Bikers decked out in traditional armor of samurai warriors raided the Matsumae Castle Festival in Hokkaido Japan a few days ago.
(machine translation) 47NEWS
2008/08/13 17:42
More than 40 bikers in total participated in a parade coming from as far as Osaka and Tokyo as well as the loval area. According to the Japanese article: “the Commander-in-Chief, Katsuya Okawa (36) said he was glad to participate while he showed a smile while being drenched with sweat in the black traditional armor.” He then quiped that the ride, “was cool but hot.”
Right now it’s Japanese ‘Halloween’ …Obon when the spirits of ancestors are supposed to revisit the living and it’s a vacation time during the Dog Days of August.
Even though the weather is hellishly hot, some Japanese don’t like to go in the water during Obon/Halloween out a fear of having the confused deceased drag them under by their ankles. This equates to fewer people at the beach except for foolhardy foreigners like me (and none of my ancestors would be stupid enough to hanging out at tepid bath water beach in Tokyo laden with stinging jellyfish in this Hades).
Sadly Japanese folks don’t dress up for Obon, but here is a great photoset on Flickr of super-tacky Japanese costumes for cheap Cosplay by goemon.
And although it’s not Japonesque at all, I like this cleavage as a “costume” from Subgenius.com.
Note many of the other photos in this Subgenius slideshow are NSFW such as the next photo in this series: naked sushi.
More on naked sushi–nyotaimori [女体盛り] .
Some poor English teacher in the boondocks has the Japanese nationalist crazies on 2ch forum and Japanophiles foaming at the mouth about the young teacher’s so-called “Shocker” class photo, which was posted on the always-informative JapanProbe.com…
Basically, this immature stunt is a tempest in a tiny Japanese teapot since the Japanese kids in the photo are incorrectly doing so-called obscene “Shocker” hand gesture.
For the Shocker, the thumb needs to be curled inwards (and for a tenuous Yakuza sign, the little finger needs to be curled in to look cut off).
For reference, check out these examples including America’s First Family…
Actually, the Japanese are more accommodating to the Shocker (ショッカー) since it is part of their “traditional” culture.
Shocker (ショッカー) of Kamen Rider
Mo’ shocking is this bi-cultural Shocker…
First there was the popular ’80s TV show, Abunai Deka (Dangerous Detectives), about two Yokohama cops that wanted to be Dirty Harry in Japan, cleaning up the streets in a sometimes humorous manner that could only take place in the earlier carefree days before the bubble collapsed economy…
Now we get the Dangerous Sisters, that is the Abunai Kano Sisters, those two scandal-laced, silicon-pumped, famous-for-being-famous, media celebs, the Kano Sisters, who are now becoming anime characters to showcase their mental prowess….
http://kanosisters.net
In Japan they are best known for being known and their over-the-top plastic surgery, but no telling how America will react. The Abunai Kano Sisters must be planning to survive on rich otaku in Japan and the US, because on the engrished version of their site, and they are expecting a lot of sales for the otaku to benefit from their sleazy pre-order, group buying, and “Gathering” pricing schemes.
Will the Abunai Kano Sisters be a smash like Puffy AmiYumi and bring bukkake and engrish to America, or if they’ll crash the way Pink Lady did in the States? And will they do their interviews in engrish? Either way, some people just have more money than they know what to do with.
—special by the 3Yen’s correspondent-at-large, ‘Den4′—
In the great past, Americans were noted for their originality and adventuous spirit, to stride forth into the unknown…to where no man or woman has gone before……
Now we have merely copycats, where an original idea has been lost on the range where the deer and the antelope used to play (as well as the rabbits)…..
It is a sad state that Cosplay has now become Copyplay.….
U.S. cosplay cafe draws on growing interest in latest Japanese trends
japantoday.com / 8 August 2008 / LOS ANGELES —Once considered somewhat of a fringe movement reserved for nerdy comic book fanatics, anime culture has definitely found a place in the United States over the years. Ask any one of the thousands of fans who recently attended the Anime Expo in Los Angeles, and you might conclude that it was a cultural cornerstone. Drawing from that evolving popularity, Royal/T maid cafe, shop and art space debuts the cosplay restaurant idea to American audiences hungry for a taste of the latest in Japanese trends.
Launched during the spring of this year, Royal/T in Culver City offers not only the maid cafe experience made popular in Tokyo’s Akihabara district...more…
The Cylons have once again evolved….. in Japan!
Japan Railways is planing in 2009 to bring out a new Cylon N’EX Raider, the evolved E259 series.
CYLON EVOLUTION
On the Battlestar Galactica TV series, humans often derisively refer to Cylons as “toasters”, due to the resemblance of the Cylon centurions from the first Human/Cylon war (which are the centurions from the original series) to “walking chrome toasters.”
Leave it to Japan Railways to make the new version of the N’EX, their flagship Narita Express train to Tokyo’s main airport look just like a chrome toaster, ha, ha.
New Narita Express Coming 2009
LongCountdown.com - 2008/08/09/
The Narita Express that whisked me into Tokyo on my first day in Japan is .. ready to retire the N’EX 253 series, and roll out an even flashier model in autumn, 2009. The E259 series brings a number of improvements. There will be improved safety features, security cameras, and even lockers in the cargo area…more..
The Queen of the Tetsuo (model railway enthusiasts)
Click to view.
The Queen smashes a lovingly-made Japanese railroad diorama she curses a model enthusiast who made it. This is yet another “Akiba” otaku fetish (Akihabara, otaku-town in Tokyo) from a DVD called “Crash by Venus” for Japanese model train crush fetishists by Gagon Productions. In the DVD series, giant Japanese girls crush all sorts of otaku junk like model trains.
I have to love this snarky headline for this on The Register: “Sega hopes to score with homely Japanese women —Perhaps you’ve rescued the universe from marauding space pirates on your Nintendo DS — but can you save civilization from your own ugly face?…” Also note that around the mouth of the model in the photo below is the most sparkly case of herpes in history.
Nintendo DS to become personal beauty consultant
Thu Aug 7, 3:52 AM ET - Yahoo! News
TOKYO (AFP) — Women in Japan will soon be able to have their own hand-held beauty consultant after games company Sega teamed up with cosmetics giant Shiseido to offer make-up tips on the Nintendo DS.
“Project Beauty”, which will go on sale from November 27 in Japan, is used with a scanning device that feeds digital images of the user’s face into the DS, which analyzes the shape and position of the eyes, lips and other parts….
Bikinis, samurai, zombies = Onechanbara
Wednesday 6-Aug-2008 . ComputerAndVideoGames.com
We wish we could’ve sat in on the meeting where D3Publisher came up with Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad. Samurai: good. Zombies: good. Baps: very good. What’s not to like?…Bikini Zombie Slayers [is] in the pipeline...more...
- 
