Archive for the 'Culture' Category

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Bamp! Daisuki!

Published on June 8, 2009 in Culture by taro. Closed

img_5079Yesterday was the closing of the 30th Pan Pacific Festival with the parade down Kalakaua Avenue. I’d been lazy to catch the other days, but made an effort to catch the parade. I think the highlight of the parade for Derek and I was Bamp! Who/what is “Bamp!”? I didn’t know. A web search turned up nothing relevant. I still didn’t know. When they came up in the parade, all we can figure that their performance is is to be cute, and they are extremely good at that! fanAnd this cutie gets extra special bonus points for her fan, check it out! If they have a fan club, we want to be in it!

Oh, and the rest of the parade was pretty cool.

He’s a Demon for Chrissakes!

Published on May 18, 2009 in anime, Culture, rant and SUAR by risu. Closed

Saw a semi-homeless Taurus wagon today with a SD Inuyasha sticker on the rear windscreen above diecuts that read: “It’s not what man thinks, but what God says that matters”. You realize that the little character you think is so cute/macho/dreamy/etc. IS AN EFFING DEMON, right? You realize that this “annie may” character was created from ideas from a non-Christian culture, and the mere suggestion of his existence is tantamount to blasphemy in your religion, right? How does that sit in your stomach now? From the junk level inside the car, this is not a young person – probably one of the scary, obsessive, older fangirls that creep me out when I go to anime conventions. Probably Costco-sized too… Yeah, I went there.

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Obaa-bling

Published on May 1, 2009 in Culture and SUAR by risu. Closed

WTF is up with all the old ladies with the Swarovski Crystals along the cuticle on their pedicures?  Is this some kind of fashion accident gone awry?  I’m thinking that at one point some young fashionista was the vanguard of this trend, but I generally only see it on “old ladies” or “someone’s mom” now.

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Sweet Home Café

Published on April 28, 2009 in Culture and Food by derek. Closed

Word of a new Taiwan Style hot pot restaurant had been circulating around for a while, so after reading and deliberating, and schedule making, I rounded up some of my eating buddies (K and J) to go check it out a few months back.  We found it to be very economical, and every left with a Euphoric Sense of Well Being™.  Unfortunately that time noone had a good camera with them.  We finally managed to get everyone back together again for another visit this evening

sweet home cafe

sweet home cafe

Continue reading ‘Sweet Home Café’

Morning Chunk

Published on April 13, 2009 in Culture, rant and SUAR by risu. Closed

WTF!? I awoke to the new “Dash and Diane” format on the KHNL morning news this morning. No Kristine anymore! Kuso! That sucks. I don’t have anything to look forward to in the morning now! It’s just like going back to Vancouver last year and discovering that the Breakfast Television format has been changed and the familiar hosts are gone! Bigfoot no like!

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I am the Spam Magnet

Published on April 7, 2009 in Culture, rant and Site by risu. Closed

You really don’t have to read this post… Continue reading ‘I am the Spam Magnet’

The Venture Bros. Season 3 BRD

Published on March 28, 2009 in anime and Culture by risu. Closed

Hooray!  It’s finally out!  I picked it up on release day so I could catch up on those episodes I missed on TV and rewatch those where I came away with, “huh? what?”.  All 13 episodes of season three are presented in letterbox high-definition (the first two seasons were produced in standard definition, so don’t expect a BRD re-release of those).  The extras are limited to deleted scenes (which basically amount to the recorded dialogue with storyboard art), and commentary tracks.  It’s all so gloriously wrong!  It’s the only US-produced animation that I watch regularly – maybe religiously.  The quality hasn’t degraded over the seasons, probably because the creative team has remained intact, and the network hasn’t gone all Nazi on them like Nickelodeon did on Ren and Stimpy. Continue reading ‘The Venture Bros. Season 3 BRD’

Dora the Pre-Teen Hoochie

Published on March 20, 2009 in anime, Culture and rant by risu. Closed

It is funny how much media attention is being paid to the newer “slightly more grown-up” version of Dora the Explorer by disgruntled parents and children’s advocates. It’s just a fictional character people! They are all up in arms as if it were a real little kid – almost as if it were their own child being exploited. Heck, since they personalize it so much, shouldn’t they be proud that the dumpy, androgynous daughter that they are so emotionally invested in has grown up pretty? All the press releases have been very specific that the children’s television program will remain unchanged, and that particular character merchandising effort will also go unchanged. The new pre-teen character is a parallel toy marketing scheme aimed at older kids who grew up with the preschool-aged Dora and are now in the same “tweens” demographic. I bet the same people who are going nuts over this fictional character would be the first to speak out about how unhealthy or sick it is for otaku to be obsessing over fictional annie-may characters!

One Day Geek Fest

Published on March 15, 2009 in Culture and Travel by risu. Closed

Hmm… randon thoughts…

I think I definitely gained weight on this Japan trip.  Ususally I lose weight from all the activity (snowboarding, walking all over the place) and generally healthy fare and correct portioning, but the crab dinner and several viking (buffet) meals have added up to extra centimeters around the waistline.

Let’s see… my flight is at 18:30, so I should be at the airport by say 16:00, so I should leave here at 15:00… If I finish packing by 10:00 when the stores open, I should have around 4-hours to hit all the book stores, Mandarake, the big Book-Off , and maybe swing by the toy levels of the two big electronics stores.  I don’t think there are any new tankoubon out that I need right now, but there are a couple of figures that I’d like if the packaging fits in my luggage.  I saw a Nogizaka Haruka figure at Yodobashi, but the box was a 30cm cube!  That’s not going in my suitcase or boardbag!

That reminds me – I have to leave room in the boardbag for canned microbrew beers from the shop at the airport… 

Time’s a wasting!  Time to pack!

Cute as a… Ninja?

Published on February 22, 2009 in Culture by taro. Closed

There was a blurb in local paper the other day about ninja, in Hawaii. Damn those sneaky ninja, how’d they get in here? Probably JAL, or ANA. This was a group from Igaueno representing the Igaryu Museum. I’d kind of forgotten about this until Derek gave me a buzz. Hey, it’s ninja, we really should go check them out. Now how much of a tenuous connection these performers have to the actual Iga ninja of feudal times, we will never know, you know how sneaky these ninja are. The actual performance was entertaining, a bit of a circus show almost. Certainly the kids enjoyed it, I’m sure a good many were enthralled and will be going home to play ninja for the next few days. And I think the adults like me who grew up watching samurai TV series were smiling and chuckling as it brought back memories of watching those dramatized sword fights as the hero skillfully slashed his way through the disposable minions as they grimaced and quickly died of screen. It reminded me of how I grew up running around the house in a kimono/yukata, with my little bamboo sword/dagger. How cool was that? When I went back to Japan after a long time away, putting on the yukata to go to dinner, the onsen and wear in the hotel suddenly brought back a familiar feeling. Continue reading ‘Cute as a… Ninja?’