Back in 2006, Shapiro Keats and I took our honeymoon with Pop Japan Travel. We went on the February Sapporo Snow Festival tour, and it was amazing. We had great hotels with space-age toilets, a sweet-ass flight on Singapore Airlines (all the flight attendants were way hot, and we had a ton of movies to choose from- I watched Wallace [...]
OK, listen up, Hollywood starlets and people with more money than sense: dogs are not made to wear clothes. They are not made to be rainbow colors. They do not like riding in strollers or in your luggage-sized purse. Dogs are made to roll in dirt and eat their own vomit and slobber all over your ankles. You people in [...]
Sorry to be scarce- I’m actually working on a couple reviews for once (Red Cliff FTW). Anyway, Threadless is having one of their awesome $10 t-shirt sales, with the usual glut of gaming-related tees: Cheat Codes Mario Mario in French Extra Lives And a couple Japanese-type ones: Tokyo Skyline Loooove This One But They\’re Sold Out in Adult Sizes!
Yesterday, our friends at Daily Bento (www.dailybento.com) featured this delicious Gundam fan film from back in the day. It recreates an epic mobile suit battle from the show- with people. But they’re not dressed in Gundam costumes, oh no. They’re just wearing clothes and wielding cardboard weapons. Which somehow makes it more awesome than if they’d actually constructed costumes. Rad.
There’s a new Youtube series about a college anime club, thoughtfully called Otaku. It’s kind of amusing, especially if you belonged to an anime club in college. Otaku Trailer Episode 1 The railing in their dorm looks just like the railing in my old dorm, but my dorm was 100 years old (seriously) and much, much shabbier. I didn’t belong [...]
God damn, Hello Kitty is everywhere. Candy, clothes, keychains, stationary, toasters, vibrators. And now the little bitch is invading that most manly of places: the garage. ANN Article Will Hello Kitty motor oil really appeal to women? Are we actually going to check the oil level in our cars more often, just hoping we’ll be a quart low so we [...]
Ginseng root kind of looks like a really creepy, mutated Lovecraftian monster-person. Yet the Czechs are apparently willing to accept 20 tons of the stuff as payment for debt incurred by…AnaKhouri’s favorite fucked-up country, North Korea! BBC Article They’ve owed this debt since ‘the Soviet era’- so, twenty years, give or take a couple. I think the Czech Republic should [...]
North Korea’s soccer team might suck (according to their atrocious performance at the World Cup- but hey, anyone can have an off…two weeks), but is that any reason to sit them down and have the entire government yell at them for six hours? And then make the coach perform manual labor? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-10935521 (all of this is alleged, which goes without [...]
China’s culture minister is pissed that his country’s media has become sensationalist and vulgar. Cai Wu said many Chinese publications were full of gossip and sensational stories advocating money-worship. He accused regional governments of spending money on “vanity projects” instead of basic cultural facilities. So, basically China is turning into the U.S….? BBC Article
This is nice: in Tennesee, a group is holding a one-day anime con (creatively called “Daycon”), with all proceeds going to a local cat-specific animal shelter. Daycon This is good since I figure cat shelters probably need lots of help. I mean, why adopt a cat when you can just look under your back porch or under the hood of [...]
According to her Twitter feed, Filipino cosplay hottie Alodia Gosiengfiao is auditioning for a role in Sam Raimi’s World of Warcraft flick. Okay – now I have a reason to watch it. Met up with Legendary Pictures yesterday at Warner Boulevard re: their new Warcraft movie! ♥ ♥ ♥
People in Okinawa aren’t happy about the U.S. military base that’s located there, and after reading several recent articles about servicemen raping Japanese teenagers I can’t say I blame them (not that all servicemen are rapists, mind you. Most are just fine). Now the U.S. military is trying to teach little Japanese kids to love the base- through manga! BBC [...]
Tokyo’s oldest man, Sogen Kato, turned 111 the other day- or he would have, if he wasn’t dead (and had been for 30 years). Oops… I wonder why they went to celebrate his 111th birthday but not his 110th…I guess last year there was someone older than him. Japanese people live a long time. I’m not sure if 30 years [...]
Trailer Addict has a spot up for Priest, the Paul Bettany film based on the Korean manwha that was kind of popular about a decade ago (I chose to read another horror manwha, Island, that was released by Tokyopop around the same time…man, I wish someone would make an Island movie). Priest at Comic-con I hate what vampires have become [...]
Sorry I’ve been MIA for a bit- we moved to a new house. It looks like things are pretty bad when the Japanese PM’s own wife questions his ability to govern. Wow… So, I’ve seen people who fought every day for 50 years and were married forever and loved each other and were secretly happy. And criticizing your man’s lack [...]