May 28, 2008 by Christopher Born.

I remember watching shows growing up in the 80’s like Tales of the Gold Monkey, the A-Team, and Black Sheep Squadron. Some of these were fair, well written, and had a well-researched understanding of Japanese culture at the time. Others were just terrible! For exhibit A, I give you Tales of the Gold Monkey. It reminded me of those awful 1950’s African exploration shows complete with old white guys from Brooklyn in blackface.

But Black Sheep Squadron was different. The deft writing of Stephen J. Cannell attempted to look at the war from both sides, both that of the American and Japanese pilots. I just watched Season 1 Episode 6, wherein a Nisai (American-born Japanese) was piloting a zero and was shot down by American forces. There was initially a lot of bad feelings and violent intentions on the American side, but after discovering that the Japanese pilot was raised in America, playing ping-pong,

hanging out and just getting to know him, the American guys befriended him and wished that they could be friends outside of the war. They all seemed to agree that war was hell and was based on fear. This was not some PC or schmaltzy attempt at pacifism and international friendship, it seemed genuine. Cannell also captured the Japanese understanding of honor and a bit of the idea of the furusato or “long-gone hometown” that many Japanese pine for. Later in the series, the main character, Greg Boyington got into a sort of personal 1-upsmanship with a Japanese pilot, and they both were looking for mutual understanding.Of course, these things are not entirely accurate, but I do appreciate the efforts! Black Sheep Squadron along with Gregory Boyington’s autobiography, Baa Baa Blacksheep, helped me begin to look into the human picture of the Japanese side of the war. I came to realize that it is important to always realize the humanity of the other side of the war. Boyington was captured by the Japanese during the last year and a half of the war. While he did suffer some mistreatment, he also told stories of a great number of kind Japanese who looked out for him and treated him with human kindness. (Showing jin to an American pilot!) You could say that Boyington’s book became an American Furyo account, comparable in some ways to Ooka Shohei.All this is to mark how much media can influence our ideas and thoughts. I think today’s shows like The Unit and Numbers attempt to do similar things, and I would encourage us to use media to explore deeper matters than political soundbites and the status quo.

Posted in Research, Omoidasu Koto Nado | 1 Comment »

May 22, 2008 by Christopher Born.

After almost 20 years, he’s back!

I rented the third installment of the Indiana Jones story, “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” last week and watched it three times. My goodness, I’ve forgotten how much I love this series. I can’t wait to find a sitter and go with my wife to see the “KOTCS.” I hope it won’t disappoint - I really couldn’t stand the “Temple of Doom.” So far, the reviews are saying it’s pretty good, although some nay-sayers are positing that it doesn’t hold together well and is not suspenseful. We shall see.

After this viewing of the originals (am I up into the 100’s yet?) I was struck by how in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “The Last Crusade” there is so much Judeo-Christian imagery and reverent references to the Bible and other Christan stories present. Sure there were myths and hyperbole, (much like in Anime) related to these themes but they were in no way antagonistic to the underlying beliefs and truths we find.

It is hard to believe that only 20 years ago, the Judeo-Christian story was not so far removed from our hearts and minds, even if people were not adherents to either religion. It was a weltanschauung, even if not a belief system. It was Western culture, much like Confucian morality and Buddhist thought are the underpinnings of the east.

I wonder what we’ll see in this latest installment; it will be an interesting cultural comparison.

Meanwhile, I cannot get John Williams’ themes out of my mind! I wonder what themes he will put into the new movie. I am always struck by the haunting minor second to open fifth theme of the Ark of the Covenant, and the reference to the plainchant Te Deum Laudamus for the Grail.

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May 20, 2008 by Christopher Born.

Doing some digging for a future project, I discovered the Japan Media Review site at USC.There, you can find articles on anything from e-learning on cell phones to censorship, goings on at NHK to tabloid coverage.  The News Blog section is also noteworthy, as it covers unconventional topics.

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April 30, 2008 by Christopher Born.

This site is an aggregation of vignettes; snapshots in space and time, written by all sorts of interconnected writers in Tokyo, New York, (well, see the image below…better yet, just click on it.) I was quite fascinated to get these little clips; they are like little jewels-very short points of brilliant light-of what’s going on in random urban lives.

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April 28, 2008 by Christopher Born.

I found a great Japanese fashion site today. 
Take a look at this graphic.



It shows the interrelationship between men’s styles and magazines that cover it.For the non -Japanese reader, the upper edge of the map is the shoshokusei ga tsuyoi/ryuuko. (This means “Heavy Ornamentation” and “Fashionable.) The orange left-most edge is Onauke-softo which means “Feminine/soft” while the grey right-edge says “Masculine/hard” in grey.  The bottom, in brown is shimpuru-teiban, which means simple, standard goods.  AAAGoing counter-clockwise, starting at the top-left, this quadrant is defined by  biyoushikei,  which is “The beautician style” which sports hyper-feminized, unisex, or even female looks.

In the darker orange box that stretches down in to the lower-right, Extreme quadrant, we find the urahara-kei.  Urahara is a play on words for “reverse;” these two kanji here, ura being hidden, or underneath, and hara being Harajuku’s hara.  Together they form “Reverse Hara or Harajuku Underground.”  It tends toward extreme fashion and is a layered look. 

The violet square in the middle, spanning all quadrants in the Mennon-kei, which gets its name from the famous fashion magazine “Men’s Non-No.”  This contains elements of all the styles out there and is most mainstream.Going to the bottom-left, the entire quadrant is defined by the Kireme-kei (This is characterized by freshness, put-togetherness, cleanliness, and safe fashions.)Within this quadrant, going slightly into the Biyoshi-kei, toward the “feminine” edge in the tan box is the Konsaba-kei (Conservative - “defined by elegance, glamor, soft, and a natural impression”.)

Moving right, we find ourselves in the ekusutoriimu-kei. This Extreme style is “hard” and “simple” style and “in the narrow sense, street fashion.”  It’s a mix of skater, outdoor, roomy, almost hip-hop fashion.  There are no sub-genres represented here. Moving back up into the top-right, the light-violet square is characterized by otona no rokku kei.  This “Adult’s Rock” fashion conjures up the words “Rock, Sexy, Hard, Tight” in many magazines, according to Elastic.  (Designer Kitahara Tetsuo comes from this trend.) This style gives you the feeling of street fashion meets high fashion, and the brands are quite costly. 

Inside of this box, we find the grey box of the onii-kei which corresponds to the onee-kei in the woman’s fashion chart below.  This is defined by tanned skin, brown hair, but a more mature presentation than the old-fashioned gyaru corollary of boys who felt left out by their yamamba compatriots.  (Being a group-based culture, the boys needed a group to belong to as well as they hung out with the pack of gyaru.) 

If you do read Japanese, here is the source material along with Japanese explanations of each fashion type.If you like, I can translate it for you you in the near future.  This is a good overview for those who think J-fashion is all decora and goth-loli. There’s a lot going on in the men’s world.

But not so nearly as much as in the women’s world!  

Take a look at this graphic!
On the top, you have the self-intended (Jibun shimu), on the left you have the elegant, on the right the casual, and the bottom, the mote (Mote refers to a girl who is popular with the guys, and vice versa.)In the upper-left quadrant, in olive green, you have the modo-kei (For the fashion addict, who pays attention to global trends, Paris, Milan, NYC, etc), and toward the bottom of the quadrant the arasaa in mauve (Arasaa is fashion for gyaru who never stopped being gyaru! - Araundo Satei or “around thirty”), which dips into mote.

In lavender, the hai-endo kei, (High end) spans the middle between the upper-left and the upper-right quadrants.

Moving to the right, the light-green box encompasses the street-kei, and you can see all of the magazines in that category. (Casual street clothes, fashion students, tops, skirts, jeans, etc.) Moving down to the bottom-right in the area of casual and mote, in the orange box is gaarii-kei, (Girly - think juniors) and the lime-green box is  gyaru-kei (gal, Used to be as in mamba, kogal, kawaii, etc. but according to the source site, it refers to a young lady who has overall fashion trendiness…”LA Celeb style” for whatever that’s worth!) 

On the bottom-left, in the pink box is the Onee-kei (Onee-san means “older sister and the Onee Kei refers to styles for women who have graduated from the Gyaru-kei).  Just above, in violet, is the OL-Kei which spans between elegant and casual. OL means “Office Lady” and tends to refer to women who, you guessed it, are professionals, and are going to be more conservative in appearance. 

Now, let’s go find some of these magazines!  Stay fresh, not stale! 

Posted in Fashion, Research, 日本社会 | 2 Comments »

April 26, 2008 by Christopher Born.

10 years ago, before I knew much of anything about Japanese Pop music, other than what I had learned on the streets of Osaka in 1997, I purchased Steve McClure’s Nipponpop from a little bookstore in St. Mark’s Place, NY.  It’s a glossy 11×17 book with tons of pictures, good reviews, and lots of eye candy.  It sits proudly on my “Americans intersect with JPop Culture” section of my library, right next to Fresh Fruits and Manga, Manga, Manga.

Now, being that it’s 10 years old, it’s very dated, but is still a good historical springboard from which to jump into exploring older trends, as well as forerunners of current.  It covers folks like Kome Kome Club, Ken Ishii (In fact that’s how I discovered him), Sakamoto Ryuichi, Amuro Namie, TRF, SMAP, Yuming, and a host of others.

The cool thing is that, after doing a search for Ken Ishii reviews on Google, I came up with the website that is an update to this book: www.NipPop.com. This has many of Steve McClure’s original content, plus ongoing information.   This is a great thing if you are unable to read such goodness as the Oricon Charts.  The Oricon Charts are akin to the top 40 in the USA. You can hear examples, see videos, and check profiles of popular and upcoming artists.

For instance, at the time of this writing,  羞恥心, or Shuuchishin (Shyness) is at the top of ths list.  Take a look!
Random Thought: If energy is so costly, why are we leaving all our lights on at every store across the nation all night long?

Yes, it sounds a bit un-PC with it’s title, but I think it’s probably a play on “Hip-Hop.”

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April 25, 2008 by Christopher Born.

I promised I’d post my slides for the UMSL presentation about Confucian Cardinal Relationships and Values in Shonen Anime.So, here you go:

• The HTML Version
• The PDF Version 

I used Keynote 2008, and printed to PDF and HTML directly from the application. I wanted to include the audio and video of the clips I showed, but realize that perhaps there may be copyright issues, so I erred on the side of caution. 

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April 25, 2008 by Christopher Born.

As if you have any more time for reading than I do…I’ve recently interacted over Facebook with one of my favorite writers and researchers on Japanese popular culture, Mr. Roland Kelts.  Those of you who have attended my classes or lectures know that I have gotten a lot of my material and raw content from his 2006 book, Japanamerica: How Japanese Popular Culture has Invaded the United States. I came to know about the subject of the previous post, Kuuhaku, after I searched for other works Mr. Kelts has written. In Kuuhaku, there is a story called “Father Hunters,” where Kelts writes so deftly about so many of the issues in the post modern, post bubble landscape, it made it onto my  ”Must Read” list for the next class I do.  He compressed many of the major points into a short 14 pages.  Subjects such as Oyaji-gari (hence the title), privileged kids and unemployed dads, ridiculous economic downturns, homelessness, freeter, hikikomori, and all the other early 2000’s stuff that has become commonplace and now is just part of the daily action in Japan. I am about midway through the entire book, and it is indeed a work that I like to ingest slowly and carefully, like a meal at Fletcher’s in Crestwood-savoring the smokiness of the uncomfortable and funny morsels, swishing around the melancholy wine in-between, and experiencing the graphics and drawings like hot bread pudding. Roland Kelts shared some of his new stuff with me, so, if you like this kind of thing, check out these links: Daily Yomiuri Arts Weekend  and  A Public Space

Posted in Research, 日本社会 | 1 Comment »

April 18, 2008 by Christopher Born.

今日、朝４時３８分に起かせられた。セント・ルイスにすんでいる間で最初の地震があった。先週日本人の友達と一緒に昼ご飯食べながら、なんとなく地震の話題になった。僕は地震の経験がないといた。それは変えた、震度５．４で家の全体が縦揺れて窓の音で目がさまれた。面白い具然ですよ。

Posted in Omoidasu Koto Nado | No Comments »

April 16, 2008 by Christopher Born.

Lately, this book caught my attention:

Kuhaku & Other Accounts from Japan

Here’s the synopsis from the book’s page:

When we set out to find stories for Kuhaku & Other Accounts from Japan, we knew what we wanted: candid tales of life in Japan that weren’t trying to slice and dice the country and the culture into digestable nuggets. We weren’t looking for Ph.D. dissertations, just smartly told tales from the street.

Having lived in Japan for a long time, we realized these stories were everywhere. We tracked the writers down, asked permission to publish their tales, or more often, prodded them to put that story they had told us down on paper. Just about everybody responded favorably.

The stories in Kuhaku come from everywhere: tall tales told over beers in a pub, stories of corporate drudgery related during the lunch hour, doodlings on napkins at the local Starbucks and professional pieces produced on deadline for far-away readers.

I gotta get me a copy! Maybe you should too!

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