What: avante-garde dance theater Where: The Japan Society, 333 East 47th St., New York, NY When: December 3-5, 2009, January 11 2010

The Skinny: American performance artist Jeremy Wade, with the collaboration of NY-based manga artist Hiroki Otsuka, crafts an abstract theater piece incorporating dance, visual backgrounds and video to expose the emptiness of modern society through the lens of Japanese kawaii culture.

The Verdict: Moderately engaging. If you like this sort of theater, as well as Japanese culture, it may be worth a look-see. More »

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From Ningin: December 10th is Apology Day in Japan. No, you don’t get a day off of work for it, nor are the stores filled with fun filled “I’m sorry I stole your soba” cards. But its a holiday none the less. More »

From Girlybubble: I knew nothing good would’ve ever come out of a Paris Hilton endorsement of Hello Kitty. To me it was trouble from the beginning. Now that Hello Kitty’s recently turned 35, I feel as if she’s quickly approaching some sort of almost-mid-life crisis. For starters, she was recently snapped up by papz with an exposed heart-shaped nipple. Let’s not even start with the Hello Kitty nipple tassles. What’s next Hello Kitty, rehab? A sex tape? More »

This isn’t the place to discuss being a foreigner in Japan: a quick search will turn up a million blogs (possibly even my own) started up by foreign exchange students, drifters and playboys who discovered to their amazement that (gasp!) the experience is pretty strange. I’m more interested in how Japanese view foreigners, and–supporting my thesis that it is a great way to learn about Japan–anime provides some striking examples. More »

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From Girlybubble: A recent trip to Youtube suggests that someone has actually taken what I try to explain often here, and turned it into a Youtube tutorial, called How To Be Kawaii. If you’ve just caught on, “kawaii” (ka-why-ee) is basically the Japanese word for cute. My first reaction in watching this is, can you really teach a person how to be cute? More »

From Ningin: One of my first experiences in Japan was visiting a public bathroom at my local university. After a long flight I felt the very strong urge to spend some quality time alone, sitting in deep thought about my journey to Asia. I didn’t spend all that much time thinking before I become increasingly aware of the sound of running water coming from my stall. While very relaxing in itself, I became overly paranoid that the high tech toilet would erupt on me. More »

From Girlybubble: One thing that I love about an amigurumi turkey for Thanksgiving, is that I don’t have to consider wearing pants with an expanding waistline to dinner. Amigirumi is the Japanese art of knitting or crocheting small, cute creatures. ‘Ami’ means crocheting or knitting, while the ‘nuigurumi’ part of amigrumi means stuffed doll. More »

It’s important to answer the literal question first: in a fight, of course, ninja would win. No matter how skilled a swordsman, your samurai can’t be awake every moment of the day, and no ninja worth his (or her) salt will be dumb enough to charge their foe head-on in broad daylight. But since these two warrior archetypes are so often juxtaposed, it seems worthwhile to ask: how are they related, and what do they represent? Sure, ninja, unlike samurai, “have no honor,” but isn’t the truth (as usual) more complex? More »

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From Ningin: Even though Hello Kitty is 35 years old, she keeps going like she was only 18. As part of the 35th Anniversary craze, Japanese online fashion mall Zozo Town has put together heaps of special ‘Limited Edition’ gear. Oh you know you want to buy them. More »

To begin on a serious note, I was among those who cheered the news that Japan’s entrenched, right-wing “Liberal” Democratic Party was finally giving somebody else a chance to run the country. Yet we may pause to shed a tear for the man whose incompetence helped bringed about this change, Taro Aso; for he was, after all, one of us. I hereby present a salute to the man we hate to love, Japan’s late and (debatably) great Otaku Prime Minister (that’s him in the lower right-hand corner). More »

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