This is like everywhere..

The story of Hello Kitty rediscovering its japanese roots (even though she is an english girl according to her bio)  but the most interesting quote is that Sanrio themselves don’t seem to know why Kitty is so popular…wooot?

Even for Japanese fans, Hello Kitty, associated initially with elementary school-age girls, is wooing newcomers, with boxer shorts with glittery cat designs targeting young men and lingerie with cat-inspired lacing for adult women.

“We have to keep changing so people won’t get bored,” Sanrio manager Kazuo Tohmatsu said. “Ideas we would have thought out of the question 20 years ago are perfectly fine today.”

Sanrio officials acknowledge they don’t know for sure why Hello Kitty has proved so popular. But the absence of the mouth, a key feature for reading emotions, is believed to be one reason, allowing onlookers to add their own interpretations to the character.

For those of us who know Tokyo’s famous Akihabara district (Electronic town) and love it for what it is, and all the craziness, cosplay, anime and whatever else we think is cool, screwy, funny and dorky all at the same time, a tragedy emerged there just a day ago.

Taken from Patrick Macias blog, the summary (worth checking out in more detail) is as follows taken from his blog.

The growing tension and push-and-pull between the cops, the normal people, and the otaku in Akihabara was shaping up to be a grand saga, complete with flash mobs and organized protests. But now, all of that has been preempted by some loser who just wanted to kill people.

(Here’s the part where I have to cover my ass by saying that I have friends who work in the area and who visit that very spot where the shit hit quite regularly, including me. So no, it’s not some abstract GTAIV sandbox where this all took place and I understand what it means when real human beings die real horribly.)

Meta Tame calls it the AKB Massacre. This is tragic because real people died and got injured because some insane person decided to go there, crash his car into people and then take out a knife and stab people before being taken down by police. It was said he announced his intention to kill to the public via the Internet days before.

Then, from the morass of it all comes an internet mob hunt against those that were less than respectful infront of news cameras… as posted in Japanprobe amongst other things and are now being hunted down by japanese internet mobs in more acts of hatefulness and other stupid things with posts and forum discussions debating the pro’s and con’s of effectively lynching innocent, yet arguably very stupid people. Were they stupid to do what they did? Yes, do they deserve to be lynched? I don’t remember reading in the constitution of any "democratic" country that you may be lynched for being stupid. As was commented, two wrongs does not make a right.

For more news related information check out the Times.

A quick guide/tip to overcoming the Video Sanriotown limit.

So you may be asking, why did I not post any videos recently, since I usually post a lot of videos.

Simply put, I ran out of space! I guess I didn’t realize but I used up hundreds of megabytes of upload space so I cannot post any new videos! The solution, open a new account! It’s free of course!

So I opened up a new video account here to see my new videos of course! If I tag them all right, they should all link to each other going forward, let’s hope and see!

Here’s my first video entry with the new free account, DOH!

Just eight years ago, Komomo was a Japanese teenager living in Beijing, riding her bicycle around the city and playing pool with her friends on weekends.

Now she is a geisha in Kyoto, Japan’s ancient capital, a proudly elegant member of a centuries-old but fading profession of female entertainers celebrated for their beauty, skill at traditional dance and music, and witty conversation.

Unlike the old days when girls would become geisha through personal connections, 23-year-old Komomo (Little Peach) took her first steps towards the vocation by e-mail.

As Komomo recounted in A Geisha’s Journey, a book of essays and photographs by Naoyuki Ogino due out in May, she had no way of learning about the remote and secretive geisha world until she found a website run by Koito, a Kyoto geisha who also ran an okiya, or geisha house (www.e-koito.com) .

“I wanted to know more about my own country and that’s why I chose this world,” says Komomo. “I wanted to make Japanese history and customs a part of my daily life, not just wearing a kimono occasionally but every day and living life as they did in the old days.”

But this seemed impossible until she found Koito’s website, one of the first written by a working geisha.

“I was so excited that I e-mailed Koito-san right away, telling her my dream of becoming a maiko, an apprentice geisha, but that I didn’t know how to begin,” she says.

The two corresponded for three years, until Komomo graduated from junior high school. Despite opposition from her parents, who wanted her to take a more conventional path of university and marriage, the 15-year-old headed for Kyoto. “I thought she wouldn’t last,” says Kimiko Nasu, Komomo’s mother, who was visiting her only child. “She has a strong will, and in the geisha world you have to make yourself disappear.”

Komomo moved into Koito’s okiya in Miyagawa-cho, a cluster of narrow, stone-paved streets lined with wooden houses in central Kyoto. Her first weeks were spent learning to greet people with polite bows, wear the kimono and speak in the soft Kyoto dialect.

“In the first year, it seemed I was scolded all the time. That was my job, to be scolded,” says Komomo, who stands barely 1.5 metres tall.

“At evening gatherings, no mistakes are permitted, and this isn’t something you can just learn suddenly. It has to be driven home, as part of your daily life, so you won’t do anything embarrassing in front of the guests.”

Each demanding day begins with lessons in dance, singing, tea ceremony and music, and continues with parties - the geisha’s real work - from six until midnight.

With only one day off every two or three months, Komomo at first sometimes longed for the life of an ordinary teenager, able to see movies on a whim. But she only thought of quitting briefly, during her first two weeks, when another girl decided to leave.

“I realised then what my true feelings were. I thought, since I decided to do this, I might as well try really hard.”

Wearing an elaborate maiko kimono with long sleeves and a wide, trailing sash, and learning to walk in the outfit without bumping into anything or anyone, especially during dance performances, was hard. Komomo also forgot rules and lost hair ornaments.

“In our okiya we didn’t cry that much,” she says. “My time in China was actually much harder at first.”

Komomo’s life overseas - she was born in Mexico and spent some years in Japan before moving to China - has helped her break the ice with guests. But there were problems.

“At first I had some friction with ordinary life in Japan, and I was a bit cheeky. Here they say it’s best to act as if you know nothing, but actually be really clever.

“Every so often, I got conceited from all the attention, but somebody soon brought me down to earth,” Komomo says of her five years as a maiko.

“It was actually refreshing to finally become a geisha because you’re not forced to be `on’ for 24 hours a day.”

She won’t say what she earns, but bystanders at the theatre where she took part in a dance performance say she is popular. She owns a house, and its main room has a huge flat-screen TV and new model Macintosh computer.

“I was told when I began that I’m not an incredible beauty so I should try to always keep a smile on my face. Beauties get work easily, but I need to work at it,” she says.

She confessed to worries about the future. There are no pensions for geisha and they are not permitted to marry, though in the past some were supported as mistresses. Some even became single mothers.

Although Komomo says she wants children, she has only been a geisha for two years and hasn’t thought about the future yet. “I don’t even have a boyfriend,” she says. “I’m too busy to meet anyone, and the guests at the parties are my father’s age.”

Of greater concern is the fate of the geisha world itself.

Geisha numbers in Japan peaked at 80,000 in 1928, but now only 1,000 are left. One of the six geisha districts in tradition-bound Kyoto has folded due to lack of business.

The economic woes of the 1990s slashed the expense accounts of business executives who were once the mainstays of geisha, while politicians shunned lavish spending after scandals.

A dinner with a geisha present can cost around 80,000 yen (HK$6,000) a person, depending on the venue and the number of geisha.

Another problem is that men today tend to prefer less formal entertainment such as karaoke or hostess bars.

Many people, including Komomo, say the geisha world needs to open up more, and they say the internet is an ideal tool.

“In the old days, people only got to know geisha through introductions, but now people rely on the internet to gather information,” says Kyoko Aihara, a geisha expert and author.

“Miyagawa-cho has introduced themselves on the net. They’re more flexible than some of the more traditional geisha areas, they want people to have fun - and this is working for them.”

In a move to gently ease neophytes into the geisha world, Koito, who trained Komomo, runs an elegant bar on the first floor of her okiya where guests can meet geisha for relatively inexpensive prices.

“History changes, so if you just offer the same thing it’s no good. The service you provide has to match the age,” she says. “We need to keep providing things the world needs. If we’re not needed anymore, all we can do is disappear.”

Japan called for calm but braced for trouble with tight security on Friday, as low-key protests began ahead of its leg of the Olympic torch relay, following emotional scenes at other venues around the world.The global torch relay ahead of the Beijing Games in August has provoked protests against China’s rights record, especially in Tibet, as well as patriotic rallies by Chinese who say the west has vilified Beijing unfairly.

The flame is meant to transmit a message of peace and friendship, but its journey has been largely turned into a political event and the torch has been granted the sort of security usually reserved for state leaders.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura called for calm ahead of Saturday’s relay in the central Japanese city of Nagano, a former Winter Olympics site.

“I hope this torch relay will take place peacefully in an atmosphere where everyone can celebrate,” he told a news conference in Tokyo.

In Hanoi, Vietnam state-run radio reported that a US citizen of Vietnamese origin had been expelled on accusations of planning anti-Chinese protests at next week’s Olympics torch relay in Ho Chi Minh City.

Reclusive North Korea, for its part, vowed to “astonish the world” with pomp, ceremony and safety during its stage of the relay on Monday, Chinese state media reported.

“North Korea has fully prepared an Olympic Games torch relay in Pyongyang that will be high-quality, outstanding, safe and successful,” China’s official Xinhua news agency cited a North Korean official as saying.

The flame’s arrival in Nagano was greeted by right wing activist trucks roaming the streets, displaying hugh Japanese flags and blaring “go away”.

Yellow T-shirt-clad supporters of the Falun Gong religious group, outlawed by Beijing, marched down a Nagano street with a brass band and yellow banners.

Dozens of people carrying pro-Tibet and Japanese flags later marched near the City Hall, blaring “Nagano City, cancel the torch relay now” as two vans of riot police trailed them.

“It’s an embarrassment for Japan. To host the torch relay is the same as supporting oppression in Tibet,” said Atsushi Matsuoka, 37, who worked for a publishing company.

Kunihiko Shinohara, head of Nagano’s relay organising committee, tried to reassure ordinary Japanese who would be taking part in the relay. “I know some of you are worried, but we will do our best to ensure safety,” he told them.

The torch will be guarded by up to 4,000 police, media said, with riot police and another 100 regular officers set to shield torch-bearers in two rows, shrouding the runners from sight.

They will be joined by two Chinese “flame attendants”, although Japan has made it clear that their participation in security would not be welcome after criticism of the paramilitary guards as heavy-handed in protecting the torch elsewhere.

Spectators will be barred from the opening and closing ceremonies on Saturday in Nagano.

“The people of Nagano were so looking forward to cheering on the relay, but everyone is disappointed because no one will be able to see it,” said Nagano taxi driver Michie Higuchi.

About 2,000 Chinese students from across Japan were expected to travel to Nagano carrying Chinese and Japanese flags and wearing matching T-shirts to show support for the relay.

More than 560,000 Chinese nationals live in Japan, official figures show, making them the second largest group of non-Japanese after Koreans. Many are students.

Pro-Tibet groups were to hold a prayer service early on Saturday for all those killed in recent unrest in Tibet before the relay on Saturday at the historic Zenkoji temple, which earlier withdrew as the kick-off site for the event.

The pro-Tibet groups would then congregate for a peaceful protest near the relay.

China has called the global torch relay a “journey of harmony” but the flame has become a magnet for anti-China protests. In London, Paris and San Francisco, torch bearers were jostled by anti-Beijing protesters as they ran.

The demonstrations stirred nationalistic sentiment in China, and prompted calls from some Chinese to boycott foreign businesses. In the last leg in Canberra, more than 10,000 Chinese Australians staged a huge pro-Beijing rally.

The International Olympic Committee’s athletes’ commission said in a statement it was saddened the torch relay had ‘not had the peaceful passage it deserves”.

Ronald McDonald is teaching us how to play Dance Dance Revolution, a bit weird ?? It’s funny to watch.

TOKYO — Hello Kitty may already loom large in the hearts of millions around the world, but now the bubble-headed feline can boast of being just plain big, too.Japan’s Sanrio Co. unveiled a 2.5 meter-tall (eight foot-tall) monument to its popular character at its flagship store in Tokyo’s bustling Shinjuku district.

“Tokyo is one of the biggest cities in the world, so Kitty must be here and must be big,” said Sanrio official Shuichi Chimura. “She is really loved worldwide. This way, every person in the world can come here and see and touch Hello Kitty.”

The statue is the largest Hello Kitty figure in the world, the company said in a claim that could not immediately be independently verified.

Hello Kitty — one of mascot-obsessed Japan’s biggest hits as a toy character — is often seen on lunch boxes, jewelry and many other accessories for girls and young women. Last month, Sanrio also unveiled a line of goods targeting young men.

Mirai Nagasu delighted the crowd — and herself — with a refreshing and entertaining show at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships on Saturday night. Oh yeah, the 14-year-old became the second-youngest woman to win the U.S. title, too.

That other mighty mite, Olympic gold medalist Tara Lipinski, ended up doing pretty well for herself.

When her scores flashed, Nagasu looked at the screen with curiosity. When she heard she’d won, she said, “What?” then clapped her hands to her face and broke into a grin.

“I am very excited and speechless for words,” Nagasu said.

Nagasu is too young to go to the world championships in March; skaters now must be 15 by the previous July 1, and she won’t even turn 15 until April. Rachael Flatt, who finished second, missed the cutoff by three weeks and will have to sit worlds out, too. Ashley Wagner finished third, and she is eligible for worlds.

Figure skating has been in the doldrums the last few years, searching for a new star ever since Michelle Kwan and Sasha Cohen decided to try new things. Well, Nagasu appears to fill that bill.

She’s a breath of fresh air, playing on her youth and size — she’s 4-foot-11 — instead of trying to be something she’s not. Skating to “Coppelia,” the story of a doll that comes to life, she was absolutely charming.

She fell on her opening jump, a double axel, but she very quickly regrouped.

“The fall on the double axel was like a kick in the butt,” she said. “After that, I was like, `Attack!”‘

She performed perfectly in character, stiffly holding her arms out to the side like a lifeless doll. As she was wound up, she jerked her arms and her torso, looking like a doll coming to life. When she bounced upward, the audience laughed.

Fully alive, she danced across the ice with light and airy footwork. She landed six triple jumps, three in combination, and showed great stamina by picking up speed as the program went along.

Perhaps most impressive is that this is the first time Nagasu has competed a 4-minute program. She spent the fall on the junior international circuit, where she only had to do a 3 1/2 -minute routine.

Buddhist monks are donning gold outfits and rapping their way into the minds of young potential Buddhist’s and Buddhist recruits.

Titled the “Tokyo Bouz Collection,” the event featured 40 monks and nuns from eight major Buddhist sects blinged out in gold embroidered robes performing a rap version of a Buddhist sutra. They strutted the runway while chanting prayers and throwing confetti that looked like lotus petals.

Buddhist monks traditionally wear simple black robes, though in order to appeal to the youth, the monks wore multi-layered robes in vibrant colors with gold trim.

As with any Milan, Paris or New York fashion show, the high-profile event at Tsukiji-Honganji was well-attended. According to Sayaka Anma, a young woman in the audience, “Their robes were gorgeous. I was a bit surprised in the beginning, but it was very moving to watch.”

So why is it exactly that the Buddhist monks had to resort to rap music and high fashion to attract more followers?

Buddhism has an extremely strong foundation in Japan as the religion first arrived in the archipelago 1,200 years ago from mainland Asia. In fact, almost three-quarters of Japanese people are registered Buddhists, though the only time they enter a temple is on their death bed.

As a result, the vast majority of Japan’s 75,000 temples are in serious financial trouble. Although funerals are a huge source of income, especially given Japan’s aging population, the temples will have to attract new followers if they wish to thrive beyond the immediate future.

This is not unlike Singapores attempt to attract creativity and being a media hub when the Ministry started rapping.

Article and Interview from the WSJ (but requires you to be a subscriber)

Path to Hello Kitty Began
In Tsuji’s Kindergarten;
Learning From Hallmark

By AYAI TOMISAWA
October 15, 2007

Before World War II, birthday-party gift giving among Japanese children wasn’t widespread. One exception was in kindergartens run by Christian organizations.

That’s where a very young Shintaro Tsuji, now 79 years old, says he got the idea that prompted him, decades later, to found the predecessor company to Sanrio Co., today one of the world’s largest purveyors of gift products. He remains president of Sanrio, which profits from a multitude of products, manufactured by itself or under license and imprinted with its cute cartoonish characters, now numbering about 450 and led by a round-faced white cat known as Hello Kitty.

Thousands of different products bearing the Sanrio characters appear around the world, especially in Japan and elsewhere in Asia and in the U.S. They range from clothing, bedding, jewelry and toys to digital cameras, robots, credit cards and stationery. The Hello Kitty characters also are featured at the Sanrio Puroland multistory indoor theme park in Tokyo.

Mr. Tsuji says he didn’t expect Hello Kitty to become such a runaway hit when she first appeared in 1974. Now he says that without her the company wouldn’t have survived. At Sanrio’s headquarters in Tokyo, Hello Kitty is everywhere — on a floor mat, a phone, a DVD player, and on the neckties of male employees. When Mr. Tsuji sat down for an interview with Ayai Tomisawa, he didn’t have on his usual Hello Kitty tie. But he did wear his Hello Kitty watch.

WSJ: What was your first job and how did you start your company?

Mr. Tsuji: I was a civil servant in the Yamanashi government [a prefecture west of Tokyo] for 11 years. I wound up in the commerce department, where I promoted local products. When I talked about launching my own business, my boss thought I was crazy, because civil-service jobs were well respected, with stable wages. But I was determined.

When I founded Sanrio’s predecessor, Yamanashi Silk Center Co., in 1960, the governor and vice governor of the prefecture and some of my friends invested in it. I was thrilled, but because they invested in me I realized I couldn’t mess up.

WSJ: How did you come up with a gift business?

Mr. Tsuji: When I was a child, giving and receiving gifts on birthdays and Christmas wasn’t common. But I attended a Christian kindergarten, where kids exchanged presents on their birthdays as kids do in Western countries. Also, on Sundays we helped bring things to needy people in the community. I learned that gifts bring smiles to people’s faces, and it made me happy.

Years later when I visited the kindergarten my son attended, the memory came back. I asked the kids if they had ever received a birthday present. Only a few had, from their parents. That’s when I knew a gift business could be successful.

Our first gift business was to paint strawberries onto sandals. Sales took off, and I realized that adding value brings in more bucks. So we asked designers to create characters that we reproduced on stationery items, cups and other products.

WSJ: What was the biggest obstacle?

Mr. Tsuji: The royalties we paid to the designers didn’t come cheap. And if we didn’t own the rights to their designs, competitors might emulate our business and mass produce products more cheaply. So we applied for copyrights, and hired our own designers. Sanrio now has 30, who continue to create characters.

WSJ: Who gave you the best business advice?

Mr. Tsuji: Joyce C. Hall, the founder of Hallmark Cards Inc. Back in the ’60s, the products of our two companies often were placed side by side in department stores in Japan. Exchanging gifts still wasn’t common in Japan, so Hallmark’s greeting-card business wasn’t successful. Mr. Hall invited me to his headquarters in Kansas City in 1969, and praised our gift-giving business. He said that attaching a card to a gift was a more polite thing to do, and asked me to be the distributor of Hallmark cards in Japan.

I was skeptical because a card is just a piece of paper. I doubted it would make a great business. But Mr. Hall convinced me, arguing that unlike gift products, 100 cards could fit in a small box and take up less inventory space. I took a chance, and we began packaging gift products together with cards.

The business wasn’t always profitable. But in the early ’80s, I interviewed elementary-school students again. I asked them if they had received gifts for their birthdays. This time, all of them had, from parents and friends. I realized that exchanging gifts on special occasions had finally taken root in Japanese culture. And I believe that the tie-up with Hallmark contributed to it.

WSJ: What is the toughest problem you face as a manager?

Mr. Tsuji: I have never cut jobs and I probably won’t. But this conviction would contradict the company’s commitment [to shareholders] as a listed company, especially when we are struggling. Our consultants have advised me to cut the payroll to raise operating profit. But a company also has a responsibility to provide a harmonious environment and security for its workers. I believe we can offset our losses by other means.

WSJ: Counterfeit Hello Kitty products from China and elsewhere must be costly to Sanrio. What is the company’s policy on copyright infringement?

Mr. Tsuji: We are taking appropriate measures against product piracy. But we want to do it in a harmonious way. China is still developing copyright legislation that, I believe, will eventually meet international standards.

WSJ: Hello Kitty debuted in 1974, and you can assume its fans are aging as well. Do you plan to target older generations?

Mr. Tsuji: We already have items lined up for older fans. For example, we have nursing-care items, canes, reusable shopping bags and so on. I am hoping that Hello Kitty will continue to appeal to people in all generations.

WSJ: What do you do in your free time?

Mr. Tsuji: I like to write books [16 so far, ranging from fairy tales to business]. I also like to go to our Puroland amusement park and interact with customers.