About a year ago, I was looking at Edo-period book illustrations and reading name cartuoches – until I stumbled upon two which did not actually contain a name! I was working behind the scenes of an exhibition at my former university (Goethe-University Frankfurt Main, Germany[1]), which owns a small but very well-preserved collection of mid-…
Category: Finds and Ramblings
Another Revolution around the Sun
Our little blue rock has revolved around the sun successfully yet again. It’s been an eventful year for me personally and for JP. On a personal note, I managed to finish my first masters degree in Library and Information Science. Now I just need to find a professional level library job. JP has come a…
How do you make Animated Anime Images?
They are everywhere online. The humble animated gif from the 90’s Internet has returned with a vengeance. So how do you make them anyway? Well it is actually really easy. First, you need images and an image editor. I like to use Photoshop, but it is an expensive program. Luckily, the excellent open source GIMP…
Kinki University, Fukuppy?
After reading the title, many of you are snickering. I know I was! Sometimes Japanese names just don’t translate well into English. Osaka’s Kinki University realized this (college officials politely calling their university’s name distracting) and decided to change it’s name to Kindai University. I don’t know, law school and fishery research might be kinky….
Meatball Machine
I have a guilty pleasure: I like to watch B flicks. It is a side effect from growing up watching Mystery Science Theater. Meatball Machine caught my eye one day when I browsed Netflix. It sounded terrible. Boy, I was right! It wasn’t even terrible in a good way. Meatball Machine is a Japanese B…
13 Assassins
I don’t normally write about Japanese films, but this remake is worth mentioning. The movie remakes a 1963 black and white film. Set just before the end of the Shogunate period in Japanese history, the storyline pits 13 samurai against a cruel lord, Naritsugu, poised to become a part of the Shogun’s inner council. How…