Brief Note: Happy Birthday, Jesus

Did you know Japan celebrates Christmas by buying fried chicken and eating it with family? I've yet to figure out what fried chicken has to do with the birth of Christ, but I'm working on it.
 In the meantime, I'll be going to Nagoya for a few days at the end of the year, and I do intend to attend the winter edition of the Tokyo Comic Market! Happy holidays, everyone!

The Yokohama Ramen Museum

 "Only 3 to 4% of Japanese people polled said that they don't like ramen," Ty told me between thick slurps. "Foreigners love ramen too. It's easy to take foreigners to eat ramen." Truer words were never spoken.
 In Japan, ex-pats and locals alike all have their favorite type of ramen. There's no shortage of different bases for the soup, thicknesses or types of noodles, or variations of additional toppings - but unfortunately, it's hard to experience them without a significant amount of travel. And although I have no doubt it's possible to find different types of ramen from across Japan within Tokyo, that would take some research too, no doubt.

 And so, Ty and I, lovers of ramen both, found ourselves in the one place where 9 different types of ramen met under one roof: the Ramen Museum of Yokohama (not to be mistaken for the Cup-Noodle Museum of Yokohama.)
For the cheap admission price of 300¥, the rather plain-looking building is hardly eye-catching at first, and even upon entering. But the bulk of the museum is underground. Go down one floor, and suddenly, you find yourself transported to the Japan of the late 1950's, during the years when ramen culture was at its peak and exploding across Japan. And really, the decorum is great - old movie posters adorn walls, 50's Japanese music fill the vast hall, and of course, ramen restaurants to be seen in every corner of the room.
 And really, "museum" it may be called, but the Ramen Museum hardly offers you any information. "You want to learn something?" it seems to say, "then eat, damn it." And so we did. Each restaurant within the ramen museum offers mini-portions, which are about half the size of a standard portion of ramen, for a rather affordable 570¥ each, making the Ramen Museum the ideal place to sample different kinds. Now, of course, trying each of the nine mini-portions would have equated to eating around 4-5 bowls of ramen, which one of is adequate for a meal. While I'm sure it's not only possible but has been done before, as adventurous as we were, we weren't about to replace the blood in our veins with broth, so a choosing was in order. In the end, we opted to choose 4 different types of ramen, each with a different base for the soup, from 4 different shops within the museum.

The first, Zweite Ramen, is actually originally a ramen shop from Germany. That itself was a conundrum and drew us in. Apparently, the flour used for the noodles here are traditionally for pastas and pizzas usually found in Europe. Zweite Ramen is a restaurant that actually, if the information at hand was to be believed, has quite a good reputation within Germany. The noodles and the soup were both rather thick, and the sauce was a pork bone and soy sauce combination. 

 Our second stop was Ryu Shanghai, with its ultra thick noodles, reputed to be folded 32 times. Their miso based soup is given extra flavor by a generous topping of spicy red miso, sitting right atop the noodles as the dish is served to you. I didn't find the whole thing particularly spicy, but perhaps that's for the best, as the spice doesn't remove from the richness of the soup.

The third was Nidaime Genkotsuya, which served a very satisfying salt and soy based soup with its straight noodles, which were neither thin nor thick, but quite flat - a first for me when it comes to ramen. The more-than-adequate toppings of pork and kelp is what made this one taste great to me.

Our last stop was Komurasaki, a shop originally from the western prefecture of Kumamoto, which specialized in pork bone soup. Contrary to the nearby and very-famous hakata ramen, which also uses a pork bone based soup, the soup at Komurasaki was rather light, though both types of ramen use thin noodles. Komurasaki's special flourish was the roasted garlic chips, which gave the dish a really nice smell.

 All the different types of ramen aside, the museum itself does go an extra step in conveying the mood of 50's Japan, by having occasional kamishibai shows, which are charismatically narrated story-panels played from within a box-like contraption. The story teller flips the panels manually while telling the story, displaying the pictures from a window in the box. You can kind of think of it as a proto-television. Plus, it's worth having a look around to see the old-fashioned candy shops and the like, which are also decorated and run as they were back in the day.
 The Ramen museum was a culinary blast, and I say that as a person who really isn't much of a foodie. Go for the ramen, and stay for the ambiance.

Damn, Momotaro

Japan has its fair share of folklore tales, but one of the most widespread and well known stories is that of Momotaro, the Peach Boy.

A story panel of Momotaro.

The tale is fairly simple. In short, an elderly couple find a peach floating down a canal. When they take it home to eat it, they find a boy inside, who explains to them that he was sent down to earth from heaven to be their son. They name the boy Momotaro (Peach "Taro", a name meaning firstborn son.) The child grows older, then hears of a band of oni (Japanese ogres) who weave destruction where they go. He sets out to defeat them, and along the way, befriends a dog, an ape, and a pheasant, who accompany him on his quest. Together, they travel to the island of demons, and force a surrender out of the oni.

 It's a personal favorite of mine, but in truth, I wanted to share that because Pepsi (yeah, the drink) have been releasing these amazing commercials, retelling the story. Shameless advertisement, ahoy! Here we go!

The original, "Episode 0" commercial, tells a part of the original story, with Momotaro assembling his companions.

The other episodes add to the story, with episode 1 having Momotaro learning swordplay from the master swordsman Miyamoto Musashi, the wandering swordsman who wrote the Book of Five Rings.

Episode 2 tells the story of Dog, who, in this retelling, was a boy raised by wolves. His wolf pack is one day killed by the oni, and the boy's hair turns white from grief. From then on, he calls himself "Dog."

I really thought the commercials have great impact and are lots of fun to watch. And I'm usually so tuned out when it comes to Japanese TV. Great character design, great music, a fun twist on the original story. I'll be staying tuned for more.

Wall Tokyo - The Attack on Titan Museum

Shingeki no Kyojin, or Attack on Titan as it's called in English, has picked up an enormous amount of steam and has risen to become the number one selling manga in Japan, dethroning One Piece for the first time. Whether it's the series' intrigue and pacing, or rather it's underlying message of rising up against insurmountable odds, it's working. Men and women are flocking to Attack on Titan.
 In light of this success, the manga spawned a hugely successful anime series, and is following up with a live-action movie, an attraction at Universal Studios Japan, and a temporary exhibit at the Ueno Royal Museum. Which Dario and I had a look at!
 Now, this being Tokyo, and the subject being a manga read by millions, a crowd was to be expected. There was no getting in without lining up for a half hour, and mind you, we went on a Monday morning. Those seeking entry on a weekend, beware.
 Right off the bat, though, the Attack on Titan exhibition begins powerfully, with a guide, completely in-character, telling everyone who entered that the city is under attack. On a gigantic screen is a curtain, with the silhouettes of the titular giants moving around behind it. Their footsteps are thunderous. She disappears behind the curtain, and all of a sudden, it's lifted, and she appears on screen, being devoured by a titan. She's thrown into the air, and a loud crack is heard over the audience's heads, as she appears to have fallen onto the ceiling. Her tattered cloak hangs through the rafters in the ceiling. How delightful! There are even children in the room! I bet some of the parents were wishing they had been warned.

The art of Shingeki no Kyojin.

 The first section of the exhibit is dedicated to Hajime Isayama's original artwork. It's pretty par-for-course in an exhibit such as these. Now, you may recall that I said that Attack on Titan isn't the best drawn series by a long shot. But the exhibit does have his best pages (the originals, no less) on display, and no matter what else can be said, he is a professional. On some pages, there are neat little commentaries written by the man himself, and you do kind of discover that Attack on Titan was very much a learning process for him as well, as he could not have anticipated that the series would garner such a massive following. I do admit the full-sized pieces of his colored work were actually really nice when seen in person. There's a corner also dedicated to what inspired Isayama to start his series. It may or may not come as much of a surprise that, amongst other manga he cited as being inspirational, he also studied UFC and cited that as being something that helped him create certain scenes.
 It's the second half of the exhibit, though, that adds fun to the experience: the interactive showcase, where items and scenes of the comic are brought to real life quite literally. This half of the exhibit kicks off with a little something fans of the series will be sure to recognize - a life-size diorama of the character, Annie Leonhart, looking down at a flight of stairs. It's hard not to be tempted to recreate the iconic scene itself (which I did.)

The interactive exhibit. Why'd you do it, Annie!?

 Past this flight of stairs, though, is a collection of items that were recreated from Attack on Titan. And although some of it is completely goofy (a glass case, for example, containing a potato half-eaten by one of the characters,) they did fabricate some of the manga's coolest gadgets, such as the box-cutter-like blades used in the series, or the contraptions used by the characters to navigate the city while hunting for the titans. All of the above are life-sized, and presented in such a way where they blur the line between comic and reality. It's all very cool to look at.

Egad!

 But of course, the best is saved for last, and visitors are given a chance to stand in awe of the head of the Colossal Titan, breaking through the very floor of the building. It kind of puts things to scale. It's one thing to read about a 60-meter monstrosity and another to see it as it would appear in reality.
 And as usual, it's exit through the gift shop, which contains a few framed pictures, if you like Attack on Titan that much, and some 50$ white shirts with nothing but quotes from the series written in black. With or without context, the shirts are a little ridiculous.
 But hey, I really enjoyed the exhibit. It's certain to please fans of the manga or anime, and there's lots of cool opportunities to get souvenirs in the form of pictures. Check it out, but leave the kids at home, maybe.
 

The Samurai of Sengoku Buyuden

The Shinjuku area's kind of a giant puzzle to me still, and yet you'll find it in many guidebooks about Tokyo. Yeah, it's a bustling district, but unless you know specifically what you want to do there, you might be in for a little bit of disappointment. Shinjuku doesn't cater to foreigners so well.
 So it might come as a little bit of a surprise that there would be a pretty sizeable themed restaurant in Shinjuku - with a samurai theme no less! But things aren't all as they seem, and strange as it might sound, Sengoku Buyuden isn't catered towards foreigners in the least bit. But that doesn't mean you can't enjoy it! Let me take you through.
 As soon as you enter the restaurant, the theme is stark. Family crests line the walls and lockers and even the uniforms of the staff, and it's pretty hard to miss the full-body replica armors on display. If anything, they're the pride of Sengoku Buyuden. You'll see staff handing out model swords to customers posing before the armor. At a glance, everything is as you would expect from a samurai estaurant. If you want, you can even grab one of those funny looking caps with the samurai hairdo and wear those for the duration of your dinner.

 Sengoku Buyuden actually does serve food outside of the standard "izakaya" type fair typical of other themed restaurants. A variety of typical Japanese dishes can be ordered, on top of the shop's personalized cocktails (some of which appear to have lights inside them, don't ask.) If you order an alcoholic beverage, the staff will even offer a toast to "winning the war" with you. It's all in good in fun.
Only an hour in did I notice the one peculiarity about Sengoku Buyuden  - most of the clientele were young women. And after a
closer look I realized that most of the staff were young, presentable looking men in samurai indoor garments. And then I awkwardly realized that this was the kind of place girls came to ogle at guys (maybe hoping to see their swords, if you know what I mean.)You can see why they're doing plenty good without having to worry about drawing in foreigners too.
 At any rate, though, I quite enjoyed the food, although the bill does come pretty steep if you include the initial table charge. Maybe you'll enjoy Sengoku Buyuden if you're a girl coming in with a bunch of other girls? The staff's nice enough, they don't seem to mind the flirting. But now that I know, I guess I'll kind of tiptoe away.

Interesting Tidbits: Other Resources

Not a recent picture.

I'm not saying this to toot my own horn, but my friends and coworkers in Tokyo have come to know me as that one guy who knows about all the interesting things going on in town. The truth is, I do spend a lot of time in front of a computer, often just digging for places I haven't been to or new shop openings and events and the like. That being said, there are lots of places I have in my sights but haven't yet had a chance to visit, and don't know when I likely will. Japan, and Tokyo in particular, is choke full with places just begging for the attentions of curious people to check out, and with the right resources, they're all within grasp.
 You ready? It feels like I'm blowing the lid off of a huge secret. Here are the websites I use to keep track of the best of what's happening around me. You can access each site by clicking on their respective logos.

1. Time Out Tokyo
Time Out has great lists of 50-100 things to do in each area of Tokyo (amongst other cities across the world too.) The website also features a "what to do today in Tokyo" section that keeps track of the location, price and beginning and end dates of all major events happening in and around town, ranging from small shows to major festivals. It's also a great website to look for unique places to eat.

2. Tokyo Cheapo
Ken presented this website to me two years ago and I've been making good use of it since. Tokyo Cheapo, as the name implies, is based entirely on budget-saving exploration. The site keeps me up to date on the cheapest ways to get from place to place, where to stay, and what to eat. But my favorite thing about Tokyo Cheapo is that they also list a bunch of free or cheap things to do which can (almost) only be done on the upcoming weekend. I get lots of ideas from this Tokyo Cheapo.

3. Japan-Guide.com
Japan-Guide is my greatest tool when it comes to getting out of town. I use it to plan my road-trips and scope out different areas and cities. The website offers a map of Japan, with each of the provinces' and cities' having their respective attractions listed if you click on them. With the help of Japan-Guide, I was able to plan last year's roadtrip to Takayama from start to finish, baring in mind not only the destination, but everything interesting along the way too.

4. 100 Tokyo
The youngest addition to the websites I use, 100 Tokyo allows me to keep an eye on all the smaller venues that would usually pass under my radar. There's nothing fancy or extraordinary that 100 Tokyo brings to my attention which the other websites don't, but I use it to keep tabs with the quainter little shops that offer pockets of unique products, or the small, strange cafes that are unknown to all but a few.

5. Rocket News 24
Rocket News 24 is more of a news outlet than a website dedicated to tourism, but what they excel at is keeping track of all the weirdest, most outlandish news in Asia, with 70% of it being from Japan. I knew it from Rocket News when a strange new themed restaurant opens in Tokyo, or other such stories. Although the quality of the journalism here is sometimes questionable, it's hard not to admire the fact that an average of 5-10 articles are published a day. I check morning and night, and often several times in between.

Protip: If you're interested in the resources I used to settle in Japan as opposed to exploring, you can find those here.

5 Manga I Recommend

And here we go.
 It's a bit strange even to me that I've been living in Japan for three years and haven't really blogged about manga in detail. Yes, Japan's the birthplace of manga, anime, and everything remotely related, and as such, you would expect it to play a huge role in everyday culture and in people's daily lives - and it does. Popular manga/anime characters adorn trains, are on posters, billboards, and are sold in hundreds of figurine shops and sought by collectors.
 And although I've deliberately chosen not to make my blog about Japan something that only fans of the manga subculture could get behind, I have read my fair share of manga too. In truth, manga has very much inspired me to draw and create, in ways that American comics couldn't. Whether it was through driven characters or incredible plot, Japanese comics had a powerful appeal to me even from early childhood, and still do, though maybe to a lesser extent.
 That being said, here are the five manga I'd like to invite others to get behind, in no particular order.

GANTZ (37 Volumes / 2000-2013)

 Gantz is a well-drawn comic from the get-go to its very end. The premise is simple and, to some extent, remains untouched for the duration of the comic: two boys are killed in a horrific accident and are revived and sent to a room where a mysterious machine gives them a series of monsters to kill. Should they manage to destroy their target, points are tallied, and they can potentially buy their freedom back. Gantz is not for the faint of heart. It's extremely gory, with very detailed scenes of unimaginable violence. Characters are introduced in droves, and characters are killed off in droves. But aesthetics are Gantz's strongest point and it continues to deliver pages full of beautiful detail.


ATTACK ON TITAN (14 Volumes / 2009 - ongoing)

 This is the series that took Japan by storm, and is currently the most read manga in the country, dethroning One Piece, which stood at the top for a long time. If truth be told, I don't know what it is in particular that drove the series to success, but the whole idea of humanity being reduced to a fraction of what it was and having to fight off man-eating giants is lots of fun to play around with. Attack on Titan has a story that moves forward much faster than most other boys' manga, which tend to fall behind a "meet bad guy, get stronger, defeat bad guy, meet stronger bad guy" loop. Plus, it does intrigue very well, with each chapter leaving the readers to ask more questions. It, too, though, is quite a bit on the gory side, so fans of horror might really find something delightful in the grotesque imagery of people being eaten alive. Be warned, though, that the series didn't gain its readership through its artwork, which actually starts quite roughly before it begins improving.

YOTSUBA& (12 Volumes / 2003 - ongoing)

 The black sheep amongst my favorite manga. Yotsuba& follows the daily lives of a young father and his adopted daughter, Yotsuba. The manga was the recipient of many awards praising its drama-free, plot-free format. Every chapter is incredibly light and paints the world through the eyes of a child who often discovers things for the very first time and sees things as they are. The illustrations are soft on the eye but very detailed when it comes to backgrounds, and there are often shots of mundane objects that truly only children would notice, and that's the beauty of it. Before you know it, you find yourself laughing at the simplest jokes. Yotsuba& is a great way to escape after a day of hard work.



GREAT TEACHER ONIZUKA (25 Volumes / 1997 - 2002)

 GTO is a classic, about a young teacher with skewed moral values who is assigned a class full of rebellious children, and sets each one right, all the while becoming a better person in the process. Despite the premise being perfect for all kinds of drama, which GTO does have plenty of, the comic actually fits the comedy genre better. It's got plenty of rather dirty jokes, but it's all in good fun. The varied cast of characters makes it hard not to relate to at least one, and to some extent, GTO made me want to try teaching too, which happens to kind of be what I'm doing now. Of course, you do have to suspend your disbelief once in a while, but the comic has no actual "bad guys," with each of its characters having a back story that affected their present decisions, and it all goes to show the importance of having someone to look up to while growing up.


TENJHO TENGE (22 Volumes / 1997 - 2010)

 And at last there's this gem. Tenjho Tenge has a pretty typical plot for a boys-oriented manga, and you might recognize reflections of it in other manga like Naruto and Bleach and so on. Young adolescents with powers sign in to a fighting tournament and meet other powerful teenagers. Nothing fancy there. But to me, Tenjho Tenge truly takes the cake when it comes to its artwork. The way the human body is depicted in motion in this series continues to be an inspiration to me - and with such a huge variety of characters fighting in different ways, ranging from sword-fight to capoeira, you truly get an unrivaled visual treat. No other manga I had read portrayed movement as convincingly as Tenjho Tenge, while keeping clean lines and being instantly readable. Like many other series, the artwork starts out rough, but the illustrator develops into a titan when it comes to illustrating stylistic anatomy. And the wonderful thing is, Ogure Ito doesn't hold himself back from drawing anything he wants. If he feels like drawing a shark, there it is, no matter whether its directly relevant to the story or not. Tenjho Tenge is so much fun.