J3J Episode 14: Hard Boiled Wonderland

Nothing much afoot in Japan lately, but lots of snow underfoot.
Winter struck Tokyo with a vengence this year, as there have
been veritable snowstorms two weekends in a row, the second
one dumping close to a foot of snow.  I braved the blizzard
last Saturday and headed out to Shibuya, wondering why all
these silly locals were toting umbrellas and wearing rubber
boots.  Then the temperature rose by two degrees, and
suddenly I was enlightened.  (And wet.)

On assignment from an otaku friend of mine, on that very same
trip I was introduced to one of Japan's more bizarre subcultures.
My mission was to track down all 7 volumes & the movie of 新世紀
エヴァンゲリオン (officially translated Neon Genesis Evangelion,
although "Shinseiki" means "new century"), a legendary Japanese
animated series, on DVD.  My first stop was of course Akihabara,
Tokyo's discount electronics and assorted paraphernalia capital,
which satisfies the lusty needs of its geek pilgrims with dozens
of stores full of anime and porn.  And I did find most of what I
wanted, but not all...

So on the day of blizzard I was shopping for used CDs at Shibuya's
best Recofan, located between Book 1st and Tokyu Hands in
the 4th floor of the giant Sega gaming palace whose name I
still don't know.  5 100-yen CDs having changed hands, I was
heading out, when I spotted that the floor plan in the
elevator said "B2: まんだらけ”(Mandarake).  "Say, I've
heard that name before," I thought and punched B2.
The elevator door opened, I took a few steps -- and my jaw
dropped.

"Mandarake" is a rather elaborate pun, and as it's spelled
in hiragana you can't be quite sure whether it means
"total satisfaction", "full of corruption", "hairy mandala"
or -- perhaps the most likely candidate -- "overflowing with
manga".  The basement store is approximately the size of an
American supermarket (ie. 10 Japanese supermarkets), packed
tight with shelves and shelves of comic books, videos, DVDs,
etc.  Lining the walls are locked cases of more valuable goods,
including stuff like telephone cards featuring animated
characters, gazillions of Ultraman and Gundam models,
and limited edition comics.  Some rows are composed of bizarre
rubber-mesh baskets overflowing with, well, crap, all sorts of
evidently saleable junk related to manga and anime, from rubber
face masks to drinking mugs.  Naturally, everything in sight is
painted in bizarre cartoony colors and manga-related j-pop
(an industry in itself) plays at high volume.  The staff are
not only manning bizarre playcastle-lookalike counters, but are
actually dressed as cartoon characters as well!  Only in Japan...
And yes, they had every episode of NGE on sale.

I also finally bit the bullet and bought Mishima Yukio's
semiautobiographical 「仮面の告白」(Confessions of a Mask) in
the original.  As expected, the Japanese is tough,
understanding Mishima is all too often a challenge even in
English...  but it's doable since most of the truly perverse
kanji he likes to employ have readings on the side and
there are 14 pages of editor's footnotes to explain some of
the more obscure references to, say, the use of grape sugar
in Chinese medicine (#11) or the achievements of Roman emperor
Heliogabalus (#35).  Part 1 down, three more to go...

I also wanted to buy Murakami Haruki's delightfully titled
「世界の終わりとハードボイルドワンダーランド」(The End of
the World and The Hard-Boiled Wonderland), but despite
the recommendation of a friend (「ちょっとＨだし…  まあ
そこがいいんだけどね！」) I figured 1000 pages might be a bit
too much at the moment.  Instead I stumbled on Murakami Haruki
& Matsumura Eizo's「辺境・近境」(Faraway Regions, Nearby Regions),
where the author and a highschool buddy of his turned photographer
go on a series of romps around the world.  5 pages of pictures
average one page of text in a large typeface and without any
bizarre kanji, making reading a much more pleasant task.
And some of the pictures are brilliant.

Japanese attempts at English are one of those things that
seem less and less funny the longer you stay in Japan,
but a few recent advertisements have managed to whack my
funny bone despite the protective covering it has developed.
For example, a new bumper sticker on all Sagawa Kyuubin delivery
vans proudly proclaims "Let's Challenge Safe Driving in the 21st
Century!".  Well, if you ask me, it was about time somebody took on
the arduous task of eliminating those pesky, antiquated road rules
and elevated Tokyo's traffic to the status of a *real* metropolis,
like, say, Bangkok or Cairo.

A new magazine, enticily entitled "B.L.T.", has recently
plastered its ads all over the subway.  Alas, the contents
turns out not to be paeans to the art of sandwich-making,
or in fact at all related to the holy trio of bacon, lettuce
and tomato -- the acronym stands for Beautiful Lady and
Television.  Who woulda thunk it?

And last but not least, DDI has come out with a new series
of phones for its 'feel H"' internet mobiles, called Mega
Carrots.  Yes, that means the phones are called things like
"H551 Mega Carrots".  DDI, as some members of the fine mailing
list known as KEITAI-L were reminiscing lately, used to have a
pre-Mega Carrots phone with an especially powerful vibration
unit, which upon an incoming call made a sound like (and I quote)
"an angry cow".  If this is all making you feel a bit H"-ey,
just remember Mae West: "Is that a Mega Carrots in your pocket,
or are you just glad to see me?"

Up next: a weekend visit to the mountains north of Tokyo and
the concrete-packed onsen ghetto of Kinugawa.  Temperature
outside -10 C, temperature in the outside bath 45 C, sounds
like a good combination to me...