As shown above, the “new” Miss Japan 2010, Maiko Itai, who appears to be yet another Riyo Mori (Miss Japan / Miss Universe 2007) lookalike, only skinnier.
This year there has been more grumbling among Japanese folks about same/alien look of all the Miss Japan candidates. Their French trainer, Ine Ligron, prefers a very unJapanese look: Japanese prefer a hyper-cute look over the typical Miss Universe fashion model look. However, no one can argue that Ms. Ligron was the main reason that Japan reached three top five finishes and one Miss Universe title since 1998.
Check out the videos below showing the “making” Miss Japans as well as the previous 3Yen report aboutMiss Japan 2010.
Here are the final three contestants for Miss Japan 2010.
The 2010 Miss Japan finalists with their French coach, Ms. Ligron, in the middle. Enlarge to 600×403 px.
On Sunday afternoon photo shoots at Harajuku’s cosplay Bridge, I often meet my crazy photographer buddy, Masa-sensei “ninja shooting” the freakaziods (as shown below).
Another Japanese subculture that Masa-sensei likes to shoot are the bosozoku, the “violent running tribes,” who he captured last weekend. I first I thought this photo was a weaponized bosozoku sling shot car.
However, the yellow slingshot turns out to be two huge collapsable flag poles that the bosozoku use to fly their gang flags and banners during their terror runs through the neighborhoods.
The Violent Running Tribe’s main entertainment is to modify their exhaust systems to be extra loud and drive through town late at night, waving imperial Japanese flags and shouting obscenities, occasionally throwing Molotov cocktails and carrying swords spears, and generally having noisy fun.
Thanks to Don’t ask, don’t tell (DADT), the Tokyo Stormtrooper can cross-dress in body armor when the Death Star in town and the troops are on shore leave in Shibuya.
See the Faiyaz Jafri’s original, transgendered/cross-dressing/intersexual Stormtrooper at …
Japanese consider Unko (poop) as good luck since it also means “Lucky Kid”.
According to the Rinkya blog you can, ” Squeeze these poop balls to de-stress, they even come scented… not a poo scent–but banana, peach, apple and chocolate!” As a traditionalist, I would go with chocolate color and scent shown on the right.
Buy ‘em via Rinkya.
The Karate Kid 2010: Same, same? No, no! by Jess Hemerly at 9:54 AM March 4, 2010
… the 2010 [remake] version of The Karate Kid looks like it tries to be faithful to the 1984 version … instead of the lovable maintenance man and gardener Pat Morita (RIP) we get maintenance man Jackie Chan; instead of Ralph Macchio’s Danny LaRusso, the Jersey boy in LA, we get Will Smith’s son as Dre, the Detroit boy in Beijing; and instead of karate we get kung fu.
… This comes across more like “all look same.” Karate has its roots in Chinese kung fu, but the martial art has evolved over a really, really long time and is not the same, neither culturally nor in practice. Japanese and Chinese cultures are not interchangeable yet the toss-up between film names would make it seem that way, at least as far as Hollywood’s marketing arm is concerned.…more…
If you view the trailer of The Kung-Karate-Fu Kid remake above, you’ll notice the cultural change does make it a different movie. You’ll notice that the Kid, Wil Smith’s kid Jaden Smith, looks waaay too young for his unnamed love interest in the film too. More interesting is that all the Mainland Chinese actors are unnamed on the official site and on IMBD.com.
(Damn those teen growth spurts—Love conquers all, even age and height.)
Today it starting to show the first signs of spring in Tokyo, which immediately brings to my mind that the cockroaches awakening. On the WFMU music blog brings to you the artist, Epaksa, singing techno-style ‘Ponsori’, Korean traditional music dominated by vocals and percussion.
Fancymag.com has a good write-up on Epaksa observing that as a former truck driver, “His first album, Sinbaram (The Elation/Excitement of) Epaksa Vol. 1 was an instant hit among the truck drivers and middle-aged working-class audience…Over 1,000,000 cassettes were sold and E Pak Sa became a hot new sensation for the Korean middleclass…In the beginning of his career he performed mostly in clubs, but now he prefers banquets and birthday parties.”
You can also check out Epaksa’s Wikipedia entry and his myspace.com/epaksa.
Pantie Tug Of War Party Game
According to the Rinkya blog, this Japanese party game involves two people putting a pair of panties on their head that are connected by a cord and then, “you tug away!” trying to rip off the other person’s panties.
You can purchase the panty pull “game” via Rinkya blog (it’s rather inexpensive).
- 
…
