I turn 32 today. Ain’t getting younger.
Comments (23) Category: Meta
2005.05.31
This makes me smile. Japan’s FAMITSU WEEKLY (the top gaming magazine) had a reader survey on which next-gen console they were most interested in, and here are the results:
1. Nintendo Revolution - 42.2%
2. Sony PlayStation 3 - 39.8%
3. Microsoft Xbox 360 - 18.0%
Nice to see that despite the huge pushes by Sony and Microsoft at the recent E3 show, Nintendo still manages to excite gamers like that.
Comments (0) Category: Games2005.05.30
The Design21 “Love/Why?” exhibition sounds good, and the list of included artists (on the TAB page) is just insane.
Design21 nurtures the links between man and man, between man and nature - it also stands for a new lifestyle, for design that makes people happy. Design21 is an international design competition looking for young design talent and is supported by the Unesco and Felissimo. First organized in 1995 as an anniversary event celebrating 50 years of UN relations, Design21 grew into something big: this is already the fifth time the event takes place. The current exhibition, titled “Love/Why?”, presents winning and invited art works and will be on display in Kobe, Tokyo, New York and Paris. (TAB)
It’s taking place at Shinjuku Park Tower until June 4.
Comments (0) Category: Design • EventsTechnorati Japan has just launched.
Update: Patrick brings up some good points:
I’ve always been less than impressed by Technorati so far. Most of the time I’ve found it to be slow (”Searching the World Live Web”… what?) and giving tangled, far from optimal results.
Comments (2) Category: WebAt least in my blog’s case, 90% of results are myself linking to myself, and half of the rest are links from side-bars or blogrolls, while only real entry-to-entry links should be shown in order to make it a usable tool. Their engine needs to be able to recognize where a blog entry starts and ends, but currently it just indexes all links in the whole page. Things haven’t seemed to improve since the beginning.
I was also disappointed by their recent tagging initiative, which is a step away from standards. Indeed, blogs are required to link directly to them in order for the tags to work! Why not simply suggest a smart use of the rel attribute or anything else that doesn’t imply them being the blog tagging central?
Sadly, I see Technorati as a bunch of great ideas done wrong.
2005.05.29
Che of Octopus Dropkick! posts about a t-shirt design shop he discovered at the latest Design Festa called Chikuwab. They have an online shop, and alhtough I’ve just started looking through it, there’s definitely a lot to like. Looks like I’m going to have a lot of fresh new tees for the Summer!
Comments (0) Category: Design • Fashion
You’re first look at Hariko, the latest from Roughtoyz, and designed by 9brand. We’re (NCM) going to be making a Swedish version for Swedish Style later this year.
Sunday morning at Pause, taking pictures of kids playing with the Snapazoo. It’s for promotional material.
From Travellers’ Tales, the Far Eastern Economic Review’s blog:
How do you find entrepreneurial employees in Japan? The founder of a leading boxed-lunch seller has found the answer. According to the latest issue of Japan Entrepreneur Report, the head of Tamagoya, Sugihara Isatsugu, hires school dropouts and juvenile delinquents rather than college graduates. Because they have forged their own path in life rather than following the track set down for them, they possess more vitality. “When they catch fire, the power they unleash is fearsome,” he says.
Comments (0) Category: Society2005.05.28
If you’re tried to visit MoCo Tokyo (or its parent site, MoCo Loco) in the past 24 hours, you probably came up with nothing (and you might have noticed that there are no MoCo Tokyo posts listed in my sidebar). Seems like the hosting company, Hostway, has suspended the account and email for alleged spamming, which is just ridiculous. On top of that, they sent an email about the situation just before shutting the whole thing down to the email address that they were shutting down! It seems that there is nothing that can be done until Monday morning, when the right person will be in the office.
I just feel bad for Harry, MoCo Loco’s editor. His domains and email accounts were probably hijacked by spammers, which is an unfortunate nightmare that could happen to anyone.
Update: The sites seem to be back up now.
Comments (0) Category: MoCo Loco
I watch G4’s ATTACK OF THE SHOW regularly, and yesterday’s show (Friday) featured a live performance by PINE*am! It was my first time seeing them perform live, and I loved their stage routines (they have some choreographed moves). If you find the show, they perform towards the very end (and unfortunately cut to a commercial break in the middle of the second song). For more on the band, check out their Myspace.com page, where you can also listen to some tracks. Their first American release, PULL THE RABBIT EARS, comes out May 31 (my birthday!) on Eenie Meenie Records.
Comments (3) Category: Music
LDK has news (and pics) of the new Trico produced store, mYwaY, located in CODAN Shinonome, a “new housing development project in a Tokyo waterfront area.”
Comments (2) Category: Design • Stores
This is turning into a shojo-obsessed day — which I guess makes sense, since this is a girly blog. Following is the “Japanese Schoolgirl Watch” column from the current issue of WIRED:
Anyone who thinks schoolgirls and boys enjoy the same fantasies needs to bone up on shojo manga. The Japanese comics for gals are the antithesis of typical shonen titles. In series for guys, like Gundam and Dragon Ball Z, robots are death machines and sound effects of pitched battles (bwa-whoom!) are common. In series for girls, like Absolute Boyfriend, bots are cute guys and the sound f/x tend to be of the protagonist’s heartbeat (ba-bump!) as she approaches a robohunk. Shojo stories also get interspersed with shopping tips on clothes and cosmetics, ostensibly to help teens look like their heroines. Americans can see what the fuss is about when Shojo Beat magazine debuts at bookstores in late June. The monthly mag translates six popular shojo serials into English.
The image included in this post is from the manga NANA.
Comments (1) Category: MangaSpotted in the current issue of RELAX (”Visit Tokyo, Accept Tokyo”): a profile on the dancing DJ GEDO SUPER MEGA BITCH GM KAICHANMAN 4 (all-caps were used in the magazine), who you can catch at Tokyo super-clubs like Womb. They also mention her email address: gedosupermegabitchgmkaichanman4@hotmail.co.jp
Comments (2) Category: Music
Jean Snow lives and breathes design and pop culture in Tokyo -- sustained by an unhealthy addiction to magazines and frequent visits to his favorites cafes. He has reported on these obsessions for the following online/offline publications: Time, Inside (Australian Design Review), Gizmodo, Gridskipper, Kotaku, Tokyo Q, Superfuture, OK Fred, Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel, I.D. (International Design), Metropolis, Azure, MoCo Loco, Kateigaho International Edition, Game|Life, and The Japan Times. He also manages the gallery space at Cafe Pause.
The Superfuture Superguides are a series of PDF travel guides to some of your favorites cities, updated monthly, and obsessively compiling the best places to shop, eat, and drink. The Tokyo guide is edited by Jean Snow.
Jean Snow is the design/culture editor at Neojaponisme, a web journal covering social and cultural aspects of Japan. Read the manifesto, by founder and chief editor W. David Marx, here.
PauseTalk is a regular series of events that take place at Cafe Pause on the first Monday of every month, with a start time of 20:00. The idea is to create a forum where Tokyo-based creatives can get together and discuss their own projects, as well as cultural currents of the city. The next edition happens May 12.
I write a monthly column covering Japanese product design for The Japan Times, called "On Design." It appears on the fourth Tuesday of every month, in both the print edition and online.
I contribute a weekly round-up covering the latest product and interior design happenings from Tokyo and Japan for MoCo Loco. It gets posted on Wednesdays, and you can find links to previous posts here.
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