In Japan, a country known for its love of seafood, everyone from teens to senior citizens are saying no to scales and bones and yes to meat. Now, fish mongers and fish meisters are trying to turn back the tide of change. WSJ’s Akiko Fujita reports.
Spencer Kelly departs from Click’s private airbase in London and heads east to the land of the future, a place that’s always ready to try the next big thing – Japan.
He uncovers the Japanese desire for new technology and ventures into Akihabara – Tokyo’s technology district – and even discovers designs for a robot suit.
A body found on a mountain in Japan was confirmed as popular cartoonist Yoshito Usui, whose manga and animation series “Crayon Shin-chan” has attracted a worldwide fan base, a report said.
Usui, 51, had been missing for more than a week when a body covered in bruises was found on Saturday by a climber in a mountain range straddling Gunma and Nagano prefectures, Kyodo News agency reported.
The report said his family Sunday confirmed it was the cartoonist and quoted police as saying he may have fallen from a climbing path.
It added there was no sign of a suicide note.
Usui had been missing since September 11 after telling his family at his home in Saitama prefecture, near Tokyo, that he would be hiking on the mountain and would be back by the evening.
When he failed to return his family contacted police.
Usui made his debut as a manga author in 1987 and gained popularity in the 1990s with “Crayon Shin-chan” featuring the daily life of Shinnosuke, a mischievous five-year-old boy. (Source: Hindustan)
At the age of five Mineko left home to study traditional Japanese dance in Gion, Kyoto and by 21, she was considered Japan’s best dancer and maiko. (Source: Kimono Box)
Hanaikusa is just an hour long movie.
Inoue Mao plays the role of Mineko, a young maiko (apprentice geisha) in the Gion Kobu Geisha district of Kyoto.
The story is based on the autobiography of the famous retired Geiko (geisha) Mineko Iwasaki (who was one of the sources for Arthur Golden’s “Memoirs of a Geisha”). Iwasaki is also involved in the drama by personally coaching Inoue in the ways of the Geiko, and training the cast to speak the unique Gion dialect.
Hanaikusa 【花いくさ】
In December 2002, NBC played a spot featuring an interview with Mineko Iwasaki in relation to the Memoirs of a Geisha novel.
Utada Hikaru fails to break into US with yet another album.
Utada Hikaru’s album “This is the One” failed to break the US market when it was released 5 months ago.
This was her third attempt to woo American listeners, herself being a college dropout of Columbia University and native of New York City. Her first attempt to enter the American market was “Exodus”, which sold around only 55,000 copies, a low number compared to her success in Japan, where she has sold over 26 million.
Will she ever succeed in making it big in the US or will Americans continue to give her the cold shoulder?
