On Manga & Ikemen

Random Selection of News: late March, 2007

Those Japanese manga fans out there, there's a little news.
You don't have to wait months for the newest volumes of Japanese manga to come out in your langauge! Unfortunately, this doesn't apply for all the works being published internationally, but just recently publisher Gentosha announced that it will release paperback copies of the works published online on its webmanga site GENZO (Japanese / English). The very first one to be published is Gravitation EX the newest version of the popular series Gravitation, and it is scheduled to come out in seven languages including Japanese, English, German, Spanish, Taiwanese, Italian and Korean.
Again, this is only for the works on GENZO, but once one publisher starts doing this I bet others will start similar projects as the international manga market is steadily growing.


"Ikemen" connects East Asia
I think the whole fad about ikemen started several years ago just about the same time this crazy hanryu boom (Korean boom) swirled up in Japan. And I think this was when the Asia-internationalization of showbiz really started to become part of the mainstream of entertainment in Asian countries.

Ikemen is a Japanese term for "hot guys" which popped up around 2000. The term is coined from the words "iketeru" (modern casual language for "hot", "cool") and the English word "men". Right now the term is used so commonly from daily conversation to titles in magazines and variety shows, even on news sometimes despite it not being "proper" Japanese language.

When the Korean boom started with the import of a number of Korean love romance TV dramas best represented by Winter Sonata starring Bae Yong Joon, a whole lot of other young and handsome Korean actors were introduced to Japan with titles like "Shitennoh (Four Heavenly Kings)".
Chinese ikemen are introduced to Japan many times through movies rather than TV dramas, and Taiwanese as well as Korean ikemen through music activities. I notice that now there are so many musicians who sing songs in Japanese and you never know they're actually not Japanese.

I don't know so much about how Japanese pop stars have been seen in other East Asian countries in the past (I mean, before the trend of ikemen Asianization), but I have been told that Japanese actor Tsubabuki Satoshi and several members from the Johnnys Entertainment - (supposedly) the ikemen talento agency - are really popular in Taiwan right now.

Today the ikemen network (not of the ikemen themselves but of the media and fans) is wider, tightly connected and stronger than when it started. Fans for an ikemen are scattered around East Asia from Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong to Taiwan, and hearing news of Korean, Chinese, Hong Kong or Taiwanese ikemen coming to Japan has become almost regular. One day, so-many-thousands of fans gathered up for a concert in place A, and the next day several hundred fans flood over to an international airport to have a glance of another ikemen. These news were fresh news a few years ago, but now it feels like making oneself famous in the Japanese entertainment industry with his handsomeness is not too different from debuting in the eastern end of the Eurasian continent. Ikemen connects East Asia.

I wonder why handsome men tend to be more featured than beautiful women, though. Are men in these countries not as interested in beautiful women as women are in handsome men?

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Today is the last weekday of March so people are kind of busy and some maybe nervous too in this country. As some of you probably know, the school/fiscal year in Japan starts from April and goes till next March. I think by now all schools from kindergarten to universities have finished their graduation ceremonies, and freshers are getting ready for their lives starting in only three days from today. Next Monday the faces on the commuting trains would probably look a lot different, and there would be a lot of new uniforms and business suits walking around. This is also the time of year when you feel like you've grown old :p

If there any of you are regular readers of this blog and of my website, first of all I would like to thank you for sparing time to read my writings (which sometimes aren't even worth calling articles). From next week, you may notice some changes in the blog as well as website, and that is my "seasonal change". I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for reading and leaving comments on this blog (not to say that I am going to stop writing) and for sending e-mails to my website Japan Mode.

Today's update on Japan Mode: Webmanga CHARMY ROP Chapter 13 - Final Episode (to be updated around 18:00, Mar30, JST).

Newest Ghibli Film

One of Japan's most famous animation production Studio Ghibli announced its ongoing project of a new animation film. Its title revealed yesterday is Gake no Ue no Ponyo (Ponyo on the Cliff) (N.B. the title and translation I give here is only a pure romaji conversion and literal translation for the official English title has not been announced) and it is an original story created and directed by the master of Ghibli, Miyazaki Hayao.

Not much of the story has been revealed but we know that it is a "Japanese version of The Little Mermaid" (Producer Suzuki) and the main characters are a mermaid who wants to become a human, and a 5-year-old boy named Sosuke. I think the story takes place in Japan, maybe in an unverified town in the western seaside regions, as it is said that Miyazaki fell in love with this town facing the Seto Inner Sea (close to Osaka and Kobe, the northern shore of Shikoku Island located mid-west of Japan) when he visited the place in 2004 and rented a house for 2 months coming up with the story. But this is just my guess. As far as I know, the locales in most of his stories are untold clearly to the viewers but are based on existing towns.

The announcement also included the information about the model figure of Sosuke being Miyazaki's eldest son Goro, and mentioned the relationship between the creation of Ponyo and Miyazaki Goro's director debut film Ged Senki (Tales from Earthsea). Producer Suzuki spoke for Miyazaki Hayao that, "Miyazaki took Ged as a rebellion of Goro against his father, and believes that such situation developed because of his (Miyazaki's) lack of attention to his son (Goro) when he was a young child, coming from his work busyness. In Ponyo, Miyazaki puts in his feelings of reflection so that children like him will not increase."

The images are not yet available, but according to the news article they are softer in touch, quite differing from the previous Ghibli works. In this new film, Miyazaki hopes to return to the very basics of animation.

I'm pretty sure that this announcement has given much anticipation in the hearts of many Japanese people. Miyazaki's films always enjoy great attention, part of it because the name "Miyazaki (Hayao)" or "Ghibli" have become an established brand (sadly, kind of) but also because his works are worth the attention and are enjoyable as well as well themed. Apart from the fact that his works are marvelous pieces of art and creation, they carry messages throughout the stories that makes the audience think during or after watching the movies. Once I commented to somebody that some of his movies are difficult to understand, but he only responded, "which part of it was so hard? It was very simple: this happened, that happend so they bla bla bla...". Of course I understood the flow of the story, but that's on the surface. There's always much more to his films (that perhaps some people don't want to discuss about).

Well, I don't mean to become so enthused about the topic so I'll stop here. I really look forward to its release though. It's scheduled summer 2008.

Today's update on Japan Mode: country names in kanji
This, for a while, is the last update of country names converted in kanji. The kanji conversions are of existing ones so don't think we (Japan Mode) did it. Most of them don't make sense as a word or a name. They're converted purely phonetically. Today's update covers the Central and South American countries, Central Asia to Middle East and African countries.

DEATH NOTE laptop on sale

The DEATH NOTE craze seems to increase momentum.

DEATH NOTE, a psycho suspense manga that came out three years ago sold more than 25 million copies (vol.1-12 all together), released a pair of live-action movies last year with a box office sales of over 8 billion yen in Japan alone, followed up with a spin-off with "L" as the protagonist coming out in 2008, currently airs a TV anime series, and most recently came out with a game soft on Nintendo DS. All of them are selling extremely well, and I bet there is hardly anyone between the age of five to fifty (at least in Tokyo) who has never even heard of the name somewhere.

The latest news on DEATH NOTE tells that not the paper-version notebook but a laptop computer version of the "death note" is going on sale. It is a plain-looking laptop except that it has a special cover on the top side with the mark and scribbling that says "DEATH NOTE", and comes with an apple-designed USB memory. Only 30 of them - strictly thirty and no more no less of course with serial numbers - in the world are going to be sold, probably around 200,000 yen ($2,000 more or less). You can see pictures here (Japanese). Supposedly the machine carries the state-of-the-art specs including FeliCa Port (contactless IC card reader) and Windows Vista meaning its a windows machine. It looks like its an NEC.

So what do you think? Many of the comments posted to this article are rather on the cold side and those comments are I guess kind of true. They say it rather looks cheap, and also that if they were going to come out with a computer anyway they should have made it with Mac instead of Windows for one) "L"'s computers used in the original manga were all Mac, and two (a minor reason)) if they were going to associate Ryuk's love for apples they might as well made a more artistic version of the laptop DEATH NOTE with Mac's symbol apple instead of attaching an apple-shaped USB. These people've got a point, I think.

Even then, the very-limited laptop DEATH NOTE are sure to be a target of fierce competition when it comes out. I see this particular characteristic of Japanese people being so obsessively attracted to "numbers" so on top of the fact that only "30" of them are going on sale, the (extremely effective) advertisement of the limited computers having "serial numbers" makes this news really a killer.
Um... if anyone who happens to have his/her name included in the data of this computer suddenly dies in a mysterious way, than that would become a real news.

So much for today.
Today's update on Japan Mode: Country Names in Kanji vol.2 - I have added a few to the previous page (vol.1) and about 15 or so more countries on today's page. So far there are several European countries, USA and some Asian countries listed.

Uniquely Japanese?

I have two things I want to write about today, of which I suppose are kind of characteristic to Japan though not necessarily unique.... well, let's see.

One is about karaoke. In Tokyo alone there are more than one thousand shops that we call "karaoke box" which is a place you go in to sing songs (I'm pretty sure you know what karaoke is). These came out during the 1980s and quickly became part of our culture that simply cannot be cut apart from our daily lives (wow, unimaginable).

For those who don't have a clear vision or imagination of what it's like, it's a place that has several separate rooms (not exactly "boxes" like phone booths) each with karaoke machines and you can go in to sing your favorite songs from all time favorites, latest hit singles, from J-pop, enka to imported songs. One room hosts about 4-10 people in larger rooms and the rooms, although most times they don't have such good acoustics, lets you sing (or shout) in full volume with music. The average money you spend is about 500 yen per hour, plus drinks and food which is usually required. Rates vary widely depending on day and time. Anyway.

Karaoke boxes are extremely popular among Japanese mostly from middle school students up to working men in their 50s. Students hang out in karaoke boxes in a group of two to five more or less after school. It is part of the routine dating spots for couples too. The most popular and common use of the boxes are for after-parties or after-after-parties among college students and working people. People get together for dinner and then after a couple of drinks and food they go into karaoke boxes for another drink or two. This is a very typical scene you see if not engaged on Friday and Saturday nights.

Well there was a report on the news the other night that an increasing number of people are suffering polyp in their throats from overuse of throat by karaoke. Unlike singing out loud at home or in your car or just humming along the music, karaoke (naturally) puts you in an atmosphere and feeling that you want to shout out and sing in the loudest and best voice you have. For those who are good at singing and know how to control the voice there is nothing more soothing than singing, but for those who aren't good or unused to it the singing parties are throat killers. As a result from over-singing people get polyps in their throat, and a Japanese doctor recently named this "karaoke polyp".

One is likely to happen when singing songs that have high notes, which is steadily increasing these days. The report noted that high note songs are increasing because many of the music today are composed digitally, and it is easy to make high note songs with digital technology which wasn't a conspicuous tendency for composing with acoustic skills. When high note sounds are made the vibration of the vocal cords increase by five times, and that sudden and high impact activity literally bullies the vocal cords. In addition, the jumping and the dancing that oftentimes accompany the singing escalates the creation of the polyp.

Karaoke polyp can be a minor threat as it doesn't always happen but is yet a threat because it can happen to anyone anytime. There are ways to prevent it though. A professional voice trainer suggested that relaxing your body with simple exercise (especially around your neck and shoulders) before singing lightens the strain on your throat, and also warned that facing upwards at high keys which happens a lot would only kill your throat. The namer doctor of karaoke polyp suggested to be quiet for three minutes after singing three songs. That's not too hard, I guess.

This has become long. I think I'll save the other one for tomorrow.

Today's update on Japan Mode: Live Action Manga (manga-drama review and requests) - it is a rather personal, subjective review on the live action TV drama of Nodame Cantabile (it was the best one that I could comment on in terms of original - drama comparison). I think you'll find the other page more interesting though, which is a list of manga titles that Japanese people wish to see live action made in Japan and in Hollywood. You can see quite a bit of a difference here.

Blue Wolf

It seems like Japanese films are making their way around the world more than ever these days. Just yesterday I wrote about Dororo which is doing pretty well right now in Japan and is going to be shown sometime soon in more than 20 countries. It is going to become a grand-scale triology spending roughly 8 billion yen all together. It's going to take some years but I'll be looking forward to the upcoming series.

Then I also mentioned Mushishi (Bug Master?) based on a recent manga which is going to be shown in Japan soon. Sounded like it caught the hearts of several distributors overseas and though I haven't heard further news I'm pretty sure it's going to be shown sooner or later in at least a few places outside of Japan.
Another manga-based film lately made and shown is Bokkou, a collaboration piece of four (more or less) Asian countries and regions. Haven't seen the film yet but I really want to.

Then there's Sakuran that I've been mentioning as many times as I am for Dororo (NOT promoting though). It made its way to Berlin a couple of weeks ago to the International Film Festival. This one is going to hit the theaters tomorrow February 24th.

Speaking of the Berlin int'l film festival, another Japanese film seemed to have really grasped the hearts of distributors from almost 60 countries and regions. The original Japanese title is <Aoki Ookami - Chi Hate Umi Tsukiru Made> which can be translated literally . Well, I at least had no clue this film is about just judging from the title, but it's actually a Japan-Mongolia collaboration film celebrating the 800th anniversary of the foundation of Mongolia. The film features Mongolia's historical hero Genghis Khan who achieved the so-thought impossible unification of Mongolia.

The news says that as soon as the Japanese production board and distrobutor put it on sale and the film market at the Berlin International Film Market dozens of distributors flooded to get a contract. All together 60 countries - 49 European and Middle/Near East countries and 11 Asian countries including Japan and Mongolia (both releasing the film on March 3rd 2007) - are going to release the film.

I don't have further information about the film, but one thing that disappoints me a little is the fact that most of the casts (at least the main figures) are Japanese. Because it "boasts" being an international collabarative project I thought there'd be a whole lot of Mongolian actors and actresses in it. Well... at least the entire film was shot in Mongolia...


Today's update on Japan Mode: CHARMY ROP Chapter 11 preview. If you've just noticed... the title of the webmanga changed today. The whole group agreed that it sounds better and links better with the story.

Oh, and the above is the newest wallpaper available at JChannel (in about two hours from now).

Hinamatsuri, the girl's festival, is coming up not tomorrow but the following Saturday (March 3rd) so this time Mimi's dressed in kimono.

More Dororo

It's been almost a month since the Japan release of Dororo, a Tezuka Osamu's manga based film, and it looks like the film is doing pretty well at least here in Japan. I don't know when it's going to be released in the other 23 countries but anyway I did have a chance to see the film a little while ago.

As for my personal review goes... not extremely excellent but entertaining enough. I actually haven't read the original story but I could tell that there'd been a lot of cutting (and probably changing) in the storyline. I guess it can't be helped as the original must be a very long piece with a very profound philosophy or theme, but I must say I expected a little more. I liked it overall though. Afterall I think I liked it. Yep.

The story ended like it was going to have a series - and so it is going to with the same Tsubabuki and Shibasaki playing the main two characters. The production committee announced not only that they're going to have a number 2 but also number 3, disclosing that 2 would focus a little more on Dororo's (Shibasaki) story with more entertainment elements and 3 being about Hyakkimaru (Tsumabuki's) determination of his life.

Sure it did end like it's going to have more, but I didn't actually think that there would be since the production cost for this film far exceeds the common sense of Japanese film making, and it was also shot mostly overseas which is not so common for Japanese films. In order to not disappoing the audience of the first one (in theaters now) they're going to spend 6 billion yen all together for 2 and 3, and are of course going to shoot the film somewhere outside of Japan although where and when is not yet decided. They did say that 2 has a lot to do with the ocean and said they'll probably choose a location somewhere in the South Pacific. Series 2 is scheduled to appear in the theaters in 2009 at the earliest. As we say in Japanese, "let's keep our neck stretched long" ;-)

I won't give away the details of the film here, but I will mention there were quite a bit of surprises that probably very very few if not none of the audiences expected. I also heard that to make the film better, the production board had a mid-process preview gathering common people and asked the audience to evaluate, criticize, comment on the still editing film. After they collected the comments they made a few changes and so came out the final piece.

A little note: the film is rated PG12 here in Japan but I don't know how it would be rated in other countries. Like you can probably tell from the preview it is quite violent with lots of battle and use of weapons. There were many parts that I thought little kids can cry from scariness. In any case, do go have a look when it becomes available in your neighborhood.

Today's update on Japan Mode: Sakura Guide 2007 - the cherry blossom season is coming close and the sakura season here in Japan is traditionally the party season by all means. Aside from the hanami groups and parties spreading their picnic sheet under the night cherry trees with beer and food, there are lots and lots of sakura related events taking place starting from the southern warmer regions. Today's the first edition of sakura event guide 2007!

Dororo Official Website: www.dororo.jp/ (Japanese)
Dororo English Info on Japan Mode: http://www.jmode.com/madeinjapan/madein11_3.html

Female Creators

I've mentioned a few days ago that the new Japanese film Sakuran (a movie on high-class courtesans during Edo Period based on Anno Moyoco's manga Sakuran) is going to be shown at the opening(?) of Berlin International Film Festival starting this weekend in Berlin, Germany... well... perhaps not. I can't remember. Anyway, I have another related news which is the special holding of Sakuran's director Ninagawa Mika's photo gallery at [ Arndt & Partner Berlin ] during the film festival. Oh, and a fragment of the film where the courtesans parade is said to be re-enacted on the red carpet the first day.

Since the film is going to Berlin and even if it wasn't, it's going to be released in Tokyo&periphery in just a couple of weeks, I have been seeing quite a bit of commercials and ads on TV and in mags this past week. And I tell you - the world created in this film is so dominated by vivid, brilliant and astonishingly beautiful colors and patterns, which look like a mixture of traditional Japanese beauty and modern graphic art. The colors in the world of Sakuran that director Ninagawa Mika creates are truly dazzling. In an interview for the film the actresses and actors said that the colors are so powerful that they have to fight with the colors when acting.
To their cries, Ninagawa answered that for a professional photographer who lives in the world of colors, the use of colors in this film was natural and nothing particularly special that she kept in her mind all the time.

Considering the fact that the film is about the world of women, and not just any women but the high-rank courtesans in the Yoshiwara district of Edo where the clever beautiful and the rich ruled, the use of so many vivid colors may not be that surprising. Yet, I do agree that her sense of colors and beauty is something beyond ordinary, and also think that if this film was directed by a male director - no matter how good a director he is - it could've been so much different with different sorts and combinations of colors being used.

Colors in films also remind me of the costume designer Wada Emi. I've seen several films with costumes designed by her, and I love how she uses the colors. They are simple, but very powerful, and they play significant roles in the story as well as establishing respective characters.

Going back to Sakuran, the music director is also a woman, Shiina Ringo, who is a pretty big and distinct figure in Japanese pop music industry. Her music is strong and powerful... or thick, more like, which can be described to belong to the rather odd type. Haven't seen the film, but I have a feeling that her music matches the Sakuran world.

A TV personality was commenting to this topic of female creators, that women have a special kind of artistic sense that is different from that of men's. His example was film director Sofia Coppola and her latest film released Marie-Antoinette, of how she chose pop/modern music mixing it with classic for an 18th century themed film.

I do agree with the observation that men and women have different artistic senses, and I think that that's what make art fun and inspiring, isn't it? In any case, I am pretty excited to see more of this film Sakuran a lot of it because of the color artistic quality.

Today's update on Japan Mode: webmanga CharmyNurseM chapter 10 preview
I've also got some wallpapers just for fun :-)

Sakuran Official Website: www.sakuran-themovie.com

Things that interest me now...

Since I have no particular topic that I want to write about but have many things on my mind, I thought I'd list them. This is mostly going to be movies and manga and things of which my interests basically derive from either of them.

<STOMP THE YARD>
I saw the trailer for this American movie "Stomp the Yard" last night on TV and thought it's pretty cool. I always like to see dancing especially when it comes to dances with fast beat and rhythm, and I also admire all the time the flexibility of muscles and joints of those dancers plus their sense of rhythm. I myself have never learned hip hop or stepping or any of the stuff on that side - all I've ever had is a few years experience of classic ballet and a bit of clubbing - but I wish I could dance like that. Cool.

< Dororo and Bokkou >
Speaking of films, there are a few that I want to go see in theaters. One is Dororo, a film that I have been mentioning several times now in the past entries and also on my website. I hear it's good, and also feel that I should experience the scale in a theater with large screen and good sound system.
Bokkou was released this past weekend in Japan, and this too, I'm very much interested in seeing because I like that unique worldview Chinese fims or films on China have.

<IRYU - Team Medical Dragon>
... is a name of a manga that I am hooked right now. I borrowed it from a friend from high school who is currently a nursing student. The manga is mostly a criticism to Japanese medical treatment, of the feudalistic systems and structure, corrupted doctors, downlooked nurses and disrespected patients. It's an indignant and sad reality we carry. In terms of being a criticism I guess it's not too different from other medical manga like Say Hello to Black Jack (Jpn: Black Jack ni yoroshiku).

Anyway, it reminded me of this conversation several days ago between my boss, my colleague and me, that the more difficult and technical the theme is, the more they should make it into a manga. You see, manga is easier to understand difficult stuff than sentences because it's visual and more importantly because it takes a conversational style. A whole bunch of questions arise within and are answered within. And to my littlest surprise, this one has been made into a TV drama last year.

Reading about difficult themes in manga is good, but sometimes I feel like the criticisms go too far. It's so much easier to make the readers believe what's written. For instance, this manga gives me a feeling that it's trying to grow distrust among the general public against Japanese hospitals and doctors. The work is directed by an experienced doctor and is not a collection of random and irresponsible things somewhere between fiction and non-fiction, so of course a lot of it has to be true, but still I think I shouldn't believe in everything written...... or should I???


I know that a good selection of Japanese manga and anime are being exported, but how about TV dramas? The foreign TV dramas we have are mostly American and Korean. 24 has been popular for quite a while now as well as Desperate Housewives and LOST. The Korean drama Winter Sonata starring Bae Yong Joon made a huge success in Japan and established the Hanryu-boom (Korean boom) which still hasn't quite died out today. Myself... I was quite into Dae Jang Geum...


I mentioned some time ago this manga called Kami no Shizuku (Les Goutte de Dieu: the drops of god) which is about wine. I liked wine, especially red, from before I read this but reading this comic really makes you thirsty... it makes you want to drink different kinds of the same drink that's not necessarily wine. It makes you want to do some tasting (wannabe) of all kinds of alcohol from wine, Japanese rice wine ("sake"), beer, etc. etc. and even tea. Going back to wine, my recent favorite is a Californian red. Can't remember the name though. And the other favorite is an Italian red. Can't remember the name of this either, except that it had a drawing of a cat on the label. That one was good. My favorite liquor is "umeshu" which is plum wine. Sooo good.


All right. I kind of have more to write about, but I'm stopping here since it's getting long.
Today's update on Japan Mode: This Week's Events in Tokyo ... mostly about plum blossom viewing. It's a sign of spring in Japan, but no parties like cherry blossom viewing.

TV Commercials

The December ranking chart for the most popular TV commercials in Japan have been annouced today and the winner for December was this series "gas-pa-cho" which is a kind of a new gas heating system. The survey is conducted monthly and generation-separately and in fact this CM series won first place among the high school students in the past but this is the first time to rank top among older generations.

In Japanese culture TV commercials are kind of like a part of entertainment: of course their primary focus is to fulfill the purpose of advertising the product, but taking that for granted they have to be fun.

So to make the commercials entertaining, many of them feature famous figures especially showbiz celebrities. I once heard that in the States, celebrities like Hollywood actors/actresses appearing in TV commercials kind of denotes the decline of the person in that career. I don't know how true that is, but it's exaclty the opposite in Japan. The more popular you are the more commercial offers you get.
In my analysis, Japanese people tend to charismatize and idolize pop stars and dream of wanting to become like them so that's what makes using pop stars in commercials effective ways to promote the product.

The other way to attract TV viewers to the commercial besides using famous figures and maitaining high level of visual artistic quality is to make it like a short short ongoing drama of just a few seconds.

The most successful commercials lately using this method was KDDI's CM on "au" (mobile carrier). Not only it featured the popular actress Nakama Yukie, each commercial for "au" for this certain period was like fragments of a story. The "au" original song that Nakama sang as a singer in the commercial too became so popular that they released it as a single CD.

Credit card company Life's CM is another long-run hit. This one feature's another pop actor Odagiri Jo and the way the commercials end is just like how a soap opera ends each air. At the very end it says "see website for more" and this proves to be extremely effective. Like the song in "au" this item "lifecard" Odagiri uses in the CM is now made into a product for sale.

Going back to "gas-pa-cho" - this is actually my favorite commercial at the moment. There are several versions, and each of them pick up famous historical figures like Galileo Galilei, Flemming, Beethoven, Oda Nobunaga, Onono Imoko, Newton, the Chushingura samurais, Shakespeare (and is interpretor) so on so forth with the actor Tsumabuki Satoshi playing the protagonist. This commercial so marvelously turns these "difficult figures" of the history textbook in to a 10-second-comedy that makes you chuckle if not burst our laughing.

The first one of this series that I saw was Galileo Galilei ver. and this really caught me. My favorite now is Onono Imoko ver. I think many of them are available on YouTube so if you're curious to see what they're like, go to YouTube and search "gas-pa-cho" ;-)

Today's update on Japan Mode:
Holiday Giveaway 1. "CharmyNurseM" Special Christmas E-cards... send out exclusive CharmyNurseM Christmas Cards to your friends!
Holiday Giveaway 2. "CharmyNurseM" Christmas Desktop Wallpaper... available in two sizes 1024x768 and 800x600