しあわせ

I found a new (for me, they disbanded in 2006) jPop group called “Zone” while browsing Stage 6 (now defunct). They were a manufactured band from Sapporo, of four high school girls. The idea was that this would be a new genre called “Bandol” — band idol; they’d look good, could sing and dance. Apparently they couldn’t play instruments at first but they learned how.

Japan Teen Idol dodgyness to one side, they had great stylists and amazing energy. This feel good pop is what I like about them. They feel much more fun and genuine than the similar English and American manufactured bands like S-Club, Steps, Spice Girls (ゲッ）or the original boy band The Monkees.

Wikipedia article

The bassist, Maiko, has gone on to be part of a group called Maria,; I must see what they’re like…

I came across a new (for me) site today. Stage6 is high quality and less noise from people uploading phone clips.

They use the DivX codec to display video, so a full screen experience similar to DVD is possible. You will probably have to install the DivX components but it’s quick and available as a free download for MacOSX and Windows. The files can also be easily downloaded without the contortions you have to go through on YouTube. Searching and Tag filtering are also much better than YouTube.

For Japan otaku types there’s lots of stuff. jDrama, Anime, jPop, until of course it’s removed, but in the meantime enjoy and learn.

–update 28Feb08–
Since Feb28 2008 Stage6 is no more.
Between bandwidth costs, a fairly major hack and the dubious legality of most of the videos, I think the owners decided to call it a day. I expect that the above links no longer work.

I may end up deleting this post.

A new print of this film is playing until the 12th of July at the BFI Southbank.

It’s part of a month long season of films by the Director, Mikio Naruse. He is as major a film-maker as Kurosawa or Ozu, but is probably completely unknown outside Japan.

I must say I’d never heard of him or seen any of his films.
Three of his films are available in the Eureka Masters of Cinema collection. (This collection has titles by a number of Japanese directors)
Flowing, Sound of the Mountain, Repast
and
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs is available in the Criterion Collection from the US.

IMdB entry for 成瀬巳喜男.

— July 16 update —
After seeing When a Woman Ascends the Stairs, I can see why he isn’t well known. If this is an example of his better work it is fairly disappointing. The portrayal of women characters was interesting but overall it was a very static and tedious film with very little to offer visually. I didn’t even really get a sense of the time and place of the film. But I’m going to give some other films a chance to see if it wasn’t just a bad choice to headline the Naruse season at the NFT.

Tomoko-san, another friend of mine from the “Chickens”, is one of the directors and performers in this play at the Pleasance Theatre Islington
June 21, 22, 23 at 19:45, Sunday 24 June at 18:00
Tickets £10 (£7 concessions)

Hiroshima, 1947. Canadian journalist Henri
Corbeil is sent on a six-week assignment.
He does not return home for almost a year.

Montreal, 1971. 24-year-old Hélène Corbeil
retraces her father’s journey through Japan.
Armed only with his journals and interviews,
she hopes to find the mother she never knew.

This bout of visual theatre explores hand in
hand melodrama and satire, tragedy and
parody, as the international cast concieve a
poignant, sensitive, albeit sometimes silly epic,
in their native English, Japanese and French.

I saw the dress rehearsal last night and it’s quite a performance.
The company has put a lot of work into it and it deserves an audience.
I was pleased to be able to understand the Japanese except for one long speech, but that is given a translation by another cast member anyhow.
As a bonus the venue is really good– There’s a great courtyard and pub/restuarant below the theatre.

–update 14Sept–
The company has a promotional video on YouTube showing their work on this show.

A design group that makes many fonts for free download, mainly katakana display faces but there is one kanji font albeit without the full range of glyphs. The display fonts show just how difficult a language can be to read in unfamiliar fonts.

–update 29Apr08–

The kana display fonts are directly mapped to keys; therefore you type the characters directly rather than using Kotoeri input (or the IME in Windows). Leaving your keyboard in romaji input, select the font as AL (Roman characters) HA (Hiragana glyphs) or KT (Katakana glyphs) then type away.

This is one time a Japanese keyboard is really useful as the kana glyphs are printed on the keys.

This is the layout of the keyboard I have.
An Apple Japanese wireless keyboard.

The underlying keyboard layout is the US keyboard.

Unfortunately the voiced characters using ゛and ゜are found using the shift key so a bit of guesswork is needed to find them especially for あいうえお and the ま row.