Tokyo Genso’s photoshopped post-apocalyptic images of Tokyo overgrown with vegetation are haunting and beautiful. Shown here is Akihabara, but there’s also several views of Shibuya, Shinjuku and other neighborhoods.
Tokyo Fantasy: Images of the apocalypse
(via Geisha Asobi)
via http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/356090545/tokyo-overgrown-with.html
Some interesting statistics that reflect changes in Japan:
Around 19,000 of the babies had non-Japanese fathers, 26,000 had non- Japanese mothers, while both parents of 9,000 originated abroad, according to the survey.
North and South Korean nationals formed the largest group among non- Japanese fathers, followed by Chinese and Brazilians. Among the non- Japanese mothers, Chinese formed the largest group, followed by Filipinas, and North and South Koreans.
The trend reflects the increasing number of foreigners marrying Japanese nationals. Of the newly registered marriages in Japan in 6.6 percent, or 49,000 involved at least one foreign national.
Of the 49,000 marriages, about 36,000 involved a Japanese husband and a non-Japanese wife.
Of the babies with at least one non-Japanese parent, 5.7 percent were born in Tokyo, followed by 4.9 percent in Aichi Prefecture and 4.5 percent in Mie Prefecture.
JR East has launched special Pokemon bullet trains:
At Ueno Station, Pokemon character Pikachu made an appearance and saw off smiling children boarding the bullet trains.
“I was surprised to see Pikachu, but I really like the character so I’m happy,” said one 7-year-old boy who was traveling to Iwate Prefecture with his family on the first day of operation. “It’s a cool bullet train,” he added.
JR East is operating four decorated trains on the Tohoku and Joetsu Shinkansen lines and one on each of the Yamagata, Akita and Nagano Shinkansen lines.
Here is a prett interesting place to study for the JLPT. They have nice animated kanji strokes.
http://www.yosida.com/en/kanji.html
I just found the greatest thing for lazy bloggers (like me). It’s a plugin for Wordpress that allows you to automatically convert any RSS feed into blog posts. If you’re an avid user of a feed aggregator, such as Google Reader (like me), then this makes adding news/blog items to your own blog a simple one click process. For more detailed info head on over to the WP-o-Matic website.
Now that I have this up and running expect more Japan related posts from external sources. All posts from external sites will show up in blockquotes and have the original link at the bottom (like the previous post).
Whatever happened to Nakano Hiroyuki, once a hot property after the success of his self-consciously hip “Samurai Fiction” and subsequently a pariah due to the abject failure of “Red Shadow”? Why, naturally he’s been remaking Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai”.
For a pachinko machine.
Current Kurosawa Production Co. president Kurosawa Hisao has already been vilified by some for frittering away the rights to his Dad’s films and image on sub-par remakes and canned coffee commercials, so this is hardly going to do him any favours.
That being said, just look at the talent assembled: former Kurosawa-gumi members such as costume designer Wada Emi, cinematographer Ueda Masaharu and action director Kuze Hiroshi, as well as this all-star cast:
Nagase Masatoshi as Kikuchiyo
Chiba Shinichi as Kanbei
Fukikoshi Mitsuru as Kyuzo
Musaka Naomasa as Shichiroji
Masato (pretty boy K-1 fighter who’s also in Hong Kong beat-em-up “Shamo”) as Katsushiro
Taguchi Tomorowo as Gorobei
Tanaka Yoji as Heihachi
Aso Kumiko as ShinoThe official site has a bunch of clips that admittedly look quite well-realised, although that might just be thanks to “The Last Princess” lowering the bar for Kurosawa remakes to subterranean levels. This being a Nakano ‘film’, the soundtrack features the wholly appropriate musical accompaniment of The Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction”, “Paint It Black” and “Jumping Jack Flash”.
I’m not totally down on the guy though - his video for Photek’s “Ni Ten Ichi Ryu” matches the song’s atmosphere perfectly.
via http://www.ryuganji.net/2008/07/23/the-men-with-the-balls-to-remake-seven-samurai/
