Fist of the North Star!

I was a a local toy store and I spotted a flyer for some new Fist of the North Star figures. Fist of the North Star real name in Japan is Hokuto no Ken. It’s a really popular manga and anime. It’s popular all over the world. I’m a really big fan. The story is kind of like the movie Road Warrior, but with lots of Kung Fu. This year is the 25th anniversary so they came out with these figures.

In the picture they show one of Zeed’s henchmen, Kenshiro (the hero), Rei, and Jagi. Later in the year they’re going to come out with Toki, Shin, and Raoh figures. You can see they’re super poseable.

They look really awesome! The henchman figure had a special feature too. In Fist of the North Star, Kenshiro uses a special martial art that works by pressing Tsubo (pressure points) on the body. By push these he can make bad guys literally explode. The henchman figure can do just that.

Pretty cool. Yes, this series can be a little gory. What’s hard to believe is that this series is for children in Japan. Yes, standards are a little different over here. I posted a video of Kenshiro kicking so bad guy ass. Don’t worry, no exploding heads appear in this clip, just punching (lot’s of punching!).

Nice Hair!

I was walking around Kakuda recently and I spied this hair salon.

What was painted in the front window redefines the word awesome.

It is possible that Kakuda is in a different dimension of time and space.

Bikkuriman

Bikkuriman is a long running series of collectible stickers. They appeared in 1977 when candy company Lotte combined them with a chocolate wafer cookie. Each sticker has a picture of a hero or monster on it. Pretty much every person in Japan under the age of 35 has bought some of these stickers at some point in their life. Yurie even said she collected them when she was young. So far these stickers have inspired several animation series, lots of comics, and quite a few video games.I saw this at 7-11 and decided to buy one to check it out. The cookie was quite good, very nice chocolate and a few nuts mixed in. The sticker I got was some kind of wolf creature.

His name is Master P! He looks pretty bad-ass. Of course I got an extra cool hologram too.

Kakuda Tanabata Festival

On Thursday was the Kakuda Tanabata festival. It’s probably the biggest festival in Kakuda. It’s held every year on August 14th. There was all kinds of food and games to play. They also had a mikoshi out as well.

A mikoshi is a portable shrine. There was children pulling it and some riding on it playing drums and flutes. You can see it in the video I took below.

They also had some rock bands playing. One was a Red Hot Chili Peppers cover band. While I was listening to them I could figure out what language the singer was using. Maybe he didn’t know the lyrics. I took a video of the Enka singer they had there. Enka is like old fashion Japanese pop music. Some people call it Japan’s version of country music. Check it out in the video.

SIDE NOTE

By the way this is officially post number 100! Yes, somehow I managed to do 100 posts. So far I’ve posted 246 pictures, 10 of my own videos, had over 2800 hits, and 182 comments. Thanks everyone for coming and visiting my blog every day.

Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea

The new Studio Ghibli film came out recently. I haven’t seen it yet, because it’s all in Japanese, but I have seen lots of ads for it. It’s about a little fish who is rescued by a little boy. It looks very cute. It seems to be very popular with kids over here. I can tell by the neighborhood children sing the theme song loudly as they walk by my house. You can listen to it below.

Guts!

I found this interesting drink at the super market.

I couldn’t resist buying it, because it was so funny. You’ll notice up close it says “For a man who has passion”. Simply hilarious!

Not only is it gutsy, it’s also a little sexist! Being a man of passion, I had to taste what Guts! was all about. I am unhappy to report that the flavour is neither gutsy nor manly. In fact it is a rather girly pineapple flavour! Shame on you Guts!

Street Fighter 4

On Monday while I was in Sendai for work I went to Namco Land and finally got to play Street Fighter 4! I have to say the game looks amazing, almost like it’s drawn with water colors. It of course played very well too.

Each cabinet has only one set of controls. All multiplayer is handled by network and Internet. I did OK when I played against the CPU, but when I was forced to play against another player I got trounced. I was kind of embarrassing, since I used to be so good at Street Fighter 2. Thank God I couldn’t see my opponent. My only gripe with the game is that it forces you to play against human opponents. All of the menus were in Japanese so there might be a CPU only selection, but I would never know. I needed time to practice the new stuff, but that was impossible to do while fight against someone who has already fought in 40 battles. Just a small gripe. I feel luck to be able to play it a long time before any one in North America can though. One of the benefits of being in Japan.

Tanabata

The Tanabata festival is Sendai’s most famous festival. Tanabata is when two stars Orihime (Vega) and Hikoboshi (Altair), the princess and prince, get to meet. The legend says that the two fell in love and got married, but they got too distracted and forgot their duties and then were forcefully separated. The king of the heavens would only allow them to meet on once a year August 7th.

To commemorate  the event Sendai hangs thousand of the special Tanabata decorations (as seen in the photo above) all around town. Some pedestrian streets are filled with them, you can’t even see more than a few feet in front of you there is so many. They also have fireworks and a parade during the festival. Unfortunately I only got to see the decorations. Next year when I live closer to Sendai, I will check out more events.

Perfume

I’ve been enjoying this album “Game” by Perfume for a couple months now. It’s a really fun and catchy techno pop album. They mostly use old synth sounds to make their songs. It’s become really popular over here, becoming the first techno group to have number one single and the first techno band to have a number one album in 25 years. The last one was Yellow Magic Orchestra in 1983. I have to say it’s one of my all time favorite Japanese albums. I’ve posted a couple music videos so you can hear what they sound like and see their cool dance moves.

Good Deal!!

I went to Village Vanguard yesterday and they had a basket full of Famicom games. In the basket was this….

Yes, Super Mario Bros. 3. While this game is not rare by any means, it is rare to see it at any price below 3000 yen. So at 1198 yen it was a steal. There was a bonus though.

It had this game cello wrapped to the back of it. It’s the Magic of Scheherazade a legenday action RPG. What an incredible bonus. VIllage Vanguard must be crazy! On the top of the Super Mario 3 cart some kid wrote his name.

One Watanabe Takumi. He must have really liked this game because he also wrote his name on the back too in large characters. No one’s gonna steal his game! Well Takumi, It’s mine now.