TheLeong.com

A few Sundays ago I went to my first real concert in Japan, the KISHIDAN Gig at the Budokan. Bryan found out about the show a few weeks ago and we decided might as well check it out. Kishidan had kind of disappeared for about 2 years, and their last album was a lot of “solo” projects that just wasn’t the same. But they’re back now, and have new songs in the works and a Japan-wide concert tour this summer. 夜露死苦！

Headed out to the Budokan pretty early, but it was obvious that there was a Kishidan concert going down. There were tons of street stalls selling bootleg Kishidan stuff, mostly by old guys in wifebeaters with sweat towels tied around their heads. I’m sure they don’t even know about the band, but they Google image searched it and printed out what they found on a variety of t-shirts, posters, buttons, and towels. Even more ridiculous though was the audience/groupies for this show, since at least a fourth of the people seemed to be in hardcore costumes. I guess this counts as cosplay, although there is a possibility there were some actual bikers who dress like the stereotypes that are Kishidan. Among this crowd I also saw quite possibly the biggest pompadour ever:

Pretty amazing hair.

Budokan definitely seemed smaller than I expected, since it’s so famous. I have no idea the actual sizes, but it seemed almost smaller than Assembly Hall at IU. The stage was in the middle of a round arena, with 4 jumbotrons and a rotating platform on the stage.

There was a lot of machine-made fog in the arena so the picture above isn’t so good. Also you’re not supposed to take pictures inside Budokan, so immediately after I took this picture a staff workers popped out of nowhere and told me to not take pictures. Oops!

The show was awesome, pretty straightforward music and some talking, without skits or other stuff in the middle. Out seats were pretty high up, but since the venue’s not that big I thought we still had a great view. Also we were originally set up behind the drum kit, but since the stage rotated a lot during the show it wasn’t a problem at all. The creepiest thing about the concert was the audience though, in a kind of “cool if you’re in a cult” way, since everyone seemed to know all of Dragon Voice’s dance movies, and they did them the entire time. You know how the wave is cool at a baseball game because you have so many people in a somewhat synchronized move? Imagine that for a 4 hour concert, only with intricate arm movements and a lot of “whoooo!”s. It seriously felt like we should have spent a good three months before this concert rehearsing the dance moves.

It was sweet when Kishidan debuted a new song though. Not only was it a good song, but it was funny to see the audience looking around confused and screaming to themselves “I don’t know the dance moves!!!!”

Too fast to live, too young to die.

I’m going to do something I rarely do on this blog, and talk about the news. Actually two stories! With links! What is going on? And no it’s not because I can’t think of anything else to write that actually has something to do with me. That’s just part of the reason.

So first off, the big news of the day all over Japan is one of the SMAP guys, Tsuyoshi Kusanagi (left), getting arrested last night for running around totally drunk and totally naked in a park in Tokyo. HAHAHAHAHA. Yes that’s right. A member of SMAP, one of the most annoying “boy bands” on the planet got drunk and stripped down, running around in a park making weird noises described by a witness as roaring like “aaaa!” and “aaaaamou!” about 3AM this morning.

For those of you who don’t know SMAP, they’re this “boy band” in Japan that’s been around since 1988. Yes, that’s right. They have been a boy band for over 20 years and are still famous and active. According to Wikipedia, they started out as a group of backup dancers for another boy band and were promoted to their own group. They’re not good singers at all (at least one is actually terrible), they play no instruments, they write no songs, yet they’re one of the most famous bands in Japan. Odd, right? Oh and they’re also hosts of a bunch of TV shows, star in movies, and pretty much sell themselves out like every other famous person in Japan.

So anyway it’s personally been pretty awesome to see this all over the news, seeing that people are appalled that the “nice guy” of the group would do something like this. Sure I guess it’s not that big of a deal (he didn’t assault a police officer after a hit-and-run like fellow SMAP member Goro Inagaki did in 2001), but for a lot of the people I’ve seen on Japanese TV they’re acting like it’s the end of the world. This guy definitely has one of the tamest images of the SMAP guys. One time he played a mentally handicapped zookeeper on a TV show, which was believable because he looks kind of retarded. Kusanagi’s also one of the main spokesmen for the Japanese transition to all digital HD broadcasts, with a lot of lame commercials targeted at old people trying to get them to upgrade their sets in time. It looks like he totally lost that campaign, with the president of that group on the news earlier talking about how pissed he is about a man he can only think of as “a despicable human being.” Posters with Kusanagi are also being removed immediately. He also lost a Toyota commercial contract.

So take that SMAP! I’ve hated you all so long and it’s great to see one of you fail like this. I know in a few weeks you’ll be back like a horrible rash, but for this bit of time let’s enjoy everyone not freaking out about how cool a group of tone deaf 40 year olds are.

• JapanToday English article
• Asahi.com Japanese article 1 and 2 (there are dozens on there)

On to the next news article:

A karaoke place in Chiba city was the site for a big robbery earlier this morning, with a woman being robbed of 600,000 yen (about $6000 USD). It was early this morning around 4AM at the Utahiroba Karaoke, Keisei Chiba Chuo Ekimae location. Yes, that’s right. This is the karaoke place that me and my friends usually go to because it’s about 10 minutes from my apartment! That’s what caught my interest on the news earlier, because even though they had a lot of stuff blurred out (to protect the neighboring businesses, etc), I could tell exactly which karaoke place it was because I’ve been there dozens of times.

So according to the news, a 20-year old girl who works at a restaurant or bar went to karaoke with her friend after work. It was just two of them, and they had a small private room like most karaoke places in Japan have. At one point her friend went to the bathroom, and a man she didn’t recognize came into the room, sprayed her with mace or some kind of self-defense spray, and stole 600,000 yen out of her purse before running off. The karaoke place says they have him on the security camera, but I guess they haven’t caught him yet. The victim says that the money was her salary from work; Japanese companies often pay their employees in cash, so it’s not that strange.

Two things about this: first it’s weird because I go to this karaoke place all the time. I guess it is pretty easy for people to go in and out even without paying to karaoke there. I don’t really see security getting any better at this place though. OK and second, while of course it’s terrible that this girl got attacked and robbed, there is no reason for her to have had that much money on her. Japanese people do this all the time. They carry ridiculous amounts of cash on them because it’s still predominantly a cash society and yes it is overall very safe. But it’s still stupid to have that much money on you. Even if you just got paid, go to an ATM or something and deposit it. If you’re walking around with more than a few hundred dollars on you, you’re just asking for trouble.

It is kind of weird that the guy knew she had that much money on her, and found her karaoke room. I really doubt that it was just a random attack and she happened to be carrying that much on her. Either the guy saw her get paid at her work and followed her, or something even shadier is going on.

• NikkeiNet Japanese article

Recently I’ve been re-getting into Street Fighter IV at arcades here, even though it came out last summer in Japan, and even though I suck. Coincidentally, the home version on X-Box 360 and PS3 just came out last week, but I own neither so that didn’t really have anything to do with it. Actually it’s probably because I started playing Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom in arcades and on Wii.

Anyway, you guys know Street Fighter: Rye-ooh and the Ha-doo-ken, etc. So I’m not going to write about the game so much as the players you see here. As expected, Japanese arcade players are insane. They know the games they like and they play them a lot. I don’t mean like every day they’ll throw in a few coins to play a few rounds. These guys spend their entire evenings (maybe days too) at the arcade, huddled around their weapons of choice, endlessly pouring coins into the games and being a major cause of Japan’s population decline. Normal arcade games here cost 100 yen, but the more expensive ones can go up to even 500 yen for the battlepod-esque Gundam game. Occasionally they’ll be there with a friend or two, but a lot of the ones I’ve seen are just there by themselves. OK, so they can socialize with the other people playing the same game, right? NOPE. With the exception of people who already know each other, I have never seen someone talk to another player. Not even something like “hey, nice game,” “wow, close one there,” or “TATSUMAKISENPUUKYAKU!!!!” Only silence. It’s kind of weird. At least that’s what I’ve seen.

Going back to how much these guys spend. Usually it would be impossible to know or even guess how much someone’s spent on playing a game. Luckily, SF4 has, like a lot of Japanese arcade games these days, a special card to keep track of your player information. When you’re playing at the arcade with your card, you accumulate points which can be used to get extra costumes, special content on the mobile site, babies, etc. Since this card also makes you commit to a character, a lot of people didn’t use the cards initially while they got a feel for which character they liked the best, etc. But when you do use your card, it’s all recorded. Your opponent during link matches can see your stats, like your ranking and win percentage*. This is where it gets scary. The other day when Brian and I were at one of the local arcades getting absolutely destroyed in SF4, we noticed the stats of some guy who was playing as C. Viper, jumping all over the place and embarrassing us horribly. Of course he had a fairly decent winning percentage, maybe 60 or 70%, but the shocker was the number of games he’d played on his card. The number was over 1,100. He has played a lot.

Let’s do some veeerrrrryyyy rough math. This might be wrong because it’s 2AM and I’m not wanting to think too much into this. Feel free to do some real thinking and correct me. So in SF4, each time you start playing, you pay 100 yen. If you win a link match, you get to play the next one for free, and so on until you lose. For today’s estimate, let’s say that the Player in question has spent 100 yen for every loss he’s had. If he had 1,100 games with around a 65% winning percentage, he lost 385 times. So right there he spent 38,500 yen. Of course we don’t know how many consecutive times he won on average, but let’s be generous and say he averaged 3 wins every time he played. So from the 715 matches he’s won, he only had to pay for a third of them, about 238 or 28,800 yen. That’s a total estimate of 62,300 yen (about $645 USD) he’s spent on this card alone. That is crazy. He could have just bought a new PS3 and the home version for that much. Again, this is just on the one card. It doesn’t include matches he plays on no card or with a different card. He could very well have it at home too. By the way, yes, that is him up in the picture.

The sad thing is that this is mainly just about arcades I go to here in Chiba, which I’m sure aren’t nearly as intense as the ones in super nerd districts in nearby Tokyo. And thus concludes our fuzzy math lesson about nerds.

*I am currently ranked “Rookie” with a “0%” winning ratio.

Over a year ago I got stopped by a plainclothes police officer outside of Chiba station because my bike looked “suspicious.” The guy was real cool and didn’t even ask for ID. He just wanted to check some stuff out because I never use the built-in lock on my bike and I guess that looks weird to them. Well hey guess what? I got stopped again today for the exact same reason.

I was over at the Tsutaya near my apartment renting a DVD, and headed out to get on my old lady bike and go home. It was windy, cold, and raining, and it didn’t help at all when I got approached by 2 cops when I was getting ready to ride away. One was in plainclothes, the other was in the usual Japanese cop outfit complete with neon-yellow security vest. Just like last year they were both really nice, not hassling me or anything, but they wanted to ask me a few questions. The built-in lock that all Japanese old lady bikes (ママチャリ) have as standard-issue looks super weak, so I never use it. Instead, I have a wire lock that I usually string through my rear tire and seat. I also have a fairly new seat on my bike, which I guess makes it stand out also. Here’s a picture of the two locks on my bike for reference:

The little black ring with the thin metal inside near the middle of the bike is the built-in lock.
The big blue thing is my real lock.

At first I think they wanted to make sure I hadn’t had my seat stolen by kids before, because that seems to be a growing problem in the area. Plainclothes guy asked me why I don’t use the built-in lock, and I told him pretty straight up that “it looks cheap and I don’t trust it.” He laughed a little bit and admitted that “yeah, to be honest those locks are pretty useless.” After that, partially as a formality, they wanted to check my bike registration number to make sure everything was clear. They looked at the number on my little orange sticker and called it in. We waited for a few minutes in the rain (they had let me open my umbrella at least) until the office called the plainclothes’ cell phone back. “OK, so you’re Mr. Aoyagi?” “Uhhhhh, no that’s not right.” So that was weird. I didn’t freak out or anything because I knew I bought this bike and registered everything properly. I told them they must have made a mistake, and he checked again. Yep, the guy at the station had checked the wrong number. So another check later and I was of course fine, 10 or 15 minutes down the drain for the whole encounter but that was it.

After the name Aoyagi popped up at first, I could tell the cop was a little surprised when I told him my name was Leong, because we had been speaking Japanese the whole time and I don’t really think he expected me to have a foreign name. Even with that, the cop or his partner (who had wandered off to look at other bikes at some point) never hassled me or made things difficult. No checks of my Gaijin Card or other IDs, nothing. I hear so many stories of foreigners getting hassled by cops during random ID checks or something, but with my few run-ins with the police I can’t say I’ve ever experienced any kind of discrimination, etc. Always makes me wonder what gets some people so worked up.

This morning when I got to my office building I headed into the convenience store in the lobby to pick up a snack (breakfast) and a drink, as I do pretty much every day. Today I saw that they were selling the Final Fantasy Potion drink, this time promoting the Dissidia game that I’ll probably never get to play.

They’d sold that drink a few times in the past, for various FF promotions, but I never got around to trying it. Well this morning I did, and it is awful. Haha, seriously. They could have just put Sprite or Coke in a Final Fantasy-branded can and it would sell just as well over here I’m sure. Instead they tried to make some kind of funky energy drink that just tasted like watered down Red Bull or something. Every time I took a sip I made some goofy, twisted face. Is that how you replenish HP?

I just read all the info on that Wikipedia site (the one I linked to above), and I guess the black can of Potion I had today was “bittersweet muscat” flavored, while the also available white cans are grapefruit. I don’t think I’m going to bother spending 200 yen on a can of grapefruit potion, since there’s no way it’s going to be good.

On Thursday I went in before work to a clinic near my office for a routine physical (kenkou shindan, 健康診断 in Japanese). My company arranged for everyone to get free checkups, so I figured I might as well. I had never gotten a physical here in Japan, so for some reason I was expecting a series of futuristic exams and machines similar to what you’d see on a TV show. Unfortunately, the exam ended up seeming more like something out of Welcome Back Kotter than Star Trek.

When I came in, first I told them my name, and they gave me my file. Since my company already had everyone’s reservations made, I assume they also handled any other paperwork. I had a 2-page short questionnaire with the basic medical history stuff like “have you been stomped by Godzilla in the past year,” but other than that and my name, they asked nothing. Not my birth date, not if I was feeling sick or not, nothing else. I take my little file to another counter, where they explain to me the… how do I say this medically? Oh yeah, the piss test. So instead of a plastic medical-looking cup with a locking lid like I’m used to in the States, they hand me a paper Dixie cup with my name written on it in Sharpie. I was instructed to go into the bathroom, do my biznass, and put the sample in the small closet in the toilet stall. Yeah. Instead of putting a lid on the cup and handing it to a nurse, I was instructed to put my cup into a little cabinet. Along with like 7 other peoples pee! W. T. F. So things were already getting weird.

Next I go sit in the waiting lobby and talk to one of my co-workers who was there at the same time. After a few minutes I get called into the next station of fun: the x-ray room. This room looked more like a boiler room with a giant 1930’s printing press. There was a very industrial feel to this room, complimented by the enormous, multi-section beige-colored x-ray equipment. The crazy looking old Japanese dude started speaking in horribly broken English, telling me to take off my jacket and step up to the chest x-ray machine, which looked like an old-school refrigerator. That was pretty weird. I don’t even know if that was an x-ray machine, he might have just wanted me to hug his fridge. The technician never even left the room during the x-ray. He actually was standing right behind me. I’m sure this contributed to his craziness, being blasted multiple times an hour with radiation.

After that there was some more waiting before the next round of stuff. They did my weight, height, blood pressure, hearing, and eyes, which were all pretty much routine and nothing special. After that, there was more waiting followed by “the doctor.” From my past experience with doctors offices, all the little tests and stuff were first, followed by the actual examination with a doctor, who does all the real stuff. This would also be the time they actually give you any advice, etc., and make you feel like you were really being checked up.

Here, however, the “doctor” (I don’t know if he was a doctor, I’m just assuming so) checked me with a stethoscope then… told me I was done. That was it. I literally spent 5 minutes or less with the doctor then I was sent home. I did feel kind of ripped off. They’re supposedly going to send me my results later at work. Maybe it will have a sweet picture of me hugging a fridge with a creepy glowing man behind me.

I also want to mention that this clinic had a “members club” area behind a curtained hallway. What does that mean? I have no idea. Maybe you get a real x-ray and a real doctor’s advice. And maybe even a lid for your pee cup.