Archive for 'Old and New Cultural Scenes in Japan' Category
The 11th Tokyo Girls Collection held at Saitama Super Arena
”The 11th Tokyo Girls Collection 2010 A/W” or ” The 11th TGC “was held at Saitama Super Arena on the Sep 4th. http://tgc.st/10AW/whats_en/
This series of the one of the largest and most notable fashion festas started in 2005 and since then it has hosted these events biannually, some of which were held even in Beijing China.
This time with the theme of “Back to the Classic Future”, there were 22 fashion brands and so many top models, actors, TV personalities, idols, and even politicians with burning passion and heat. And there were more than 30,000 audience ,which was the record high of the 11- year history of TGC. There were also singing performances of singers and idols and appearancesof surprsze guests and performers, such as Anna Tsuchiya (土屋アンナ), May J, Erika Sawajiri(/沢尻エリカ), AKB48, BlUE MAN GROUP, and others. Hiroshi Mizohata(/溝畑宏), the current commissioner of the Japan Tourism Agency and Becii Cruel who is one of the most popular Internet idols loving Japanese pop, anime, and stuff, showed up and jointly made addresses in which they declared that they would make every effort to promote the splendor of Japanese fashions.
The event also hosted auctions a part of whose sales was going to be donated to Miyazaki Prefecture which suffered from serious damages of Foot-and- mouth disease of cows just recently. So, Hideo Higashikokubaru(/東国原英夫)、the current Miyazaki governor,who used to be a comedian, turned up on the stage and extended his gratitude.
The management of the festa declared they are going to host the next TGC event in February 2011 in Nagoya, the capital of Aichi prefecture located in the central area in Japan, for the first time in the history of TGC.
Some 280,000,000 Yen being collected to the charity show of 『24 HOUR TELEVISION 33 “LOVE SAVES THE EARTH”』
TOKIO , the main MC of "24HTV 33" They are popular male idol group.
“TOKYO IDOL FESTIVAL 2010″’s course is going to air at Sky PerfecTV! on Sep.10th and 20th
The course of “TOKYO IDOL FESTIVAL 2010 @Shinagawa” or “TIF2010″ held on this Aug.6th-8th(the eve event was held on the 6th) in Shinagawa Tokyo is going to air on coming Sep.(Fri.) 10th 21:00- 0:00 and 20th(Mon.) 20:00-23:00（re-run will be done on the 20th） at Sky PercTV! http://www.skyperfectv.co.jp/eng/guide/index.html and http://www.skyperfectv.co.jp/special/idol/
“TIF2010″ has been the biggest live event of popular female idol groups ever held .http://www.tif2010.com/
There were totally 8 venues on whose main one live performances were done. At some venue, there were tent booths of selling related items and idols hosted shake-hands events. And at some venue, dolphin shows hosted by idols were done and at some other one, live broadcast of TV programs were done. Some venues were free of charge and any casual passer-by was allowed to join in. Shinagawa Prince Hotel and its related buildings became big and hot venues of this passionate summer festival with so many visitors of idols’ fans.
Totally more than 40 young female groups paticipated and performed with zeal and passions at the event. They were as follows; (the each English translations in the blanks are not necessarily the formal English name of the group)
○アイドリング!!!（/Idoling!!!） ○さくら学院（/Sakura Gakuin） ○東京女子流（Tokyo Girls’ Style） ○Tomato n’ Pine ○ぱすぽ☆（/PASSPO） ○バニラビーンズ（/Vanilla Beans ） ○腐男塾（/Fudanjuku) ○ももいろクローバー（/Momoiro Clover） ○YGA ○アフィリア・サーガ・イースト（/Afilia Saga East） ○私立恵比寿中学（/Shiritsu Ebisu Chuugaku） ○ディアステージ・オールスターズ（/Dear Stage All Stars） ○中野腐女子シスターズ（/Nakano Fujoshi Sisters） ○みにちあ☆ベアーズ（/Mini Cheer ☆Bears） ○桃知みなみ（/Minami Momochi） ○LOVE BOWLERs ○わた☆チュー（/Wata☆Chu） ・・・and more・・・
The broadcasting of the TV program will be done at ” Ch. 191 スカチャンHD191″ , “Ch.181 スカチャン181″, and “Ch.801 スカチャンHD801″ of Sky perfecTV! on the scheduled two dates.
“Tora-san Museum Illustration Exhibition ‘10″ is being held
The forth “Tora-san Illustration Exhibition ‘10″ (http://tollustration.com/index.html) is now being held at ”Tora-san Museum” in Katshika-ward in Tokyo.http://www15.j-server.com/LUCKATUSHI/ns/tl.cgi/http%3a//www.katsushika-kanko.com/tora/index.html?SLANG=ja&TLANG=en&XMODE=0&XPARAM=search,&XCHARSET=UTF-8&XPORG=,
The event is held Aug.16th(Mon.)-Sep.5th(Sun.) and such sub-events as mini tours with a participant illustrators, and drawing performances of likenesses of visitors by participant caricaturists on the spot.
A New Idol Group “AKBN 0″ (!) debut
A young female idol group “AKBN 0″ hosted its debut live concert on Yoyogi Park Open-air Stage in Shibuya Tokyo on this Aug.13th. Despite the rainy weather ,more than 500 audience welcomed this new group, which sang 4 songs of other idol groups, such as AKB48 and Morning Musume。, for the new group has no songs of its own yet. So, AKBN0 is now recruiting original songs for it at its official website http://www.akbn.tv/index.html.
There are nine members at the moment (one of them has already retired) as the First Generation of the group.
“NMB48″ ’s first auditon is being held
NMB４８, the newest group in the AKB48’s project is about to launch.
At the AKB48’s concert in the National YoyogiFirst Gymnasium on this Jul.10th, and11th, the project announced the plan of creating a new group based in Osaka, the third biggest city, which is one of thecenters of the western regions of Japan, in Japan called NMB48. The name represents Namba which is an area in Osaka where the new group is going to be based on. The first audition of recruiting members of MNB48 is being held until Aug.20th and the group is starting in the November. http://www.nmb48.com/ a girl who is 11-22 years old and is not contracted to any entertainment agency is eligible for the audition.
Miniskirt (/ミニスカート)
“International Tokyo Toy Show 2010″ is being held in Odaiba Tokyo
The “International TokyoToy Show” has been hosted at the Tokyo Big Sight in Odaiba Ariake Koutou-ward Tokyo Jul.15-18th. http://www.toys.or.jp/toyshow/2010_files/english/outline.html
A lot of busienesses in the Toy industry join and collaborate for the event. Special prizes are given to excellent toys. The future of Japanese toys in both deomestic and international markets must have positive outlook and our toys are expected to grow even more than current level.
The Morning Musume。making its name at the 11th Japan Expo in Paris
As some writers referred to here, the 11th Japan Expo was held this Jul.1-4th at Paris-Nord Villepinte Exhibition Center in Paris, France. And “the Morning Musume。”(/MM) , the popular national girls idol group was invited to the event and hosted concert on the 2nd and joined the conference on the 4th.http://www.japan-expo.com/en/invite/morning-musume_11.htm
The MM made a big success at its concert which drew some 4,000 audiences. Some of them are from other countries such as Italy and China.
AKB48 at “Anime Expo 2010″ in Los Angeles
AKB48, one of the most popular young female idol groups at the moment, joined and performed at “Anime Expo 2010″ in Los Angeles US on this Jul.1st .
This ”Anime Expo 2010″ http://www.anime-expo.org/ (Jul.1st-4th) is one of the biggest conventions of such subculture as anime and manga in North America. This time AKB48 was invited to the event as its “Special Dream Ambassadors”(honorary ambassadors) ,being expected to work as a helpful bridge of Japanese culture between Japan and US and other countries, the event’s management say.
Requirements of issuing individual tourist visas for the Chinese is relaxed
From this July 1st on, the Japanese government has relaxed the requirements of issuing individual tourist visas to the Chinese. 
AKIRA’s live-action movie is being filmed
Katsuhiro Ohtomo(/大友克洋)’s sci-fi manga work “AKIRA” ,which has been quite popular worldwide for a few decades is at the moment being filmed as a “live-action movie version ” directed by Albert Hughes,who revealed the information in a telephone interview with Sankei Shinbun newspaper.
Albert and Allen Hughes, the twin directors are famous for some of their works, such as “From Hell” in 2002 and “the Book of Eli”, in which Denzel Washington stars, that was released on this Jun,19th and is showing at the moment.
AKIRA was filmed as an animation movie in 1988 whose total expenses summed up10 billion yen which was exorbitantly large in the standard for an anime movie in thosedays. And the work also was made to be a Famicon game in 1988 and PS game in 2002. The English manga version has become very popular in many countries and it was counter-imported to Japan.
Actually, this live-action movie filming project started in 2008 by Warner Bro. and Leonardo DiCaprio and expected to be released in summer in 2009. However, the project confronted with difficulties and upon the withdrawal of Ruairi Robinson who was supposed to be the director, it has begun to be thought to have been aborted.
Therefore, this new information of the resumption of the project must be welcome by a lot of AKIRA fans. Actually, Albert Hughes admits openly that he has been a “AKIRA freak” since he watched the anime version on laser disk in 1994, which would strengthen even hard-core fans’ expectations.
“Wonderful World”- a live-action movie directed by a “voice star” released on Jun.19
An entertainment movie “Wonderful World” featuring various types of entertainers,such as actors, voice actors, musicians, fashion models,and vaudevillians was released on this Jun.19th.
What is especially unique to this film is this work of a “live-action movie” was directed by a “voice actor”. The dirctor is Daisuke Namikawa(/浪川大輔) who is well-known as a voice star of a lot of characters of popular anime and video game works, such as Eustass Kid of “ONE PIECE”, Katsu=Kobayashi of “Mobile Suit Z Gundam”, Italia of “ Hetalia Axis Powers” ,and so forth.
This movie is Namikawa’s first work as a film director and in the beginning he had difficulties in how he should film a work for he didn’t know abc of the that job. Still he says he learned a lot and succeeded in integrating jobs of entertainers of various genre in this work. He actually doesn’t like the limited images of ”voice actor “ or other “restricted professions”. A voice actor is usually an actor to act in live plays or performs on TV as well, so, he feels such drawing lines is nonsense and would like to express art as an artist in general without limited by those boundaries.
His efforts in the new field and the film itself may convey such messages of universal tastes and senses of art and unification of “different pieces of a picture” to people and society.
A railroad diorama room is open in Akihabara Washington Hotel
A special hotel guest room of a big railroad diorama set opened in Akihabara Washington Hotel in Akihabara the mecca of subculture in Chiyoda-ward Tokyo on this Jun.15th. http://www.akihabara-wh.com/english/index.html 
AKB 48 ’s second ” general election ” was done with a sensational outcome
Following the first “general election” hosted last July,AKB48 the top female idol group hosted the second “general election” in this June.
The outcome of the election was announced at a big ceremony and was a dramatic one, whose all course was broadcast live at 29 movie theaters nationwide on Jun.9. Yuko Oshima (/大島優子) who had won the second at the first general election now won the historic “come-from-behind victory” over Atsuko Maeda(/前田敦子) who had won the number one at the first one.
Godiva Japan leading the world in starting selling “Ice Cream Truffles”
Godiva Japan Co., http://www.godiva.co.jp/store/default_en.php, the Japanese local corporation of the worldwide famous Belgian chocolatier Godiva, started selling the first “Ice Cream truffles” in the world on this April 28th.