Tohoku red-light town looks to Tokyo’s Kabukicho for revival

Sendai’s Kokubuncho entertainment district is modeling an initiative for its rebirth upon the ongoing clean-up of Tokyo’s infamous Kabukicho area, reports the Sankei Shimbun (Sep. 29).

Hard-hit by Japan’s recession, various business and long-term building owners of the area, located in the city’s Aoba Ward, came together last month to form the “Kokubuncho Development Project.” The aim of the organization is to enhance the brand of the city — whose over 3,000 bars, restaurants and sex clubs have shared a style similar to that found in Tokyo’s Shimbashi and Ginza districts.

The first step was to come together as a group. Last month’s meeting consisted of approximately thirty men and women of varied ages, backgrounds and professions. Read more

Frisky femme gets fondled at fireworks fest

“I still have memories from last summer. . . ” the contributor to the October issue of the woman’s erotic fantasy magazine Renai Tengoku sighs wistfully, as introduced in Shukan Bunshun (Oct. 1).

The writer and her male companion donned yukata and went to watch the fireworks. And it seems her boyfriend has a slightly sadistic streak and enjoys tormenting her — in a friendly way of course. This time he commanded her, “Don’t wear anything under your yukata!”

She complied.

“Well, there we were, stretched out on the mat,” she writes, “watching the shakudama explode one after the next.

“While the rest of the spectators had their eyes directed skyward, my boyfriend was slipping his hands up my sleeve and fondling my breasts and torso. The rascal knows where all my sensitive spots are, and he kept at it, groping me mercilessly. Read more

Sawajiri dumped overboard from ‘Yamato’

TOKYO (TR) – Actress Erika Sawajiri, a local tabloid fav for a series of headline-making scandals, has been replaced as the female lead of the SF fantasy “Space Battleship Yamato,” according to Japan press reports. Her replacement is Meisa Kuroki, who starred in Takashi Miike’s two “Crows” high school gang pics.

Based on Reiji Matsumoto’s classic 1970s SF toon, the live-action “Yamato” is being produced by broadcaster TBS and its partners. Shooting is skedded to start in mid-October, with release by Toho penciled in for December 2010.

The director is Takashi Yamazaki, a CG whiz whose credits include the pics “Always” and “Ballad,” a time-traveling fantasy that has done strong-if-not-stellar box office since its September 5 bow. The male lead is Takuya Kimura, megastar member of the pop group SMAP. Read more

How misguided customers brought down the house

It was 1989, the bubble economy was careening hell-bent-for-leather toward the abyss, and naturally salarymen were partying as if there was no tomorrow.

One of the places they favored, reports Nikkan Gendai (Sep. 19) was a shop in Shibuya named Joshi Kosei Kurabu (High School Girls’ Club). The shop’s founder got his inspiration from the thriving burusera shops in the same neighborhood that were raking in bundles from the shameless sales of unlaundered panties and other garments worn by high school girls. Read more

Neighborly sex-tortion comes in XL proportion

“It’s been half a year since I began having an extramarital affair with ‘J,’ a salesman I’d met at the company where I work part time,” writes the anonymous contributor to the October issue of women’s soft porn monthly Ai no Taiken Special Deluxe, as introduced in the weekly “From the ladies’ magazines” column in Shukan Bunshun (Sep. 24).

“I exercised extreme caution to keep my husband from finding out about our affair, but one day I opened my mailbox to find an ominous letter.

“‘Is your boyfriend’s cock bigger than your husband’s?’ it asked. ‘Betcha mine is even bigger.’ And so on. I was really scared. Then not long afterward another letter arrived that read, ‘If you want to know who I am, open your door right now.’ Unable to control my curiosity I did, and standing outside was the university student living in the apartment next door.

“Without speaking a word he let himself inside and closing the door behind him yanked up my skirt. He seemed to know just how I would react, and I realized resistance would be futile. Read more

Tokyo film fest to emphasize eco theme, screen controversial ‘The Cove’

TOKYO (TR) – The 22nd Tokyo International Film Festival will continue its push for environmental awareness and screen the controversial documentary “The Cove,” a film which shows the butchering of dolphins in a small Japanese fishing town.

Fest chairman Tatsumi “Tom” Yoda said at a press luncheon on Thursday that it is very important for the festival to not only screen high-quality films from around the globe but to also educate the world about environmental issues.

“We live in this world together, and those of us in the film industry count on the environment — that is the message we want to send,” said Yoda at The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan.

Kicking off the event on October 17 is the documentary “Oceans” by Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud. TIFF’s week-long run will feature roughly 130 films at theaters in the Roppongi entertainment district of Tokyo. The closer will be Pixar’s “Up,” an animated adventure up in the sky directed by Pete Docter. Read more

Erotic scene in cult flick adds to troubles for DPJ’s Tanaka

Last week’s revelations by weekly tabloid Friday regarding the freelance sex-writing fun had by newly elected Democratic Party of Japan representative Mieko Tanaka are being superseded by evidence that the politician also acted in semi-nude scenes in a cult film and used her profile for a matchmaking article in a sub-culture monthly.

The latest issue of Friday (Sep. 25) provides photos of Tanaka having her chest exposed in cult-director Teruo Ishii’s “Blind Beast vs. Killer Dwarf” and appearing as a dupe in a hook-up feature for Uramono Japan magazine for which she pretends to be looking for a boyfriend.

This is the second blow to Tanaka, a native of Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture and one of “Ozawa’s girls” — referring to the group of attractive female candidates dispatched to minor constituencies under the guidance of DPJ politician Ichiro Ozawa. For the August 30 election, the 33-year-old Tanaka fell short of former Prime Minister Yoshihiro Mori in Ishikawa Constituency No. 2. Yet she wound up qualifying for a house seat through the proportional representation (PR) system. Read more

Yakuza group succumbs to revised law, encourages ‘code of conduct’

While it might have been somewhat humorous to read that gangsters have been found to be giving exams to their members, it would appear that this sort of activity is part of trend in which the criminal underworld is increasingly moving towards limiting risk in its operations, reports entertainment Web site Zakzak (Sep. 11).

The Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan’s largest criminal organization, has requested that affiliated gangs not use its symbols and refrain from engaging in typical gang-like conduct.

With its main office in Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture and a membership of 21,000, the gang has specifically requested that associated gangs not imprint their business cards with the Yamaguchi-gumi crest.

The article says that such a move is rooted in revisions last year to the Anti-Organized Crime Law, which was enacted in 1992. The changes increased the liability of top bosses for the actions of subordinates, and the new meishi order is a defense measure, the story indicates. Read more

Return to Tarawa

TARAWA, KIRIBATI (TR) – Sixty-six years ago, the Pacific island atoll of Tarawa was a World War II battlefield of billowing black smoke and death’s stench. Allied and Japanese forces blazed through its coconut trees and white sands, today a part of the Pacific island nation of Kiribati, and turned it into a charred chunk of earth upon which roughly 6,000 lives were lost — making it one of the most gruesome battles in U.S. military history.

Former U.S. Naval Ensign Leon Cooper remembers that seventy-six-hour period as if it were yesterday. “I still have nightmares from to time,” says the 89-year-old. “A random smell reminds me of the stink of that time. A sudden loud noise makes me jump.”

But with the landscape of Tarawa, the capital of the nation’s collection of coral atolls that are spread over 1,351,000 square miles of ocean, now largely a rubbish pit, Cooper set his demons aside and returned, in February 2008. Read more

Moonlighting gals augment income with part-time whoopie

Many Japanese companies, increasingly unable to give their staff raises or pay out semiannual bonuses due to the business downturn, have given the green light to permitting their workers to moonlight. The one exception being civil servants. But that hasn’t stopped females in the Japanese military from making a little on the side.

Shukan Taishu (Sep. 21) reports of a woman in the Ground Self Defense Force who had obtained a license to drive a heavy-duty truck transporting hazardous materials.

She was already aware that her male colleagues often patronized sex shops outside the base, and decided she wanted in on the action. Once day as a soldier bounced beside her in the truck cab, she grasped a cylindrical object, slid her hand along it in a vigorous up and down motion, and jokingly suggested she provide him with a friendly hand job at the affordable price of 3,000 yen. He readily agreed. Read more

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