Sunday, September 30, 2007

Absolutely Not For Brats!

This week I add three entries to the Anime Companion Supplement related to Japan's sex industry. It is actually suprising how many erotic anime and manga have very little to do with this type of commerce. Most of my examples seem to be coming from the My Fair Massuse OVA and a few scenes in IWGP, a great and well drawn four volume seinen manga which I highly recommend.

kokkun

machiai shitsu (meeting room)

ura fûzoku (illegal sex industry)

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

On corrections and limited sources

I have upgraded the entry for bandai from last weekend. Thanks to a friend in Japan an inadequate entry has been improved.

This is the difficulty in writing these entries. All too often the sources at hand are not complete or focus only on one aspect of an item. This is why so many web pages make errors on Japanese cultural elements, of course there are many excellent pages with no errors, however it get irritating as I hunt for accurate information to not find something complete for years at a time. But then the discovery is part of the excitement.

On with the hunt!

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Of baths, animation and keeping clean

I spent some time last week cleaning up my recommended lists for anime and manga. I still have a long ways to go, so far I have removed some discontinued series and updated links for some of the existing ones. I hope to start adding new recommendations soon. That is if I have energy, work has been extra work for the past several weeks and I have other projects to do.

This week's new Anime Companion Supplement entries are for :

bandai (bath house attendant)

Bandai Bijuaru Kabushiki Gaisha (Bandai Visual Co. Ltd.)

oshibori supesharu (oshibori special)

The second Bandai was necessitated by the first entry, after all I could not have an entry on the bath house attendant with at least an entry on one branch of the large toy and entertainment company we all know so well. The oshibori supesharu entry is actually something I planned for when I wrote the entry on oshibori for last week's update.

And now I'll do dishes and laundry, both of which have piled up.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Sports, cleaning your hands and the big guys

This week the Anime Companion Supplement additions are:

dohyô (sumo ring)

oshibori (small damp towel)

rikishi

I've been reading the third volume in the new edition of Gunsmith Cats, not much Japanese culture in Chicago and New York but plenty of great action on the pages. I picked up the latest volume, v. 11, of Osamu Tezuka's famous work Phoenix, this is the sec ond in the "Sun" series.

On other fronts I've also re-read IWGP, a fun seinen manga that I highly recommend. Not for kids tho' there is too much sex in the four volumes for the little ones.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Babes, Threads and Meat

The great folks at Animeigo sent me the preview disc with the first four episodes of Yawara, the Fashionable Judo Girl. You can request copies if you order anything from Animeigo, or for $5.00 S&H get a disc by itself.

I've been jazzed that Yawara will be coming out in early 2008, and especially that it will be the first season in a box set. Much better than having to wait for seperate discs. The anime is based on the manga by Naoki Urasawa, who is better known in the English speaking world for Monster and Master Keaton.

For the Anime Companion Supplement I have:

redii (lady bikers)

tokkôfuku (kamikaze party uniform)

yakiniku (grilled meat)

For a full list of recent entries see my Anime Companion Supplement - News page.

Saturday, September 1, 2007

The food fight continues

This week your weapons are:

hakusai (Chinese cabbage)

kimuchi (kim chi)

tanmen


I've also been catching up on taking notes on the Urusei Yatsura anime, I'm a ways behind, and also just finished the first volume of the Peacemaker manga.

Peacemaker dramatically opens with the end of the story, Tetsunoke is being handed a package by Hijikata to take back to the Tama region. This was in Hokaido shortly before the last group of the Shinsengumi died in battle under Hijikata's leadership. Many of the fan sites on Peacemaker do not mention that Tetsunoke, the main character, actually existed. They assume he is fictional, a pretty big boo boo.