around Sanrio shop with hands clasped around their small allowance all over Japan. Not only Hello Kitty, Patty and Jimmy (they came from Kansas city, they say), My Melody, Kiki & Lala and Taxido Sum were popular characters. You can check their character history on this page.  After the first boom in the 70s, Hello Kitty and all Sanrio characters were not popular anymore. I think our image for Sanrio was "just for kids" or "cheap". Actually we can see such their annoyance in their character too. What is this?, this, this, this... I think all are rough around the edges. don't you think so?

However the turning point for Sanrio had come in 1996. A popular (in those days) J-pop singer Tomomi Kahara said she liked "Hello Kitty" in public, then her fans, junior high, high school girls and even 20s girls began to buy Hello Kitty goods. So quickly Hello Kitty got to be popular again, and it has continued through to today. I think there is nothing which has NOT had a Kitty version in this country. ipod, camera, car, sweets, telephone, sofa, cook pot, ramen, I think maybe we have a Kitty version of Mickey Mouse :-p. Recently a guy bought 5millien yen Hello Kitty jewellery for his daughter. Ha! Crazy!

Ah! the kitter 42years old guy said he is wearing Kitty sandal at job and he said he got Kitty pyjamas... what! what! what!...orz.
Me? I have to be nervous because of extreme discomfort in Kitty goods.... However like I told you I am assigned for Sanrio cell phone website in my job. Ah.. I'm telling you this in confidence, we can't call Kitty "that Cat" in front of Sanrio peoples. We have to act like "Oh Lord Kitty, fortunately, business is thriving because of you." BUT!! now I can sense it is getting down... he he he. Well I was going to talk another Sanrio characters, but now I am so full. I will talk it later.

Motorcycle gang is hick?!

In Saga city, two teenage girls were arrested because they tried to incite a motorcycle gang. Saga police sent the case to the Public Prosecutor's Office on local government ordinance for expulsion of the motorcycle gang. The funny part was the girls wore Ham-taro and Winny the pooh costumes...orz.. Ha stupid.

Bosozoku and Yankee both thought "kakkoii" = cool?! before. They were in comics, movies, TV, and Bosozoku style rock band "Yokohama Ginbae" = "Yokohama silver Fly" which was popular. (Trust me, I did not like them at all, but it is too embarrassing to see such old craze!!)

However Bosozokus image has completely changed recently, 2channel began to call them Chinsodan (stupid driving group) and make Bosozou the subject of joke topics and made pictures like this, this. Otaku upgraded their image, then on the other hand Bosozoku are looked down by Otaku now, ha ha ha. Then some prefectural police departments use the word "Chinsodan" and they made a poster for a campaign for the "expulsion of motorcycle gang". I think it is good idea, Bosozoku misunderstood and think they are still cool in these days... Impossible. Actually there is a yankee style band "Kishidan" and they make some hits in Japan, but people's image for them is a kind of a comic band. (their songs are serious though).

Anyway I like the underground"ness" of 2channel. Recently 2channel and 2channelers stepped out of the shadow and into the limelight. However a 2channeler without spewing venom, a refined 2channel is not interesting at all :-p