Category: Curiosities

Intro to Image Characters, Part 1: Japan and America’s Image (Character) Problems

Japan’s infamous penchant for cutesy corporate and government mascots not necessarily aimed at children are well known and have been covered on this blog in various capacities before. These mascots are often called “image characters” in Japan (though the term can also apply to live human and animal mascots). Some examples (translations liberal and loose, just the way I like it):

  • Masumasu-kun – “Mr. Grow-and-grow” the mascot for Japan Post’s mutual fund products:

  • Gambaru Bear – “Do-your-best Bear,” representing the Japan Self-Defense Force Sapporo Regional Liaison:

  • And who can forget the national mascots for the Self Defense Forces, Prince Pickles and Parsley-chan!


    • Quiz time! Why are they called Pickles and Parsley? No cheating!

    Apparently, the SDF holds overnight tours for groups of children hosted by the mascots. Imagine spending a weekend doing semaphore and knife training with that!

    (other fun pictures of SDF largesse can be found here)

  • Ayumi and Mamoru, cartoon human rights activists brought to you by Japan’s Ministry of Justice:


    • They’re so cute they I’m sure they could even get Kim Jong Il to dance to the human rights anthem (too bad Mamoru can’t sing!).

    I could, of course, go on but I will hold off until later posts). If you love lame mascots in Japan as much as I do, be sure check out the wonderful “YuruKyara” (Dumb Characters), a mini coffeetable book with full-color photos of dozens of the things. Don’t spend too long reading it though, or their hollow eyes may eat your soul (try having a staring contest with Mamoru to see what I mean).

    Now, before you start chortling about how wacky those Japanese are, America has pretty much the same problem. This excellent report from a now-defunct blog catalogs some of America’s own lame mascots to be found on the kids sections of various government websites. Some of these things are amazingly lame, so do follow the links and check it out (article reproduced in full for your convenience and entertainment, click the headline for a cached Google link):

    Feb 13, 2006
    Why the Feds shouldn’t advertise to our kids, either.

    By Constantine von Hoffman

    There is only one thing creepier than corporations marketing to kids: The government marketing to kids. Now, I hear you say, what’s wrong with NASA teaming up with Pokemon to get our kids interested in science? Or the Centers for Disease Control creating something called The Immune Platoon of superheroes to show how your body defends itself? Or FEMA’s Herman the Spokescrab teaching children to care for themselves in the event of an emergency because you sure as heck shouldn’t rely on the government to do it? Why, nothing of course.

    Where it gets eerie is when the cops and the spy agencies start to do it. Yeah, yeah, McGruff the Crime Dog was cute … but this goes way beyond that. Were talking the National Security Agency doing anthropomorphic animals with names like Crypto Cat, Decipher Dog and Rosetta Stone (who appears to be a fox). With them the NSA hopes to entice “America’s future codemakers and codebreakers!” … but remember: Only with a warrant kids. Unless Mr. Prez says otherwise.

    Truly troubling – from a marketing standpoint – is the National Reconnaissance Office’s kids page. The NRO, in case you didn’t know, is an agency considered so important that you and I and everyone else aren’t even allowed to know the size of its budget. Suffice to say that budget must be big and it looks like they spent about $2.50 on their website. Littered (and I do mean littered) with characters named Corey Corona, Earth Watch, Whirly Lizard and Dana Drop (who? what?), it has all the aesthetic value of a not-very-talented 2nd graders rejected heroes. It is quite clear the site, like the agency, is designed not to attract attention.
    Continue reading Intro to Image Characters, Part 1: Japan and America’s Image (Character) Problems

    Bazooms go boom

    In the news:

    [Virgin Galactic] spokesman Will Whitehorn told The Sun safety concerns have come to light for those who want to be launched in groups of eight to an altitude of more than 60 miles for 7 minutes of weightlessness.

    “We’ve discovered there may well be issues with breast augmentation,” he said. “We’re not sure whether they could stand the trip — they could well explode.”

    Now there’s something all those anime artists didn’t foresee.

    Adam Richardses of the World: CUT IT THE HELL OUT ALREADY

    Will the violence ever stop? Just once I’d like to see some wholesome, non-violent Adam Richards-related news.

    31 March 2006
    KNIFE THUG STABS PET DOG 16 TIMES
    What knife thug screamed as he chased dog and stabbed it 16 times
    By Richard Smith

    DRUNKEN Richard Kilcommons stabbed his pet labrador to death after chasing it, crying out: “Let’s see how quick Bessy is!”

    In a sickening attack Kilcommons, 41, plunged a 7in kitchen knife 16 times into the devoted animal’s back and sides as she yelped in agony.

    …

    The case follows a spate of shocking acts of animal cruelty. Earlier this week drug-fuelled thug Peter Dibden, of Billingham, Teesside, was fined £900 for stabbing his giant bull mastiff to death with a two-metre samurai sword.

    Damien French, who dropped a live rabbit into an alligator’s mouth at a zoo in Colwyn Bay, faces jail. In January Adam Richards, 18, of Heamoor, Cornwall, was jailed for six months for stabbing and kicking to death a pregnant hedgehog.

    Japanese version of Carl from Aqua Teen Hunger Force Sentenced to Prison


    Pervy pedagogue sent to prison after paying 15-year-old with fake cash

    OKAYAMA — A high court on Wednesday ordered a former junior high school teacher to spend 30 months in prison for buying the sexual services of a junior high school girl using counterfeit money.

    Toshihiro Takatsuki, 30, formerly a part-time teacher from Asaguchi, Okayama Prefecture, created 11 fake 10,000 yen notes using a color printer in February 2005, according to the ruling. A few weeks later, he paid a 15-year-old for sex using three of them.

    The judge at the Hiroshima High Court’s Okayama branch told the man that buying the sexual services of a junior high school girl and the use of bogus notes were shameful crimes, and that he couldn’t avoid a prison term.

    However, the judge handed down a sentence shorter than that previously given by the lower court, saying that Takatsuki had already reached an out-of-court settlement with the woman for using the counterfeit notes. (Mainichi)

    March 22, 2006

    Lame alliteration in the headline aside, it takes a lot of balls to try paying an underage hooker with fake money. Maybe he should have tried paying with pennies!

    Also, the Japanese version of the story contains my new favorite yojijukugo (four-kanji phrase): 偽札売春 (にせさつばいしゅん） “Counterfeit bill prostitution.” Try and use it in a conversation some time this week.

    Finally, what kind of “settlement” was reached over the counterfeit notes?! Did she sue him for the money he owed her for the sex? I couldn’t imagine the legal basis for a hooker to sue her john for using fake money. Can anyone explain that to me?

    Sugimura Just Can’t Get it Right

    ZAKZAK!

    Taizo’s One-sided Date in Chinatown – 26-year-old Hot Secretary Tells All
    “This is the last time, so let’s get together just the two of us,” No touching

    Yukan Fuji has learned on March 16 that just before announcing his engagement, the “100% Koizumi Child” and self-described representative of the unemployed LDP Diet member Taizo Sugimura (PR, S. Kanto block, 26yo) was on a date with the ravishing private secretary (26) of former prime minister Tsutomu Hata. Sugimura (or “Taizo” as he is often called by his given name) had just announced his engagement the previous day. The act may be misinterpreted as “cheating,” but the woman, in an interview with Yukan Fuji, denied such allegations forcefully, remarking, “I am like his female friend (who doesn’t see him as a [dateable] man).”

    According to the woman, she picked him up in a white Mercedes-Benz at his official residence in Sanda, Minato District, Tokyo, on the morning of March 12, whereupon he got in the passenger’s seat. After driving a few hundred meters, Taizo took the wheel and headed down the Metropolitan Expressway, finally arriving at a parking lot in Yokohama’s Chinatown. They ate lunch approximately 1.5 hours later and then returned to the official residence.

    The woman denied a special relationship with Sugimura: “We went out to eat, but Representative Sugimura is a friend who I hang out with other friends my age. Even then, we didn’t make anything more than small talk.”

    She is a private secretary working in the office of former prime minister Hata, and possesses good looks such that she appeared in a photo magazine’s “Beautiful Dietmembers’ Secretaries Special Feature.” Her style is in a class all its own, and she resembles actresses Akiko Yada and Uno Kanda. She is rumored to be dating a male corporate worker.
    Continue reading Sugimura Just Can’t Get it Right

    Where are they Now? Nasubi edition

    A commenter asked us whatever happened to Nasubi, the aspiring comedian who allowed Japanese TV to kidnap him and force him to survive by entering sweepstakes in 1998.

    Well, as usual, Wikipedia has the answer (paraphrased):

    Nasubi’s feature is, as noted by his stage name (Nasubi means “eggplant” in Japanese), his 30cm-long face. He has sought a dramatic acting career since he started, and is currently active mostly in stage productions. In 2002 he founded the “Eggplant Way” and serves as its chief.

    Recently most of his television appearances have been on local programs in his native Fukushima, but in 2005 he appeared in national TV dramas “Train Man” and “Trick New Special.”

    Looks like he survived his near-starvation experience to go on to moderate success as an actor. Good for him! Check Nasubi’s official website (Japanese only) for appearances. He also keeps a pretty regular diary (latest entry):

    So, so strong!!

    The World Baseball Classic semifinals… The overall game made me numb, but the third time’s the charm! This game showed us Japan’s sticktuitiveness? or its latent energy, it was 110% worth seeing (*^_^*)

    Both teams…had very fine plays, also plays where they had to make up for mistakes, and I got the deep impression that we can be proud of Asia’s high level of baseball throughout the world!!

    But truthfully? Don’t you feel kind of bad for Korea?

    3/19/2006 (Sunday)

    Umm, not really! I was just watching Japan trounce Cuba in the finals (right now it’s 6-3 in the bottom of the 8th). Once, when Ichiro was running home, he actually stopped the 3rd baseman from throwing home by intentionally blocking his line of vision. That’s some superhero shit, my man.

    Rare Chinese frog uses ultrasonic communication

    It may not be a mutant per-se, but it sure is an evolutionary rarity. From Reuters:

    The frog, Amolops tormotus, is the first non-mammalian species known to use the ultra-high frequencies that humans cannot hear.

    It comes in handy to be heard above the pounding waterfalls and streams in the mountainous region of east-central China where Amolops tormotus, which is known as the concave-eared torrent frog, lives.

    Saipan, Desperate for Japanese Tourist “reparations,” Offers to Open its Own Version of Yasukuni

    The governor of Saipan has made a morbidly cynical offer to the Japanese families of those who died in the bloody Battle of Saipan:

    Banzai Cliff as cemetery for Japanese war dead?

    By Agnes Donato
    Reporter

    Monday, March 13, 2006

    The Banzai Cliff in Marpi could soon turn into a cemetery for the Japanese war dead, with the governor offering the property to the families of World War II soldiers who lost their lives on Saipan.

    Gov. Benigno R. Fitial announced Friday that he had received two pledges of donation amounting 10 million Japan yen (about $84,000) each for the planned cemetery.

    A separate offer of $100,000 has also been made for the sole benefit of the Public School System, he said.

    “I am making land available at Banzai Cliff for Japanese groups to build a temple. This temple will be a token of our appreciation for the Japanese people visiting Saipan. I am also offering the same property to all the families and relatives of 47,000 war heroes who lost their lives here on Saipan to come and erect monuments,” Fitial said during his weekly press conference.

    I can’t think of a more depressing idea. The Banzai Cliff was what hundreds of Japanese civilians jumped from in the aftermath of the battle. They chose to end it all rather than be raped and tortured by the Americans (UPDATE: …or so they may have believed. Another blogger, objecting to this “spin” – though it was unintentional – helpfully pointed out some of the sacrifices US soldiers made to save Japanese civilians in Saipan. Take a look.). I remember seeing on the History Channel a mother jump with her child no more than 50 feet from the American soldiers who looked on with a video camera rolling.

    But will this save Saipan’s embattled tourist industry? It remains to be seen:

    Tourist arrivals from Japan continue to drop as a result of Japan Airlines’ decision to cease all regular, scheduled flights to Saipan in October 2005.

    Data from the Marianas Visitors Authority showed that the CNMI received only 25,555 visitors from Japan in January 2006. This represents a 29-percent decline compared with the 35,795 Japanese who came to the islands in January 2005.

    But MVA is hopeful that the Japan market would recover when Northwest Airlines increases the frequency of its Tokyo flights beginning next month.

    Northwest, which currently operates seven weekly flights between Saipan and Narita, will have 10 flights a week between the two points starting April 24, 2006.

    The new service will operate a second Boeing 747 jumbo jet from Tokyo, flying three times a week. The aircraft will carry 400 economy and 30 business class passengers.

    Homework assignment: Does anything similar exist in the world? There are certainly things like the Normandy memorial or Auschwitz, but are there any war memorials designed almost purely as tourist traps? I’m kind of offended — maybe Saipan does suck!

    When Robots Are Used for Evil, Nobody Wins (Except the robots)

    Somehow, political robotic telemarketing seems even more annoying than robotic telemarketing that’s trying to sell me something. Thankfully, I haven’t gotten any of these calls:

    Column: Just a bit of hypocrisy in Simmons’ attitude regarding robo calls


    By RAY HACKETT
    On Politics

    Congressman Rob Simmons wants to share a phone number with his constituents in the 2nd Congressional District, and he’s urging people to call it: (202) 393-4352.

    The number belongs to “American Family Voices,” the group behind the recent rash of the so-called robo calls — automated phone messages — that have flooded homes in Eastern Connecticut, urging residents to call Simmons’ office and tell him they don’t like his position against federal funding for port security.

    Simmons has, in the past, claimed these calls have caused a major disruption of his staff’s ability to do its work as hundreds of constituents have called to complain about receiving the unwanted automated messages. So his solution to the problem is ask residents to call “American Family Voices” — and tell them to knock it off.

    According to Simmons — and these are his words — American Family Voices is “notorious,” “a shadowy, partisan” organization using “these sleazy and deceptive” calls to distort his voting record.

    I don’t recall the congressman being as equally outraged back in 2002 when another organization — United Seniors — flooded the homes of Eastern Connecticut with automated calls asking residents to call the congressman and “thank him” for passing a prescription-drug bill for seniors.
    Continue reading When Robots Are Used for Evil, Nobody Wins (Except the robots)