Now that I have officially decided to leave Japan this year, it is finally time for me to sort out my Japan Bucket List. This is basically a list of things I want to do before I return to the UK. Given my procrastinating nature, even the very act of making the list has been difficult. Before I knew it, it has become too late to do some of the stuff that I would have loved to. Things like watching or even taking part in Yukigassen and visiting the Sapporo Snow Festival are now impossible. There are even some things on there that I know in my heart of hearts were impossible in the first place. It has long been a dream of mine to steal a train driver’s hat as he sticks his head out of the window when a train leaves the station. That is nothing but a pipe-dream from the very beginning though.

The first item on my bucket list to be chalked off was much easier to achieve. Kalk Zamen Kuri no Hana is, in my opinion, Shiina Ringo’s greatest album and therefore the best album ever recorded. Not an easy listen but certainly one that rewards you one hundred fold if you take the time to get into it. KZK just oozes a kind of class unusual for a J-Pop star. Heck, unusual for any pop star  Hell, unusual for a musician. Of course, it didn’t achieve the mainstream success that her other albums before and since did, so unlike her other albums from this period there has never been a vinyl reissue of it.

As a result, it has become pretty rare. Despite half heartedly searching for in for the last 3 years, I never saw it in the used record shops I would waste time searching. So, after finally putting down the money for a Yahoo Auctions account (Japan’s far worse version of ebay, which you have to pay extra to bid over 5000 yen). I finally found what I was looking for.

For the cost of a cool 8000 yen I picked this up. And just look at it, it’s a thing of beauty.

The musical treat contained within is not betrayed by the packaging. As the album is very Japanese in its construction the cover’s spine is on the right rather than the left. Pure class!

Inside is a selection of the sheet music in gold plus bonus English Lyrics of Stem, odd since the English language version of this song doesn’t appear in the album.

The records themselves aren’t so exciting but the lyrics sheets are super nice.

Lovely Ringo on one side, turn them over for lyrics on the other.

 As a special Bonus, here are the lyrics to Poltergeist, which is probably my favourite Shiina Ringo song (at least it is today).

And how does it sound? Well, like most LPs compared to it’s digital brethren it has a more woolly sound. Maybe it is because of the reduced sound quality but this version just feels like it envelops you in a way my iPod doesn’t. I can’t really judge the audio quality though. I’m far from an audiophile and my setup is blatantly not the greatest.

This version of the album also has a bonus song at the end and taken on it’s own merit Ichijiku no Hana is truly beautiful and lovely. But appearing at the end of this album it is a bit odd. It kind of spoils the already epic conclusion to the album and it’s original last song. It’s like that bit in Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band when A Day in the Life finishes and there is some strange warbling just after (except not as bad) . Apparently Ringo wrote this song for this album but cut it out. Maybe someone wanted to add it here as bonus but it spoils the flow a bit.

One thing I did forget about listening to LPs is that you have to  switch sides part way though. On a double album like this one, with only 3 songs a side, I am only just comfortable on my bed before I have to get up and turn it over. Which is super annoying. These days we really are pampered with 1000s of songs in our pockets.

And what of the other items in my list? Well, you will hear about them soon enough….

If you watch British telly you will be under the misunderstanding that F1 in Japan is all silly hats and cosplay.

Well, there is a lot of that but going to the Japanese Grand Prix I got talking to people and learnt there are a few more things going on around the sport.

Actually I didn’t learn too much because I was mostly talking to other foreign types at the beer tent but would I did learn rocked my world.

Ask any Brit what “the F1 song” is and you will always get the same answer, Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain. It’s a song that is forever linked with F1 for British fans and for those in the other countries that got BBC coverage (i.e. there rest of the English-speaking world)

Japan is not part of the English-speaking world though and got its own song. Truth by a Japanese Jazz fusion band called T-Square has a bit of a different feel to The Chain but it works and the CG intro is nicely put together.

These days the song has been retired but it is miles better than just playing American Idiot by Green Day like Japanese TV did for its F1 intros last year. It also doesn’t stop T-Square from playing a concert at every Japanese Grand Prix either.

That’s it for F1 and music but what about F1 and manga? Everyone knows that the Japanese love manga, they also love their F1, so it is only natural that there is an F1 manga out there. Grand Prix Heaven (Guranpri Tengoku) is a 4 panel manga (US comic style basically) that has been running in an F1 magazine called F1 Newsflash (F1 Sokuho) for the last 20 or so years. The manga is by a fellow called Fumio Murayama who doesn’t seem to have any other manga of note under his name. As a result of the magazine this thing is serialised in only F1 fans know about it, that is fine though, only F1 fans would get any of the jokes.

The strips all parody the various events, stories and controversies going on in F1 at the time. The writer also injects some interesting personalities to the drivers and people around the pit garages, his versions of F1′s various heroes and villains can be very different from the British public perception of these characters. The collection of strips I picked up from Suzuka this year were all taken from the 1999 and 2000 seasons. I ended up seeing running gags such as Mika Hakkinen’s scary wife, Ron Dennis constantly giving David Coulthard the cold shoulder by closing a curtain on him and Heinz-Harald Frentzen acting like a woodpecker.

Here are a few of the strips (keenly translated by me), I hope they bring back a few memories for the F1 fans amongst you:
(Remember! They read right to left!)

One last thing:
(Not entirely sure what it is but thought I’ll show you anyway)

I don’t know about you but I don’t go to the cinema very often. It’s just so expensive these days. It is very rare that I really want to pay so much just to see something on a big screen surrounded by crashes and bangs. Since 3D got popular, it has only gotten worse. The last thing I want to do is pay more for an over-hyped special effect which at best is unnecessary and at worst distracting.

Most of the time I only go to the movies to watch the latest Hollywood blockbuster, which means having to endure (and paying extra for the privilege of wearing) those 3D glasses but it does give me the relief of understanding everything in the film. In Japan dubbing foreign films is not so popular, even with animation, so non-Japanese films appear in their original language which 9 times out of ten will be English.

I can happily sit in the cinema for a couple of hours, turn my brain off and enjoy some vacuous entertainment the way Hollywood wants me to. The only distracting thing is the presence of Japanese subtitles which you can’t help but try to read during a film’s duller moments (or in the case of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the whole damn film). In 3D movies the subtitles annoyingly jump out at you as well, making them even more in your face, literally.

However when I want to see a Japanese film, I would prefer to see those subtitles that seem like such an annoyance when watching films in my native tongue. Thus with Japanese movies, despite living in Japan, I generally have to wait for some sort of American DVD release before I can watch them. There are some films though, generally adaptations of things from other media that I love, which I just have to see NOW. Thus I have been to the cinema a few times to sit there straining away, trying to work out what is being said while all around me sit there all relaxed munching on popcorn.

The feeling I get from other people and, to be honest, deep in the dark recesses of my own heart is that people would rather not pay expensive cinema prices to sit in a dark room and have incomprehensible words played at them at high volume. I think there is a bit of a fear there and I can say that the few Japanese movies I’ve seen at the cinema are all remakes of stories I know well anyway.

You can count those films on less than 1 hand too, the two Evangelion remakes, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and Rurouni Kenshin. Watching them has been very unique and eye-opening experiences.

I watched the first Evangelion film a long time ago and went in with no delusions that I would actually understand anything. I hadn’t been studying Japanese for very long and was just along to watch the pretty colours and flashing lights projected on the screen. There was very little different from the tv show that I had watched an obscene number of times so I knew everything that was happening even if I didn’t understand what they were saying.

The 2nd Eva film played havoc with my expectations however. I left the theatre pretty proud of myself, happily declaring that I had understood 70% of it despite them deviating from the TV series in some ways. I also marvelled about how unexpected these changes were, especially when they switched around characters and had me thinking they had killed an important cast member off. That had caught me totally off guard and I was so shocked. It was only when I watched an English subtitled version of it that I realised they had flat-out said that the character would be there two scenes before hand AND that she wasn’t dead just in sick bay all along. I felt like a right fool and watching the English translation made the film worse in my eyes. They should have kept it a secret until the last-minute and they should have made it seem like they had killed that girl off, it would have been so much better.

With Phoenix Wright, the first part stuck close to the original story, so I took it all in my stride and enjoyed it. The finale of the film took place in a court room, with all the specialised words that entails, coupled with the fact that it differed from the game quite a bit by the end. I was completely lost as the credit began to roll.

It felt like the end had dragged on for ages and as a result I did not enjoy it as much as I could have. The fact that the English version of the game it was based on changed all the names of the characters didn’t help me keep track of who was who either.

And so, 800 words into this post, I finally get to the reason I’m writing this. Last week I saw the Rurouni Kenshin movie. I thought it was as about as good as a live action anime adaptation can be. All the actors cast looked and acted the part, there was a nice mix of playing it mostly realistically with the odd impossible moment.

Before I watched it I was wondering how it could tell all of the first third of the (rather large) Kenshin story in one movie. In the original, the stories were told one after the other but in this film it had them happen concurrently and it weaved the various tales together well. Sure, they cut out one fan favourite character but replaced him with another to make up for it. Kenshin is an anime that I really loved when I first watched it and there is even a flashback scene that is almost shot for shot the same as in the Kenshin OVA, which I thought was a nice little bit of fan service for those that know its significance.

I thought the film was wonderful and I felt that I had understood a large chunk of it, I have been studying Japanese for a good 5 years now after all and I know the original story pretty well. I am eager to watch a translated version of the film to find out if I understood the plot correctly or I just made assumptions based on educated guesses.

Finally, I have to mention the best reason to go to the cinema in Japan, the anti-piracy message that plays before the film. The camera may be doing something illegal but he sure can dance!

NHK is the Japanese equivalent of the BBC. A channel with no adverts which the viewer funds. Unlike in Britain, I don’t actually know anyone who pays their TV licence. It seems like there isn’t any legal requirement to pay the bill and no one ever gets any fines.  So when the NHK man comes a knocking, people pretty much ignore him until he goes away. Perhaps as a result of this lack of funding NHK isn’t the most exciting of channels, choosing to focus on news and educational shows. Most of which are dull but some can stick out from the crowd and be quite fun to watch.

One very throw away programme they put on goes by the name of 0655 (or 1155). It is just a 5 minute thing put on as a space filler in the schedules. Named after the times it is shown, it consists of short random animations and clips. The aim of it is to get you up and ready for your day or wind you down before bed time. This programme first caught my attention when it showed an episode of Simon’s Cat, which are cute little animations about a man and his cat. They first turned up on YouTube so I was surprised to see them on TV, more cat fun followed and it completely charmed me.

Ore, Neko (I’m a Cat) lasts barely a minute but is wonderful. NHK viewers send in pictures of their cat and they are shown on telly with a fun little musical accompaniment.

The cat on this particular day was called Chaff.

But just what is this singing cat trying to tell us? Let’s find out:

おれ、ねこ　おれ、ねこ
ore neko, ore neko
I’m a cat, I’m a cat.

ここ　おれの家　ここ　おれの家
koko ore no uchi, koko ore no uchi
Here is my house. Here is my house.

これ　いつものご飯　これ　スペシャルご飯
kore itsumono gohan, kore supesharu gohan
This is my usual meal. This is my special meal.

それ　大好きおもちゃ　それ　落ち着く寝床
sore daisuki omocha, sore ochitsuku nedoko
That is a toy I love. That is the bed I unwind in.

おれ、ねこ　これ　家のやつ
ore neko, kore uchi no yatsu
I’m a cat. This is my house’s human.

こいつ　ご飯をくれる　こいつ　遊んでくれる
koitsu gohan wo kureru, koitsu asonde kureru
This human gives me food. This human plays with me.

おれ　ねこだから　こいつの言葉わからない
ore neko dakara koitsu no kotoba wakaranai
Because I’m a cat, I don’t understand what this human says.

おれ　ねこだけど　こいつの気持ち　なぜかよくわかる
ore neko dakedo koitsu no kimochi naseka yoku wakaru
Even though I’m a cat,  for some reason I can always understand this human’s feelings.

おれ、ねこ　おれ、ねこ　おれ、ねこ　おれ、ねこ
ore neko, ore neko, ore neko, ore neko
I’m a cat, I’m a cat. I’m a cat, I’m a cat.

Now we know all about Chaff, lets hear from Miro, a female cat.

あたし、ねこ　あたし、ねこ
atashi neko, atashi neko
I’m a cat, I’m a cat.

ここ　あたしん家　ここ　あたしん家
koko atashin uchi, koko atashin no uchi
Here is my house. Here is my house.

これ　いつものご飯　これ　スペシャルご飯
kore itsumono gohan, kore supesharu gohan
This is my usual meal. This is my special meal.

それ　大好きおもちゃ　それ　落ち着く寝床
sore daisuki omocha, sore ochitsuku nedoko
That is a toy I love. That is the bed I unwind in.

あたし、ねこ　この人　飼い主
atashi neko, kono hito kainushi
I’m a cat. This person is my owner.

この人　ご飯をくれる　この人　遊んでくれる
kono hito gohan wo kureru, kono hito asonde kureru
This person gives me food. This person plays with me.

あたし　ねこだから　この人の言葉わからない
atashi neko dakara kono hito no kotoba wakaranai
Because I’m a cat, I don’t understand what this person says.

あたし　ねこだけど　この人の気持ち　なぜかよくわかる
atashi neko dakedo kono hito no kimochi naseka yoku wakaru
Even though I’m a cat,  for some reason I can always understand this person’s feelings.

あたし、ねこ　あたし、ねこ　あたし、ねこ　あたし、ねこ
atashi neko, atashi neko, atashi neko, atashi neko
I’m a cat, I’m a cat. I’m a cat, I’m a cat.

I love how these 2 songs show the difference in male and female Japanese. Chaff, the male cat, refers to himself using ore, this is a very harsh boyish way to refer to yourself. It is mainly used by little boys or men trying to sound tough. Miro, the female cat, on the other hand uses atashi. This is a very cutsie way of saying I, only said by young women. Chaff also refers to his owner in rather a over familiar almost derogatory way by using yatsu and koitsu. These words can be translated as fellow, guy or bloke but in English I couldn’t think of a unisex equivalent so I just went with human, this is a cat speaking after all. Miro uses the much more usual and polite hito which just means person. She even uses the word kainushi which actually means owner.

So we can tell that Chaff is an impudent little rascal while Miro is a wonderful, polite Nadeshiko of a cat.

Remember that old Chuck Norris Facts meme? Stuff like “Chuck Norris doesn’t read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.” Well, that was fun and all but has he ever made a man literally explode simply by throwing him?

As you can see this man has. His name is Segata Sanshiro and HE is the ultimate bad ass. Not only has he performed that feet of strength but he is perhaps single-handedly responsible for the Sega Saturn’s success in Japan.

The Sega Saturn was a games console that Sega released in the mid nineties. It didn’t sell too well in the west due to its lack of 3D capabilities and difficulty to program for it. In Japan however, it held its own. I believe this is largely because if you didn’t buy one, Segata Sanshiro would beat you up.

Whatever marketing man thought him up deserves an award. The character himself was based on the main character from Sugata Sanshiro, a film by Akira Kurosawa. In that film, Sugata Sanshiro learns about himself through Judo, Sega’s Segata Sanshiro on the other hand is already a Judo master and knows all there is to discover about life already.

He would appear in Japanese Saturn ads during the 90s and show people the error of their ways for not playing Sega before uttering the immortal line “SEGA SATURN SHIRO!”.

Lets analyse that phrase for a minute:
セガサタ-ンしろ！
sega sataan shiro!
YOU MUST PLAY SEGA SATURN!

As you can see, that catchphrase is a play on his name and tells you in no uncertain terms that if you don’t play Sega Saturn, he will beat you up, again.

These commercials are brilliant, confirming my long-held belief that commercials are the best thing about Japanese TV (with one or two notable exceptions). They chronicle Segata Sanshiro’s many adventures, such as kicking baseballs to score home runs, single-handedly winning the 1998 World Cup for Japan, twice, head butting bricks and teaching flirty youths the meaning of wholesomeness (which is playing more Sega Saturn obviously).

See them all here:

These don’t hold a candle to the incredible officially released song though, just check out this verse:

“Even if they chase after the petty pleasure of sex
Their soul will stay empty
Those who do not commit themselves to extreme gaming
Will find their bodies severely beaten!”

Speaks for itself, doesn’t it? Never cross Segata Sanshiro or your will find your body beaten, severely.

Whole Song with English Subtitles:

All good things have to come to an end though. With the release of the Dreamcast, Sega’s successor to the Saturn, he was no longer needed. He went out in a blaze of glory deflecting a missile away from Sega’s HQ.

I salute you Segata Sanshiro, Japan’s ultimate bad ass.