Arts & Entertainment « GaijinPot In Japan Blogs

Arts & Entertainment

Japanese Retro Game Review: Dekitate High School: February 24th, 2010By Bren Inou; Looking for a cheap game to play for the Super Famicom, I decided to visit my local Book-Off where the video game aisle is home to hundreds of games in plastic zip-lock bags lined up and hung on hooks. Of course this causes me to knock over half a row of games while digging through » Continue Reading; CommentsView Comments

The Art and the Science of Action Directing: Interview with Yuji Shimomura: July 27th, 2009By Chuck Johnson; What is an action director? There’s a lot of different titles for people who are responsible for creating a fight scene; the action director, the stunt coordinator, the fight coordinator, etc, so it’s easy to get confused. An action director is like the overseer. They are the ones who have to think about the drama » Continue Reading; CommentsView Comments

Gemini, (Soseiji): July 27th, 2009By The Kritic; Gemini is a 1999 film directed by Shinya Tsukamoto,based on an Edogawa Rampo story, starring Masahiro Motoki, who starred in the Academy award winning film ‘Departures/Okuribito. Set in the Meiji era, Masahiro Motoki plays twins; Yukio, a young doctor, and also Sutekichi his outcasted twin.Yukio together with his girlfriend Rin live with his parents within the doctor’s surgery, » Continue Reading; CommentsView Comments

Shiki-Jitsu (Ritual Day): July 15th, 2009By The Kritic; Shiki-Jitsu, (Ritual Day) is a film of intrest for a number reasons, that not only is it the only film that Shunji Iwai has acted in, (surprisingly enough he plays a film director),but also that it is directed by Hideaki Anno, who is best known for his anime ‘Neon Genesis Evangelion: » Continue Reading; CommentsView Comments

Tokyo Dance Schools: July 12th, 2009By Lin; When I first came to Tokyo, I really wanted to take dance classes, but my understanding of Japanese was inexistent, and I had no clue where to look, or who to ask. I spent a lot of time researching in English online, but I wasn’t able to find any information. So » Continue Reading; CommentsView Comments

Ringu 0 Review: June 28th, 2009By Bren Inou; I know I write about video games and such. But for this week only I play the role of movie critic. After I just got done writing about the Ringu movies I decided to review one in greater detail. Ringu 0 stars Nakama Yukie as the pretty and pretty shy Yamamura » Continue Reading; CommentsView Comments

Mesmerised by Kabuki: June 26th, 2009By Sno; During Golden Week, my housemates and I visited the Kabuki theater in Ginza. Kabuki is one of the three Japanese theatrical performances, the other two being Bunraku and Noh. The word kabuki (歌舞伎) consists of the 3 kanji characters which mean sing (歌), dance (舞) and skill (伎). It could also » Continue Reading; CommentsView Comments

Masahiro Shinoda: June 11th, 2009By The Kritic; Masahiro Shinoda is probably best known for his 1969 black and white film ‘Shinju: Ten no amijima’ , – ‘Double Suicide’,rightly considered a classic, based on a play by Chikamatsu, the 17th century playwrite,who is sometimes referred to as the Japanese Shakespeare. The film includes ‘Kuroko’ stage hands dressed entirely » Continue Reading; CommentsView Comments

Hip Hop Dance Competition: June 1st, 2009By Lin; Hip hop, breakin’, poppin’ & lockin’ and free style are only a few dance styles I see in my daily life here in Tokyo. It’s what I live, what I breathe. As I have heard before, “no dance, no life” and it’s absolutely true. At times I’ve had a bad sprain » Continue Reading; CommentsView Comments

Garage Band in a Bad Way: May 14th, 2009By Stacy; There are Lives, and then there are lives. Unfortunately yesterday’s was one of the latter. My band, Look for a Future, often plays with a local grunge band at our Gate stomping grounds called Draw into Disorder. It’s only a three piece, but it puts out enough noise and energy for easily » Continue Reading; CommentsView Comments