gaming content and more from japan
One day, during a group writing exercise focusing on "if" clauses, some of my first-year students came up with the scenario below. I supplied only the phrase "If Mario eats a mushroom," and the students did the rest, taking turns completing each other's sentences. Things didn't turn out well for Mario, it turns out:
There's a lot of buzz about Wii Fit these days (and the damn thing is sold out everywhere I go, which is making Christmas shopping for Girlfriend extra-tough). Apparently, the thing is really sensitive. When you stand on the Wii Fit pad and lean to one side, the Wii is capable of telling you that you're leaning to the side. Except....don't you already sort of know you're leaning to the side? Anyway.Today, a slightly less "healthy" Wii product was released: Namco Bandai's Soulcalibur Legends, a hack-and-slash adventure title based on the Soulcalibur fighting game franchise. After playing it for about thirty minutes, I have the following observations:
A while ago I ran across a comment on someone else's blog (I'd post the link if I could remember where I saw it) to the effect of, "Texas should secede from the US and become its own sovereign nation." While talk of Texan secession is usually a warning sign that a lot of hot air about Davy Crockett is about to follow, I suddenly found myself reassessing my views. In light of recent high petroleum prices and talk of an impending fuel crisis, the United States of America might find that allowing Texas to secede from the Union could work in the favor of the remaining forty-nine states.
At present, Texas is the top consumer of oil in the country, with nearly double the consumption of the next thirstiest state, California (source). Amazingly, the needs of Texas alone constitute almost 17% of the current national total consumption of oil, so secession alone would alleviate a considerable amount of US dependence on the black gold.
I know what you're saying. "But Jesse, that black gold is Texas tea! Wouldn't we also be allowing the majority of our domestic oil reserves to walk away, never to return?" Of course not. As you have most certainly noticed, American oil dependence has dictated the actions of our nation's military for some years now. Faced with the supply crisis brought on by Texan secession, the remaining United States (which I propose to name itself USMT: United States Minus Texas) would, in turn, invade Texas to seize control of its oil. Texas's fledgling military, consisting entirely of obese old men in recliners yelling, "REMEMBER THE ALAMO!" would be powerless to stop this invasion (which, by the way, I'm certain would be endorsed by the United Nations). As a result of the invasion, the USMT would be entitled to the benefits of Texas's oil wealth, while remaining completely free of the burden associated with supporting the now war-torn former state's disproportionate energy addiction.
Added bonus: With the recently defeated Texas's economy in ruins, the USMT would be in a position to start outsourcing dirt-cheap labor across the USMT-Texas border. Texas's newly installed puppet dictator would not object...at least not if he wanted to keep his summer home in Michigan.
To find out how you can help Texas secede from the United States (and to see a funny animation of Texas floating out into the Atlantic Ocean), visit http://www.texassecession.com.
The DS game comes out of its corner swinging, but no punches connect. Although FFTA2 is a DS title, it makes no meaningful use of the touch screen. This isn't necessarilly good nor bad; I'd much rather a developer elect to ignore the DS's touch screen entirely than try to force touch pen functionality into a game where it doesn't belong. If you're looking for a scribbling good time, however, you'll have to find it in a different franchise. So at the end of Round 1, we have no score.
Round 1 Result: DRAW
As you may remember from my angry post back in May, Square Enix's sloppy, emulation-dependent PSP port of Final Fantasy Tactics suffers from some pretty shameful slowdown. The animation associated with something as simple as dumping a potion over a partymember's head causes the game to get arthritic. When the annoyance factor of a game's slowdown exceeds the merits of playing through the game, the game ceases to be worth the time it takes to play it. FFTA2, on the other hand, is DS-native, and was therefore developed with the DS and only the DS in mind. It feels much more like the kind of polished product gamers have come to expect from Square Enix. A2 scores a point this round.
Round 2 Result: Final Fantasy Tactics A2
While I'd like to praise both games for being devoid of Amano Yoshitaka's shitty artwork (seriously, look at his box art for Front Mission 1st...it will probably be the last thing you ever see), I have give this round to the PSP title. Yoshida Akihiro's character designs for FFT are child-like without being too cute, while the hodgepodge of kids, anthropomorphic rabbits and dog-alligator hybrids that populate FFTA2 is just a little too Pokemon for my tastes. The PSP game wins this round with room to spare.
Round 3 Result: Final Fantasy Tactics: The Lion War
In the original FFT and its PSP remake, casting a magic spell entails waiting a turn or two while the magician "charges." Because the turn of the spell's target sometimes occurs before the magic actually happens, the player must constantly consult the turn list to make sure that the knight he's about to zap with lightning isn't about to walk into a crowd of friendlies, causing collateral lightning damage. Where I come from, that kind of micromanagement is more often associated with work than games. Thankfully, FFTA2 does away with this charging system so that a fledgling mage can still lay the magical smack down on his foes without worrying that he might be setting his party up for humiliation. Point, FFTA2.
Round 4 Result: Final Fantasy Tactics A2
In FFT, you can't undo the "MOVE" phase of your turn, even if you haven't yet finished the "ACT" phase. This unnecessarily unforgiving aspect of the game engine can make the "tactics" feel more like "craptics." But with the extra-yasashii battle rules of FFTA2, those "craptics" have changed into "fantastics!" Or, at least, "reasonabletics."
(Remember, after walking in the woods, you should always check yourself for "deertics.")
Round 5 Result: Final Fantasy Tactics A2
Although FFT boasts 3D maps that can be rotated and tilted for a total of eight possible viewpoints (and sometimes every single one of those eight viewpoints is unsatisfactory...but I digress), FFTA2 is all 2D, all the time. Of course, the maps are all designed with that in mind, and so shouldn't have blind spots, but sometimes the positions of characters on the map conspire with the map itself to make things hard to see. I'll give this point to the PSP game, but both titles should take a lesson from Wild Arms Crossfire, which features a much more useful in-game camera.
Round 6 Result: Final Fantasy Tactics: The Lion War
I HATE random battles in any and all role-playing games. They should be banned from the industry, especially in turn-based strategy RPGs where a single battle can take a half an hour to finish. Since FFTA2 doesn't have little bands of mountain lions, goblins and squid-men jumping out from behind every other bush and boulder while your party is walking around on the map screen, that game takes the winning point in the seventh and final round of my battle royale.
Round 7 Result: FFTA2
FFTA2 for DS: 4 points
FFT for PSP: 2 points
Today marks the first day of Japan's newly tightened airport security procedures (fingerprinting, photographing and interrogation) for all foreigners entering the country -- even those with legitimate visas. Japan is the only other country besides the US to introduce such measures since 9/11.Visa holders like myself have cause to be annoyed. With these new "safety" measures, all foreigners are required to go through the same tedious re-entry process and invasions of privacy associated therewith, regardless of whether they live in Japan or are just visiting. This, in turn, makes foreign residents in Japan angry, which makes the country less safe.
Nice going.
Bear in mind that Japan hasn't yet suffered a terror attack at the hands of foreigners. If that happens now, it proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that anti-terrorism legislation doesn't have a positive impact on actual safety. The new rules are also being prematurely touted as having a crime reduction effect. Guess we'll have to wait and see whether or not another English teacher gets put down for a sandbath by some crazy, disappearing Japanese guy. Come to think of it, wouldn't crime in this country decline if Japanese police stopped sending the message, "Don't worry, we'll never catch you?"
Keep in mind, FoxNewsPorn.com doesn't show anything that Fox News doesn't show, and Fox News is a basic cable station (which means there isn't really any porn, per se). But after viewing some of the site's videos, one wonders why Fox hasn't changed its name to "News Gone Wild."
Character: Johnny LawrenceJohnny Lawrence was just an ordinary, everyday, all-American boy growing up in sunny California. He was an exemplary student in his karate dojo, he hung out with the popular crowd at school and he was dating Elizabeth Shue. Everything was going great for Johnny Lawrence.
Until...
Until that little Jersey slimeball Daniel Larusso showed up with his short temper and his Crane Technique and his intentions to steal Johnny's girlfriend.
This summer....William Zabka IS....The Karate Kid.
That's how the trailer for this movie should have gone.
If The Karate Kid taught me anything, it's that sometimes the protagonist of a movie is not likable in the least. Sometimes he's an annoying, little punk who is doomed to be picked on because he just can't steer clear of trouble. Daniel Larusso is that kind of protagonist and Johnny Lawrence is that kind of trouble. No matter where Larusso's "stupid bike" takes him, all roads lead to a Johnny Lawrence beat-down.
For young viewers of The Karate Kid, an appearance by Johnny elicits the feelings of dread that only a real-life bully can prompt. And for cynical bloggers, watching Johnny beat up Daniel can be a satisfying form of entertainment. In Johnny Lawrence, the filmmakers have thus found a winning combination that transcends age gaps.
Some might say that Johnny's sensei, the diabolical Kreese, was the true villain of The Karate Kid. After all, just like Mr. Miyagi says, "No bad student. Only bad teacher." And it's not as if Kreese wasn't trying his damnedest to be a villain in the movie. I mean, look at him:
That ain't the face of a sane man. But since Johnny has a far more direct influence on the tribulations of Daniel Larusso, I cannot justify awarding Kreese the badass crown. And since Johnny has the guts to defy his insane teacher in the opening scene of The Karate Kid Part II, it's a done deal.
Johnny, you are a badass. When a man meets you on the street, he's an enemy. An enemy deserves no mercy WHAT IS THE PROBLEM MISTER LAWRENCE.
That ties Richard Nixon's approval rating (at the time of his resignation) for the lowest ever recorded approval rating for any US president in history.
You aren't really surprised by this, are you?
I wonder if someone told Bush that the low end of the approval rating scale was full of petrolium. That would go a long way to explain the zeal with which he has invaded the lower reaches of the spectrum. He can't do anything to boost his approval rating now; that would be too much like "cutting and running."
The United States Congress, meanwhile, has the astonishingly poor approval rating of 11%. How did they earn this mark of shame? By refusing to fight Bush.
I bought the Japanese port of EA's Burnout Dominator for the PSP shortly after it came out, but only started to play it yesterday. I was dismayed to find out that there are four (!) versions of the Avril Lavigne song "Girlfriend" on the game's soundtrack.That's four too many versions of any Avril Lavigne song.
The song is included in its original incarnation, as well as in three multilingual versions where she sings the chorus in Japanese, Mandarin and Spanish. Now people from countries around the world can become acquainted with Avril Lavigne's tendency for annoying lyrics that sound like they were lifted from the diary of a depressed fourteen-year-old girl. EA's pop music licensing scheme (called EA Trax, a system whereby EA puts annoying songs on game soundtracks but, graciously, allows players to turn individual songs -- or all the songs -- off) is unpopular with game critics...and now, with the decision to flood my auditory canals with four versions of a song I hate, EA Trax is even less popular with me.
Poor Avril Lavigne. She just can't win my favor. The fact that I cannot get my ears to accept her music is incredible when you consider the fact that, in 2005, I began my self-imposed "Be Less of a Music Snob" policy. It was meant to serve as a reform to my traditionally toffee-nosed attitude toward the myriad musicians I don't like, and to replace my feelings of "They suck" with feelings of "To each his own."
The new policy worked and I became a better person...except I still couldn't stand Avril Lavigne and a handful of punk-pop bands.
Avril Lavigne continues to be one of my least favorite singers on Earth. Her song lyrics are so inanely conversational-sounding at times and, yet, so obnoxiously melodramatic at others. You can't just write a song with a lyric like this and get away with it:
Some people's moms say, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything." To Avril Lavigne, I say, "If you can't think of an adjective to describe the relationship you're planning to sabotage, don't bother writing a song about it." And I have to wonder, is this song based on true events from Avril's life? Did she really try to steal some guy away from his "so what ever" girlfriend...and use this song to do it? And did it work? It's hard to visualize such a scenario.
AVRIL: Hey! Hey! You! You! I could be your girlfriend!
ME: Hey! Hey! No you can't! You're stupid and annoying! Piss off!
I can dance to that song. But I will say this: For the soundtrack to a Burnout game, Avril Lavigne's music might be the perfect accompaniment, because when I hear her voice my initial reaction is an uncontrollable desire to participate in a spectacular car wreck.
I've been meaning to write a blog post about Takigawa Christel, my favorite Tokyo news anchor, for a couple of years now. Since October 1, 2007 marks her 30th birthday, I guess today is a good day to do it.So how are my pants, you ask? Drenched in joy, my friend.
Even though I don't consider myself a true fan of the FPS genre, Halo 3 has bought out the majority of shares of stock in my heart with its beautiful design, enjoyable campaign and solid multiplayer mode. And then it completes its hostile takeover of my favor with excellent extras.
When I say "extras," I'm basically just talking about Theater Mode, where players can revisit their recent multiplayer matches and capture clips and screenshots of their finest hours. I have said before that in-game camera functions are a gaming cliché that every game should have, so the ability to take hi-res stills of my character's antics, give them humorous captions and then upload them to Bungie's website (where they can be downloaded to my computer hard drive) is quite honestly the bee's proverbial knees. The veritable cat's pajamas.
The shiz-nit, if you will.
So now, on with the shiz-nit! Here are some shots taken from my very first Halo 3 multiplayer experince...a Slayer match in which an incredible stroke of beginners' luck gave me the power to pwn my oppwnents. (I'm the red guy.)
Why must I be sad?
Fleeing the scene of the pwn.
He thinks Saddam Hussein killed Nelson Mandela.
Seldom are the letters WTF so urgently necessary.
(And, for anyone who cares, I do plan to finish posting photos from my summer trip to Kyushu. Further photos will be added to the same post with all the other photos. Just hold your horses, all right?)
Although it was Girlfriend's first visit to Kyushu, the island has a special place in my heart as it was the site of my first Japan experience: Six weeks in Nagasaki Prefecture during the summer of 1999. Now, for the first time in eight years, it was time for me to revisit that charming locale. Below are some of the best photos we took on our trip, carefully selected from a collection of more than 400.
First order of business after our arrival in Nagasaki was to eat lunch, which we did at a restaurant in the Dejima district. Lunch turned out to be toruko rice (Turkish rice), which is one of the city's signature dishes. It's rice, topped with gravy and a fried pork cutlet (which is also topped with gravy). It's almost always served with spaghetti, which somehow makes it seem significantly less Turkish. It's almost like a recipe designed by committee. Like all things in Nagasaki, one is forced to assume that the city's history of amiable international relations somehow contributed to its dominating atmosphere of cultural confusion. Hence, Turkish rice.
DAY TWO
The other main feature of Sannojinja is the Ipponbashiratorii (above, right). It's the remainder of a stone arch (called torii), more than half of which was slapped down by the force of the atomic blast.
Unfortunately, around 11:00, an old Japanese woman who I think was a Christian missionary started talking to Girlfriend and me about her English studies. The incomprehensible description she gave of the American who taught her English was probably the worst possible publicity that teacher could ever receive. She was babbling on and on, completely oblivious to the time, so when the moment of silence started at 11:02 I had to clear my throat and point to all the people with their heads bowed to get the woman to shut up. Girlfriend and I were both annoyed by the woman's lack of tact, and it occurred to me that a Christian missionary talking endlessly while everyone around her prayed was not without irony.
Known as shirokuma ("polar bear"), this massive conglomerate of shaved ice, fruit and ice cream is a survival staple in Kyushu's oppressive summertime heat. The thing was about the size of a child's head. Girlfriend and I double-teamed the polar bear and destroyed it completely.
We also saw the cutest cat in the whole world hanging around the gate to a temple adjacent to Oura Cathedral. The cat didn't seem to like us all that much, but it sat still long enough for us to take its picture. Girlfriend described it as "a supermodel among cats." But don't take my word for it:
On our third day in Nagasaki, we began by walking to Koshibyo, a Confucian shrine in the Oura district. The shrine grounds are a high-density hotbed of lions, dragons and red and gold architecture. I challenge you to find a more Chinese-looking place, even in China.
White stone statues of Confucian disciples are lined up in rows outside the shrine's main structure. I didn't count them, but I later learned that there are 72 of these statues populating the shrine grounds. The one in the photo below waved at Girlfriend and she waved back.
All right, enough about Meganebashi. I'm sure you're on the edge of your seat waiting to find out where we went next! Aren't you? Wait for it....wait for iiiiiit.....
Well, actually, first we went to a sort of boring museum, then ate lunch, and then we went to Suwa Jinja. Good thing we ate lunch beforehand, because visiting this massive shrine entails a whole hell of a lot of stair climbing. If my sister had been with us, she'd have done a "Rocky run" up to the top. Or maybe she wouldn't have, because it was like a hundred degrees Fahrenheit. I seem to remember spending a lot of money on water from vending machines on this particular day.
Near the top of Mt. Kazagashira there is a kite shop. The owner, who cannot be described as anything but a "kite master," gave us a twenty-minute lecture on the history of kites in Nagasaki (another fingerprint of Dutch influence on the city, it turns out) and then took us outside to try our hands at flying a kite. It was only my second time to fly a kite, and my first time to fly a kite properly. We stood at the peak of Mt. Kazagashira with the kite in the air, the sun on our faces and dragonflies buzzing all around us, and boy, did it feel like summer. Sayumi is shown here taking a turn at keeping the thing in the air. The Dutch flag kite we flew is shown in the inset. The guy in the purple happi is the Kite Master, in case you couldn't guess.
Only one photo is necessary to summarize the latter half of our vacation (which we spent on Fukue Island, part of the Goto Archipelago):
The entire time we were there, the red flag was flying on the beach, denoting that it was unsafe to swim because of high winds. The only chance we had to enter the water was during the high tide, when a nearby inlet would fill with shallow water. But that water disappeared completely by about 11:00 AM every morning.
I didn't take photos of the most memorable things about the island: The air conditioner that cost 200 yen per hour to use, the ubiquitous wharf roaches scurrying everywhere and the six-inch centipede that turned up in our room. All the same, I believe that the favorable review of the beach we had read beforehand was probably accurate, and the experience could have been immensely better if we hadn't had such back luck with the weather.
This concludes my photographic recap of our summer vacation. It has taken way too long to format so many photos, upload them and then think of interesting things to say about them, so I am done talking about Nagasaki. We now return to Chorus, Isolate, Confirm, already in progress.
On its surface, the paint mode of Forza 2 doesn't look that flexible. You're given a limited pallet of shapes, icons, logos and letters, with no way of importing your own images into the game. Upon closer inspection, however, one finds that each paintable region of the car has room for 1000 of those shapes, all of which can be moved, rotated, resized, recolored, sheared and given transparency. As a result, a gamer with enough time on his hands can come up with ridiculously detailed designs, despite the limitations of the shape pallet. Those pretty cars can, in turn, be auctioned off to the highest bidder for in-game money, so a player's ability to be creative with the paint mode can pay off, in a way.
Not wanting to be left out, I tried my hand at producing a design that my fellow Xbox 360 owners could get enthusiastic about. It's nothing great, but considering how quickly I slapped it together, I think it looks all right. Witness my Gears of War Sprinter Trueno:
It seems inevitable that I eventually use the paint mode to design a Chorus, Isolate, Confirm 1982 Porsche 911 Turbo, but until that time, click HERE for more examples of Forza Motorsport 2 as a medium for graphic design, apparently done by people who really enjoy anime.
Unfortunately, the majority of that weekend will be spent taking refuge from Typhoon #4, which has been dumping biblical volumes of rain on Miyazaki Prefecture all day long today, and is currently on course to do the same in Tokyo tomorrow. Hopefully this means I'll have plenty of time to come up with an interesting idea for a blog post this weekend.
FUN FACT: Rainy days are responsible for some of the greatest inventions in history. Among those innovations that sprung from inclement weather:
The umbrella (invented in China thousands of years ago; successfully miniaturized by restaurants that serve tropical cocktails)
The gollosh (a waterproof boot named after the delicious Hungarian casserole of the same name)
The rain curtain (invented by Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid)
The gutter (If it weren't for gutters, where would people like Edgar Allen Poe go to die?)
Character: ElliottThe Month of Fury known as June is over and now it's time for some more positively-charged blogging. The only thing that can correct my mood is a tribute to one of my earliest cinematic memories. E.T. is at or near the top of many people's Greatest Movies of All Time lists, but too few of those lists actually delve into the science of badass. Well, pull yourself up to a sitting position and take notes, brotha. Science class starts now.
Elliott is the middle child in a fatherless family. His older brother won't let him in on Dungeons & Dragons. His younger sister is a twisted firestarter. As a result of these disadvantages, Elliott harbors pent-up frustrations which occasionally leak out in the form of abusive language like "penis breath."
Doesn't sound very badass so far, does he? Well, pay attention because this WILL be on the test. One scene alone gives Elliott his badass status: The scene where E.T. gets Elliott drunk and his resulting subversion gets him kicked out of school. You might recall that I cited a similar scene in my Badass post about Donnie Darko. I guess, since I never did anything to get myself kicked out of school as a youngster, I find it especially gratifying to see someone do so in a film. Furthermore, that scene's final shot (of the girl's feet surrounded by escaping frogs in the foreground, with Elliott being led away by a teacher in the background) is probably my favorite bit of cinematic imagery ever.
Elliott, you are a badass. (Underage drunkenness is wrong.) We salute you.
June must be The Month When I Yell Angrily At Other Foreigners In Tokyo, because this week I'm at it again. This time the object of my all-destroying disdain is Beau Miller's essay (entitled Farewell, My Government Abuse Chicken) which was printed in the Last Word section of issue #692 of Metropolis. In it, Mr. Miller laments recent efforts to rid Beijing of "Engrish" (bastardized English born of computerized translation).
"Engrish" is one of my least favorite words in the world. It's like a thick, juicy slab of "I find your country quaint and humorous" wrapped in a "Your inability to understand English is an endless font of delight" tortilla.
With his mouth full of the burrito I just described, Beau Miller complains that, without all this "Engrish" (and "Chinglish," just in case you weren't already offended), cities like Beijing and Tokyo will become tiresome, boring and generally less of a barrel of laughs for him. If he knew that an endless supply of "Engrish" was always available at Yahoo's babel fish page, he might not be in such a panic.
While Mr. Miller frames his essay by stressing that Beijing has "more important matters to address," his decision to illustrate that point with a stack of "ha ha ha, these people can't even speak English good" observations is counter-productive to his cause. I do, however, approve of his decision not to identify himself as a freelance writer. Most Last Word authors do. After all, "freelance writer" sounds a lot cooler than "ESL instructor."
Below is the letter I wrote to Metropolis in response. I kept it short, and so perhaps oversimplified my argument (and may subsequently be accused of missing the point of Miller's essay), but I wrote it more for my own benefit than anyone else's.
The disappearance of allegedly comical English from cities like Beijing and Tokyo is no crisis. Rather, if this change means people will stop using condescending words like "Engrish" and "Chinglish," I hope it happens sooner than later. The "Engrish" in question is usually the product of babel fish translation services (available for free all over the Internet), so if Beau Miller's top priority is indeed his own entertainment at the expense of language, why not just go to the source?
I'm not exaggerating or trying to be funny. He really did suggest corrective lenses to help with night-time driving, and he really did say "yo."
Today I saw the hawker rapping again, although I can't be sure that the guy I saw today is the same guy I saw a few months ago, because -- check this out, yo! -- it turns out that numerous Megane Suupaa hawkers at locations across Tokyo are using this atypical sales strategy these days. A quick search of YouTube reveals a treasure trove of videos of rapping hawkers, most of them working at Megane Suupaa. The Akihabara guy even uses a little boombox playing a hiphop beat to help him bust it out fresh, yo! He also uses the "faux gaijin" pronunciation style that is popular with Japanese rappers, who desperately wish they were foreign.
Where else in the world would you see Rockabillies, bagpipe-players, girls dressed as ‘Little Bo Beep’ and J-Pop bands all in an afternoon?Speaking content-wise, I have nothing against this opening paragraph, except I didn't know some people said "Little Bo Beep" instead of "Little Bo Peep." Even stranger, in the Tokyo Notice Board appearance of this article, it says "Little Bo Bee." What ever. She could have said "Little Beau Bridges" and the essay wouldn't have lost nor gained any impact. Let's push onward, for now the garden becomes a jungle:
This is my take on Tokyo – eclectic at the least, crazy at best. And I’ve only been in Tokyo for 8 days! So far I have explored the streets of Harajuku, the bright lights of Shinjuku, the shopping of Shibuya and the 6 floors of Don Quijote (you really can find ANYTHING you need there!)
I’ve had hot coffee from a can, tea from a can, soup from a can, traveled the subway in rush hour, bought a bicycle (a must in Tokyo), strolled Omotesando and been cleansed at the Meiji Jingu shrine. I’ve tackled the underground maze of endless stairs and escalators at Roppongi subway station, I’ve basked in the beauty of Yoyogi Park and stared in amazement at the architecture of Roppongi Hills – and the price of mangoes - $300 Australian dollars a box!
From the perfectly presented Tokyo women to the punks to the straight-faced business men, I have found they all have something in common – a respect for one-another. This is how Tokyo works.Wait a ding-dang minute here, Little Bo Beep. I thought you just said you've only been in Tokyo for six to eight days. I think that pretty much disqualifies you from telling me how Tokyo "works." And your observation that everyone in Tokyo respects one another is an easy mistake, for what you've wrongly perceived as respect is actually indifference. Like New York City, Tokyo is full of people who, in the words of Dan Aykroyd in Ghostbusters II, "would just as soon step on your face as look at you." If you'd moved here from any other city in Japan, you'd perceive the order and efficiency of Tokyo as coldness and impersonality. But no, you obviously moved here from a place where mangoes are cheap and canned food is a luxury and bicycles are frowned upon.
I see Tokyo as a city of endless opportunity and daily challenges. My mind is already overloaded with plans for my life here. Challenge number one: learn Japanese!Yeah, Erica. Get right on that. You're a blank slate. An unspoiled innocent in a brave new world where nothing can go wrong. And you'll be that way until you get hassled by the police for your gaijin card and registration every time they see you riding your bicycle, you get touched up by a helpful businessman on the subway, or an earthquake sucks you into the underground maze of Roppongi Station while simultaneously bringing a million tons of amazing architecture down on you and your mangoes.
Dame usagiThis week Osaka-based Nova Corporation, proprietor of the omnipresent Nova English Conversation School chain (whose mascot is an allegedly cute, pink rabbit with a yellow beak), was ordered by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to suspend recruitment of new long-term contract customers for six months as punishment for illegal bait-and-switch practices and contractural misrepresentation.
This is just one more troublesome black mark on the reputation of a company that has, in recent months, been especially troubled with bad press. In 1997, Nova repaid 3.8 million yen to a group of 18 students who complained of false advertising and had been subsequently forbidden by the company to cancel their contracts. In January 2007, seven Nova teachers were arrested for possession of cannabis and cocaine. And in March of 2007, a Nova teacher from the UK named Lindsay Ann Hawker was found strangled to death, presumeably by one of her students. Her body was found buried in a bathtub full of sand (one hand protruding) on the balcony of the student's apartment. The suspect remains at large.
Going from strange to stranger, consider this letter printed in February 2005 in Metropolis, Tokyo's self-proclaimed #1 English magazine. The writer claims to be Gil Cruz, a Nova employee who firmly believes that "Nova rocks," despite the fact that Nova employees are forbidden by their employer to speak publicly as representatives of the company. The letter sparked a mixed response of yeas and nays from others who had worked for Nova, and the question of whether Gil Cruz actually exists (and whether Nova does, indeed, rock) has yet to be answered.
This latest slap on the wrist by the government has caused a sudden 10% drop in Nova's stock value and many are unsure of what will become of the overgrown language giant. One thing is certain: If Nova ceases to exist, Tokyo pedestrians will have to figure out a new way navigating. Once, you could simply look up for the nearest Nova sign and know that the nearest rail station was not far away.
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