MIOU Live at Umewaka Noh Theatre
Expect much more than music: the event features a fashion show by avant-garde label TOKKOU FASHION, a surprise appearance by a renowned Noh actor, welcome drinks by luxury sake brand DASSAI, and a calligraphy installation by Hiroko Suehiro, whose work seamlessly blends Noh Dance with poetry and visual art.
Whether you're a lover of Japanese culture or curious about the future of performance art, this event bridges heritage and innovation in unforgettable style. The concert will also be livestreamed for a global audience.
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The Mainichi
6 hours ago
- The Mainichi
Edging Toward Japan: The Japanese soul of John Lennon
I was watching recently the 1988 documentary film "Imagine: John Lennon" about the short, memorable life (1940-80) of the famous rock musician. The former Beatle has legions of fans across the world, though I never particularly counted myself as one of them. But of late I have become quite intrigued by aspects of John Lennon which do not really seem to feature in public consciousness. I am greatly fascinated by the mountain resort of Karuizawa -- Tokyo's cool retreat from the oppressive summer heat and teeming with secluded, wooded residences. It's a place I try to get to whenever I can. John Lennon is said to have visited Karuizawa during the last three summers of his life and stayed each time at the historic Mampei Hotel, deeply nestled in the forests there. John Lennox's connection with Karuizawa seems to be relatively little known -- it is not mentioned at all in the "Imagine" film and when I asked quite a knowledgeable Japanese friend about it, he said he had never heard about it. I discovered an article in a local Karuizawa magazine, which noted that Lennon liked to visit the Shiraito Waterfall and the Usui Pass Lookout point in Karuizawa, and that he is reputed to have taught the recipe for "Royal Milk Tea" to the head waiter at the Mampei Hotel. Lennon appeared to enjoy the simple life in Karuizawa, eating apple pie in the hotel cafe and wandering over to the French bakery on the main street to buy baguettes. This was all at a period of Lennon's life when he was prioritizing spending time with his infant son Sean (born in 1975) with his Japanese wife Yoko Ono. I was curious to know more about the Japanese life of John Lennon. When on a recent trip from my home in Kansai, I was excited to see from Google Maps that a hotel (the Metropole Hotel, Omiya) I was staying at outside Tokyo just happened to be immediately next to the John Lennon Museum. But when I got to the hotel, I discovered to my disappointment that the museum had in fact closed down in 2010. Apparently, Yoko Ono had cooperated in the opening of the museum in 2000 to commemorate Lennon's 60th anniversary and had lent many papers and artefacts relating to the musician, but the museum had existed for a mere 10 years. What everyone seems to know about John Lennon in his final years is that he lived in New York (where he was assassinated in December 1980) and that he often spoke of his love of that city. In the "Imagine" film, Yoko Ono shrewdly observed that Lennon saw in New York a larger, more cosmopolitan version of his home city of Liverpool. Both port cities drew in influences from around the world and had the comforting familiarity of the docks. In other words, the seeds of Lennon's final positioning in New York were sown in his Liverpool upbringing. That may be true, but I also think that the seeds of his final positioning in a hotel in the woods of Karuizawa, Japan, were also buried far deeper than we might think. There is a general tendency to assume that Lennon's connection with Japan was the almost accidental product of his having fallen in love with Yoko Ono. But I perceive it differently. If you find yourself living with a Japanese woman in New York and spending your summers in Japan, then it is reasonable to assume that there is something about Japan which is calling out to you. When Lennon became regularly sequestered in the mountains of Japan, I don't see that as an accidental occurrence, but the consequence of some inner yearning. It's curious that when chronicling and analyzing the lives of artists, biographers often ignore the parts of their psyche with which they have little familiarity or understanding. The great Canadian pianist Glenn Gould, for example, was utterly obsessed during the last years of his life with the 1906 novel "Kusamakura" ("The Three Cornered World") by Japanese novelist Natsume Soseki and kept the book alongside the Bible by his bedside. He once read the entire novel on consecutive evenings over the phone to his cousin, and broadcast a chapter from it on his radio show. Yet if you read a biography of Glenn Gould, you are unlikely to see this mentioned at all or else quickly dismissed as a piece of "eastern mysticism". Similarly, for me, while New York represents the public face of John Lennon in his final years, the more hidden, private space was occupied by Japan and Karuizawa. I sometimes walk the streets of Liverpool and stand outside the Cavern Club where the Beatles first found fame, and walk down to the statue of the Fab Four on the dockside. John Lennon will always belong in some form or other to Liverpool. But in ways that are not yet fully understood, I feel the ultimate destination of Lennon's soul-searching life story were the quiet forests of Karuizawa, Japan. How those Karuizawa woods might have impacted his music in the 1980s had he lived a little longer is a subject that is fascinating to imagine. @DamianFlanagan (This is Part 67 of a series) In this column, Damian Flanagan, a researcher in Japanese literature, ponders about Japanese culture as he travels back and forth between Japan and Britain. Profile: Damian Flanagan is an author and critic born in Britain in 1969. He studied in Tokyo and Kyoto between 1989 and 1990 while a student at Cambridge University. He was engaged in research activities at Kobe University from 1993 through 1999. After taking the master's and doctoral courses in Japanese literature, he earned a Ph.D. in 2000. He is now based in both Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, and Manchester. He is the author of "Natsume Soseki: Superstar of World Literature" (Sekai Bungaku no superstar Natsume Soseki).
Asahi Shimbun
8 hours ago
- Asahi Shimbun
Sega's UFO Catcher remains arcade mainstay after 40 years
'Just one more try.' Whether let loose in a state of furious determination or grunted in dull resignation, this sentiment is part of what makes crane games so alluring even 40 years after the Japanese version's debut. Often called the UFO Catcher domestically, these machines and the temptations they hold within are currently among the top earners at the country's game centers. And, unlike the grip settings on many, the various iterations of UFO Catchers have yet to release their hold on the public even during the eras of home video game consoles and mobile games rising in popularity. EAGLES? NO, ALIENS Game developer Sega Corp. first pitched the UFO Catcher to the market in 1985. Today, the company's trademarked claw machine is virtually synonymous with the term, but spacecraft were not initially part of the equation during the development process. Sega's short-lived goal was the Eagle Catcher—a concept involving a mechanical bird that arcade-goers could control to ensnare prizes like eagles swooping down on prey from on high. The enormous difficulty of incorporating the bird into the crane game's design would eventually lead the company to reconsider, and it finally settled on a configuration and name that mimicked an alien abduction. Around this time, conventional claw machines introduced in the 1960s were about the height of a table and typically featured a top-down design with a rectangular, box-shaped body about the height of a table. Players looked down into the boxy machines through their glass-covered tops when controlling the crane. Sega's introduction of its UFO Catcher not only meant a change in player vantage point, but that the bounty of prizes were suddenly all at eye level. CRANK UP THE LIGHTS Buoyed by the huge success of 'Space Invaders' following its 1978 release, arcades became ubiquitous across Japan in the 1980s. The focus on video game titles such as 'Pac-Man' and 'Donkey Kong' meant game centers of the time needed to be dimly lit to better see the arcade cabinet screens. Most customers were male. The introduction of the UFO Catcher dramatically altered the country's arcades. The machine's vivid lighting to showcase prizes inside combined with its pink tones literally brightened up the atmosphere in game centers. The result was exactly what Sega expected from its UFO Catcher; its aim at the time was to expand the enterprise's consumer base by appealing to not only men but also women and children. Mitsuharu Fukazawa, who has devoted himself to the development of UFO Catchers at Sega over the course of more than two decades, explained the appeal of the claw machine that unearthed an entirely new trove of patrons. 'The fundamental style of play has remained unchanged throughout the UFO Catcher's 40-year evolution: moving the crane to get a prize,' said Fukazawa. 'This simplicity is likely among the reasons the game has long been embraced by people of all genders and ages.' Another simple addition that would boost the UFO Catcher even more came in 1991 with the fourth-generation model emanating background music from Sega's now-classic 'Sonic the Hedgehog' video game that came out that same year. This model set off a further craze when toys of characters from the celebrated children's anime series 'Let's Go! Anpanman,' first aired in 1988, were added as prizes. Other corporations' successive introductions of their own crane games would contribute to the further expansion of the market as well. Plush dolls of the protagonists from multi-generation-defining anime, inclusive of 'Dragon Ball' and 'Sailor Moon,' were consistently appearing in claw machines, and prize types eventually extended to figurines of characters along with other novelties—something that transformed a fad into a long-lasting boom at arcades. ANALOG ENDORPHINS Also behind the 'evolution' of prizes were repeated increases in the maximum prize value in the guidelines set by the industry organization. According to the accounts of the Japan Amusement Industry Association, the prize price ceiling was raised from 200 yen ($1.30) for 1986 to 500 yen in 1990, and then to 800 yen in 1997. The upper limit of 1,000 yen was subsequently imposed in 2022 under the interpretive and operational standards for the amusement business control law. With the advent of Nintendo Co.'s Family Computer (Famicom) console, known internationally as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), video games gradually transitioned to a form of entertainment largely enjoyed at home instead of arcades. Figures from the Japan Amusement Industry Association show that the number of game centers halved between fiscal 2013 and fiscal 2022. At odds with the overall slump was the turnover from claw machines that jumped 1.9 times during the same period. By category, crane game sales accounted for as much as 59 percent of the total in fiscal 2022. Hideo Nakamura, representative director of the Japan Crane Game Association who runs a dedicated claw machine arcade on his own, believes the tactile nature of these machines remains their strong point. 'The analog entertainment tool provides players with a one-of-a-kind joy and excitement that can't be replicated in the digital world, as the crane game has remained unchanged since the past,' said Nakamura. Bottos Benoit, a French social informatics researcher studying claw machines, agreed. 'The game's uncertain design and playing experience derives from human commitment, bringing on a unique attraction never found elsewhere,' he said.
Japan Today
9 hours ago
- Japan Today
Totoro and Jiji tail seat cushions blend Studio Ghibli backsides with yours
By Casey Baseel, SoraNews24 Does anyone else sometimes forget that Totoro has a tail? Maybe it's a result of how cozy napping on the forest spirit's tummy looks in the Studio Ghibli anime classic, or because of how expressive his facial expressions are. There really are a lot of captivatingly cute points to his character design to keep track of. But sure enough, he's got a tail, and now there's an adorable reminder of that fact courtesy of Ghibli specialty store Donguri Kyowakoku. At 35 centimeters in diameter, the Totoro Tail Seat Cushion may not be big enough to accommodate Totoro's bottom, but it should work just fine for human fans. There's an embroidered-patch Medium/blue Totoro on the pad itself, and a pair of Soot Sprites make an appearance too. The big highlight here, though, of course, is the Totoro tail that sticks out for an anime aesthetic touch even when you're sitting on top of the cushion. The promotional photos show the urethane foam cushion placed on a chair for some extra padding, but it should also work great for Japanese tatami reed floor mats, as well as on-the-floor seating in Western-style interiors with carpeting or hardwood floors. Speaking of Ghibli tails from Ghibli tales, there's one character that no one will ever forget has such an appendage, black cat Jiji from "Kiki's Delivery Service." Technically, the Jiji Tail Seat Cushion gives you two versions of the character's tail, one on the embroidered Jiji patch and the other dangling out from underneath the pad. The Jiji Tail Cushion is the same size as the Totoro one, and they're identically priced too, at 3,300 yen each. Both can be ordered through the Donguri Kyowakoku online shop here. Source: Donguri Kyowakoku Insert images: Donguri Kyowakoku Read more stories from SoraNews24. -- Awesome new Soot Sprite and Totoro house Ghibli cushions are a sensible addition to any home -- New Totoro, Catbus, and other Ghibli plushies transform from cushions to blankets【Photos】 -- Sleep on Totoro's belly with Studio Ghibli's My Neighbour Totoro Nap Cushion External Link © SoraNews24
