Strange Combinations

One thing Japan is really good at is combining things that should never be combined, like potatoes and pizza. This video clip from an old episode of the children’s show “Kamen Rider” it an excellent example. It has a mash-up of a starfish and Hitler. Yes, It’s “Starfish Hitler”!

See Kamen rider fight against an evil Starfish Nazi plot, and find rocks with swastikas on them!

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Cyborg 009

Here’s some pictures of some really cool lockers in Sendai station. When I first went on vacation to Japan five or six years ago they were originally in the main part of the station. Now they are regulated to the walkway between train platforms. It shows characters from the manga Cyborg 009.

The creator of this manga is Shotaro Ishinomori, who hails from the nearby town of Ishinomaki. He also created Kamen Rider and the Power Rangers among other famous works. Anyways this was originally made to celebrate an aniversary. Here’s a couple closer shots of it.

If you like this stuff, there is also the Ishinomori Manga Museum in Ishinnomaki. I went there a few years ago and it was really cool. The building is shaped like a UFO.

It’s filled with all kinds of stuff. I took a photo of the Kikaider statue they had there.

You’re actually not supposed to take photos inside, but I didn’t know because the signs were in Japanese (that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it). Here’s a link to the Manga Museum website.

Stamp Rally

A few weeks ago 7/11 had a sort of stamp rally involving the popular kids show Kamen Rider. Every store had a different stamp so kids would have to bother their parents to take them all over. If you collected enough you could get prizes.

I thought the ink stamps were really nice, and me being basically a big kid, I decided I would get one too.

I wonder what the clerk at the store thought when he saw a 33 year old foreigner getting a Kamen Rider stamp. Here’s a scan of the whole collection. I only managed to get one, because I’m old and busy, not like kids.