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19 Jan
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Posted by Musashi
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Caught this at Boing Boing yesterday, and while they called out Face/Off, my first thought was ‘Screw that, I wanna know about Black Lagoon!’ – and sure enough, the Internet Movie Firearms Database exhaustively covers every single piece of hardware ever shown in that series. Turns out Revy’s treasured handguns are a pair of Custom Beretta 92F’s (aka “Praiyachat Sword Cutlass Special”).
That’s just one of about 50 entries on Black Lagoon alone. If you poke around you can find similar articles on John Woo’s Hard Boiled, Jackie Chan’s Police Story, Ringo Lam’s Full Contact, and tons more. Trust me, this is gun-porn at its’ finest.
| Category: Cool Links | Tag: Anime, black lagoon, film, gun porn, revy |
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21 Sep
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Posted by AnaKhouri
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I don’t really give a crap about Pokemon, and I didn’t think anyone else did either anymore. It seems I was wrong.
It’s really well done, and it equates Pokemon battles with dog fighting, which always seemed kind of obvious to me. Anyway, good job trailer-making Pokemon fans.
(I’m working on that Comic Expo photo essay; give me a break, I was up all last night with a sick kid)
| Category: Cool Links, Uncategorized | Tag: apokelypse, fan film, pokemon |
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25 Aug
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Posted by Musashi
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Being Yellow Menace’s resident ‘Asian Design Major’ (as Greg likes to call me), I found this interesting…
What Do I Do With Those Damn Anime Kids?
Excerpt:
Introductions were made, and more chitchat was had about the problem at hand, namely, the Damn Anime Kid. “They just wanna draw the same stuff over and over again. The big eyes, the tiny chins, pointy hair. Whatever.” Others commiserated. “I can’t tell when they’re copying other stuff or when it’s their own characters or what. And even if they say it’s their own characters, all of it looks the same anyway. It’s all virtually identical. So even if it’s technically original, they’re not learning anything anyway.”
At the time I just sat back and took it in, unbelieving. What do you do with those damn anime kids, huh? You mean, the kids that are interested in drawing? The ones that are interested in learning concrete skills that will help them tell stories, with an interest in the human body, in posture and proportion? Gosh, what is an art teacher to do with such challenging students?
Being an expatriate of the 80′s hardcore punk rock scene I can empathize – some of the tragic shit that passes for ‘punk’ these days is sad, but who am I to judge? Today’s youth are expressing themselves through culture in the exact same way I did – I can’t fault them for being born two decades too late to have the same context. Truth be told, I’m sure there are plenty of 70′s punk or proto-punk scenesters who thought the stuff I’m into is shit. Fair enough. Instead of writing the current generation of fresh minds, we should find out what makes them tick (hint: it’s probably not that different than what made you tick at that age, you old fart…) and treat them like people instead of writing them off as a hopeless cause.
(Spotted at Deb Aoki’s Twitter feed.)
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24 Aug
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Posted by Musashi
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Brian Dunning tackles the Yonaguni Monument (aka ‘Japan’s Atlantis’) on this week’s episode of Skeptoid. As usual with Skeptoid, if you tune in expecting to hear about verified evidence of some lost culture off the coast of Japan you’ll be disappointed.
About 25 meters beneath the waters off Japan lies a stepped pyramid. We don’t know who built it, or when; but there it is, plain as day, available for anyone to go down and inspect. Even now at this very minute, the current washes past sharply squared stone blocks standing dark and forbidding, rising nearly high enough to break the surface. It is called the Yonaguni Monument.
The Japanese archipelago stretches for nearly 4,000 kilometers, from Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula to the island of Taiwain, off the coast of mainland China. At its extreme southwestern tip is the small island of Yonaguni, Japan’s most western point, just a scant 100 kilometers from Taiwan. It’s quite small, less than thirty square kilometers, with only 1700 residents, but it’s famous for something found in its waters: Hammerhead sharks.
Lots of hammerhead sharks. They’re so ubiquitous that divers come from all over the world to swim with them. And wherever you have a lot of divers, things under the water tend to be found. And that’s just what happened in 1986, when a representative from the Yonaguni tourism board was out exploring off the southernmost tip of the island, looking for a hammerhead diving spot to promote. What he came across was not what he set out to look for, though.
You can hear the whole thing here…
| Category: Cool Links | Tag: |
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19 Aug
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Posted by Mazinga
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MetaFilter recently had a couple of cool links on Asian pop culture topics.
- A discussion of Japanese director Seijun Suzuki (Branded to Kill)
- Visual Kei band X Japan embarks on first-ever US tour
- An awesome gallery of posters using pop culture images (Superman, Marilyn Monroe) to promote manners on public transit
Share and Enjoy!
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20 Jun
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Posted by Musashi
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Okay, it’s father’s day – so indulge me, y’all. I was nabbing the latest episode of Doctor Who for my son and I to watch after dinner and I started to wonder how hard it would be to knock together a life-size TARDIS – well, a police box, really. After a few minutes poking around on Google I was discouraged by what must certainly be the coolest TARDIS ever built…it’s a full-size TARDIS with a fully functional MAME console built inside.
Sure, I could probably build my own TARDIS – but it wouldn’t play an arcade-perfect version of Dig Dug, so forget it.
| Category: Cool Links | Tag: doctor who, emulators, father's day, mame, tardis |
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15 Jun
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Posted by Mazinga
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Some Caucasians living in China have reported making a little extra on the side by renting themselves out. Cool your jets — not that way, but to pose as visiting American businessmen and accompany entrepreneurs hoping to add an air of cultivated connections to their presence at business meetings.
Recruiting fake businessmen is one way to create the image–particularly, the image of connection–that Chinese companies crave. My Chinese-language tutor, at first aghast about how much we were getting paid, put it this way: “Having foreigners in nice suits gives the company face…”
(via BoingBoing via Kottke)
| Category: Cool Links, News | Tag: china, weird |
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15 Jun
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Posted by Mazinga
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Here’s one for our resident Asian design major, Musashi: a nifty gallery of “creative infography” that presents complex information in a simple and visually appealing fashion.
(via MeFi)
| Category: Cool Links | Tag: art, graphic design |
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10 Jun
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Posted by Mazinga
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Some genius created an awesome stop-motion video of Mario making a two-dimensional journey around his school thanks to the magic of paper cutouts.
(via BoingBoing)
| Category: Cool Links | Tag: art, japan, super mario brothers, video games |
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10 Jun
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Posted by Mazinga
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BoingBoing’s Xeni Jardin is right, the captions in this Flickr photoset are sometimes cringe-inducing, but its collection of photographic images from Meiji-era Japan is amazing indeed.
| Category: Cool Links | Tag: art, japan, Meiji |
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7 Jun
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Posted by Musashi
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Wired recently posted a quick breakdown of what goes into recording a track in Trent Reznor’s garage studio. I thought it might be worth a link since we mentioned his new project, How To Destroy Angels, in the first episode of the new Yellow Menace Podcast.
On a side note, Ed and I were joking this weekend that Toni Halliday might have been a better choice of vocalist than Reznor’s wife, Filipina singer Mariqueen Maandig. Not to knock Ms. Maanding, but she’s no Toni Halliday. And what do you know? Reznor’s producer on HTDA is none other than Toni Halliday’s husband, Alan Moulder!
Go figure…
| Category: Cool Links | Tag: how to destroy angels, how-to, mariqueen maandig, music, Podcast, trent reznor |
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26 May
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Posted by Musashi
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I should preface this by saying that I am no expert in foreign relations; my only experience in that field is occasionally shooting up people from the U.K. in Modern Warfare 2 Xbox Live matches (well, and calling my relatives on the other side of the planet every once in a while).
With tensions rising between North and South Korea, one might be lead to wonder just how tough those crazy bastards on the other side of the 38th parallel are. Well, wonder no more! Planeman, a poster over at militaryphotos.net, has crafted an insanely thorough assessment of North Korea’s military resources, mosty using data sourced via Google.
Honestly, I don’t know enough about this stuff to tell if he’s on the money or not, but there’s enough info here to run one hell of a Twilight 2000 campaign.
| Category: Cool Links, News | Tag: google-fu, military, north korea, south korea, war |
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8 Apr
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Posted by Musashi
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I suspect you don’t need me to explain to you what a horrendous douche-bag Glenn Beck is, so I’ll not waste any space ranting about him. But I do enjoy a bit of schadenfreude now and then, especially when the victim is the aforementioned conspiracy-obsessed shitheel.
Enter Haiku Glenn Beck, which lets you craft your own terse Japanese poetry inspired by Beck’s loony rants. A lot of the submissions thus far seem to be inspired by Beck’s war against ‘social justice’ . Here are a few choice samples:
Oh Glenn, don’t you cry
Your magic blackboard is here
To show us the way.
And my personal favorite:
Glenn’s fallout shelter
Ten–year supply of Twinkies
Well, maybe a week.
| Category: Cool Links | Tag: douchebag, glenn beck, haiku, poetry, politics |
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9 Mar
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Posted by Musashi
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Boing Boing’s Lisa Katayama posted part one of an interview with badass reporter Jake Adelstein (Tokyo Vice), who is equal parts Hunter S. Thompson and Bunta Sugawara.
In April 2008, I was trying to figure out how Goto knew that I was writing a book about his liver transplant. There was a yakuza real estate broker; he was a good source, and I had paid him. I remembered having a conversation with him a few months back, and he was asking how my book was coming along — I suspected he might have been sounding me out for information. So I went to his office and said, “Listen, did you sell me out on Goto? Did you tell him I’m writing a book”? And he said, “Yeah of course. He pays much more than you do. Why wouldn’t I? It’s not like we’re friends. It’s nothing personal.” He didn’t even try to deny it. So I said to him, “Remember a couple years ago when Sugiura got hit? I’m gonna tell my friends in the Sumiyoshi-kai that you gave away his location. They may not believe me, but they might come ask you some questions, and when they do I don’t think they’ll be very nice to you. Nothing personal.” And as I turned my back to leave, he jumped on me. He started hitting me really hard and kicking me. So I ran to the corner of his room and got a golf club, and kept hitting his knee until his knee broke. I was just running around in circles aiming at his knee. Even after his knee broke, he was still crawling at me. I was like, god! Why don’t you just give up?
This is apparently just the beginning of a slew of Yakuza-centric goodies that Katayama and Adelstein have planned in the near future. Should be fun…
| Category: Cool Links, News | Tag: crime, interview, jake adelstein, japan, tokyo vice, yakuza |
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11 Feb
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Posted by Mazinga
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Check out this sweet gallery of vinyage posters from Japanese industrial expositions from the 1920s-1940s.
(via BoingBoing)
| Category: Cool Links, off-topic | Tag: art, graphic design, japan |
