Monday, April 30, 2007

Culture Report: Annual Japanese Baby Juggling Festival Gets Underway in Tokyo



It's Golden Week and you know what that means. That's right. Baby juggling! And this year the contest is open to sumo wrestlers (pictured above, warming up), so watch out. This year's winner (that is, the contestant who gets the most babies in the air without dropping any of them) gets a Calpis vending machine!




Good luck, everyone! Have fun, babies!

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Japablum Jukebox: Thee Michelle Gun Elephant



A raspy love song about a boy and the bike that he covets. Or maybe he already has one and covets someone else's. Or maybe the bike is a metaphor, we don't know. Done by a band who obviously picked random words out of a hat when they came up with their name. Nevermind, Japablum decrees that they're the best dressed dude band in Japan.

Track: GT400
Fun Game for Kids: Pick out the English lyrics

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Brutally, Brutally Hot Ex-Underwear Model Visiting Tokyo Needs To Hurry Up and Take His Shirt Off



Outrageously sexually attractive ex-underwear model Mark Wahlberg, visiting Tokyo to promote some movie he was in, really needs to hurry up and tear that shirt off. Yes, it might be the wrong signal to send to his new friend, sumo grand champion Asashoryu, but really, Asashoryu spends most of his time in a traditional Japanese diaper, so who the hell is he to get all high and mighty? He might even welcome it.

These often barely clad gentleman have things to teach each other. They really should just get started.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Kirsten Dunst's Spiderman 3 Tokyo Junket: A Study in Stark, Stark Contrast

Ok, so Japablum wants to know, just what happened in Kirsten's world between this picture:



...and this one:



In the pink barely-there number, she's a wild child, a hippy Barbee, a Freespirited Girl Who Doesn't Give a Fuck. In the second, she's a fembot, a mannequin; she's Laura Bush.

Question: What Happened to Kirsten Dunst in Tokyo?

A) Tobey gave her a firm talking to about how one conducts oneself during an Asian press conference. Then he gave her a series of strawberry hickies all over her neck.
B) Nothing, she just felt like wearing something that covers all her errogenous zones, ok?
C) Don't know.

If you guessed C, you're right!

Friday, April 20, 2007

Mika Kano, Japan's Ministress of Photo-ops and Pharmacology, Answers Your Questions



Dear Mika,

Sometimes I worry about displaying my gigantic pontoon breasts too prominently. Sure, they're gigantic and are buoyant enough to raise sunken battleships, but sometimes I feel like nobody notices my other great attributes, like my full lips and excellent bone structure. I was on the phone with my boyfriend recently and, just as a test, I asked him what color my eyes are and he said "boobs."

Should I start covering up more, so people can see the real me (the one with the beautiful face)?

Signed,

Raquel in Reykjavik

__________

Dear Raquel,

Breasts should never be fully covered under any circumstances. Never. Didn't the women's liberation movement teach you anything? God made them to be adored, and that is just what your boyfriend is doing. (He sounds very handsome. Tell him I said 'hi.') Hell, most of my lovers wouldn't be able to pick my face out of a line-up if you paid them. But they could sense my breasts from miles away.

Celebrate your wonderjuggs. Appreciate and love them. Trust me. The world will love you back.

If, however, you really want people's eyes to be drawn upward (God knows why), perhaps you should invest in a striking hat that can sit atop your head and drag some of the attention away from those funglobes of yours. I recommend something like this:



But why would you want to wear that when you could just put on your best hair extentions and wear this:



Have fun!

mika

Japablum Jukebox: Fantastic Plastic Machine



This Friday's Jukebox presents Fantastic Plastic Machine, aka Tomoyuki Tanaka, a space-age bachelor with a pad whom you will appreciate even more after you see this picture of him.

Track: Take Me to the Disco
Grooviness Grade: 9.5

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Today's Display of Visual Kei: Dir en Grey



Today Japablum would like to introduce you to the members of Dir en Grey, a rock band who may have moved on from their earlier flirtations with Visual Kei style but, thanks to the magic of photography and the irresponsible behavior of bloggers (not us!), can be forever pigeonholed as the glammy eyeliner bandits they once were.

Marvel at the jagged, dangerously angular bone structure. Gasp at the underfed, wispy frames. Shed a tear for their deep, dark sadness. Gulp at their choice of album titles (Marrow of a Bone, Despair of the Womb, Vulgar, Macabre, Gauze, Withering to Death). But cheer up, because now they look like this:



All grown up!

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Holy Shit: Mayor of Nagasaki Killed by Gangster of Some Sort



Nagasaki was once a city famous for its Clover Garden, its Lantern Festival, its Junior Colleges, and of course its Penguin Aquarium. Well, not anymore. Now it's going to be famous for its senseless violence. Yesterday, Iccho Ito, the Mayor of Nagasaki, who has often spoken out against militarism, was shot dead outside his office by a senior member of the Yamaguchi-gumi crime syndicate, which has a longstanding alliance with right-wing nationalists.

You know, right-wing nationalist gangsters these days really aren't as refined as they used to be.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Japablum Jukebox: Buffalo Daughter



Japablum would like to send you out into your weekend of regret and embarrassment with a little love from Buffalo Daughter, who know that you're up to no good but are still willing to rock you.

Track: Volcanic Girl
Bonus Feature: Kaleidoscopic Legs

Friday, April 13, 2007

Friday Morning Drinking Game



Everybody start with your bottles like so. Now, the rule is, whenever I change my facial expression, you must stop drinking. Everybody understand?

Ok, let's start.

Y'all are gonna get wasted.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Japablum Jukebox: Akeboshi and a Gratuitous Display of Puppies



We have to admit it: we know absolutely nothing about this Akeboshi fellow. He's a singer-songwriterly type from Japan, and the cover of his album features a black cat playing the piano, so he can't be all that bad. But we must say, this song doesn't really do it for us. What does do it for us is that someone in youtubeland has used this song to accompany the absolute cutest display of puppiness we have ever seen in all of our lives. You. Will. Melt.

Track name: Wind, but more importantly.....
Featuring: Puppies!

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Fashion Designer Chie Imai Decides Only Tinsley Mortimer Can Do Justice to this Dress



Celebrated Japanese fashion designer Chie Imai, after coming to the conclusion that only a "completely retarded, empty vessel of a woman" could appropriately fill out an over-the-top fluffy pink dress from her "Bloom Bloom" collection, made a decision: she would have to look to America, and specifically to New York socialite and professional blonde Tinsley Mortmer. (Yes, her mother's head exploded after commanding the nurse to write that name on Tins's birth certificate. Sad story.) Tinsley happily obliged, and agreed to let the dress wear her at Ms. Imai's "07-08 Royal Chie" show in Tokyo.

Also, after the show she totally beat the asses of those two Eurotrash bitches in fur coats who think they're better than her.

Monday, April 9, 2007

Tokyo Governor Celebrates Completion of Inking of Dharma Doll by Running for Re-election, Winning



Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara, who has finally finished the inking of his giant Dharma doll, decided to celebrate by running for re-election and winning.

"This is highly unusual," said political writer Shunsuke Takahashi of the Yomiuri Shimbun. "As you know, filling in the final ink on a Dharma doll is customarily done after accomplishing something great, not before. But, as you probably also know, Ishihara is a f**king moron."

Ishihara, who is notorious for his disparaging remarks about foreigners living in Japan, plans to continue his celebration by stopping by the Chinese embassy to order some takeout.

Sunday, April 8, 2007

Japablum Jukebox: Cibo Matto



Oh, Miho and Yuka, you were so weird. We miss you.

Track: Know Your Chicken
What's For Dinner: McNuggets!

Friday, April 6, 2007

Best. Movie scene. Ever.



Don't know about you, but we here at Japablum HQ spell Friday with a T-A-P-space-D-A-N-C-E. Watch this from Takeshi Kitano's Zatoichi and just try not to leap into the air doing the Japanese equivalent of jazz hands.

Happy 金曜日!

Thursday, April 5, 2007

Japanese TV News: Classy






Of all the tasteful Japanese television reportage of the recent horrifying murder of Lindsay Ann Hawker, a British English teacher in Japan who was found covered in sand in a bathtub on the balcony of the main suspect's apartment, Japablum thinks this little snippet is the absolute most tasteful: the two adorable news announcers are flanked by--yes--a bathtub full of sand.

But really. Couldn't the network have also sprung for a cadaver? How expensive could they be?

I'm Sorry, Sir, You Want Me To Shine Your Shoe With My What?



Forgive me, I'm not sure I heard you correctly. The last thing I want to be is unseemly. Is it possible, though, that you just asked me if I would be interested in waxing your wingtips with my soft, supple ass? To strip down and polish your footwear by rubbing it all over with my hairless hind shanks? And to slowly and noisily bring myself to orgasm as I grind away on your rock-hard leather foot cage while all the other shoeshiners look on with outrage and envy?

You didn't?

Are you sure?

Hmm. Ok.

My bad.

Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Today in Batshit Crazy Politicians: Celebrated Racist and Governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara



As both of Japablum's informed daily readers surely know, the great country of America didn't invent the concept of the scary and emotionally unhinged political power player. We're just really good at producing them. But we must give Japan some props, y'all, because their cultural, political, and financial capital is led by a man who would get along quite swimmingly with the current American yahoos in power if he didn't hate white people so much. But that's nothing compared to his hatred for the Chinese:

"There is fear–and not without cause–that it will not be long before the entire nature of Japanese society itself will be altered by the spread of this type of crime that is indicative of the ethnic DNA [of the Chinese].”

And women:

"Old women who live after they have lost their reproductive function are useless and are committing a sin."

And Africans:

"Roppongi is now virtually a foreign neighborhood. Africans — I don't mean African-Americans — who don't speak English are there doing who knows what. This is leading to new forms of crime such as car theft. We should be letting in people who are intelligent." (For the record, we here at Japablum think it's about time that someone taught the Japanese how to steal cars.)

Most troubling of all is the man's hatred for the child in everyone:

"I hate Mickey Mouse." (Real quote!)



Yes, say hello to Tokyo's governor, Shintaro Ishihara, who is running again for the decreasingly esteemed office and who will probably prevail in the end because, as Japablum and its allies know all too well, in this crazy mixed-up world we live in, dickheads almost always win.

Monday, April 2, 2007

Mika Kano, Japan's Ministress of Cleavage and Hair Flipping, Answers Your Questions



Dear Mika,

Do you think it's appropriate to ever date a friend's ex? My friend "Sheryl" broke it off with "Luke" a few weeks ago. I've had a crush on "Luke" for a while, and my friendship with "Sheryl" has never been that important to me. "Luke" is also ripped and he's got curly blonde locks, a square jaw, and is flush with cash. I've already blown him. So now that "Sheryl" is out of the picture can I ask him out?

Torn in Turkey


Dear Torn,

"Luke" sounds like a reprehensible human being with no moral scruples whatsoever. Steer clear. Also, do you have his phone number?

Sunday, April 1, 2007

Japablum Jukebox: Cymbals



It's spring and that means it's time for some breezy Japanese indie pop videos with awkwardly phrased and lightning-fast English subtitles courtesy of the late great Cymbals. Finally!

Track: Do You Believe in Magic?
Color Palette: tasteful, understated, beige