Google Translate is now better at Japanese-to-English, but still not good enough to make me unemployed

This year, Google made changes to its Translate service that are aimed at making translations more accurate. They use a “Recurring Neural Network” method that “considers the entire input sentence [instead of just parts of the sentence] as a unit for translation.” I have to admit I gulped at the news – is this what will finally make my role as a Japanese-English translator redundant?

The New York Times fanned my fear with this glowing article that led with the claim that Google Translate is now a better translator than Haruki Murakami (at the very least, he did a great job translating The Giving Tree, in my humble opinion).

That prompted me to test out the site. Here are some examples of Japanese-to-English translation that I pulled:

News articles I would say are unacceptably inaccurate:

This one (about discussions over who should pay for the 2020 Olympics) gets a minister’s name and gender wrong, can’t seem to recognize that 都 means the Tokyo prefectural government and 国 means the Japanese national government, and in general is just incoherent for most of it.

A man is suspected of cutting a police officer in the neck with a knife. But according to Google Translate, he is first “suspected of killing himself” and then “he cut off the police officer ‘s neck with a knife…  The policeman was injured.” !!!

It seems to do best with press releases – these actually seem to give a pretty accurate and readable translation:

… But not so well when it comes to long-winded technical financial announcements: 

The best I can say for it is that, unlike the earlier version, every sentence appears to be grammatically correct and make logical sense. The problem is that it doesn’t seem to be able to translate things in context or keep track of omitted subjects.

All in all, I can say it looks more useful for Japanese-to-English, especially if it is used with “made-to-translate” Japanese. I might even use it myself as a starting point for some documents (and that is definitely not something I would say about the old version!) But for now at least I am happy to report it isn’t yet ready to force me to start a new career, which is good because I have no idea what I would even do…

Trams in wartime Hiroshima reenacted

I originally wrote most of this post all the way back in March of 2011, a few months before the 65th anniversary of the bombing on August 6 of that year, but never posted it. Since the anniversary date was only a few months later I had intended to publish it then, but forgot, so here it is now for the 70th – with a modern coda.

I first wrote this post a month ago when the Asahi first ran the article I quote below, but then realizing that the bombing anniversary was coming up I decided to sit on it until now. The atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, but since this story is more concerned with what happened three days later, on August 9, I have decided to publish it on that date.

The English Asahi has a short article on a very interesting sounding play entitled Momonomi (Peach), about an obscure aspect of wartime Hiroshima – the trains.1 Photos of the production included in this post are from the theatrical troupe’s web page.

The beginning of the play, on a real (albeit more modern) tram.

Six women who served as streetcar drivers or conductors in Hiroshima in 1945 were invited to ride one of their trams again Sunday to watch a play immortalizing their efforts to resume some transportation just three days after the city was leveled by atomic bombing. The drama, “Momonomi” (peach), is being presented by the Tokyo-based troupe Mokele Mbe Mbe Project on board streetcars around Japan.

The play depicts the life of students at a girls’ high school that was set up by Hiroshima Electric Railway Co. in 1943 to make up for a shortage of workers during the war.

Thirty of the students were killed in the Aug. 6, 1945, atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Survivors pulled together to get the trams running again only three days later.

Riding one of the two tram cars that survived the atomic bombing and are still in service, the six women wiped tears and sang along with the troupe as they watched the one-hour play.

“Remembering those days, I was moved to tears,” said Naoko Hata, 81. “I am pleased that young people will pass along what we did then.”

Morino Nakamura, also 81, said: “There were hardships, but I am proud of my service as a driver. I’ve never forgotten those days.”

The sign reads, “Recruiting for the inaugural class of the Hiroshima Electric Railway Girls’ School of Home Economics”

But despite sadly having missed the play, this is still a good opportunity to read a little bit more about the history that it depicted. So, I would like to take this chance to compose a grim sequel to my February 10 post on Trams in Japan.

According to the Hiroshima Electric Railway Co. (present name) article on JA Wikipedia, at the time of the August 6 atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the electrical transformer for the Miyajima had already been moved to the outskirts of the city in anticipation of (presumably conventional) bombing. This transformer, along with cars from the Miyajima line, were used to restart service from Koi(己斐) to Nishi-tenman-machi (西天満町) on the 8th or 9th (as mentioned above), just a couple of days after the city had been devastated.

The website of the theatrical troupe gives a bit more information.2

In 1945, when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, there were schoolgirls who drove the electric trams. There was a school of home economics established with the purpose of compensating for the labor force of men who had been mobilized in war. It was a school where labor was combined with study, but as the flames of war burned harsher the work became full-time. But they would be forced out of their jobs when the men returned after the war, and the girls’ school would close. These schoolgirls lived through the atomic bomb, and looked after their compatriots who had nearly died, despite their own injuries, all while restoring train service…

Pop culture depictions of how women ended up moving into formerly male-dominated roles during wartime do have some presence  in America (one famous example is the 1992  film A League of Their Own, which depicted the real, and short-lived, All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, or Rosie the Riveter), but I must admit that I do not know offhand of prominent Japanese examples. I’m sure that this is just my own ignorance, and I would love to be pointed towards well known (or other lesser known) examples.

 

Rosy the riveter

Regardless, the play seems to have unfortunately already nearly finished its run, aside from one final weekend of performances in Nagasaki on the 10th and 11th. (As an aside, don’t you get annoyed when you see a newspaper article about a great live event AFTER it’s already happened, rather than announcing it in advance so you have a chance to go. I would have been very interested in heading over to Osaka for this.)

Another interesting detail hinted at in the article was that cars that had actually been damaged by the nuclear blast are still in operation in Hiroshima.

Hiroshima train car that survived nuclear blast

(This last bit is updated based on a new article.) As part of the commemoration of the 70th anniversary, one of the three still functional surviving train cars (Model 650) from that era has been restored, and repainted in vintage colors.

Model 650 tram, car number 653 of the Hiroshima Electric Railway. It survived the atomic bombing, and has now been restored and given its original paintjob.

Among the crowd who observed the streetcar’s departure on June 13 was Sachiko Masuno, a 85-year-old “hibakusha” A-bomb survivor who worked as a driver and conductor for Hiroden tramcars during the closing months of World War II after enrolling in a women’s vocational school operated by the railway company in 1942.

Masuno, who continued working as a conductor for two years after the atomic bombing, said that the Hiroden trams still remind her of many former colleagues who lost their lives that day.

Of the 1,241 Hiroden employees at the time, at least 185 were killed in the A-bombing, while 108 streetcars, or nearly 90 percent of the company’s trams, were destroyed or damaged. Of her 300 classmates, about 30 also died in the tragedy.

“It is very moving to see the same streetcar that endured the city’s heinous experience still running in its original color,” Masuno said. “It is a very precious peacetime treasure.”

Two other Model 650 tramcars, No. 651 and 652, which were repainted in green and cream colors after the end of the war, still operate on the light rail network that stretches across the southern Japanese city.

While we have all missed the performance of Momonomi by several years, anyone in Hiroshima who wants to ride the restored No. 653 car will be able to do so on weekend and national holidays by making a reservation at 082-222-1155 (weekdays only).

  1. Note: this link is long-dead. []
  2. The troupe website still exists, but the page with the details for this play seems to be gone, so the Japanese language description they gave is given here. 「1945年、広島に原爆が投下されたとき、路面電車を運転していた女学生たちがいた。
    戦時中、男たちが出征したあと労働力を補う目的で設立された家政女学校。学業と勤労を兼 務した学校だったが、戦火が激しくなると終日勤務に。しかし戦後、男たちが復員して来るため職を追われ、女学校は廃校となる。原爆投下の廃墟を生き抜き、 自らも傷つき、瀕死の仲間たちを看病しながら、電車の復旧に尽くした女学生たち・・・」 []

Foreign Tourists to Japan Love Love Love Japanese Food

Just a quick post of some fun data I came across.

In the tourism agency’s 2014 survey of foreign tourists (see Annex 9 in this spreadsheet), there is a clear pattern that emerges:

Edit

So to recap, eating Japanese food is the thing that foreign tourists most wanted to do before they arrive, it was their best purchase during the trip, AND it’s what they found most satisfying about their stay!

To be sure, as a Tokyo resident it didn’t surprise me to see that foreign tourists like Japanese food, but it was a bit surprising to see it’s their favorite thing about the country.

As you will see in the data, there is some variation between countries. For example, South Korea found going to Japanese hot springs to be the thing that they most wanted to do again if they came back, and mainland Chinese are more interested in shopping than food before they arrive. But overall the numbers speak for themselves.

Three Years of Coney Island Mermaid Parade Photos

Tomorrow (June 21, Saturday) is the 32nd Coney Island Mermaid Parade. The Mermaid Parade, a moderately venerable tradition dating back to 1983, describes itself asthe largest art parade in the nation”, and celebrates the old time beachfront, boardwalk, carnival sideshow culture of the neighborhood.

<a href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/mutantfrog/9139010022″ title=”IMG_3600.jpg by Roy Berman, on Flickr”><img src=”https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7405/9139010022_ecb5a71d63_z.jpg” width=”600″ height=”400″ alt=”IMG_3600.jpg”></a>

This will be my fourth consecutive Mermaid Parade, but I grew up being taken often to Coney Island in the summer by my grandparents, who lived nearby, off the Avenue U subway stop, to visit the beach, Astroland Park, and the New York Aquarium. Coney Island was probably nearing the nadir of popularity then. Homeless men squatted under the boardwalk, lighting fires to keep warm that would often get out of control and burn large out sections of the boardwalk above. I vividly remember gaping, charred holes marked off with yellow warning tape. Adults warned not to wander unsupervised far past the boardwalk into the surrounding non-amusement park neighborhood, which was considered particularly dangerous.
<a href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/mutantfrog/9136657667″ title=”IMG_3362.jpg by Roy Berman, on Flickr”><img src=”https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7443/9136657667_c5fe2053ba_z.jpg” width=”640″ height=”427″ alt=”IMG_3362.jpg”></a>

Many of the once-proud amusement parks of Coney Island had already closed when I used to go as a kid, with Astroland then the main survivor. Even that eventually closed, in 2008, leaving the venerable Cyclone—the famous wooden roller coaster that opened in 1927—and the primary location of Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs among the last major traditional attractionsin the area. Of course, other than the beach itself. (For readers who expect everything posted on this blog to have a Japan connection, the July 4 Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest is where Japan’s greatest athlete first rose to fame.)

<a href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/mutantfrog/9138886722″ title=”IMG_3374.jpg by Roy Berman, on Flickr”><img src=”https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5349/9138886722_83a70fccfb_z.jpg” width=”640″ height=”427″ alt=”IMG_3374.jpg”></a>

Throughout the Bloomberg administration (2002 – 2013) there were continual attempts to redevelop the area, usually as a massive unitary complex with a large indoor shopping mall feel that would have been utterly at odds with the history and style of the neighborhood, but which would have provided better facilities for the blandly tasteful year-round activities that clueless developers and mayoral officials thought were more in demand.

<a href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/mutantfrog/5856455950″ title=”IMG_8804 by Roy Berman, on Flickr”><img src=”https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2632/5856455950_5255f49237_z.jpg” width=”640″ height=”427″ alt=”IMG_8804″></a>

These potential deals all fell apart after the real estate bubble burst, paving the way for today’s more natural revitalization, which has seen new amusement park rides for the first time in decades, including a new Luna Park, named after a long-defunct Coney Island amusement park and built on the former site of Astroland, and even a major new steel roller coaster, the Thunderbolt, itself named after a long-gone 1925-built wooden coaster, which opened only a week ago as of this post.

A big part of what kept Coney Island’s local culture on life-support long enough to return is the non-profit organization Coney Island USA, based in the landmarked Childs Restaurant building, who run the Coney Island Museum, Sideshows by the Seashore, and the Shooting Gallery/Arts Annex. And, most relevant, they are the official organizers of the Mermaid Parade.

To get a nice summary of Coney Island history, check out this podcast (Part 1, Part 2) by The Bowery Boys, who do a New York City podcast I enjoy, or see the accompanying blog post with some cool old photos.

Naturally, I took a whole lot of photos all three times and even after winnying them down to good one still had a few dozen for each year, so I’m embedding a handful of photos in-line and then linking to the Flickr galleries.

2011 Mermaid Parade Photo Gallery

<a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/mutantfrog/5855900077/” title=”IMG_8799 by Mutantfrog, on Flickr”><img src=”http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3060/5855900077_b9c60d92c6_z.jpg” width=”600″ height=”400″ alt=”IMG_8799″></a> <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/mutantfrog/5856464348/” title=”IMG_8884 by Mutantfrog, on Flickr”><img src=”http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2711/5856464348_7dc965c8d5_z.jpg” width=”427″ height=”640″ alt=”IMG_8884″></a> <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/mutantfrog/5855918773/” title=”IMG_8943 by Mutantfrog, on Flickr”><img src=”http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5109/5855918773_4a4e1036f8_z.jpg” width=”600″ height=”400″ alt=”IMG_8943″></a> <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/mutantfrog/5855921175/” title=”IMG_8956 by Mutantfrog, on Flickr”><img src=”http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5142/5855921175_c19c13debd_z.jpg” width=”600″ height=”400″ alt=”IMG_8956″></a> <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/mutantfrog/5856481772/” title=”IMG_9033 by Mutantfrog, on Flickr”><img src=”http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5183/5856481772_d2dc6624fb_z.jpg” width=”600″ height=”400″ alt=”IMG_9033″></a>

2012 Mermaid Parade Gallery

<a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/mutantfrog/9138844693/” title=”IMG_0262 by Mutantfrog, on Flickr”><img src=”http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5456/9138844693_96b34c37cd.jpg” width=”600″ height=”400″ alt=”IMG_0262″></a> <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/mutantfrog/9141093102/” title=”IMG_0417 by Mutantfrog, on Flickr”><img src=”http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7308/9141093102_536e99de7e.jpg” width=”600″ height=”400″ alt=”IMG_0417″></a> <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/mutantfrog/9138890769/” title=”IMG_0524 by Mutantfrog, on Flickr”><img src=”http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2894/9138890769_b64eb4a09a.jpg” width=”400″ height=”600″ alt=”IMG_0524″></a>

<a href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/mutantfrog/9138892019″ title=”IMG_0530 by Roy Berman, on Flickr”><img src=”https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2894/9138892019_3a253c4ff9_c.jpg” width=”534″ height=”800″ alt=”IMG_0530″></a>

<a href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/mutantfrog/9138926741″ title=”IMG_0654 by Roy Berman, on Flickr”><img src=”https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2872/9138926741_8532607a2a.jpg” width=”600″ height=”400″ alt=”IMG_0654″></a>

<a href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/mutantfrog/9141157994″ title=”IMG_0665 by Roy Berman, on Flickr”><img src=”https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3780/9141157994_e6e221334d_z.jpg” width=”600″ height=”400″ alt=”IMG_0665″></a>

2013 Mermaid Parade Photo Gallery

<a href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/mutantfrog/9138899752″ title=”IMG_3399.jpg by Roy Berman, on Flickr”><img src=”https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5476/9138899752_1a368ea8ec_c.jpg” width=”534″ height=”800″ alt=”IMG_3399.jpg”></a>

<a href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/mutantfrog/9136666059″ title=”IMG_3394.jpg by Roy Berman, on Flickr”><img src=”https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7386/9136666059_f0114c2651_z.jpg” width=”640″ height=”427″ alt=”IMG_3394.jpg”></a>

<a href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/mutantfrog/9136718875″ title=”IMG_3480.jpg by Roy Berman, on Flickr”><img src=”https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7357/9136718875_3fe819ee40_h.jpg” width=”534″ height=”800″ alt=”IMG_3480.jpg”></a>

<a href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/mutantfrog/9136742431″ title=”IMG_3528.jpg by Roy Berman, on Flickr”><img src=”https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3751/9136742431_ecfe3be9f9_c.jpg” width=”534″ height=”800″ alt=”IMG_3528.jpg”></a>

If I were making Tokyo Vice with Daniel Radcliffe, here is what the story would look like

The Tokyo Vice movie starring Daniel Radcliffe is apparently moving forward – Mr. Radcliffe has already started studying Japanese for the role of Jake, a young American who studies in japan and eventually lands first job as the first Western reporter for a Japanese newspaper.

I have read the book and am really rooting for this movie to be good. If successful it could inspire a new generation of young Americans to come study or live in Japan.

But I am worried that the story won’t have enough sizzle if the screenwriter (apparently a first timer) skews too closely to the source text.

In that spirit I offer my own version of the story that the film makers can feel free to draw from if they see anything interesting:

The movie opens with Jake hot on the trail of yakuza boss Goto. He is about to blow the lid off Goto’s illicit, FBI-brokered liver transplant, but one day a black Cadillac pulls up and forces Jake inside.

It turns out Jake’s been kidnapped and will be forced to fight in an underground cage fighting tournament. He wants to tell them to just fuck off and kill him now, but he wants to survive long enough to get revenge on Goto for killing his hostess girlfriend Lana all those years ago (we will learn Jake’s background through flashbacks). He would then fight progressively tougher bad guys with various gimmicks (nunchucks, poison-tipped blade fingernails, a dog).

Of course along the way Jake would develop a love interest with Goto’s daughter, the gun moll with a heart of gold who hates her father and wants to escape the mob life. She will be the one who sneaks him food and weapons to help him win.

Finally Jake would reach Goto who has had his brain and heart migrated to an android body after his replacement liver gave out and the FBI wouldnt let him have another one.

Robo-Goto would deliver an extended monologue about how weak and pathetic Americans are and how only the weakest loser Americans move to japan. And how does he know this for sure? Because (here’s the big twist) Goto killed Lana to take her liver and it only took him 7 years for his raging alcoholism to wear it out!

This obviously sends Jake into a blood rage (“Lana was British you ignorant sonofabitch!!!”) and he delivers a perfectly aimed jump kick into the glass casing that houses Robo-Goto’s heart, killing Goto and sending him careening off the top of Yakuza Tower (the robot body explodes in mid air)

A heavily breathing and bloodied Jake is joined by the Goto daughter and the two exchange a desperately passionate kiss followed by some banter (“oh Jake I thought you’d never make it!” “Babe, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from all the hard work it took to become the first Western correspondent for a major Japanese newspaper, it this: never EVER say never”) and he carries her off to a better life as the girlfriend of a freelance reporter, which we learn from a caption that pops up as we fade to black.

***

So there you have it – I realize there are a lot of blanks to fill in, but there is some rich character development potential. There could be scenes of Goto smacking around his subordinates just for the hell of it, Jake in his lowest moment screaming whyyyyyyyy toward the ceiling of his holding cell at a seemingly uncaring God, a flashback of Goto and Jake giving each other the evil eye across the room at a smoke-filled night club, etc.

For a change of pace you could use the flashbacks to show Jake as a fish out of water learning Japanese culture, bungling chopstick use, getting sprayed in the face by the washlet. And there could be tender scenes of Lana and Jake on a date cruelly broken up by the murderous Goto.

Anyway, I hope you are as excited for this movie as I am!
Please let us know your story ideas in the comments section or who you would cast. For Goto and daughter, I would use the father daughter team from Transporter, Ric Young and Qi Shu.

Don’t hate Yoichi Masuzoe for what he said — just look at what he has done

Yoichi Masuzoe has just been elected Governor of Tokyo after being the front runner more or less since the election race began. Predictably, the Western media is already finding the most superficially controversial angle to present him to the world: as far as I can tell, the usual offenders are parroting talking points that started out on the blog of former Socialist leader Mizuho Fukushima — more precisely, this post just over a week ago, where she dug up a 1989 article that quoted him as saying that women are not fit to lead government because they focus on single issues and have menstrual cycles. (She also cited a slightly more recent interview, in which he criticized local NIMBY types who sought to block nuclear plants, as evidence that he is a nuclear supporter.)

I will not defend Masuzoe’s statements about women, which are pretty heinous, but some context is necessary. 1989 was twenty-five years ago and Japan was still stuck in the “Mad Men” era when it came to gender relations. It was ten years before Masuzoe ran for political office and he was not that well known yet. I am pretty sure that he got over whatever strain of foot-in-mouth syndrome he may have had at the time, because Masuzoe’s detractors were hard-pressed to come up with a single damning quote from him since about 1995. Characterizing Masuzoe based on what he said about women back then is unfair — and also unnecessary given that there are more real issues with his governorship.

One concern I have comes from Masuzoe’s official resume. Summarized in one paragraph, Masuzoe started out as an academic studying French politics at Tokyo, Paris and Geneva, gradually gained notoriety as an author and TV commentator, and made a pretty decent showing against Shintaro Ishihara and Kunio Hatoyama in the 1999 Tokyo gubernatorial election. He won an LDP seat in the House of Councillors the next year. Despite his being critical of pretty much everyone else in the Diet, he was put in charge of the LDP’s constitutional reform commission and then became Health and Welfare Minister under Abe, Aso and Fukuda, during which time he came out as a quasi-hero in two major scandals. By 2009, he was the most popular politician in Japan. He bailed from the LDP as it fell from grace under Taro Aso, starting a new “Shinto Kaikaku” party amid hopes from the likes of Tobias Harris (link) that it would be the kind of force that would tank the LDP for good. It proceeded to do absolutely nothing, the LDP returned to power under Abe 2.0, Masuzoe declined to stand for re-election in 2013 and begged the LDP for forgiveness in order to run for governor under their quasi-endorsement. Summarized in one sentence, Masuzoe is a showhorse and not a workhorse, an Obama type of guy who can give a good press conference but who is not likely to actually do anything in a political context without seriously cocking it up, and that is not enough to run one of the largest subnational governments in the world.

Then there is the unofficial resume from the tabloids. Taking all of the tabloid stories I have seen at face value, Masuzoe supposedly met a Japanese woman while in France and they had a lovely wedding, but somehow didn’t actually get married. His first de jure marriage was to a French woman, but they were divorced for undisclosed reasons. (My wife recalls Masuzoe saying on a TV show that this first wife made rice pudding for dessert at one point, and he was enraged at the concept of rice being a sweet dessert.) After returning to Tokyo, he married his second wife, Satsuki Katayama, a promising young Ministry of Finance bureaucrat. The marriage lasted in earnest for only a few months, as Katayama discovered that Masuzoe had a short temper, and kept a collection of about twenty kinds of knives. They separated in short order and were officially divorced in 1989, but before the divorce was final, Masuzoe found a mistress and fathered his first child. He had two more children, at least one of whom was with a different mistress, and at some point married his secretary, who had two more of his children, for a total of five kids with three women. In the nineties he got serious about his horse racing hobby and started buying horses; two of them won the Japan Derby, in 1997 and 1998, but he got out of this business just before going into politics. At some point, he put his wife in charge of his “research institute” shell company, and transferred most of his valuable assets into it, including a 300 million yen house in Tokyo’s Setagaya Ward and two vacation houses in Yugawara and Kawaguchiko. He reported a total of 360 million yen in assets when he was in the Aso cabinet, but insiders reckoned he was worth more like 1 billion and hiding most of it under his wife’s shell company. After leaving the Diet in 2013, he petitioned a court to reduce his child support payments to his first child (who is disabled) because his monthly income had fallen to just 100,000 yen; Katayama was quoted in the Mainichi Shimbun as being reluctant to support Masuzoe because of this. One tabloid speculated that he may have lost a ton of money betting on horses and needed to adjust his obligations for that reason.

I am doubtful that Masuzoe will last for four years. He has what appears to be a fairly weak electoral mandate, with less than 50% of the vote in an election that appears to have had relatively low turnout (the snowstorm in Tokyo yesterday likely kept many undecided voters from going to the polls today). Like his predecessor Inose, Masuzoe does not have a record of coalition or consensus building, but rather a record of being outspoken and confrontational, which will not serve him well given that the Tokyo legislature is not the single-party paradise that the National Diet has become. I also suspect that, given all that the tabloids have already dug up, Masuzoe must have some more skeletons in his closet that could take him down if a political foe were willing to utilize them. So don’t worry, reporters, this guy has plenty of potential to be interesting without sticking his foot in his mouth.

Idol superfan asks out his favorite, gets rejected, decides it is time to grow out of fandom

21d8b1ce ikoma

This morning I tweeted this story:

This ended up being my most popular tweet in a while with 14 retweets (the last time that happened might have been not long after the tsunami). Given that a couple people asked for a translation of the original post I figured I would take a stab at a rough translation of the relevant portions. Note that I am not super familiar with the idol world (apparently the idol in question is Rina Ikoma, a member of Nogizaka 46 not AKB48) so please forgive me if I am missing something.

I just wanted to be loved my the one person I held most dear!

…. Ohh I’m not sure what I should write… Well, here is some good news for the people who hate me: Ikoma-chan rejected me! Lol \(^^)/

Honestly I was floored – her unexpected reply stabbed me straight through the heart. She could have been a little nicer about it! Yesterday there was something cold-hearted about her.

But really it’s my fault. I just wanted to make sure… I am so sorry

Ikoma-chan, I hope you will read this blog like you promised… It was all a big misunderstanding. I think I was unconsciously aware of it all along, but you shouldn’t have told me you liked me best! (;_;) That would make anyone misunderstand lol

I feel as if everything I have ever built in my life has now crumbled instantly into nothing.

But all in all this might be for the best. (^ー^) I don’t know what I’ll do when the next single comes out, but I don’t think I’ll be as into it as much as I have been.

Frankly, my psyche isn’t strong enough. I might quit being an otaku lol

To close out, I’ll just say one more time, thank you Ikoma-chan for letting me dream!

Thank you for making it possible for me to enjoy my life. I had nothing before you.

 

You were the first person I ever fell seriously in love with.

It is worth noting how costly it was for this fan to learn that his favorite idol isn’t interested in seeing him outside of paid fan events. The picture above is the 3,000 copies of a CD he bought to show his support (and maybe gain access to a handshake event). He also apparently went into around 3.5 million yen in debt in the process. That could be crippling financially depending on his income level.

9a011327 ikoma

 

Rina Ikoma

Are we looking at a new political order?

We are less than a month away from the gubernatorial election in Tokyo, with the campaign officially starting a week from today, and it seems like it may be a key part of yet another massive political realignment.

Until last week, Yoichi Masuzoe was looking like a shoo-in, with the support of the Abe government and very strong results in both LDP and DPJ polls. Then former prime minister Morihiro Hosokawa, who led a coalition that briefly broke the LDP’s uncontested decades of power in 1993, came out of nowhere and announced his candidacy a couple of days ago on a platform strongly opposing the restart of nuclear power. He has the backing of none other than former LDP prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, who stood beside him for the announcement. According to some reports, perennial back room fixer and band destroyer Ichiro Ozawa is also behind the Hosokawa campaign. Meanwhile, Koizumi’s son Shinjiro, who has quietly become the most popular active politician within the LDP, is criticizing Abe for supporting Masuzoe, who ditched the party in 2009 to start his own third party that went nowhere — this despite the fact that there are no other potential candidates within the LDP who poll nearly as highly as Masuzoe.

Hosokawa and the alliance supporting him seem to be getting a groundswell of momentum, despite an obvious defect in his candidacy: he resigned as prime minister in 1994 because of a scandal that was essentially exactly the same as the scandal that just took down Governor Inose. Here is Hosokawa in April 1994:

Hosokawa has been fending off allegations that he accepted an improper donation of 100 million yen ($970,000) from a trucking company previously accused of bribery and links to organized crime. He has admitted receiving the money, but says it was a loan. His opponents say it was a bribe.

The sense of irony here is palpable. The coalition that Hosokawa heads came to power last August promising an end to the so-called money politics of the Liberal Democratic Party, which the coalition displaced. Now LDP members – whose 38-year grip on power was broken after a slew of bribery and influence-peddling scandals – fax each other copies of a receipt Hosokawa has released in an attempt to show that he paid back the money, because they believe it to be an obvious and sloppy fake. “If you show this receipt to the tax authorities,” says Motoo Shiina, an independent member of Japan’s upper house who left the LDP six years ago, “they will laugh.”

Here is Inose in December 2013:

Inose acknowledged in November he had received 50 million yen ($500,000) from the political family behind the huge Tokushukai medical group before last year’s gubernatorial election. The money, handed to him in cash, was kept in a safety deposit box and Inose said it was a personal loan that had nothing to do with his campaign for the city’s top job.

He has been grilled by a hostile assembly on several occasions, with the media picking apart his appearance and stuttering performance, focusing on beads of sweat that dripped down his neck. At hearings and in press conferences he has waved around a piece of paper he insists amounted to a loan agreement, although observers noted that it bore no date for repayment and showed no terms and conditions.

There is another obvious defect in both Masuzoe and Hosokawa, in that like Inose, they both made careers out of being outspoken and pissing off the establishment, but never managed to show much for it other than ignominious defeats.

So who else is out there? Besides the two media-anointed leading contenders, we have our good buddy General Tamogami running on the far right, and socialist/communist-supported lawyer Kenji Utsunomiya (who came in a distant second to Inose in the last election) running on the far left. Of the four candidates, three (Masuzoe, Hosokawa and Utsunomiya) are anti-nuclear in one form or another, while Tamogami’s energy policy, in line with his other stated policies, presumably relies on the Japanese air force.

Neither I nor most Japanese commentators are entirely sure what to make of all this, but it certainly incites a lot of speculation as to what will happen next. Will the retired DPJ insiders like Kan and Hatoyama manage to squeeze Utsunomiya out of the race and consolidate the anti-LDP vote under Hosokawa, or will Utsunomiya split that segment and let Masuzoe win? Will Tamogami leverage Shintaro Ishihara’s support and his own possession of actual administrative experience to eke out a victory while the others shout over each other about the nuclear issue? Will Antonio Inoki parachute in from North Korea at the last minute? Will everyone in Tokyo just stay in bed on the 9th and let Doctor NakaMats realize the fruits of decades of campaigning? Perhaps most importantly, what will all of this mean for the Abe government? It’s fascinating, and I for one can’t get enough of it.

Tamogami, former ASDF “chife of stuff”, Running for Governor

Toshio Tamogami, rightwing blowhard and former Japan Air Force General, is officially running for Governor of Tokyo in February 9th’s election.

As you can see below, his official website profile is touting his strong credentials as “the former chife of stuff,ASDF”, in order to appeal to the Tokyo electorate’s strong appreciation for what is presumably intended to be some sort of executive experience.

Screen Shot 2014-01-06 at 12.36.53 AM
Tamogami’s official website profile

Anyone reading this right now, as the blog is only just barely stirring from a long hibernation, will certainly remember my feature-length November 4, 2008 post on the fraudulent essay contest scandal that led to Tamogami’s resignation from the military, and his connections to the world of right-wing politics.

These connections, which were rather obscure when I analyzed them, have become common knowledge since, as Tamogami has moved into a career as a professional rightist blowhard and – now – political hopeful.

For the hilarious website text, I must tip my hat to Curzon, (once and?) future contributor to this blog.

And speaking of hilarity, there are rumors being reported that professional wrestler turned politician, Antonio Inoki, will also be entering the race. This would certainly make Adam’s day.

But Masuzoe Yōichi, who ran and lost to former governor Ishihara Shintaro in 1999, seems to be the favorite. At least, that is, should he actually decide to run.

And for pointing that out, a hat tip to Joe, just so I have everyone covered.