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You know what one of my favorite movie scenes in X2: X-Men United is? Heck, maybe in any movie (because I can’t think of a lot of other movie scenes right now? Magneto’s escape from the plastic prison. The night before Mystique pumps the trailer-park trash-looking guard full of liquid metal (mercury?), then in the jail Magneto lifts him up, extracts all the metal, turns it into little metal orbs, shoots the heck out of the whole place, makes a little metal disc to stand and fly on, and exits with his hands in front of him like I Dream of Jeannie. Awesome, awesome, awesome.

“Too much iron in your blood.”

I just finished watching Devilman, which I rented a few days ago. Before I go any further, there are 2 things I should point out that might affect my viewpoint on this movie, and thus my thoughts. 1) It’s all in Japanese, and I’m not completely fluent in the language. 2) I never read any of the original comic or saw any of the original anime, which I’m sure a big majority of Japanese people have.

Now that that’s out of the way, I think this movie ranks up there with movie greats like Versus, and might I even say The Hulk from a few years ago. And not just because both movies have pretty cool computer effects, but because both of them have their screenplays seemingly written and edited by retarded drunken monkeys. From the very start of Devilman, I had no idea why things were happening. They didn’t bother to explain everything or show any continuity, which may be because the majority of Japanese people watching the movie probably knew the general story of Devilman. I, of course, did not (let’s be honest, I STILL don’t).

The easiest way to explain the movie is to call it an hour and a half long movie trailer. There are a lot of awesome visual effects and the movie definitely looks cool. However, dialogue and the general storytelling seems a bit sketch, and there are a lot of holes. Another way to explain this movie would be if you took all the pre-rendered movie scenes out a of a video game like Final Fantasy, edited them together, and expected people to understand what the heck is going on. Near the middle of the movie, there was some kind of plot going on, but by the end they decided it was hopeless and just had a really cool CGI fight and a really bad conclusion. In summary, this was a really really bad cool looking movie. Does that make sense? Probably more than this movie did.

I do have to say though, that having Bob Sapp in the movie as the world news anchor was a nice touch. If the rest of the movie doesn’t make sense, you might as well throw in Bob Sapp. Overall this movie gets a 6 out of 10. Maybe a 7. It would be good to watch at a party where everyone is doing something else, because even paying attention (and even knowing Japanese) doesn’t help save this movie from being anything more than eye-candy.

Had no idea they were making this. Maybe that’s what I get for being in Japan. Jessica Alba is playing Invisible Woman, and the bald guy from “The Shield” is The Thing. Wasn’t he also The Commish?

Last night I finally got around to watching the movie “Zebraman,” which I rented and burned nearly a month and a half ago. It’s directed by Takeshi Miike, who is famous for a bunch of freaky horror films like Ichi the Killer, Gozu, and the Dead or Alive movies. Well Zebraman isn’t a horror film, but instead a comedy/parody of superhero movies.

One of the trailers summarizes things up pretty well: “The mother is having an affair, the daughter is a hooker, the son gets bullied, and the father…saves the world?” The movie’s about a teacher named Ichikawa (whoa! big coincidence? i think not), whose life really sucks for the previously mentioned reasons. His whole family hates him, and his only comfort at home is in his Zebraman costume that he makes, modeled after a crappy TV show he watched when he was a kid.

One night he goes out into the streets dressed in his costume, and runs into a pervert wearing a crab helmet. The two end up fighting, and Ichikawa discovers he actually does have superpowers (of course he uses the “Zebra Screw Punch.” Turns out this Crab man is the first of a bunch of aliens that Zebraman has to beat.

Awesome movie. Some parts are just so retarded that you have to love it.

Well the last few days have been fairly boring. People around me have a lot more drama in their lives than I do, which is good for the most part. Being a つまらないやつ has it’s advantages indeed.

On Sunday, I thought I had the whole day planned out. I was completely wrong. Ended up not going to the Tokyo Motor Show, since Bryan went first and c-mailed me saying it was mostly cars for the handicapped and stuff. Not the race car and booth girl festa that we were expecting. So instead, Ari and I found a Chinese buffet in the Plena mall next to the station. Reminded me of Chinese Buffet back in B-town, but more expensive (1200 yen). Eventually, we went to this department store in Kemigawahama, and boy did they have some weekend sales (割引). I ended up buying the Kamen Rider Lengel belt for half off, and Ari got a Tokima watch on clearance. Good sale for dorks.

Rented the Cutie Honey movie and watched it. It’s a goofy movie, definitely worth seeing. It’s like a parody of itself and the original anime (which I’ve never seen much of). The movie is honestly so stupid you can’t take it seriously. Ah well.

Tuesday (tonight) was pretty uneventful. My life is a lot more boring than others, which like I said, can be good. I’m not at liberty to talk about what people are going through, but it’s a tough situation. Anyways, now I have to go to sleep and wake up tomorrow around 5 or 6AM to go to my Field Placement at the high school. If this weren’t my first time back in 3 weeks (because of the Nagano Trip and then a national holiday), I would totally call in sick. It’s not bad once I get there, but it’s a pain in the butt up until that.

Last week we had a meeting for the start of IES SIG groups, basically little clubs for various interests like sports, Japanese language, culture, etc. Clubs so the IES kids and Japanese students can hang out. I joined the biggest one, Movies, and became leader of it. Then, I didn’t realize that the leaders of each of the SIGs were automatically candidates for IES Student Council President. Well, that was the case, and I am now the President. Haha, funny funny.

On Monday, we were off for 老人の日 (Roujin no Hi), or “Be nice to old people day.” So what did I do? Went to the movies. Japanese movies are ridiculously expensive. 1 ticket is 1800 yen, or around $16. Student Discount is a little bit less. Me, Seth, and Bryan went to see Naruto the Movie. Mii showed up a little late, so we stubbed her in. She didn’t know this at first. I guess Japanese kids aren’t big on sneaking into movies. After that, we decided that we paid so much money, we wanted to see more than 1 movie. Luckily, when we bought our tickets, they give you a schedule of the movies playing that week. Makes it easy to figure out which movie to sneak into next. So, I watched about 20 minutes of Biohazard 2 (Resident Evil 2), then moved to watch the Dekaranger/Kamen Rider Blade double feature. Good times. Went to Outback for dinner.

Tuesday was just classes as usual, no biggie.

Wednesday, went to Harajuku to buy a man-purse, since every guy in this country has one. It’s actually just a black canvas bag with Kishidan on it. Then, me and Ari went to a restaurant that had for 1000 yen all you can eat pasta, pizza, pancakes, and hip hop. When I ever get around to putting up pictures, I will have to show the sign from this place. Then, we went to Ebisu to see the Sapporo Beer Museum. Horrible museum really, it’s just an excuse for people to try (after paying for) different kinds of Sapporo and Yebisu beer.

At night, went with Ari, Ahn-tuan, Dan, and Adam to Shinjuku. Went to 2 huge music stores, then walked around Kabukicho (the shady yakuza/triad-run area). Before we finally made it to Kabukicho, however, thanks to my awesome map-reading skills, we found where the Shinjuku gay district is. Definitely some weird stuff going on there. And also a gay park, where I guess the gay folk do their business. We were out of there as soon as we realized where we had gone.

Randomness for the rest of the night, primarily walking around aimlessly in Shibuya. Met up with Dave Heston from high school, and his friend from Germany. We walked around a lot, finally ended up in Roppongi at the famous Gas Panic (the locals call it GasPa) club. Let me make this short and sweet: ROPPONGI SUCKS. It is the dirtiest area I have seen in Japan, hilighted by the hordes of refugees/immigrants from Europe, Africa and the really poor parts of Asia. They are either in Roppongi to be hookers, to pick up Japanese guys who don’t know any better, and/or to go to dirty, crowded clubs like Gas Panic. Ah well, at least I know not to go back to Roppongi. Also note that since we were in Roppongi so late, I couldn’t even leave until 5AM. So I was trapped there for hours longer than I would have liked.