I just caught the last few minutes of a new anime on late-night Japanese TV called PLATONIC CHAIN. What made me stop is the look of the show, which is something I’ve never seen. The animation is computer generated, but they’ve used cell-shading to give it a cartoony look, even though the characters and movements are very life-like. It seems to follow the misadventures of two kogals (one is even all tanned with the blond hair, almost yamamba-style). Don’t know much else since I only caught the end, but I’ll try watching it again next week.

Yuko was diagnosed today with influenza. It’s a big problem right now in Japan, there’s a big warning, and it finally hit home. The strange thing is that I was sure that I would be the one to bring it home, since I’m in contact with so many kids every week, and a good number of them have been absent in the past few weeks because of it. The thing with influenza is that it’s highly contagious (Yuko could have gotten it from anywhere), and I just hope that I’ll be able to avoid it.

I’ve already talked about Japan’s infamous 2 Channel message board in this log, and here’s a link to an article that appeared in today’s edition of the JAPAN TIMES. My wife used to check it quite often for discussions on North Korea.

Yes, believe it, a new issue of GEISHA is out! Today being a holiday and all, I took the entire evening to create a new issue, and it’s just been freshly uploaded. As always, I played around with the shape a bit. This is is the street issue, and I hope you like it. Click on the “G5″ icon at the bottom of the page to launch it.

I just want to add that for users of the Safari browser (like me), the pages don’t appear as they should. There’s a bug that seems to ignore the fact that I’m telling it not to put any borders. No worries though as this is still a beta of the browser, so I’m sure it’ll be fixed by the time the 1.0 ships. It is therefore recommended to view GEISHA in IE, so that it presents itself as intended.

Tomorrow is a national holiday, and I think I’m going to go check out the Muji store in Yurakucho (the biggest one in Tokyo, maybe even in Japan, it includes a gallery and a cafe) to check the without thought 4 exhibit that takes a look at design work by Naoto Fukasawa. Looks very interesting.

After weeks of terribly cold weather here in Tokyo, today is just amazing. We’re supposed to get temperatures up to 16, and it really does feel like a beautiful Spring day. I have all of the windows in the apartment open, and put out our futons outside to air them out. Feels great. I’m just hoping this kind of temperature is going to last.

I’ve got my iTunes on shuffle right now, and as I’m writing this, Fantastic Plastic Machine’s “Beautiful Day” just popped up. How true.

SUBVITAMINE: Beautiful pictures, with a very nice and simple way to view them. I really need to learn some Flash.

A new issue of the excellent webzine THIS IS A MAGAZINE is out. Issue 8 is the beautiful losers issue. Next issue will be out in March.

Reminds me that I have to get to work on a new issue of GEISHA.

Phil Brown directs TV commercials, but the kind that you actually like watching. Some of his Ikea ones are especially funny. Check out his website to see a few of them. The site’s design isn’t bad either.

You can see the new video by Bran Van 3000, which features Momus, for the song “Shopping” by going following this link. I haven’t heard this album, but I did like BV3000′s first release, which came out 5-6 years ago I think.

The picture that you see today (030207) shows the way in to A Bathing Ape’s Milo store, which is located under BAPE Cuts in Aoyama. As you go in (I’ll have a picture of the doors on Monday, which are mirrored, with a huge Milo in the design, and slide open) you walk down these stairs that have rows of little Milos on both sides (you can see the reflection of the other side over the glass). As you reach the bottom, you enter a circular room, with a huge merry-go-round in the middle featuring Milos riding horses (like the doll you see in the picture, but huge). There is a circular seating around the merry-go-round, and a few display cases with dolls, pins, keychains, and a few shirts. Definitely a store to check out if you’re in Tokyo.

This is my latest desktop. I’ve been using these monthly Chappie desktops for over a year now. You can get them here. And for those wondering, the devil mask worn by the person on the left refers to the Setsubun holiday which took place last Monday. You throw some beans while wearing the mask (which you can buy as a set at your friendly neighborhood 7/11) to get rid of evil and welcome happiness.

The first of the new Matrix anime shorts is now available online. Directed by Mahiro Maeda, it’s called “The Second Renaissance – Part 1″, and it starts to tell the story of how the robots came to confront the humans. Very good stuff, and I can’t wait for the DVD that will contain all of the shorts, which will be released in June.

Sorry for the lack of a new picture today, but I had to leave home really early this morning (well, early for me anyways, meaning around 10) to go to Shibuya to take care of my visa renewal. It’s something I always dread, as it never goes smoothly, and is was of course the same this year. After waiting 30 minutes for my number to come up, I was then told that I “of course” needed quite a few more documents, which weren’t indicated anywere. Aaargghh. It was still a good day though as I was then off to meet Jason in Aoyama for lunch. I had some time to spare before meeting up with him, so I walked over to Harajuku, checked out Cat Street (very fashionable area with lots of very hip stores), and then made my way to the Aoyama Book Center, a place I’d wanted to check out for a while now. You gotta love a place that stacks all the cool design magazines near the entrance, catching your eye as you walk on. I picked up a few back issues of MINIMIX that I was missing. Then it was off to meet Jason and have a lunch at a nice place called 66 Modern, where I had a delicious pork donburi (a donburi is a meal on rice). I still had a bit of time before heading out to work, so we stopped at A Bathing Ape’s Milo store, which is more of a design showcase – and an amazing showcase at that, really something you have to see – than a regular shop (they only sell a few figures of Milo, and some baby sized t-shirts), and Final Home. Final Home has a cool concept where all the clothes are designed with a sort of netting inside, that lets you pile stuff to keep yourself warm, sort of like what homeless people do. I was intrigued by this 3-way shoe they had that easily converts to a sandal, without removing anything. I wants me some of those.

I stopped at a record store on my way back from work tonight and was very pleasantly surprised to see that the new Momus album, OSKAR TENNIS CHAMPION, was out. Released on Quattro here in Japan, it comes in a very nice digipak casing featuring beautiful artwork by Florian Perret (the graphic you see on top does not do it justice), as well as 2 bonus tracks, one of them being an amazing remix of the track “Beowulf” by France’s Digiki. I’m in the middle of listening the album right now, and can definitely say that I’m enjoying it quite a bit. “The Last Communist” is already a favorite track.