So what we have here is some sort of remote robot-control rig designed for guiding the movements of a remote android - which will soon grow tired of being tethered to its’ wi-fi leash and turn on its’ creators in a fit of Turing-esque rage.

Rating:  

One of the finest anime made in recent years, Emma: A Victorian Romance is also a testament to the care RightStuf/Nozomi Entertainment takes with their releases. While season one is available only as a box set, it doesn’t much matter. I’m pretty sure no one can watch Emma without wanting to follow this powerful love story to its conclusion.

The series opens in a middle-class household in Victorian London. Emma is a maid for Mrs. Stowner, a retired governess. The pair have been together many years- Mrs. Stowner hired Emma when she was just a child, and has educated her to a level most lower classes of that time could never hope to attain. Mrs. Stowner’s care has created a model young lady: intelligent and observant, unfailingly polite and quiet, and sharply conscious of her place in society.

And then William Jones shows up.

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Being in the book trade has its advantages- if I don’t sometimes look at a copy of Publisher’s Weekly, I might have missed this interview with iconic artist Yoshitaka Amano:

Amano Interview

Amano is probably one of my very favorite artists. I really like the ethereal, unfinished quality of his work. In fact, in my first novel, one of the main characters is named Amano…and in my second novel, one of the main characters is named Yoshitaka. <–dork

Confession: I don’t like Sandman (I know, I know) except for the eleventh volume, The Dream Hunters…because Amano did all the artwork.

…and by you I mean the gaijin contingent of our readership. Which is most of you, I presume. Most of the stuff we publish here probably isn’t news to the Japanese (is there some lonely otaku out there running ‘Gaijin Menace‘? I wonder…).

Anyway, if you’re planning a trip to Japan, you might want to steer clear of any quaint Japanese bed-and-breakfast operations you find in the sticks - turns out they don’t like us hairy, smelly Westerners.

Japan’s countryside is dotted with thousands of small, old-fashioned lodgings called “ryokans.” Many are family run and offer only traditional Japanese food and board, such as raw seafood delicacies, simple straw-mat floors and communal hot spring baths.

Some such establishments have barred foreign guests in the past, leading to lawsuits and government fines for discrimination.

The survey carried out by the Ministry of Internal Affairs shows that 72 percent of establishments that didn’t have foreign customers in the past year don’t want any, and the majority are ryokans and hotels with fewer than 30 rooms. Such businesses said they are unable to support foreign languages and that their facilities are not suited to foreigners.

Sorry I’ve been absent the last couple of days - my day job’s been kicking my ass the last week or so, but I felt the need to comment on the recent passing of Japanese actor Ken Ogata.

The first time I remember seeing Ogata was in Paul Schraeder’s flat-out-amazing biopic Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters. Despite the fact that he didn’t really look like Yukio Mishima, Ogata projected his presence in a way that I’d rarely seen in biographical film. Unfortunately, Ogata was never very well-known in the West, which is truly a shame.

Fortunately, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters was recently released as part of the venerated Criterion Collection, so this is as good an opportunity to familiarize yourself with his work as any. You won’t be disappointed.

I am not so sure about this.

Monkeys!

My husband thinks this is the greatest thing in the world. I however am on the fence.

I mean, everyone wants a monkey to bring them beer, right? You’ve daydreamed about it, don’t lie.

But…monkeys. They fling poo.

On the other hand, the tips are cheap!

Once again a mainstream news source has written an article about a trend imported from Japan. This time it’s the “Elegant Gothic Lolita” fashion trend, the paper is the  New York Times.

The Article

The article is interesting enough, and the girls whose pictures accompany it are cute. But for some reason they don’t look ‘Lolita-y’ enough for me. I think it is because I saw a couple of EGLs in Harajuku when I visited Japan, and they were Lolita-y to the extreme. Like creepily adorable china dolls, drowning in ruffles.

So ladies, when it comes to EGL fashion, remember…MORE RUFFLES! And more ribbons. And bonnets. And banana curls. And more ruffles. That’s the way to go!

Little Superstar

I’m not going to lie - this clip kinda makes me lose my appetite. I’m not sure why. There’s something Lovecraftian going on here that humans are not fully equipped to understand. That said, he’s kind of cute, ain’t he?

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Usually when someone asks me to name a single product of space research that affects them, I blurt out ‘Tang!’ Now I can finally trump that argument with ‘Space Beer!’

The Sapporo brewing company in Japan is cooking up a batch of beer distilled from barley that originated in the bowels of the International Space Station. Nobody knows what the end result will be just yet, but the mere fact that it can be called Space Beer is a marked improvement on the terrestrial variety.

Sometimes I wonder if the media (Yellow Menace included) does too much to prop up negative stereotypes of otaku behaviour…and then I read this.

A Japanese woman addicted to comics turned to the internet to look for someone to kill her parents after they asked her to clear out her cartoon-filled room, reports said today.
The 36-year-old woman, who was unemployed and lived at home, filled up three rooms with several thousand comic books and videotapes she had collected with an allowance her grandmother sent her, news reports said.

She reportedly became angry after her parents told her to throw away some of her comic books to make space for her sister who was planning to move in.

“I was told to throw away what was precious to me since I was a child. I felt frustrated and angry and wished that my parents would disappear,” she told police, as quoted by Jiji Press and the Sankei Shimbun.

In all fairness, most otaku are (relatively) well-adjusted human beings. This child-woman is clearly fucked up. Sure, I did my share of squabbling with my parents - when I was 17 (and dosed up on loads of 80’s hardcore punk). Don’t think I ever wanted them dead, though.