Approaching infinity with Keiji Haino

TOKYO - The lilting house music stops. Keiji Haino picks up his guitar and the screeching wail begins. There is no buildup; it just starts.

It is something like a freight train hurtling through a tunnel, the blasts of the diesel engine mixing with the clash of steel wheels upon the rail.

Leading his two-piece band Fushitsusha, one of his many musical incarnations, Haino and his bass player generate an escalating, monstrous roar for an audience of 20 people in this matchbox-sized basement club in a western Tokyo suburb. Read more

The nonsense machines of Maywa Denki

TOKYO - A crowd has gathered around Nobumichi Tosa in the exhibition hall. Adorned in his trademark turquoise blue shop uniform and necktie, the 37-year-old president of Maywa Denki is demonstrating the use of one of his latest machines, titled “Planter,” by manipulating a joystick.

The piece contains a vertically mounted glass cylinder of oil. With each movement of the joystick, small needle-like feelers arranged intermittently around the tube’s circumference at the top stir the opaque liquid, sending individual streams tumbling down along its length.

“Planter” is one element in “Edelweiss Series,” Maywa Denki’s collection of machines that together tell the story of a mythic society so dominated by materialism that its females are willing to accept sterility in lieu of sacrificing the pursuit of cosmetic beauty. Read more

Asakusa Jinta march back in time

TOKYO - Unless in search of a cheap, dusty souvenir for a relative, Tokyo’s historic Asakusa district isn’t on the radar of too many folks under the age of 70. But Asakusa Jinta, a seven-piece band that mixes elements of ska, swing, punk and chindonya (traditional street performance), is hoping to bring the area’s time-honored sensibilities to the international stage.

“There are old but good things,” says vocalist Osho via e-mail about the Asakusa area. “The undeveloped image of the place is as if the clock stopped. The same Edo spirit has been there for years. Our music is out of respect for our ancestors of the area.” Read more

Jail talk

TOKYO - It is not an unusual chain of events: a few drinks and an argument at a bar escalate into some very regrettable actions requiring legal counsel.

“Mr. Shiokawa, even if you were very drunk,” supposes his solicitor, Jotaro Hinoki, as he questions his charge in his cell, “you would remember something about punching or kicking someone…And you’re wife has clearly stated you would be the last person to have a fight - let alone argue…”

As the interview proceeds, Hinoki, his greasy mop of dark hair slicked back and his eyes peering through round glasses, randomly slaps his face and pops breath mints to sooth sudden bursts of nervousness. A handkerchief is always at the ready for when he starts sneezing uncontrollably. Read more

Honoka takes top prize at Adult Broadcasting Awards

TOKYO - The Academy Awards finally gave Martin Scorsese his due for a job well done. Likewise, AV actress Honoka took the top prize (Best Actress) at last week’s Adult Broadcasting Awards for jobs well given.

Honoka, who represented the long-running Midnight Blue channel, has come to be recognized as one of Japan’s premier AV actresses. The cover of her “Glamorous Sex” DVD, which was released in August last year, boasts of her “perfect body and ability to freely perform satisfying sex acts.”

“I am so glad,” beamed the 21-year-old idol, pressing her tongue up against the phallus-shaped statue’s shiny surface. “I never thought I would be selected. I’d like to say that it was ‘my pleasure’ to my fans.” Read more

Classy ads lure quirky Japan audiences

TOKYO — Despite Sofia Coppola’s popularity in Japan after “The Virgin Suicides,” Kanae Rai, executive vice president of independent theater Cinema Rise, knew that success for the director’s Tokyo-set sophomore feature “Lost in Translation” hinged on providing a special inducement to the theater’s typical customers: young girls out shopping.

“The girls in Shibuya are the ones making the scene in Japan,” Rai says of the ultra-fashionable district of Tokyo in which her theater is located. “But they have a very peculiar sensibility. Rather than thinking in words, they react to music and art.” Read more

Hosts set hearts beating in Kabukicho

TOKYO - In a club housed on the fifth floor of a building near the Shinjuku Ward office in Tokyo’s Kabukicho entertainment district, four ladies are whisked from their booth to the stage. Early ’90s-era techno pumps from the sound system as no less than twenty “hosts,” young gentlemen whose sole duty is to entertain women, hit the dance floor immediately in front of them.

The boys, outfitted in upturned collars, pointy shoes, sleek suits, and the practically trademarked spiky hair, shift laterally, clap, spin, and swing their arms in unison as the glass chandelier above reflects the house lights. The club’s manager, Yuga, sits between the girls, facing his boogieing charges who now are taking turns singing into microphones.

Then, just as quickly as it came to life, the party freezes to allow for a cork from a Dom Perignon bottle (white) to be popped in silence. As the performers huddle around the four guests, a boisterous shout of “Kampai!” breaks the quiet. With the ladies, glasses in hand, absolutely beaming, an escalating vocal roar from the troupe signals the resumption of the pulsing music. Read more

Yuko Tojo: Grandfather not a war criminal

TOKYO - The granddaughter of former wartime Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, who was hanged as a war criminal following the Tokyo tribunals, believes that modern Japan is a nation bereft of dignity, a condition she hopes to change by running in this month’s House of Councillors election.

“I want to do something about the present state of Japan,” Yuko Tojo told a press luncheon Tuesday at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan. “I want to do something to change the nature of Japanese people who lack confidence, who lack pride and a sense of honor in their nation.” Read more

Delicious vinyl

TOKYO - Image is entirely everything.

Fumiyoshi Nagao raises the cooked fish by the fin and lets it flop back down on the dinner plate, causing the shredded daikon radish and other garnishes to jiggle just a bit. Slices of various sashimi, in sets of four, fill out the rest of the plate.

“Maybe it has to be a little higher,” the 54-year-old supposes, grabbing the fish’s dorsal fin and tilting it upward. “Or maybe the daikon has to be moved slightly. The image of the dish is often a problem. The customer always wants it to look like the original - or even better.”

Though it might seem like it, a cooking lesson this is not.

The fish is actually made of plastic - vinyl chloride, to be exact - and the location is not an eatery of any kind but rather a tiny shop in Otsuka, Tokyo. Nagao’s company, Nagao Shoken, creates the plastic food models often seen lined up on shelves in dusty glass cabinets at entrances to restaurants in Japan. Read more

A bar with all the answers

TOKYO - In a thin black tie and snappy white shirt, a bartender uses a pick to shape large chunks of ice into sizes suitable for glasses. Bottles of whiskey and other spirits await the evening’s first customers in the cabinet behind.

Such an establishment is typically an ideal place for a weary patron to down a couple as he spills out his problems to the gentleman behind the lacquered top. This bar though takes things one step further.

Started a year and a half ago within Tokyo’s wooly Roppongi entertainment district, Bar Answer is staffed entirely by private detectives sourced from its sister agency FAXtantei.com.

“This is a bar,” says proprietor and detective Ryuhei Misawa, “but it is also a place where people in trouble can receive consultations.” Read more

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