Tokyo court censor the name of Makiko Tanaka's love child
Topic: Media

Notice how this story fails to name the "daughter" who is the secret love-child of Makiko-chan and me.

Tokyo court bans weekly's publication over Tanaka's daughter
Kyodo / Wednesday March 17, 12:30 AM
The Tokyo District Court has issued a temporary injunction banning the publication of Shukan Bunshun weekly magazine which had planned to run in its latest issue a story about the eldest daughter of House of Representatives member Makiko Tanaka, the daughter's lawyer said Tuesday....
In its March 25 issue to be published Wednesday, the popular weekly, published by the Tokyo-based Bungei Shunju Ltd., planned to run what it calls an "exclusive scoop" on Tanaka's eldest daughter.
According to her lawyer, the story says that the daughter got married despite her parents' fierce opposition and divorced after only one year and returned from Los Angeles....
Her parents are Tanaka and her husband Naoki. Tanaka, the daughter of the late Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, is widely known as an outspoken politician and has served as foreign minister.

Lost in Translation: a too accurate portrayal
Topic: Media
After 20+ years living in Japan I have to say "Lost in Translation" is a too accurate portrayal...even the so-called racist parts such as the elevator scene shown on the left that happens to me every day. Here's a new radio report from NPR that sounds interesting....



Japan and Hollywood: Lost in Translation?
National Public Radio (USA) March 16, 2004
Bryan Shih reports from Tokyo on how Hollywood movies about Japan, such as Lost in Translation and The Last Samurai, tend to reflect America's changing perceptions of a former "enemy state" and often get mixed reviews by Japanese audiences.

--Listen to the Real Audio or Windowz Media...
___

Japanese joke journalism
Topic: Media
This is part of an interview with political pundit, Minoru Morita. His "logic" is VERY scattered but he makes many interesting points.


Japanese Reporters' Political Allegiances Create Bias


2004-03-04 / Japan Media Review
<concluding remarks>
Japan Media ReviewCritics say journalists working for the major Japanese media don't care about truth -- they produce news to win bosses' favor.

Political analyst, Minoru Morita Unfortunately, that is the state of journalism today. It's shameful, indeed. They do their job, looking up [at] their boss with one eye just like Japanese flounder that has eyes on one side of the body. If they don't do their job, looking at the public and the world with both eyes, I don't think it's worth choosing this job.
In the world of the Western media, reporters are competing with one another, but in Japan that's not the case. Japanese reporters are not trained .. Nor do they receive outright criticism from colleagues.

'Overprotecting intellectual property is as harmful as underprotecting it'
Topic: Media
COOL QUOTE:

"Overprotecting intellectual property is as harmful as underprotecting it," wrote Federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Alex Kozinski in a recent copyright ruling. "Culture is impossible without a rich public domain. Nothing today, likely nothing since we tamed fire, is genuinely new: Culture, like science and technology, grows by accretion, each new creator building on the works of those who came before. Overprotection stifles the very creative forces it's supposed to nurture."

---via Fiona Morgan. "Copywrong: Copyright laws are stifling art, but the public domain can save us." The Independent Weekly, December 3, 2003.

Posted by trek/taro at 9:10 AM JST
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NHK is giving Big Bird the big bird
Topic: Media
Japan's public TV broadcaster, NHK, is giving Big Bird the big bird...

NHK to discontinue airing 'Sesame Street'
Yomiuri/ Mar 10 "Sesame Street," a children's English-language program broadcast by NHK on its educational channel, is to end April 3, due to policy differences between NHK and the U.S. production company on the focus of the program, an NHK spokesman said..."(The production company) Sesame Workshop has been asking us to broadcast the program in Japanese for several years.."

The real "Last Samurai "
Topic: Media
Quixotic presidential bid by scion of samurai?
--The Asahi Shimbun, March 10 (IHT/Asahi: March 11, 2004)
Irina Hakamada, a candidate in next Sunday's Russian presidential election, likes to wear black. She calls herself 'a scion of samurai,'' and the media has labeled her the 'Samurai Lady.''....
.... Hakamada stands out. She is a vocal critic of the government, charging that Russia has become a society that keeps itself together by falsehood and terror. ... In her campaign speeches, she says, ``Don't keep silent. Let us raise our voices.'' Failing to do so, she warns, could bring a return to the Soviet era.
Her father was Mutsuo Hakamada, a deceased former member of the Japanese Communist Party, who sought asylum in the Soviet Union in the days when being a member of the party was enough to earn the death penalty in Japan. (?!)

(I can't say whether that statement is true about the death penalty for being a Commie, it sounds "off" to me).

Live action CUTIE HONEY film
Topic: Media
Ok, here a good one....CUTIE HONEY is now gonna be a live action film.


http://www.cutiehoney.com/

Hot and new Cutie Honey

    VS

        Old-school Cutie Honey

Titties even some obligatory Japanese content...
Topic: Media
Here's the R-rated trailer for the film "The Girl Next Door" with titty-bouncy left in and even some obligatory Japanese content...
Via "The Sun Online is the only website in the whole world where you?ll be able to get a sneak preview of the film with all the naughty bits left in."

What shiny balls? Japanese "hikaru dorodango"
Topic: Media
SHINY MUD BALLS:
Kyoto Professor Taps into the Essence of Play
Japan Information Network
At elementary schools, kindergartens, and preschools all across Japan, kids are losing themselves making hikaru dorodango, or balls of mud that shine. Behind this boom is Professor Fumio Kayo of the Kyoto University of Education. Kayo is a psychologist who researches children's play, and he first came across these glistening dorodango
...after trying many times, Kayo found that he just could not make a shiny mud ball. Once, he thought he had succeeded, but after a few days the mud ball lost its luster. Through 200 failed experiments and an analysis using an electron microscope, Kayo was finally able to devise a method of making dorodango...

Sumo Hostesses for me
Topic: Media
Here party pix at a "Sumo Hostess" bar.

Refer also to Cal's new hangout where my act will be appreciated.

Geisha in Blackface?
Topic: Media

black on both sides

The Spelman College Museum of Fine Art will present iona rozeal brown "?black on both sides" beginning January 22, 2004. iona brown's paintings are an unprecedented mixture of anonymous courtesans, geisha and other Japanese subjects in blackface....

Kal and Kazy Kabuki in the USA vs Japan
Topic: Media
Nakamura to recreate 17th-century Kabuki theater in N.Y.
Japan's leading Kabuki actor, Nakamura Kankuro V, on Tuesday announced his grand plan to recreate an authentic 17th-century Kabuki theater in the heart of Manhattan for the Lincoln Center Festival opening in July.
"It's like dream come true," Nakamura, 48, who first developed the idea of bringing the temporary Kabuki hut to New York more than two decades ago.... visitors now will enjoy the ambience of a small Japanese village.



Hmmmmmmmm,, I wonder if NY kabuki will have a lot of Kiai-Jutsu screaming for the authentic ambiance?
Before I shipwrecked here in Japan, I'd had already seen a half dozen Kabuki-za Tour performances since none of my Chicago relatives would use their season concert pass to see "cats yowling." The first time I went to Tokyo Kabuki-za, I about crapped in my shorts when a little barcode ojisan sitting next to me see his favorite actor's virtuoso pose bellowed, ?Matte imashita!? (I have been waiting for that!). It's one thing to read about in a book but I felt like I was at a Greek melodrama 3,000 years ago.

Posted by trek/taro at 2:09 PM JST
Updated: Wednesday, March 3, 2004 2:11 PM JST
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