Saturday, October 29, 2005

Hair Dryer Poised to Make Housewives Wetter


Gentlemen, behold! The Matsushita “Nanoe Minus Ion” dryer! For those who have been living in the outer reaches of the Hindu Kush, minus (aka negative) ions are a snake oil cure-all for everything from stinky rooms to grumpiness here in Japan. Having not lived in the West for about 9 years, I’m not sure if this trend is big elsewhere or not, but here one can buy exorbitantly priced home negative-ion generators, negative-ion producing jewelry, and negative ion computer peripherals for the health-conscious geek. But what are these Nonoe Ions? According to the description of the Matsushita “Nanoe Minus Ion” hairdryer:

“Low acidity ‘Nanoe Ions’ are carried in the electric currents contained in water and are produced through cutting edge technology. Compared to regular ‘minus ions’ they contain 1000 times more moisture. This dryer produces ‘Nanoe Ions’ from its built-in 4cc water tank and injects them into the center of your damaged hair…”

Wow…so this dryer actually makes your hair wetter than it was before? I guess that justifies the JPY 14,000 (about US $120) price tag. What other items need Minus Nanoe Ion technology to inject more moisture into dry, neglected body parts? Post your ideas in the comments section (or not).

Sunday, October 23, 2005

B-day Shoutout!!!



A HUGE b-day shoutout to our MAIN FUCKING MAN Mr. Kura! An even bigger Japan geek than yours truly, this guy knows more kanji than your average kokugo professor, but is so humble about it you'd never notice until you realized he was calmly sitting next to you on the subway reading something written in the 1750s without a dictionary!
Otanjobi Omedeto! Try not to hack anyone's head off this year (you will NOT get the Quickening that way, despite what you've seen on Highlander...I know, I've tried!)


PS. If you want a B-day greeting, tell me when your freakin' birthday is!!

Friday, October 21, 2005

Phat Photo Phiesta

Ok, I'm not trying to muscle in on turf so thoroughly tread by Engrish.com, but this week had me diving for my phone. Again, we are reminded that the true value of phone cameras is that they allow us to photograph other cultures for the purpose of ridiculing them.

First up, when was the last time your beverage promised to make you both a hero AND a leader? At only JPY 105 (a mere 2.03971 Brazilian Reais), this seemed like a steal. A strong 'nose' of glass-cleaner, a vaguely antifreeze-like 'attack', and an 'aftertaste' of oaky kidney trauma characterize this year's vintage of Osotspa M-150.

Ahh... now this little shop made me nostalgic for the days when you could ride into a sleepy rural Japanese village, pick up a few dozen strapping peasant girls, take them to Saitama, and pay them $2.75 a month to live in prison-like dormitories alternately wringing silk threads out of worm asses and tossing salad for the pervy managers.

Saturday, October 15, 2005

Unerfahren Parken ist Verboten



I ducked into a mall to grab a bottle of iced coffee and came out to discover the bicycle Gestapo screwing with my ride. Apparently these guys get paid to hang around in front of the store, straightening the rows of parked bicycles, motorbikes, and scooters. I’d locked my aging Giant to a bike-rack in the designated area, assuming everything was kosher. Not so. They explained that my trusty steed (not pictured here) was facing the wrong direction, so they had no choice but to wrestle it around, chained as it was to the rack, lest the world implode. I unchained my bicycle for them, flipped it around to face the ‘right’ way, and they were happy. Only in Japan.

In all seriousness, there is a need for guys like this here. The average bicyclist/scooterist in this country has parking habits that can only be described as barbaric. You find bicycles and even motorcycles parked in the middle of sidewalks, in front of fire-exits, and on top of the elderly. Worse still, a lot of people seem fond of abandoning their unwanted velocipedes pretty much wherever suits their fancy. I wish the major train stations in this city would employ a couple of guys like this to keep the entrances a bit clearer. But those hats have got to go man.

Friday, October 07, 2005

The twofold nature of this biscuit…



Granted this is only amusing if you a) read katakana, b) know the cultural context, but it kind of ties in with the previous post, so I’ll attempt to explain it.

The name of this snack can be transliterated as either ‘white rollita’, in reference to the shape of the snack (which is a sort of a twisted, white-chocolate covered biscuit), or ‘white Lolita’, in reference to the literary classic by Vladimir Nabokov. This pun is fully appreciable in Japanese and is probably intentional. The expression ‘Lolita Complex’, or ‘Lolicon’ as it’s known in the lingua vulgaris was imported long ago, although the Japanese pronunciation is rendered as “roreetah konpurekusu” (or rohreekon, if you prefer).

Lolicon is the commonly used euphemism for adult males who display a bit too much enthusiasm for young girls. Rather than being frowned upon, as in the West, the ‘Lolicon’ is treated as a huge marketing opportunity, with prepubescent pop-stars like Morning Musume (whose members are periodically replaced to keep the average age of the group somewhere around 12 and whose concerts attract droves of middle-aged men) to glossy ‘gravure’ photo-albums that depict girls from ages 10 and up, posing in bikinis (books that would probably get you pulled aside and flogged if you tried to bring them through customs in most Western countries). I guess I could inject a little self-righteous Western moralizing here, but there’s far too much of that out there already. Suffice it to say I plan to get my daughter out of this country as soon as I finish grad school.

Monday, October 03, 2005

More Than Meets the Eye



There go all my sweet childhood memories shot to Hell. Until recently I pined for the days when my biggest problem was completing my Constructicon collection so I could form them into that big motherf**ker, but this was cured, instantly, upon viewing the above. According to the info card that came with this incredibly disturbing figurine (which my wife brought home for some unfathomable reason), the Lolita in the Autobot hat is named ‘Ai-chan’ and she’s a virtual hologram that administers Cybertron. So we have a naked, underage hologram bathing with, inexplicably, a Sharkticon between her thighs. What really hammers home the creepiness though is the peeking-tom Optimus Prime in the background.

Anyone who’s spent any time at all in Japan knows this country has serious pedophilia issues to work through, but damn! I’d hoped those issues would keep their slimy, schoolgirl-violating tentacles away from childhood nostalgia. I gotta shower. I feel soiled.

Sunday, October 02, 2005

I SAID, HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO SUCK MY 8 LITTLE BALLS, MR. GARRISON?



I saw a young mum, kids in tow, wearing this t-shirt the other day. Disconcertingly, one of her toddlers had a matching shirt.

Saturday, October 01, 2005

Yo! Bum rush the show!



Ah, Japan! Land of frank advertising. One of my favorite advertisements ever, this huge, illuminated sign, located in a major subway station, is the epitome of taste. The soothing green leaves serve as an elegant frame for the text, which reads:

KIKUTA PROCTOLOGICAL CLINIC

Now that's class, that is.