11 March 2011 The Earth shifted off its axis between 10-25 cm that day. Off the coast of Tohoku, Japan the Earth heaved at a magnitude 9.0 and thrust up a tsunami that stretched 40.5 meters (133 ft) high and traveled 100 mph. That is as high as the 4 towers surrounding the Taj Mahal….
Category: Culture
Selling Dreams
Host clubs are a common element to Japanese night life. Host clubs are bars ladies go to hire a guy for an evening of drinking, conversation, flirting, and (on rare occasions) more. Hosts are guys aged between 18 – mid 20. They are expected to be “hot” with silver jewelry, tans, and charm. Basically they…
Takeshi’s Castle
Someone HAD to have been hurt on this game show. Takeshi’s Castle was a Japanese game show that ran between 1986 and 1989. A volunteer “army” of 100 and 142 people (commanded by Commander Tani) plow through a series of obstacles in an effort to defeat Count Takeshi and his army. The contestants sported costumes,…
There is Personality in the Blood
Ever wonder what is up with all the blood types in celebrity bios and anime? Well, apparently in Japan blood type affects personality. The idea started with Furukawa Takeji and his paper “The Study of Temperament Through Blood Type” published in the scholarly journal Psychological Research. Since then, blood type is used as shorthand for…
Dance in the Vampire Bund
Dance in the Vampire Bund often left me feeling…uncomfortable. Funimation ended up releasing an edited version for the American anime audience. If the version I watched was edited, the full version would leave me feeling very uncomfortable. Vampire Bund opens with Akira, the stereotypical highschool student, suffering from amnesia. The world is in an uproar:…