What Have I Become?

…A morning person. 1) not by choice. 2) not a very good one either. Living and working in Japan will almost certainly make you a morning person unless you are either a nightclub owner, cab driver, or the night-shift guy at the convenience store who not only has to man the counter but restock all the shelves while the store is open too (they never ever close… ever).

The 2010 Tokyo Anime Fair is coming up and although I’m registered I may or may not be there much. Why you may ask? Because I’ll actually be working at ***** as a consultant for the month of March, regarding some “stuff” they want to do. “Stuff” means it’s confidential and I can’t talk about it. Unfortunately I’ll be over at their actual offices and not at Tokyo Big Site, but… you never know. If anyone on my “cool” list out there (you know who you are) wants my free ticket, they can have it. Just get over here.

I should post more, but getting an MBA is taking a lot more time out of the day than I thought it would (for every hour you spend doing school stuff there are about 2 hours doing support and legwork for that school stuff… ever tried to figure out a WACC in your head? …no me neither). So, sorry for that.

Stare into the face of evil.

Living the Life:

It never ceases to amaze me what’s being done with Tokyo in the Otaku, and now mainstream (if you could call it that) culture. It’s kind of like what happens to the image of New York over here. Distorted into some sort of Shangri-La Mecca of the international culture scene and embodiment of all things U.S.A. The Texans get kind of upset when they’re judged by Japanese against the cultural standards of New York, and the same happens with Osaka people when you go all Tokyo on them.

Case in point this …thing. Oppai aside it really is both entertaining and incredible annoying. A whole generation of weaboo are going to see this and think this is like… everywhere in Japan, and then join JET or something and end up in bumblefuck where they haven’t seen a gaijin since the Dutch. The kind of people who fall for this sort of thing are really in a tunnel-vision kind of state and are usually sorely disappointed when the real world shows up with a hammer to shatter their LCD house. Notice I said “fall for” and not just “enjoy.” There’s a difference here that operates on the fundamental level of knowing that music video is a music video, and not a documentary. Some people actually can’t tell.

You could argue that the audience in this case is not really to blame, and this entire notion is a perpetuated myth deliberately reinforced my media companies who need it to be “true” in order to lend legitimacy to cultural phenomena they can control, package, and sell for a profit (hell that’s why I’m here… to do exactly that). But it still begs the question of necessity in terms of that particular direction. Once again, is art imitating life, or yada yada yada (click on that, I dare ya).

New Business is New Business:

Now with Taro Aso long gone and the dream of TARP manga money coming from the government, probably a good thing, the industry is going to have to find its way out of the current mess it’s in right now. A mess of their own making? …hardly, but a mess they are in none the less. OE isn’t really an option and they aren’t going to sell any more books/get people watch more anime any time soon (that’s IN Japan, we’ve already established the international markets are more or less worthless). So they can raise prices, expand into new types of media, expand into new types of completely unrelated business (cheese maybe?)… or become seriously smaller companies and deal with that. Honestly I don’t want to go into it any more… or do I? (There’s a reason I’ll be consulting somewhere for something).

Moving Forward:

After the tragic death of Yoshito Usui, creator of Crayon Shin-chan, the show was yanked off the air and there was a bit of ambiguity as to if the show would air the scheduled episodes, and/or produce new episodes. Thankfully, the show has continued and will continue into the future. Ending the show wouldn’t be a “first” in the world of manga and anime (Sazae-san is still going, along with Astro Boy and all that). But this would be the first time in recent memory someone’s kicked it while the original show is still going. Still slightly ballsy by Japanese standards.

Insider Trading:

A guy in my MBA Class is/was (on hiatus?) a project manager for Doraemon among other things, and says the thing aint what it used to be. Oh they’re still gonna make/air it for a bit, but it’s pretty much well on that long march into night if things don’t drastically change (FYI in the history of the universe, this "drastic change" has happened exactly never, so don’t hold your breath …no, Family Guy doesn’t count).

About Anime?

Been catching reruns of Oedo Rocket and Kochi Kame on TV. They’re fun. You should watch them.

About Japan:

You should learn Japanese. Go here. I did. It’s nice.

About the Internet:

This is a good podcast. You should subscribe. It’s about Japan.

Why I’m cool:

I can watch TV (like Shin-chan) on my cell phone for free. Also, I am pretty sure my accounting professor happens to somehow be related to a famous ninja clan.