All the way from Sydney, Australia; a (for me) new online magazine called Pages. Make sure you check it out. It’s really nice, and free :)

GENEVEtokyo have a some new t-shirts in stock. Can’t say that I like them as much as the last batch. I still regret not getting the ZEBRAMAN one, which I saw someone wearing the other day.

As a followup to the new Spring anime TV series post I wrote the other day, here are another 2 shows I’ve had a chance to watch.

GANTZ – I remember seeing a preview for a movie version of this at the beginning of MATRIX REVOLUTIONS last year, and thinking that it looked very cool. I don’t know when the movie is to be released, or how it relates to this new TV series (since the TV series has the tagline “the first stage,” I’m assuming that it acts as a lead-in to the movie). One of the things I really liked was the zooming technique used to tell the story. A lot of the narration is told through the thoughts of characters, and the camera does this by zooming in and out of various characters in an area, and you hear their thoughts. Most of the narration is told through the thoughts of the main character, and they’re hilarious because he’s always thinking (usually insults) the opposite of what he says. As far as the story goes, it’s still hard to say where this is heading. 2 boys die trying to save a homeless person on a train track, and they end up in a room with other people that have also supposedly died. Out the window they can see the Tokyo skyline, but they’re unable to touch the door or window handles (some kind of force prevents it). There’s a huge black sphere in the middle of the room, and at the end of the first episode it communicates with them with a message written in green on it, something telling them that they’re now under its control. Looking forward to the second episode. There are trailers for the show at the official site. Oh, and it’s got a great theme song by Rip Slyme, the only Japanese rap group I can stand.

PANDA-Z: THE ROBONIMATION – I mentioned the Panda-Z merchandise a while back, and now they’ve come up with an anime series. What’s fun here is that they are only 5 minutes shorts, and quite wacky at that. There is no spoken dialogue, and all dialogue appears as text on a black background, sort of like early silent movies. In the second episode, you have one of the pandas trying to eat batteries, with a message constantly scrolling at the bottom saying that batteries are not edible, and later the message starts getting absurd. Everytime he’s unsuccessful, the panda freaks out and gets in a battle pose, which is the exact same bit of animation everytime (part of the joke). Fun stuff.

Patrick gives us a rundown of last night’s Tokyo Fun Party.

For fans of vending machines in Japan, this site if for you. Includes a pic of the infamous used pantie machines (which I’ve yet to see anywhere).

You gotta love Kiiiiiii! They “play songs by… The Wiggles, Chip munks, Roco’s modern life by NIKELODEON, Hooley dooleys, and kiiiiiii!” Go to the MP3 page to find various track links on the big graphic, and start by downloading the “4little Joeys Remix.” From the pics on their site, it looks like their live show would be a blast to see. Their next performance is at the La Boum 2 event at Club Mandala on April 30.

Haven’t made up my mind if this bike from Finnish Helkama is ugly or nice. But it looks functional and the swedish promotion site is really nice: http://www.studentcykel.nu/ (Keep in mind that “FRAM?T” means forward and “BAK?T” means backward in swedish.)

A reader sends me a link to this page that features a couple of new TV spots shot in Tokyo, part of automaker Lincoln-Mercury’s latest ad campaign. Nice overhead shot of the Hachiko crossing in Shibuya at the end.

This is priceless. “Dokaka is the Japanese beatbox artist whose acapella remakes of well-known songs have earned him a worldwide fan base.” Check out his rendition of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

Earlier this week, the headphones on my old iPod, the one I gave to Yuko, finally stopped working (they were in pretty bad shape, even showing their inner wiring) and I took the opportunity to upgrade to the new Apple In-Ear Headphones. At first I just wanted to replace them with the same earbuds as before, but since they’re not selling them alone anymore (you can only buy them with a remote, which you can’t use on the old iPods), I got the in-ear ones for myself, giving Yuko the earbuds from my 40GB iPod. I hadn’t realized exactly what it was they did, thinking it was just an improvement in sound quality, but they actually act as sound dampeners, cutting outside noise. This has been so great for listening on the train, where it often gets so noisy that I have trouble hearing anything (unless blasting the volume, which is definitely not a good thing to do), especially when I’m listening to spoken material, or low-tempo music. Had I known how great they work, I would have upgraded sooner.

As you’ve probably noticed, guest blogger Jesper Larsson has started his latest stint here. He’s quite busy putting things together for the upcoming Tokyo Style in Gothenburg event, but he’ll try to keep us updated on things he’s been discovering/enjoying as often as he can. The posts by him are marked with the following icon:

I’ve been wanting to write a post on self-proclaimed “eroterrorist” Inrin of Joytoy for a while now, but Robert beat me to it. Born in Taiwan but living in Japan since the age of 10 (although Yuko says her Japanese sounds strange and that she often doesn’t understand certain words), she’s become quite the TV celebrity, appearing on various shows, talking about her famous “Inrin pose,” in which she spreads her legs wide open (you can probably find a few examples of the pose at this site, where she’s described as “Asian Sexiest Erotic Model-Actress-Vocalist). Robert mentions her as being an AV star, but I think that’s misleading as she doesn’t do any nudity or sex videos. As for the Joytoy part of her name, it’s the name of her music unit, and you can watch the sexy video for her “Get Some Real Fun” single here. Pictured in this post is the cover of her album.

Patrick finds a bit of info at the Escalator Records website on an upcoming full-length release for Yukari Rotten. The first single has left me quite disapointed (and Patrick also shares that opinion), but I’ll be curious to see what a whole album sounds like, to see if she explores different things on it. The album, NOT DEAD, is to be released May 19, and the site gives this description: “for FANS: ADULT-ANGIE REED-AVENUE D-BABY AMPHETAMINE-BUMBLEBEEZ-CHICKS ON SPEED-CRACK! WE ARE ROCK-CUT COPY-DATAROCK-EMINEM-FAT TRUCKERS-FREE KITTEN-GENERATION X-GOLDEN BOY-LE TIGRE-MISS KITTIN-MU-PEACHES-SHAMPOO-SECRET WEAPONS-TOK TOK vs SOFFY O-YUKARI FRESH”

Warren Ellis has a new edition of his Brainpowered column up at Artbomb.

“I donated five bucks to download a bunch of Momus stuff, too. I listened to his premix of “Spooky Kabuki” last night, and later had a dream where it became a Mishima-themed musical number in the middle of Bob Fosse’s ALL THAT JAZZ. It’s possible that I’m losing it, yes.”

And the last volume of his TRANSMETROPOLITAN series, ONE MORE TIME, has been announced for a June release. Can’t wait to see how the whole thing ends!

Japanese artist Electron gives new life to “Eleanor Rigby.” He even has a moblog on his site. Link via Click Opera.