rotsyourbrain.com

Wednesday May 21st 2008, 1:41 am
Filed under: cinema, japan

The 1999 low-budget Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai brings together two of my cinematic loves; gangsters and samurai. Though such a hybrid might suggest a trashy time-traveling car crash of a film, the truth is a lot different.

Ghost Dog concerns itself with an African-American assassin, played by Forest Whitaker, who attempts to live by the samurai code of honour whilst simultaneously carrying out hits for the New Jersey mafia. However, when a job goes awry, he finds himself a marked man and his loyalty to both his beliefs and to his mafioso lord are tested.

The film triumphs in making the central character believable. Indeed, with Japanese culture enjoying a boom in the mindspace of today’s youth, Ghost Dog’s obsession with Japan hits perhaps a little too close to home. While his appreciation for certain aspects of ‘The Way’ are admirable, others are sorely cringe worthy, as for example, he waves his pistol around like a katana before holstering it.

It is this attempt to reconcile loyalty to an obviously outdated feudal code with the realities of living and operating in the underbelly of a very different contemporary world that forms the film’s backbone, and it results in a strong character arch.

In many ways, the titular Ghost Dog is a pitiful character – a fact borne out by his only 2 friends; a French-speaking ice-cream man who he can’t understand, and a little kid he swaps books with on a park bench.

The film also deserves praise for the bleak soundscape, provided by RZA, and subdued colour palette. Alongside quirky interludes with Ghost Dog’s aforementioned friends, this serves to lend the movie an almost dream-like quality.

Makes Jack A Dull Boy

Friday December 07th 2007, 12:48 am
Filed under: life, japan

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Hundreds, if not thousands, of books have been written on the Japanese psyche, but I dare say none offer as succinct an insight as a conversation I just had in work today.

I was approached by a Japanese teacher asking for an English proverb that conveyed the opposite meaning of “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”.

I drew a blank, as such sentiment is rarely expressed back home.

If you’ve any suggestions, please post in the comments…

Tokyo Game Show

Tuesday September 25th 2007, 4:32 am
Filed under: life, japan, videogames

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Xboxen weighing as much as they do, I was unable to bring my 360 with me to Japan. Even though a brand spanking new PS3 was one of my first purchases upon landing, the last few months have been tough from a gaming point of view.

While Resistance proved to be rather excellent, other big name titles like Minna No Golf 5 and Motorstorm left me completely cold. That the 360 was playing host to triple-A titles like Bioshock and, more recently, Halo 3 compounded my woe.

Anyway, last week I attended the Tokyo Game Show - press pass in hand, due to my work with gamestoaster. The event offered a glimpse into the direction the various industry players are heading.

Microsoft are still trying valiantly to win over the Japanese gamer, with big Japanese franchises like Winning Eleven, Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden and Virtua Fighter all appearing on the 360, as well as cult shooters Rez and Ikaruga. That Rez is coming to Xbox Live Arcade in hi-def bells & whistles form makes me all kinds of jealous.

It was Sony, though, that really impressed me. As well as having the undoubted game of the show on their console in Metal Gear Solid 4, they had such an array of titles on display that crossed every genre and demograph. Whereas currently their line-up consists of banal RPGs and racing games, over the next year that line-up will expand to include big budget titles like Singstar, The Eye of Judgement, Killzone, Metal Gear Online, Time Crisis 4, beautiful indie titles like Echochrome and fl0wer, as well as some visually arresting, if not truly innovative, RPGs and racers like Valkyrie of the Battlefield and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, respectively. Playstation Home was kept under wraps, while the mysterious Afrika remains little more than a title and beautiful screenshots at the moment.

Add multi-platform titles like Assassin’s Creed, Guitar Hero III, Resident Evil 5 and Devil May Cry 4 to the list, and the next 12 month is looking good.

Until these games start to hit store shelves (Christmas is mercifully fast approaching, so the yearly deluge of games is about to begin), I’ll have to entertain myself with the Japanese-only 20th Anniversary box set of the Metal Gear games.

Sukiyaki Western Django

Thursday September 20th 2007, 1:15 am
Filed under: cinema, japan

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I had the pleasure to see Takashi Miike’s latest film - Sukiyaki Western Django - last night.

The film is Takashi Miike’s attempt at creating a Japanese-style Western - mixing six-shooters, whorehouses and cowboy hats with samurai swords, temple gates and kimono. Its title is an obvious nod to the ’spaghetti western’ genre.

True to form, it is a very strange film.

And ultimately, this is where the film both fails and succeeds. The unique setting is spectacularly realised, it’s a great credit to the production team that the old-west blends perfectly with old Japan. Had we been closer to Oscar season, I’d say Django would be a shoe-in for costume design.

It is this well-realised uniqueness that at times carries the film through slower moments. The plot of the film is a patchwork of well-trodden Western plots, and were it not for the Japanese twist, it would undoubtedly feel overly familiar.

And yet, being a Miike film, sometimes it gets a little too weird - for no discernible reason. There are a few scenes in the film which will leave you open-mouthed, scratching your head or wide-eyed, trying to process the events on screen. These don’t really add anything to the film, save to heighten its unique flavour (which isn’t particularly necessary, given the sword wielding cowboys and so on).

So, that is Sukiyaki Western Django. In terms of plot and characterisation, it’s as familiar as it comes. In terms of execution, it’s another one-of-a-kind from Miike.

On Japanese high school girls, and more

Tuesday September 18th 2007, 12:07 pm
Filed under: life, japan

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I’m into my third week of teaching English classes at my Japanese high-school, and so first impressions are beginning to solidify into actual opinions. Here are a few:

Japanese students are painfully shy. This has its advantages, as they don’t need to be ruled with an iron fist, as many of my secondary school classes were, but it also has its disadvantages. Getting students to contribute to a class is like pulling teeth. From a stone.

Japanese high-school girls are not the playful sex kittens that they are so often portrayed as. Nor, as it turns out, are they proficient in medieval weaponry (a la Kill Bill), hand to hand combat (a la Battle Royale), and nor do they sell their used undies from vending machines (a la every article you’ve read about Japanese school girls/vending machines/Japan). However, they do, on occasion, like to play table tennis and softball.

Japanese high-school boys are like girls. They congregate in groups, giggle and blush. They boast ridiculously styled hair, designer belts and man-bags, and wouldn’t say boo to a ghost.

On a final, non-school related note:

Japanese banks are like Irish banks. OK, their ATMs close (yes, they close) at 6pm, and they seem to have ten staff milling about their branches for every customer, but in many ways, they’re the same.

I’m currently waiting for AIB to sort out my loan restructuring, which was applied for, signed for and approved by everybody a good 2 months ago. I’m also waiting, and have been for the last week, for my Japanese bank to send me out a new ATM card because they spelt my name wrong. If I’m lucky, I may receive it by next Monday. Which would be nice, because they’ve frozen my account until I do receive it, and with Pay Day being last Friday, I am none too happy. I don’t mind being ‘Breidan’ if they’ll let me use my own fucking bank account.

School`s in for Summer.

Sunday August 26th 2007, 8:24 am
Filed under: life, japan

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It`s the height of summer in Japan, with the mercury consistantly scoring in the mid 30s - even after the sun has set. As such, you`d expect the nation`s children to be out kicking football, breaking windows and capturing butterflies, or at the very least, sitting at home in front of their Playstations.

Not so, however. Instead, though term time has ended, the schools are full of teachers and students. The students are there for their club activities, and are insessantly drilled for hours and hours every day. The Japanese approach to sports offers an interesting insight into their psyche - prior to the introduction of Baseball with the opening up of the country, sport simply did not exist in Japanese society. The closest they had were martial arts, and in many ways they based their approach to sport around their approach to martial arts.

As such, kids stand out in the hot sun all day repeating the same activity again and again and again until they improve. It`s an approach that is completely at odds to the Irish mentality, and seems to value achievement and self-betterment over enjoyment and the social aspect.

While the students are outside fainting in the heat (and sadly, even dying - as happened to one local Junior High School student recently), the teachers are inside working. Except that, with no classes on, there`s no work to be done. And so, they just pretend that the`re working - putting on a magnificent, if not thoroughly convincing, spectable as they rush around the office (but not too quickly!) , photocopying documents, filling in various unimportant forms and writing feverishly on their word processors.

The mask does occasionally fall, however. Notably, if two teachers share a quick joke, everyone in the office makes a bee-line for the offending couple and try to join in the merriment. More notably, a look around the office will typically reveal at least one teacher sleeping with their forehead pressed against their laptop keyboard.

And yet, nobody will admit that they`re not working. It`s a big charade that everybody is in on but that nobody will acknowledge. And so I must play along…

Baka Gaijin

Thursday August 16th 2007, 6:59 am
Filed under: life, japan, sport

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Here are some shoddy videos taken by Liz over the course our the last week or so in Japan:

Beats standing in the lobby!

Friday August 10th 2007, 6:36 am
Filed under: life, japan

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There is a post on my thoughts of the new Transformers movie coming, but before that I would like to share one of those only-in-Japan expierences - which, as luck would have it, happened as I was en-route to Cinema-Town to see Transformers!

So, that`s the scene. Myself and Liz cycling out to Cinema Town, a multiplex that`s pretty remote but pretty swish, when we stumble upon a street party cum festival happening in a local park. Curiosity aroused, and with an hour or so before the curtain, we tentatively stick our heads in to see what`s happening. However, no sooner have I dismounted my bike than a microphone is thrust into my face and, as the music stops, I`m implored to give a speech to the now silent, motionles and staring-straight-at-me crowd. Quick-thinking Liz captured a video of slow-thinking me blurting out fractured niceties in my rough, impolite Japanese. I`ll stick the incriminating video up in a later post, whenever YahooBB deliver my interwebs.

Speech over with, we were then thrown into a series of increasingly perplexing traditional Japanese dances (which, to be honest, weren`t a million miles from the macarena) - a new routine commencing just as I would get the hang of the previous one.

Exhausted both physically & mentally from my dancing ordeal, I then entered into a willy-waving contest of sorts with the local men, where I was plied with booze and barbequed food until I could take no more, and the locals were satisfied in their powers to consume more skewered chicken than a stupid gaijin.

Technology

Friday August 10th 2007, 1:21 am
Filed under: life, gaming, japan

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If you`ve stumbled upon my blog from an aggregator or blog search engine, you may be a little miffed to find that my entries tagged with Japan thus far havent been a celebration of the technological mecca which the country so cearly represents for many people. So, this is for you.

I bought a new phone, or `keitai` as we say over here. The phone itself - a Sharp 912SH - is beautiful, with a crystal clear rotatable display, 3.2 megapixel camera, digital mobile TV tuner and a proper web browser. It`s a perfect example of the mythical Japanese mobile phone - well designed, feature packed, technologically advanced, unlikely to be for sale on a high stret near you soon.

That, however, may be no bad thing, considering the ordeal I had to go through to get one. In Ireland, you can buy a phone in literally 2 minutes. In Japan, you`d better bring a packed lunch. Whole forests were ravaged and octopi drained to produce the reams of paperwork required to obtain my phone. And if - as happened all too frequently - a comma was misplaced or an i left undotted, everything was ripped up and we started again. And again. When we eventually finished our form filling, the people at the other end of the infernal fax machine had wisely long-since called it a night, and we were big return again tomorrow.

At which point, it all started again.

I have since come to the conclusion that the whole process of buying a mobile phone in Japan is designed to break the human spirity, to render you a shell of a man, ready to be filled with convoluted price-plans and add-ons. Kind of like A Clockwork Orange, but with lots of photocopying.

Oh sorry, ranting again. Hey, I did see a `Brain Training`-styled `Face Training`game for the Nintendo DS today, where you imitate the on-screen facial expressions in order to train your face. For what, I don`t know. Look like a spastic, maybe.

Oh wait, that`s Mario Party 8.

Okayama

Thursday August 09th 2007, 12:46 am
Filed under: life, japan

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Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire. Having put a plane journey between ourselves and the Tokyo heat & humidity, I`ll admit I wasn`t quite prepared for the Okayama climate - walking into which felt like trying to walk through a brick wall. A very hot brick wall.

As such, I greeted news of a fast approaching typhoon vigorously, and when it just about missed Okayama I was as disappointed as a kid who awoke on Christmas morning to find instead of GI JOE in his stocking, Santa had emptied his bowels inside. Co-incidentally, this is almost exactly how certain areas of Okayama smells on a warm morning.

What makes the heat that much more unbearable is that my predeccessor, upon clearing the apartment, obviously decided that I was undeserving of an air-conditioner, and ripped it from the wall and took it with him. Thanks, you fucking guy.

Forgive me for painting a negative picture of my time so far in Okayama, as it`s really not the case. Though the Lonely Planet guide was possibly scribbled on a single sheet of two-ply in the bog of a domestic flight somewhere over the city, there is actually plenty to see and do.

The two most well known sites are Korakuen Gardens and Okayama Castle. The former is a huge, sprawling Japanese garden which turns into an illuminated beer garden by night. The latter, meanwhile, is a reconstruction of the original distinctive black castle. I`ve been all over Japan, and invariably the castle I`m feverishly taking pictures of and marvelling at was burnt down hundreds of years ago and reconstructed in the 1960s. So, here`s a tip for budding Japanese feudal warlods, don`t build your fortresses out of fucking wood.

Sorry, started ranting again there.