I’m revitalising, renewing, reinventing my blog. After a year of hiatus I am going to return with the idea of Petit Travels, give myself a clear focus for my writings. I will concentrate more on the hidden cute, cool, quirky and simply lovely things to do in Tokyo, interspersed with visits to live houses and short articles on daily happenings that amuse me.

Hence the new title, Little Travels in a Big City – every day is like an adventure, discovering something new each day whether that be a new shop, a place to indulge in tea or the traces of history that lie beneath neon pachinko parlours and department stores.

There are many reasons to be happy about the forthcoming months in music terms with crammed full schedules from July to September and (apart from a fast approaching trip to Tokyo Dome) nothing is possibly more exciting than this lineup:

Arc／愛狂います。／アヲイ／12012／vistlip/ ヴィドール／Versailles／Envus／えんそく/ 関西変態系お笑いヴィジュアルバンド HEAR / キス＆ネイト／キャンゼル／KLACK／ClearVeil / Sadie／SIVA／ジゴロ／Sugar
ジュリィー／シンディケイト／the studs / ゾロ／Dali／タロット-tarrot-／Chariots / Dio／Daizy Stripper／DEATHGAZE / Duel Jewel／DELUHI／デンジャー☆ギャング / 東京ミカエル。／Dolly／ドレミ團／ネガ／heidi / Hi:BRiD／バギーボギー／HERO / 176BIZ／姫苺／Fuzylog／boogieman / Black List／BRANCH／VelBet／born / 摩天楼オペラ／ムック／Megaromania／MELLO / Moran／ラッド／RENTRER EN SOI／LiZ / Rosario／他　　　

I spy with my little eye…. MUCC, heidi, 12012, DEATHGAZE, Rentrer en Soi, the studs, Vidoll, Versailles, Awoi…. all superb bands who command such awesome stage presence.

Scuber Dive is essentially a visual kei festival. I can see it now; hundreds of VK gals and guys invade Dogenzaka for a day moving between the various livehouses of the Shibuya-O complex. It should be a fun day and I hope that some stores may make an appearance as it would be a perfect chance to sell clothing although I rather doubt this would happen. AMPM on the other hand must be salivating over the potential sales that day will bring as the only conbini within a 30 seconds walk of the area.

For Tokyo, tickets go on sale on the 5th July priced at 6000.

Before I found out about the Akihabara attack yesterday, I had seen something on television that somewhat impressed me. Eco matters – the topic du jour in the US and UK – have reached out to Japan in the form of Touch Eco 2008. Japan has an interesting attitude to Ecological matters, demanding we sort our trash rigourously into burnable/non burnable/ bottles etc for recyling and advertising energy saving air con units all the while Shibuya and Shinjuku emit more light pollution than your average African state. While there is increasing promotion in using ‘Eco Bags’ for our daily uses, there is also a love for the plastic bag, such as the banana I bought from my local conbini this morning; like a present it was packaged in a clear plastic wrap all tied with a small gold bow. Touch Eco 2008 has manifested itself in Tokyo suddenly as a series of Expos and Festivals – I encountered one such in the approach to NHK Hall – although these have been criticised for lack of actual ecological content. The Expo in particular was accused for displaying products that actively against the issue, for example.

That said, the approach to raising eco-awareness that I saw on TV last night was much more admirable than Live Earth, despite being on a smaller scale. Live Earth I had problems with. It was a good cause, of that there can be no doubt but surely a concert in Wembley stadium with all the energy use that implies cannot be the best way to go about earth saving. On NTV last night they continued with the idea of a concert as awareness raising but taking a much different tack employing many of Japan’s numerous ‘talento’ in the process for a worthy cause.

The premise I watched was a challenge to put on a proper rock concert (albeit only one song) entirely from human power. I admired this approach, it neatly highlighted how much energy it takes to put on one dimly lit song and using humans to generate that electricity was a clever sense of ‘just desserts’ for our wasteful species. The first challenge was to charge the microphones: each mic required two batteries and for eight people that became 16 batteries. The batteries were charged by harnessing the energy output by someone running. This thus required 16 talento to run a certain distance to get the power needed. Then the task was to generate enough wattage to make small bulbs light up and give power to the electric guitars for the during of one song, specially written for the event and performed by Johnny’s band, Kanjani8. Around 50 furiously cycling talento would be needed for this job: the exercise bikes hooked up to cables were on a platform and the various volunteers ready at their bikes. At the count they began to cycle fast as the band began to play. This continued for four minutes until the song was over and talento power had been exhausted. It was a rousing success and followed by a long documentary section explaining the creation and exploitation of oil in the world.

Although slightly all for show, it at least demonstrated how difficult it is to perform normal functions without natural resources and how much we would find ourselves adrift if they were gone. It was gone in a moment though as normal service resumed with full stage lighting again – much like the moment darkness at Live Earth. For all I could criticise this reversion back to the norm it was at least an effective way to raise the idea of eco awareness. It stuck in my mind at least as I instinctively then turned off all the unnecessary lights in my apartment and certainly a better way of showing the need to be both eco aware and careful with our resources than Live Earth. Even with all this though I couldn’t help think about Shibuya and Shinjuku, and like all these awareness raising efforts there still remained the niggling thought that if they really cared, they would turn those two cities off.

A slightly darker entry today. Although my blog is chiefly music aimed, I feel that can just cover up the darker side of Japan and the shocking issues that occasionally bubble to the surface.

Japan can seem like such a safe country, deceptively so in fact, and you wander around happily thinking little ever happens until something brings your mind back to the darker side. That side that labels the frequent ‘People Accidents’ on Chuo line, Chuocides, or the continuing sad tale of Lindsey Hawker and now today, a man goes psycho in Akihabara with a knife. Why? According to Police he was simply ’sick and tired of life’.

(more…)

Shinkou Shuukyou Gakudan NoGoD @ Shibuya O-East

Shinkou Shuukyou Gakudan NoGoD, or simply ‘NoGoD’ are one of the more promising new visual bands to emerge in recent year along with heidi. and Megamasso. Despite my love for both those former bands though, NoGoD have something quite special that marks them a little apart from the rest: their melodies are so tight and they comprise five incredibly talented young musicians. Listening to them on CD reveals their ability to craft fun, memorable songs and Dancho’s superb vocal skills but live they really are something else.

O-East was comparatively empty but I must admit I was a little surprised to discover NoGoD had a oneman at O-East to begin with. I knew they were becoming popular but not that popular. O-East is quite a sizeable venue and it is a fairly cavernous modern venue with a high ceiling so that a half full room feels very empty. I can’t say I minded too much as the lack of people meant I could find myself a position about 1m from the stage in prime spot for dancing.

New Religion,Cult Band

l-r: Inzargi (vo), Gou (ba), Ryohei (gu)

So my days off came around once more and it was time for another live. This time it was Megamasso with the bizarrely titled concert, “Chelly of 14 Water Tanks: WinteRR ties 2 SprinGG’. Megamasso have been around for a couple of years, since Ryohei left his former band, Ayabie. They have gathered a large following partly due to the individual members’ popularity pre-Megamasso and partly because they are just simply a damn good band. Inzargi is a highly accomplished vocalist and everything they produce sounds so polished. It was interesting at the concert that so many men were in attendance; there were more males at Megamasso than there had been at any of my recent concerts combined. Megamasso are not the manliest of bands either: they are borderline oshare and I would have thought the cool metal sounds of Merry or the Plastic Tree likeness of heidi would attract more guys. Obviously, I was wrong.

WinteRR ties 2 Sakura Season

In this world there are three types of swindlers:
Those who defraud other peoples’ money, Shirosagi
Those who deceive others by manipulating their feelings, Akasagi
And then, using the Shirosagi and the Akasagi as his only source of food, is the ultimate swindler in history.
A swindler of swindlers. His name is…Kurosagi
~opening to Kurosagi drama~

I have been anticipating the Kurosagi movie for quite a while. Yamashita Tomohisa or Yamapi took the lead role and he has been fairly central in my love of Jpop for the past four years (I blame him and Kimura Takuya for giving me an interest in Johnny’s). Kurosagi was also one of my favourite dramas of recent years; with tight, exciting storylines, a theme of revenge that took some cues from Shakespeare and a sweet semi-love story. Kurosagi was another drama that was originally a manga, although this time one that was not quite so well known, especially among western audiences.

That I loved the drama though also gave me reason to approach the movie with trepidation. I wanted Yamapi to do well. I wanted NEWS (whose song has become tied to the movie) to do well. Moreover I did not want the drama to be ruined. I have now seen Kurosagi and it was a … strange experience. I really wanted to love this film. I wanted it so much to be a great ending to the drama but alas even my undying love for Yamapi cannot blind me to its flaws…

As a film it seemed all over the place with subplots that wove in unexpectedly and unexplored potential of genuine conflict between Kurosagi and his mentor/boss/enemy, Katsuragi (Yamazaki Tsutomu). Instead it felt like an extended episode with some tacky references to Julius Caesar, as if the comparisons already being drawn between Yamazaki (Caesar) and Kurosagi (Brutus) were not already obvious. The line ‘Et tu Brute’ was said at least three times. Horikita Maki and Aikawa Show were vastly underused. Maki appeared in small cameos simply as the annoying neighbour rather than a force of conscience as she had been in the drama. The attempt to give her a plotline revolved around her University friends putting on a play of Caesar, except that all we saw was the set they built, upon which Kurosagi and Katsuragi played out their drama. Aikawa Show meanwhile, as the Police Officer, Kashima was relegated to making commentary on how they needed to catch Kurosagi but were failing. There was little of the tension between Kurosagi and Kashima that we enjoyed in the series. As for the actual plot… it was based over a complex swindle that went wrong when a death inconvenienced it and then right again. Again the potential of this death to reveal a grave baddie was not explored and Kurosagi essentially went unchallenged. He was smart, ok, but unchallenged. I shouldn’t reveal too many details but suffice to say the resolution of this story made me cringe.

Yet despite all this criticism I enjoyed the film. I put aside plot for the focus on characters and some of the scenes were beautiful. The female ex-love interest of Katsuragi was particularly interesting, as was watching the pain in Kurosagi’s face as he realised he couldn’t kill Katsuragi. The theme of betrayal came up time and time again and for some reason one could empathise with Kurosagi as he found it impossible to put the katana closer to Katsuragi’s neck. I though Yamapi did very well in his role and the cinematography was stunning. It contained some beautiful aerial views of Tokyo and Shibuya in particular. One shot over Roppongi gave the city a distinct LA feel. I want to rewatch with subs in case I missed anything. The basic plot criticisms will still stand but I feel I should give the film a proper subtitled watch before making a final judgement (on a personal note though I am astonished as to how much of the film I could understand without subs!). It is a great film for Yamapi watching though. There are some awesomely funny moments, including Yamapi speaking English (that made me so very happy) and watching some of his more clever tricks pull off. He is also gorgeous throughout: I think this has influenced my enjoyment a great deal and I will probably buy the DVD when it comes out!

So there we have it. Kurosagi the movie: for fans of Kurosagi or Yamapi only.
I was right to feel some of that fear…

Meanwhile… the cinema, Cine Front was a nice auditorium and I have heard the only one resembling a cinema back home. Others don’t have concessions stands! After a day of work I felt super peckish so bought an ice cream filled crepe which was tasty for a cinema-bought crepe. When I first received it though it was rock-hard; if I hit someone it could have done some damage! I also discovered an interesting quirk of Japanese cinemas: they sell movie merchandise! For 600 yen I bought the Kurosagi program, a delightful memory of the whole drama (for me) and a Yamapi photobook.

A couple of keitai photos of the book:

Much manic laughter ensues….

The following video by popular boyband, 関ジャ二∞/Kanjani8 is on my musical radar somewhat at the moment. I confess to rather liking 関ジャニ∞ although their spate of recent releases have left me cold. They are meant to be the Johnny’s Enka band and are still releasing under the enka label, Teichiku although their music has dramatically changed from those early ‘modern enka’ releases. I personally tend to think of 関ジャニ∞ as the ‘Comedy Band’ in Johnny’s Entertainment; the majority of their songs and videos are lighthearted and comical with a certain amount of stupidity to them.

The imaginatively titled, Wahaha is a great example of this comical attitude becoming such an irresistibly catchy song that a mere listen is banishing the gathering clouds over Tokyo from my mind. It is the kind of song that you probably shouldn’t like so much (it is a little childish in sound) but the sunny appearance of the boys, especially in the promotional video is grabbing me. It gets under your skin like crazy! I believe the appropriate word is ‘Argh’, except this song makes me very happy so I don’t want to berate myself for liking it.

I should probably add as a disclaimer though that I do genuinely adore the 関ジャニ’s ‘colleague’ band, NEWS. Despite being a Jpop and a fan of the Japanese boybands there is still a certain amount of embarrassment associated with 関ジャニ∞. There should not be really; they are a rather fun bunch of mental Osakans but then again their releases in 2006 such as the dire Osaka Obaachan Rock means they did shoot themselves in the feet a little.

Track listing:

1. Wahaha
2. Dare yori ga suki dakara
3. Wahaha (Instrumental)

Y1000 plus the shame of taking that horrible CD cover to the cash register! Good song, bad cover art!