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Posted by: kirin on Dec 13th, 2011 | Filed under: What's New?
It’s not too much to say that there’s no day I don’t see AKB48. They are on TV, posters, everywhere… I think most of us are already fed up with that. But there’s no wonder they are everywhere!
AKB48 released a new single “Uekara Mariko” which already has been selling over 1.199 million copies within the first week. AKB48 has been so successful they have the most million-seller single titles among female singers in Japan. All 5 single titles they released in 2011 are sold over million copies.
Uekara Mariko (released 7th Dec. 2011) 1.199 million copies sold in the first week
Kaze wa fuiteiru (released 26th Oct. 2011) 1.30 million copies
Flying Get (released 24th Aug. 2011) 1.354 million copies
Everyday, Kachusha (released 25th May. 2011) 1.334 million copies
Sakura no ki ni narou (released 16th Feb. 2011) 0.94 million copies
Other female singers with their single titles of million sales.
“Can You Keep A Secret?” Utada Hikaru (2001)
“Can You Celebrate?” Amuro Namie (1997)
“Independent” Hamasaki Ayumi (2002)
I’m just amazed at how AKB48 is doing well, while on the other hand, I hope AKB should not dominate the Japanese music industry and Oricon chart… BTW, AKB48 is such a popular idol group in Japan but you can actually see and shake hands with them in person if you visit AKB48 theater in Akihabara. They are the idols you can visit. That’s their unique concept, and that’s how they became popular from Akihabara to the world.
I know…what on earth does the trailer tell you right? Haha! Except that the theme song is so soothing and touching and it looks like it’ll be a pretty nice and touching animation.
According to Wiki, this animation takes place in 1963 in Yokohama. I’m very happy because I’ve always liked to see old Japan~~ There’s a nice, sweet, nostalgic feeling about seeing old Japan even though I wasn’t not even born yet. Haha!
Well, anyway, the 2 main characters are a 16 year old girl, Umi, and a 17 year old boy, Shun.
Every morning, Umi raises a signal flag facing the sea, signifying a prayer for safe voyages. Shun will always see this flag from the sea as he rides a tugboat to school. I also read that Umi’s father went missing after a freak boating accident. Then, I saw a longer trailer where they had this conversation:
Umi: If you hate me, just tell me clearly. Shun takes out a faded photograph and read out his real father’s name. Shun: You and I are siblings. Umi: Eh? What should we do?
I have no idea.
What is this about?
But like many other Ghibli movies, I feel, it’s not about the story. It’s about the feelings that you get when you watch the whole animation along with its usually very awesome accompanying music.
Honestly, I have never really understood fully any of the Ghibili animations I watch. I just enjoy the magic of each animation. If you ask me to tell you what “Spirited Away” is about, I can’t really say. It’s hard to summarise a personal experience. If I try to explain and put it in words, you wouldn’t even want to watch it. It’d be something like, “Oh. It’s about this girl, who got spirited away into another world, and came back later.”
So…I’m thinking this is perhaps why my friend hasn’t replied me on Facebook yet when I asked her what this movie was about. Haha!
Oh! She has replied! In her own words:
“The movie is about after WW2 in Yokohama. People started to bulid new things and have new ideas. But the heroine named Umi tried to find good things in old ones.She is very kind and a hardworker!!!”
Sounds interesting! Hope everyone can watch it soon!
Kirin’s part starts from here…
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I knew Kokuriko zaka…was released in July. But I have not seen it yet. I only saw NHK TV program that illustrated how this movie was created. As you may have noticed, it’s scripted by Hayao Miyazaki and directed by Goro Miyazaki, a son of Hayao’s. Speaking of Goro Miyazaki, you may remember Tales from Earthsea (Japanese title is “Gedo Senki”) was directed by him. It was his first work and unfortunately it was not evaluated as good as Hayao’s works. Then, this Kokuriko zaka (sorry I’m not familiar with its English title) was his second direction. I thought Hayao and Goro are working happily before I saw this program. (It’s possible the video will be deleted soon so watch it while it is available. Even though you don’t understand Japanese, you can see what Ghibli animation studio is like, how the animators of Kokuriko zaka were working for the movie, and the bad mood of Hayao and Goro…and etc.)
But the truth is…Hayao doesn’t admit that Goro is a good director. He seems so frustrated with his son because he knows how he would do it better when his son is suffering from how to express the feelings of the movie characters with subtle movement of animation. I didn’t know that Goro joined Ghibli animation studio after many years of working as a construction consultant. He is from complete different industry! But it was when Hayao decided to build Ghibli Museum that this father and son worked together, and then he was asked by the producer if he might be interested in working with them to make “Gedo Senki”…which means Tales from Earthsea in English. This totally surprised me because I thought he was working for Ghibli from the beginning with no doubt!
There was the 3.11 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami while they were making this movie. But they defended the deadline (its release date in Japan) to the death. They shifted their working hour from daytime to night time so that could use electricity with no problem. (Because of the radiation crisis in Fukushima caused by the malfunction of nuclear reactors from the earthquake and tsunami, we have to live with limited electricity. Especially in March, right after the accident, we had to suffer from scheduled blackouts region by region.) I think this illustrates how Japanese people are. What a big deal if the deadline is missed, because there was an earthquake and frequent blackouts then. But that’s the Japanese. We can even sacrifice our personal life, time with family and health if we can finish it before the deadline by working while people are sleeping. Well, honestly I am not always Japanese myself because I feel this is rather too much…haha.
Now let’s see how Hayao answered the interview: Why did he script this movie for us today?
What does he say? I can tell you…
“Japan has changed since the Tokyo Olympic Game (1964). Somehow from some stage of the time, young people feel like the world has been the same place. They don’t catch the sense there was some historical changes of the times in Japan. Naturally, people have wondered how we should live or how we should keep vision or a strong will, but look at what’s happening today. People worship money and matarial, we are talking about money and economy all the time. This change is remarkable especially since 1980, I guess. Then people nowadays find no way out, and for example a 20-year-old daughter is already worried about her pension.
How stupid it is! I wonder what the heck the young people think of their possibilities.”
The movie shows a high school girl who lost her father in the chaotic period of the war. She is a sturdy girl. Through this character, what does Hayao want to tell us?
“Young people changed a lot. When they fail job hunting at the first company, they feel they are desperate. Even if they successfully get a job, they say something so miserable that makes me feel sick. ‘I survived in this way’…for example. Isn’t it funny to set a job hunting as a goal when they have not even started working? Young people need training. But they don’t do it. They just watch TV, browse internet and think they can skip training. They only care about their day-to-day life. They don’t understand what it’s like to be independent as a human being. I wanted to make a movie to express something like that.”
I don’t know if the young people in your country have similar problems to what Hayao Miyazaki mentioned in the interview, but this looks like the background of the movie. I hope you liked our collaboration post. (In case you are a new reader and not familiar with Apple, she is a member of TKE. She sometimes writes interesting posts to TKE and she also has her own blog.)
Posted by: kirin on Apr 6th, 2011 | Filed under: What's New?
Why power spots are so popular these days in Japan? Power spots boom is still active today, and especially supported by women in Japan. The other day I had a chance to speak my own opinion to Metropolis magazine (a free magazine especially dedicated for foreigners living in Tokyo area) about this topic. I briefly commented to them but it’s a good topic to share with my readers as well. Here’s my thought.
For a long time, something spiritual or psychic sounded somewhat dubious to most of Japanese people. However since the TV program titled “Aura no izumi” started, Ehara-san and Miwa-san‘s guide to the spiritual world was so natural that we realized it was OK (safe enough) to speak about things like that. In other words, they succeeded in creating the atmosphere throughout Japan that speaking of something psychic is not seen weird or crazy. I think the “Aura no izumi” was an eye-opening TV program to most of us. Yes, I loved to watch it as much as I could, although I normally don’t watch TV often!!
Ehara-san has also become very well-known icon as a spiritual counselor. He has published a number of self-help books that teach us how to think and live with happiness. Above all, it’s highly possible that the book titled “Shinkikou (神紀行)” published in 2005 can be a great motivator or trigger to power spots boom.
Ehara-san and Miwa-san are also connected with many celebs and high-profile figures in show business in Japan, some talent started to mention their experience of visiting power spots on TV. Japanese women especially like to follow what’s new and hot, they want to take over what the talent they like are experiencing. It was a big profitable chance for mass media and related businesses, there’s no way they miss it. They treated power spots repeatedly on TV, magazines and books, to make it a sort of fad by involving more people. Those people who watched on TV that someone achieved her goal after praying at a certain shrine of certain power spot, will be likely to visit that place.They are willing to travel to the place, shopping related items such as lucky charms and maybe spending more money. It’s a fad and a business that creates a good reason or a trigger to make them open their wallet in a bad economy. That’s how I think.
That’s why those who like to follow power spots boom are not always sincerely following such way of thinking naturally. Some people only like to follow the fad and when it’s gone, they may even forget about that. Or our diseased economy or society can be another factor that makes people rely on anything that might change things better.
However, whatever the immediate reason, I think it’s true that more people are now aware of invisible things than materials and this is a good phenomenon. What do you think about power spots? Have you visited one of them and had some good effect or luck?
Posted by: kirin on 
Dec 13th, 2011 | 
Filed under: What's New?
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There’s a nice, sweet, nostalgic feeling about seeing old Japan even though I wasn’t not even born yet. Haha!