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November 18, 2004
New Anime Column
Jean Snow (of jeansnow.net) just announced that he'll be writing a monthly column about anime for Tokyo Q that will run the second friday of every month. The first installment is up now and covers Studio Ghibli, late night anime on TV, Gokusen, Steamboy, the live-action Akira adaptation, Mind Game, and the recent anime coverage of anime in Midnight Eye (and mentions Midnight Eye's recent review of my book).
Posted by brianruh at 02:49 PM | Comments (0)
November 17, 2004
Election Reaction
Okay, I haven't said much about the election. I'm not sure that I can say much that hasn't been said elsewhere. So I'll just pass along this link from the SF Chronicle (via Dr. Frank) detailing the reactions of some Bay Area artists, musicians, and writers. What I like most about the article is the juxtaposition of the comments of Gary Snyder (probably my favorite poet after Philip Whalen) and those of Fat Mike of NOFX (who, although I get where he's coming from, can't quite put his thoughts across in a way that doesn't make him sound like a caricature of leftist invective).
In other news, the IN-HI album is really growing on me. Perhaps my initial reaction was a bit hasty.
Posted by brianruh at 10:31 AM | Comments (0)
November 16, 2004
Astro Boy, Indian-Hi, and Godzilla
Yesterday I received my first order from CDJapan and I must say that I was pleased with how smoothly everything went. The shipping was a tad pricy, but I got my stuff much more quickly than I thought I was going to.
So what did I order? First of all, I bought a DVD of Tetsuwan Atomu, better known in the US as Astro Boy. It was the first half-hour Japanese animated program and debuted on both sides of the Pacific in 1963. I'm currently writing a paper on Astro Boy and the process of localizing he show for the American market, so I wanted to get a copy of the original Japanese version of the first episode. (Unfortunately, for whatever reason, I still don't have a region-free DVD player so I'll have to use the facilities in my department's film studies office to watch the program.)
Since I was placing an order from Japan anyway, I decided to throw in a CD of one of my favorite Japanese punk bands, IN-HI. (They used to be known as Indian-Hi, but changed their name as they began to get big.) I was actually first introduced to IN-HI in a grad class at Texas on Japanese popular culture, and when I went to Japan for the Japan America Student Conference in the summer of 2001 I picked up everything I could find by them. IN-HI makes good punk, but what's interesting about them is the way the throw traditional Okinawan instrumentation into the mix, along with the occasional touch of hip-hop.
So the CD that I bought is called "7 Colors Mind" and came out earlier this year and is their second album on a major-label. (Although it looks like they have a new full-length that just came out last month.) So how does it compare to their earlier work? I must say that I'm a tad disappointed -- the album is good, but it's almost all fairly straightforward rock, with very little of the unique "Okinawan-ness" that I have come to expect from them. It's still good, just not what I was expecting.
In other news, the NYT has a brief write-up on that Godzilla conference at Kansas that I had written about a couple of months ago.
Posted by brianruh at 06:40 AM | Comments (0)
November 15, 2004
Okinawan Beer
I just saw this headline -- Okinawan Beer Wins International Prize -- and initially thought someone had gone crazy and given an award to Orion Beer. (Although it's a decent beer, Orion seems too similar to many American beers for my taste. Not that I've had many beers, mind you -- I'm generally not a big drinker at all and can't actually remember the last time I consumed alcohol to any significant degree.) But no, the article is about an Okinawan brew called Nihede Beer.
Posted by brianruh at 08:39 AM | Comments (0)
November 11, 2004
Hisashiburi...
Okay, it's been a while since I've blogged. Here's what's been going on with me recently:
School: I'm writing three seminar papers this semester. One is on the structure of anime conventions and fan performance, one is a historical look at Astro Boy on US television, and one is on Saul Bass's title designs for Alfred Hitchcock's films. (Which of these papers is not like the others?...)
Home: Last weekend I cleaned the siding and we painted one wall in our living room. And little baby Ruh is kicking very hard at Sarah's insides these days.
Outer World: The election. Sigh...
And here's the best Japan-related headline of the day: Hosoda says Japan can't identify sub because it 'stays under water'. Yep. Brilliant.
Posted by brianruh at 03:20 PM | Comments (0)