Cure

It's really only the second time in the history of this blog that I go out of my way to talk about a specific movie (to be fair, I did recommend a few horror films too, and the first wasn't even a real Japanese movie) but I really think this one's pretty relevant to understanding modern Japanese culture. Well, possibly to a depth you don't really even want to understand it at, but all I'm saying is it's pretty relevant!
 Ever heard of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Cure? Few people have. It's not a recent film (1997's almost two decades ago now) but it's a good movie, a real solid psychological thriller/mystery. It's not the exciting kind like Shutter Island, but it's more of a really deep, interesting, brooding film that makes you sit down and think.
 I'm a fan of this guy's, really. If you want to dig deep into the mental state of the Japanese people (specifically the urban population) Kiyoshi Kurosawa's the way to go. Kairo (Pulse) which I've mentioned in the previous article, and Tokyo Sonata are two prime examples of his type of work. It takes a more sophisticated person than a Michael Bay fan, but then again, so does counting to six.
 But back to Cure!

Yo, I have to warn you, I'm not aiming to spoil the movie itself, but if it means anything to you, I will be revealing the movie's message (through some minor plot spoilers too). If you want to figure it out for yourself, go watch it before reading on!
Now, I haven't gone about reading a bunch of in-depth analyses of the movie, but here's my interpretation. I could be totally wrong, too, so bare that in mind!

The "Cure" in question isn't for laryngitis.

Before I dig in too deep, let me start by saying that Cure's basic premise is simple. A string of murders occur where seemingly ordinary people just suddenly violently murder people close to them by carving an X onto their flesh. Ghastly! Eventually, a detective comes to the realization that all of these people have been in contact with one person at some point or another.
The man in question is an individual with no memories, unable to even identify himself, and his sole means of making people murder one another is asking them one question repeatedly: "Who are you?"

 On the surface, it's got plenty of intrigue to keep the plot going, and that's nice and all, but I'm not trying to write a review of the movie. You'll find plenty of totally valid ones on the internet, but this blog isn't about that.
 Rather, think about the message of the movie, as you should with most of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's films. At one point in the film, it's revealed that the mysterious man's affinity in making people kill one another has to do with hypnosis.
 But you see, one can't use hypnotic suggestion to make someone do something unless it's something they were considering before! What Kurosawa is suggesting is that Japanese society is one choke-full of repressed desires. Whereas the rest of the world is fairly more open in their day-to-day dealings with people and various situations, Japan's world is one of keeping superficial appearances and bottling emotions beneath the surface in order to deal with demands imposed upon people by their status, or the desire for a higher status, which becomes the Japanese citizen's sole purpose. For instance, Americans, as we know, are more likely to speak their mind or resort to action than the much more reserved Japanese people.
 By asking people "Who are you?" repeatedly, the unidentified man opens the window to the other person's secret desires, or their true identity, and they then go on to murder the wife or boss they hate, unleashing the bottled up rage they've been keeping inside for so long -- because that's the true manifestation of who they are, and what they want to do, once the mask is cast aside.
 The chance to break free from society's expectations is the "cure" Kiyoshi Kurosawa is pointing to with the movie's very title.

Some people just don't like chairs.

 Well gosh, I didn't intend for this article to turn into an essay on the movie, so I'll stop there. But in getting to know Japanese society, even from a distance, as I have (and still am,) you'll find that it's a very valid, if harsh, critique of the modern Japanese person's condition and societal expectations.
 Go see it for yourself! If all else fails, you'll have seen a better than decent mystery movie!

Brief Note: Hello, Old Friend

Godzilla statue in Hibiya, Tokyo.

Everyone loves Godzilla, right? Anyone looking forward to the next movie like I am? No? Good to know.

It's been a busy couple of days with my work schedule, personal projects and whatnot, but the next few weeks will put a few good things on the table, in terms of some cool things I'm about to do, and otherwise.
Here are a few things to look forward to!
March 26th: Dark Souls cafe.
April 6th: Festival of the Penis! Can't miss this!
April 19th: My good friend Basil will be arriving in Tokyo. I'll be taking a few days off to go adventuring with him.
All throughout April I'll also be looking into moving, so it'll be a pretty hectic month. Fun times, ahoy!

Samuride!

When I first arrived in Japan, energy drinks were just starting to catch. The Monster Energy drink had just made its way around, and slowly but surely, new ones started to pop up.
I don't drink coffee, personally, and yet there have been a number of times I desperately needed a little help keeping awake. Once in a while, during my college years, I'd line up energy drinks in the fridge and work on assignments during sleepless nights. Even in the present, I can't deny energy drinks are of a great help when I need to put out crazy energy to keep up with the kids.

 To get to the point, recently, a Japanese competitor to the energy drink scene has made an appearance. It's called Samuride. That's sure to light up the local market, right? I gave it a try. It costs just as much as the other energy drinks anyway.
 Though it does contain some of the more common energy drink ingredients, Samuride has a distinctive, bitter taste. I highly suspected ginger, and I was right, but only partially. The drink also prides itself in its use of traditional herbs such as Asian ginseng, star anise and jujube. Cool! Not that I'd think it's much healthier than the other alternatives.
 The packaging is pretty cool, though. Gritty!
 It ain't my favorite in terms of taste, but it's probably worth trying out if you're interested in an energy drink with the added local touch to it.

It's Poisonous, Let's Eat It

What a shit picture, sorry guys!

What a curious looking fish that is! Want to take a stab at what it is?
 It's a blowfish! Isn't it cute?
 Don't get too close, it'll kill the shit out of you. Blowfish are considered to be some of the most poisonous animals in the world. The toxin contained in the organs of the blowfish are known to paralyze people all the while leaving them fully conscious yet unable to breathe. Ingesting the blowfish's toxin is almost certain death. A small handful of people die from it every year.
 But hey! How about we go ahead and eat one!

No no, I haven't gone balls-to-the-walls crazy. Blowfish, or fugu, as it's called in Japanese, is a local delicacy. All restaurants that serve it have chefs who have some kind of license proving they can prepare the meal while leaving out all the toxic parts. Most of the people who die from blowfish consumption are people who've had it from improper cooks.
 Ken's had blowfish before, so here he is initiating me. You know, blowfish isn't exactly a budget meal. You pay a decent sum and you get very little. So I figured I might as well get a decent amount of assorted meats, since I probably won't be doing this again.

  So here's some fugu sashimi (raw slices), and assorted shabu-shabu, to be dipped in boiling water. The thin slices of shabu-shabu cook almost instantly. And, for a little something special, I've decided to try this hot sake with blowfish fin floating on the top. Strange, but hey, why the hell not.
 And the verdict is...
 Blowfish tastes very...bland?
 D'aww.
And you would have thought the taste was intricate and unique. Or that at least the texture would be. But no, it's quite a regular tasting fish. Had you given me a dish of assorted sashimi, I'd have never been able to pinpoint the blowfish. It's just that regular.
 Not to say it's bad! It just tastes very unremarkable. Same with the shabu-shabu, even.
 The blowfish-fin sake, however, is quite a different matter. I really wanted to enjoy this, but God it's hard. It's a strong alcoholic beverage, for one (the waiter flambe'd it - the alcohol was so strong it actually took fire and roasted the fin) but the fishiness of it seemed way overpowering. Ken liked it a tad better than I, but I felt like I was drinking a fish-oil soup laced with alcohol. I couldn't finish it in spite of trying.
 And there you have it! Fugu!
Truth be told, my friends had actually spoiled it to me before I had even got to try it, so I knew it wouldn't taste anything special.
But now, at least, I get to say I've eaten blowfish once in my life.

Interesting Tidbits: Masks

 It's sick season, folks, and at work, I'm the last man standing. I'm the only one of the instructors at work not to have gotten either of the seasonal flu or the God-cursed stomach flu that turns your bowels to goop and makes you shit, vomit, or both simultaneously for days at a time. A coworker of mine spent long hours sitting on the porcelain throne with her face in a bucket. It's almost poetic.
 To top it off, hay fever is coming about, with symptoms very similar to that of a regular cold. I've never had pollen allergies, but the local pollen and Canadian pollen are quite different, and allergies can develop. So I find myself either a victim to hay fever or the common cold. 
 Hence the mask.
 Unless you work at a hospital, you don't really see these much in North America, do you? And certainly not from someone who's already sick. Japan's quite different.

There are a number of reasons people could be wearing a flu-mask here.
- You're avoiding sickness.
- You're sick.
- You're keeping the bottom of your face warm.
- You've got a nasty pimple.
 Yo, I'm serious! Those are the main reasons. You'd think the first would be obvious, but the others are almost inconceivable in the western world, right?
 Being sick is actually the main reason for wearing the mask. Simply put, in this city where personal space can sometimes be hard to come by, it's common courtesy here to try your best not to spread your germs around. Covering your mouth with your hand while sneezing just puts them on your hand and contaminates the things you touch. Sneezing into your sleeve is kind of gross. Handkerchiefs are kind of dated. Just sneeze into the mask!
 And given that one person out of, I'd say, six, right now is wearing one of these, it's kind of easy for people who want to keep warm or hide their facial hygiene problems to just wear one too without looking strange. Simple enough, eh?

Death and Taxes

Based on a true story.

Well shit, I've been pushing it back and delaying, but it's finally caught up to me. Again.
 At the beginning of every year, every Japanese citizen is required to fill in their tax forms. It's a long, ruthless series of pages you get in the mail basically telling you to calculate your own god damn taxes and then send the result back to the ward office and pay. It's rather foreigner unfriendly.
 Technically, I'm a part-timer, see. So the job doesn't do my taxes for me. I gotta pay it outta my own pockets. I've known I've had to do them for the last month, but I kept procrastinating on this. It's just hell of tiresome. Nana's offered to help, but I finally resigned myself to going to the ward office on one of my days off and filling it up with the help of a designated helper.
 For better or for worst, though, the Chuo ward office has just decided to tally my taxes for me and send me the bill. I should consider myself lucky to be in one of the few wards that do that for its residents. But there goes 500 bucks.

Tokyo Disneyland

Yesterday was my birthday, and, as it tends to happen, I turned a year older. Sweet. 
As it turns out I've been treated to a visit to Tokyo Disneyland!
It was a good time. And really, if you've been to a Disneyland outside of Tokyo, it's probably very similar, except with less Asian people walking around. The stores probably wouldn't sell Disney-themed chopsticks, either, I guess. But for all other intents and purposes, you would probably have had a very similar experience to the one I had if you went to the ones in California, Florida, Hong Kong or Paris. But I hadn't! I was a Disneyland virgin until just now. All things considered, that's kind of surprising, seeing as I live four train stations away from Disneyland.

You can't deny the castle's got quite an impact.

The obligatory picture.

 Japanese people living in Tokyo have all been to it at some point or another. Whenever I told people I had never went, it would kind of come to them as some sort of shock.
 Many teenagers and young adults make it part of a once a year thing to visit the resort. Tokyo being so big, the result of this is Disneyland being the 3rd most visited theme park in the world. You can kind of guess about the two first, right? I'll spare you the trouble, they're its sister parks in California and Florida.
 Just like its sister parks elsewhere in the world, Disneyland is split into different parts: World Bazaar (the equivalent of Main Street in the USA), Adventureland, Westernland, Critter Country, Fantasyland, Toontown, and Tomorrowland.
 As an added bonus, I was given a sticker to put on my coat saying it was my birthday, so that most of the staff I came across would say "Happy Birthday!" I tended to forget I was wearing it until I was reminded every twenty minutes or so. "Oh, thanks!" I would reply meekly. I could imagine how it would really make a big difference for a child.

The Incredibles!

Unlike many other big theme parks, the focus in Disneyland is on theme rather than thrills. For instance, I feel like you wouldn't give a shit encountering the mascot of Six Flags, but the Disney characters have a certain weight to them. See Donald Duck, standing right over there? Millions of people around the world would scream or do crazy things to stand beside him. Your heart kind of has the right to skip a beat at the sight of him, and the same goes for all the other characters, too. I was particularly cut off guard by the Storm Troopers. It took me a second to remember Disney owned them, too.

"It's my birthday too."

 I did get a chance to try lots of the main attractions, such as the all-in-the-dark roller coaster Space Mountain (130 minute line included), the very well-known It's A Small World, Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion amongst a few others, but it seems to me like the most exciting thing about Disneyland is just the joy of, well, being in Disneyland amongst a bunch of other people having a good time, and just basking in the overall general atmosphere.
 No where else do you get to see a bunch of young people wearing funny hats in pairs or in large groups. Woop, there go the Daisy Duck headband girls, and the potato-head boys over there, and the expectedly frequent Mickey-Minnie couple. It's not every day you get to see a hundred little girls dressed like princesses gathered in front of a fantasy castle. Looks like someone's childhood dreams are coming true.
Of course, I bought a hat too. Fantasia, hurray!

Share a highlight? Well, every evening around 7:30pm, Disneyland hosts the Electrical Parade, a 25-minute long parade with intensely illuminated floats. It was kind of cold, sitting down in one spot in the frigid night air, but I forgot all about it once the parade started. Every float carries its own character and matching music, and it's pretty amazing to see how well the actors play them. It's just genuinely fun to see who'll pop up next, and how ridiculously good-looking the actors and actresses are. Holy shit, Prince Charming.

After that, we were about to head home, when suddenly, fireworks.
That more or less concluded my visit to Tokyo Disneyland, and I'm glad I got the chance. I mean, I really wouldn't have been able to go alone. It'd have been quite lonely.

Oh, pro-tip: don't go on a weekend. I can't imagine how much worst the lines would've been. Probably very.
On a side note, if you're a very big fan of Disney, you may or may not already know that Tokyo is the only city in the world to have a DisneySea park on top of its Disneyland park. I haven't been there, but that's an adventure for another day, eh?