For You Wannabe Defenseless Maidens

Unless you read women's manga, chances are you haven't heard of kabe-don. It's essentially an overused trope that doesn't happen nearly as often in real life as the comics would suggest. The gist of it is, a guy puts his hand against a wall to loom over someone whose back is pressed against it. It's oh-so-tough-looking.
 Apparently, this is now so much of a thing that the Harajuku branch of Sweets Paradise has temporarily re-branded itself into a Kabe-Don cafe, allowing blushing high school girls to put themselves in the manga scenario. With a mannequin.
 Yes, it's a little strange, so, being the investigative soul that I am, I went to have a look myself.

Screenshot from the official promotional video.

 And it was a bit of a hit-and-miss. What I wasn't told was that they only allow you to pose with the mannequin on weekends. I know it mostly sounds like a miss, but I did get to pig out on sweets, so there. Now apparently, the place has a whole lot of equipment so that customers can pick out their favorite scenario, and appropriate sound bits would play out while the mannequin looms over you (such as him talking to you as if you were his childhood friend, for example.)
 Christ, then why not just hire a real guy? It sounds altogether like a more profitable endeavor. Even more so if you get high school students to actually fall in a crush with the guy and keep coming back.
 Why they only do it on weekends is a complete mystery to me though. And here I was ready to try something totally retarded. Mayhaps you'll have better luck than I did.

Diving Into the World of Shit

The Miraikan, or the Museum of Emerging Sciences as it's called in English, is considered to be one of the best museums in Japan, showcasing the brilliance of Japanese innovation and technology. It's where you would go to meet Asimo or Geminoid F, for instance. On top of its excellent permanent exhibition, the Miraikan also has special exhibitions - none of which seemed particularly fascinating enough to merit its own visit - especially alone, since very few of my friends here care for science. I reconsidered my stance for the current one, though.
 Between the months of August until the first week of October, the Miraikan cordially invited visitors to explore the world of shit and toilets, in a highly interactive exhibition suitable for people of all ages. I know, right? How could I miss this. I don't think they could pull this off as successfully anywhere else in the world. Of course I went.

As easy as it would be for me to make up what follows, note that everything below is true.

 It all starts off pretty rationally, see. A talking turd is wondering why he won't get flushed down the toilet. A face appears upon its lid, and it yells angrily that it's sick of humans that look down upon toilet-kind for no reason, and refuses to ever flush again. "We think of people as being our friends," the toilet said, "but we've never been thanked!" The turd turns to the audience and implores us all to at least try to understand the toilet's point of view, and that everything would be so much better if humanity knew about the importance of toilets. I was immediately hooked. 10/10 for the intro.

You never get to do this elsewhere!

Well logically, the first step in understanding toilets is understanding our own shit. So the museum brings you into a hall of learning about the consistency and smell and shape of our feces. Here, I was told of the benefits of examining one's own feces as a means of self-diagnosis. Entrants were also invited to compare samples of shit (not real ones, but models,) which children were thrilled to do.
In another corner of the room, three different aromas were stored into metallic cylinders. One with a pleasant smell, one with the smell of shit, one with 90% pleasant smell and 10% smell of shit. The point was, that it's very hard to overpower the smell of shit. I didn't actually try smelling from the cylinders. "Gross!" people would say after smelling the 'smell of shit' sample. No, really? Could it possibly smell like...shit?

Of course, there was all kinds of scientific facts and such on nearby panels, and believe it or not, I actually took the time to read those too. But let's move on, because that's not as much fun.
The next room was also very interactive, and visitors were welcome to try to sculpt their last bowel movement out of play dough given to them by the kind staff. Why not, I thought, as I took the play dough from the nice lady and molded it upon the surface of the small porcelain toilet on the counter in front of me.
 I came up with this.

Diagnose this!

I censored it for the kids.

It made the lady smile, so that's a win in my book. I don't actually remember what my last shit looked like.
 I proceeded through the next door, and made it to the hall of wonderful toilets! Here, many different bathrooms were showcased, showing how different people could possibly be pleased by a little innovation when it came to bathrooms. There was one where the walls were all one-way windows. No one can see you inside, but you can see the people outside, kind of thing. In application, though, that'd be horribly awkward, taking a dump while seeing the person waiting to use the toilet next, just standing there, holding it in. There was an open room one (for daycare centers that want to be able to keep an eye on the kids while giving them their space) as well as one that turned peeing into a video game (but I've seen that type of thing before) and ultimately, the toilet of dreams unfulfilled!
 The latter one allowed visitors to write ideas for a new type of toilet on a post-it note and paste it on the wall.These included ones that would make everything smell awesome and that kind of thing. There was one odd drawing of a guy sticking his head of the toilet bowl.
Such potential! I came up with a fun one.

Soon after that, the moment had come. I had learned about poop. I had learned about toilets. But that brought me no closer to understanding the struggle of the talking toilet from the beginning. It was time to become one with the shit.

The sign literally read "Imagine yourself to be feces and see what lies beyond."

There was no turning back. I became one of the numerous shit heads in line to get flushed down the mega-toilet, and within moments, my turn had arrived. I slid down into the porcelain funnel, and found myself in a hallway made to look like sewers.
 "Hey, do you have a moment? Sir?" a voice stopped me, as I made my way to the end of the corridor amongst all the other shit heads. "Could you please take a picture of us?" A Japanese lady handed me her camera, and I took a picture of her and her nice family, with everyone wearing poop on their noggins. There was a giant screen displaying a beautiful sea in the background. I relished the moment, because I knew this would never, ever happen again.

Next step is Broadway.

As I shuffled my way to the exit amongst the crowd (relinquishing my poop hat on the way out) I found myself in a room with many, many toilet bowls. A dozen children were sitting in front of them. "Now do you understand all that we do for you?" said one of the toilet bowls - it was the one from the beginning! "From the bottom of your heart, say thank you!" There was an awkward silence. "Thanks...?" said a few of the kids sitting before the toilets.
 All of a sudden, faces appeared on every toilet bowl! And they joined their voices together and sang in a choir! They sang of the importance of toilets and shitting, and the future humanity would build together with their help!
 "I forgive humans now!" announced the main toilet guy.
I was relieved, and the exhibition made my realize it was about time I relieved myself in a different way, too. So I found the washroom on my way out and did that. Thank you, toilet.

I'll Just Leave This Here

My company is making promotional videos and there's this kind of unspoken contest going between employees on who can be the most over the top without being inappropriate. These pop up sporadically on YouTube, if you look up "My Gym Japan."

What Are These Even Called?

Looking through my pictures, I realize I've gathered quite a number of these (thanks mostly to Ken.) See if you can recognize where they're from.

Well this one's given.

Osaka Bang

One of the most interesting things I had heard about Osaka and its people was the Osaka Bang myth. The thesis is simple: Osaka people are so fun-loving and easy going, that no matter who you approach and no matter what the situation you approach them in, if you make a gun with your fingers and point and them and yell "bang!" they will pretend to get shot. The myth was made famous and gained attention worldwide with this video:

But of course, I had to test this for myself. Would it work? Drumroll!

Oh, shit!
Well the video didn't tell me how embarrassing it is when the guy just looks back at you blankly. Someone find me a rock to hide under, quick.
 Alas, this proves that, no, not everyone will play along. But there is yet a silver lining behind this fart cloud that has been cast over my dreams!
 Unfortunately I didn't catch it on camera, but when I attempted it on one of the waiters in a kushikatsu restaurant, he flew back so splendidly that he bumped into another waitress and had to explain to her that he did it because I shot him! Osaka Bang fares a little better against the young crowd. If I'm ever there again I'll have to try some more. For science, you know.

If I Opened a Restaurant

With it's 30+ million people, the Keihin area (Tokyo and its neighbors) is booming with businesses that have to somehow distinguish themselves from others. You see this most often when it comes to the food industry. There's no limit to the originality and innovation of the restaurants you'll find in Tokyo. Just take a look at the Themed Restaurant tag on my blog and you'll get a good idea of what I mean. And I haven't yet even scratched the surface of the matter at hand.
 The thing is, what keeps these businesses running is not only the owners striving to differentiate themselves, but also the great number of people aching for something new. And with a metropolitan area with this many people, one needs only to pick people's curiosity to have a steady flow of customers.
 Which gets me thinking that, if I had the capital to start up, I could open something really fucked up that would have curious customers rallying to my shop's door. Here's a few ideas!

1. Merry Go Around
A restaurant where all tables are round. Customers order as usual, and, when the food arrives, their chairs start revolving around the table, moving along a track! What a great way to share food when eating with a group of several people, all the while making sure one asshole doesn't hog all the good stuff.

2. Firing Squad
Customers grab an apron and place their order then line up against the wall with their mouths open. The food is then thrown at their face by something similar to a baseball pitching machine.

3. Hunger Games
Everyone pays the same price to enter the restaurant, and receives chopsticks, a fork or a spoon (chosen at the entrance.) They then stand in a room with a timer above head, and, when the timer hits zero, a door opens and they must all rush into the next room (a 50 meter dash or so) which has a great amount of food at its center. First arrived gets first pick. Everyone has 2 minutes to eat as much as they can before they are urged by the staff to go back into the previous room and wait for the timer again.

4. Gravity
By most means a regular restaurant, except customers are strapped to a chair suspended from the ceiling. Pregnant women aren't allowed entry.

5. Limelight
Ten juries (paying customers, maybe 2000¥ each) are placed at a table with lots of food, but are not allowed to touch it at all (or else they get kicked out and replaced by another paying customer.) Then, a "performer" (another paying customer, 2000¥) must dance or sing to impress the juries (less than 2 minutes per performance please.) Depending on how impressed they were, the juries give you food accordingly. Every 3 performances the juries are swapped out by the next batch of paying customers. Performers get to take their food to the next room.

THESE IDEAS ARE MY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY NOW. DON'T STEAL MY IDEAS.

Second Lap

Another year, another lap: this was the idea we had set in motion when Ken, Aala and myself (joined by Dario and Julian this time around) returned to the Yamanote Line. With this brave new line-up of aspiring train-line pilgrims, we set out to march in the opposite direction of last year's walk, starting from Ueno and going clockwise around the loop this time around. Having been a little tied up earlier in the morning, I joined my fellow soldiers from Tokyo station, actually, and, just as last year, the total trip took my companions and I 13 hours (minus two for me.) Which, all things considered, is pretty surprising, seeing as we didn't blunder and get lost half the number of times we did last year.
See you next year, Yamanote!
 PS: I'm late in posting this, as this all took place in April. I'm just sharing it now since the photos have been uploaded.
 Once again, all photo credit goes to Aala. You can read his much more complete take on this year's Yamanote Line walk on his blog right here. Or you can look at last years' walk here!

Brief Note: Sayonara, Brother

Alan in a nutshell

I sent my brother Alan home via Narita airport just yesterday. Ten days fly by pretty fast, after all. But still, I think it was quite a satisfying, and fairly complete tour of Tokyo, in a nutshell. Here's what we did, breaking the days down. The links in bold are the ones that feature my brother.

Day 1: Arrival in the evening
Day 2: Yanaka (Nippori), Akihabara, themed restaurant "Alcatraz"
Day 3: Ken brought Alan to Ginza, and later, Sky Tree, Asakusa, Shibuya
Day 4: Tobu Zoo
Day 5: Harajuku, Yoyogi Park, Meiji-Jingu, Ikebukuro, a cat lounge
Day 6: Shopping at Koshigaya Lake Town
Day 7: Kamakura
Day 8: Kagaya
Day 9: Maid Cafe, Sumo
Day 10: Return to Vancouver

Oh, here's something my brother taught me to do during his visit.

You Know You Want One

They're so stylish.

Speaking of stupid merchandise, you might have noticed pictures of me wearing shirts with my own face or likeness on them. I made those!
 If you want a shirt with your own face on it, then too bad, go make it yourself. But if you're one of my friends or acquaintances in Japan and you want a shirt with my face on it, then I'll be glad to make you one!
 They're 2500¥, which is the exact amount it costs to make one, so I'm not really pulling any profit from this other than the giggles I'll get of seeing you wear it.
My face is upside down so that you can look down and stare me in the eyes. The other model has me sitting on the ground holding two toy telephones. It's cutting-edge fashion, folks.

They probably won't get you laid, either.

A Penguin

I hardly have any explanation for this. I was with Lo, walking around Nakano Broadway, a large shopping center for objects of particular taste, when I stumbled upon this penguin and decided I had to buy it. I don't recall the last time I bought something so retarded. And then I remembered it was going to be April Fool's, so I got a little giddy.
 The rest of my day was a lot of me figuring out what to do with my penguin. Here's a small gallery.

Eventually I settled for placing the penguin on the seat opposite mine on the train and waiting for people's reactions as they got on. This being Japan, no one bothered moving the thing, and settled for respectfully sitting next to it.
 One couple even thought that the penguin was part of a joke set up by the train staff, being that the logo for the Suica, which is one of the two train cards used in Tokyo, is also a penguin.
 I eventually had to get up and pick it up on my way out of the train, but I did get to see them exchange bedazzled looks with one another.
 The penguin now sits on top of my bookshelf, since I decided the bathroom was too cramped. So yeah, happy April Fool's.

Painting the Town Red

Happy holidays, folks! In comparison to last year, I've had a very busy Christmas Eve 2012. Christmas in Japan is kind of a couple's thing, as opposed to the family thing it is in America, and I have neither a significant other or family in this side of the world. So, lonely as I am, I wasn't expecting to be doing much on Christmas. But luckily enough, Aala had plans, and I soon found out that Lo and Neal were both in on it. It didn't take much convincing on his part to drag me out for an all-nighter in between two work days (alarmingly enough.)

Neal, Lo, and Aala

 So I join him in Shibuya's Hachiko Square and find him dressed as a panda/Santa Claus (which doesn't surprise me at all, for some reason.) Before him are gathered ten valiant soldiers, ready for a mission: that of placing a Santa Claus hat atop as many statues as possible in Tokyo. Joining these brave missionaries, I become the twelfth member, and at last the group is split in two halves of six: East Tokyo and West Tokyo. Our team, East Tokyo, is formed of Aala as a Panda, Lo, wearing a frankly terrifying black mask, Neal, who also joined me for the Nichitsu raid, the dastardly crazy haired Kenichi Kato, and a very random, quiet woman approaching her middle age, named Keiko.

 As the clock struck midnight, we set off for our first mark, Ueno Park. Aala and Kenichi, who had organized and taken part in the same event last year, respectively, remember the placement of the statues, and we made short work of the famous Takamori Saigo statue. "There's another one," said Aala, "a little deeper into the park. But this one's impossible. It's twice as tall." Pwah!
 Damn right I put a hat on the statue of Prince Akihito. And the thirty foot tall mural in the museum courtyard while I was at it. That Christmas eve, I became a climbing machine.

The mural, Saigo, and Akihito

As the night drew on, we progressed down Akihabara and towards the Imperial Palace, transforming a few statues along the way. I actually managed to climb (and hat) every statue I saw, with one exception. There was the one near Shin-Nihombashi where I accidentally stepped on top of a sleeping homeless guy inside a box I failed to notice. He woke up screaming and cursing at me, and I frankly felt terrible about the ordeal. We ran off before he called the cops.

Despite it being a good night for us, though, we later found out that West Tokyo Team pretty much covered only a miniscule area and didn't even want to meet us halfway at the break of dawn. It figured, though, since we had thrown a bunch of young women into that group who had joined in just so that they could be doing something during the eve of Christmas. Unfortunate!

And that, my friends, is how those Santa hats ended up there. Merry Christmas, and whatever!

Let Us Summon Diabetes

Japanese branches of American fast food chains often run interesting campaigns one can't catch sight of in America itself. For instance, almost exactly a year ago, I recall that time when they were offering those amazingly cheap McNuggets. As a matter of fact, there's seldom a time when fast food chains aren't running some sort of interesting campaign.


Well get a load of this; for one week only, Burger King Japan has been offering 30-minute All-You-Can-Eat on burgers and fries after the purchase of one Black Burger combo. What's the Black Burger? Well that's a promotional burger they've been having this month. The buns are actually pitch black. The food coloring used for the buns is actually from squid ink (which you obviously can't taste.) It's quite a powerful coloring agent.



 All-You-Can-Eat on Burger King? You can imagine my reaction. This immediately called for a coalition. I summoned to my finest warriors: Ken Tanaka, his half-sister Nozomi, and Aala's Right-Hand-Man, Jean-Paul Lo. United, we valiantly met in Shibuya to tackle the challenge of eating as many burgers as we could.
 Yeah I know. With the exception of Lo perhaps, one would guess we aren't big eaters and wouldn't be able to eat that many burgers anyway. One would be correct.

This is the one I couldn't finish.

The Black Burger itself was actually quite nice!
It didn't taste irregular in any way. The color had nothing to do with the actual taste of the burger itself. But all that was beside the point.
 I scarfed it down as fast as possible in order to get to the second and third burgers. The young girl at the counter giggled as I ran down the stairs each time to get a new burger. She knew what we were up to.
Much to my chagrin, though, I couldn't make it past three-and-a-half burgers. Whopper Burgers are big, man, and I learned that the hard way today. Fortunately though, I didn't puke, but had I gone any further into that fourth I very likely would have.

FINAL COUNT:

11 BURGERS 

 

That's between four of us. Going in, I thought I'd eat five, but you get what you get. Until next year, Burger King!

Comiket 84

It was only a matter of time, wasn't it?

For the first time since my arrival in Japan, I found myself at an anime and manga convention. With an estimated 500,000 attendances, Comiket is the largest, most monstrously crowded self-publishing convention of its kind. Being an unapologetic video-gamer and a once big-time anime fan, I couldn't quite pass on this.
Accompanied by Ken and Aala (and two other friends off-camera!) I delve into the heart of geek-dom. Not without secretly enjoying it. See, I'm not much for waiting and watching. It's also fun to just jump in and do something crazy here and there.
Sexy things, cool things, bizarre things, long line-ups, and fat, smelly bastards who wait only for this time of the year to come out from their flats await!
Here we go!

I care only for Solid Snake!

 Comiket is held twice a year outside Tokyo, a half hour or so from where I live myself. Within the spacious grounds of Tokyo Big-Sight, the hoard of otaku (Japanese for geek) can sprawl out in numbers and still leave (a small amount of) walking space allowing people to circulate. The event itself is divided into grounds for well-known published manga and amateur manga, with the rest being fair territory for cosplayers, which is by far the most interesting part of the convention (for me at least!)

 Not to say that the rest isn't interesting. The amateur manga and fan-fiction section of Comiket stretches for over a hundred square meters I'm positive. While I'm sure there was talent to be found, though, a lot of it wasn't too impressive, to me, at least. There's all kinds of obscure wonders and treasures to be found in this pool, though.
Fun fact! A surprising amount of amateur pornographic comics are drawn by women!
 Other fun fact! Attendance of Comiket was predominantly female only until the more recent years, where male attendance has risen.

But the cosplay really takes the cake. Here's the part of the event that appeals to geek and non-geek alike (I think?) There's a little something for everyone here. It's interesting to stop here if you want something sexy to gawk at, or something silly to laugh at, or if you just want to be marveled in general by the effort some people put into the costume they'll only wear once or twice a year. Some of these pieces are months in the making. But sometimes it takes a little less than that to gain the attention of eager geeks from across Tokyo. The amount of skin you'll see from some of these people is also quite remarkable.

Cross-dressers! But of course!

Ken's pet thing.

Identify this anime? I can't. Neither can Aala.

Altogether Comiket was my kind or recipe for a good time.  Since the event is held twice a year, I'm likely to return in Winter, as well, for Comiket 85. Aala wants to dress up as something. I'll allow myself to try to think of something to dress up as, as well, if only to have an excuse for doing flips in public and later find my pictures elsewhere online. It's something to look forward to!