The annual (and sometimes biannual) Hyper Japan event returned to London's Earls Court exhibition centre between 25th and 27th July 2014, so I managed to find time to pop to yesterday's show to see what they had arranged for this year's celebration of Japanese pop culture. Hyper Japan is a unique event which blends Japanese fashion, artwork, games, music, cinema and traditional culture together to allow visitors to get a taste of all kinds of activities in a single venue.
It's popular with young people, naturally, but also with older Londoners who are curious about Japan and expats who want to introduce their favourite traditions to a wider audience. The attendees come from a rich mixture of backgrounds; if the intense atmosphere at MCM Comic Con is too much for you, Hyper Japan tends to offer a much more pleasant, friendly experience.
The first hurdle we were presented with was that the popular Saturday show had been split into two halves this year as an experiment to help ease crowding. The first session ran from 09:15 until 14:15, then the second started at 15:15 and ran all the way until closing time at 20:15. You could buy tickets for both halves of the show, of course, but this would leave you waiting around in a fairly empty part of London for an hour with nothing to do until the event reopened. I wonder how well this experiment worked out.
Judging by the ticket sales on the official website, the Saturday afternoon and Sunday shows were probably the most popular. My group opted for Saturday morning as we wanted to see one of the special guests perform, and it turned out to be a good choice. The crowds weren't too bad at all first thing in the morning so we managed to see everything we wanted to before our session was over.
One of the many interesting things about the Sengoku Basara series is how much care the creators put into each character's dialogue. Every character consistently addresses the others (and themselves) in a particular way, which means you can often tell who spoke and who they were speaking to from written text without any context at all. This makes it quite challenging to translate; it's almost impossible to replicate the variety in the original script without resorting to obscure English expressions which sound very strange in a Japanese setting - such as Sasuke addressing Yukimura as 'Guv' rather than his usual 'Danna' in the English adaptation of the manga.
As a result of this careful attention to character interactions, many of the warriors in the games have attracted a number of nicknames over the last eight years. Some of these are based on names (and titles) used by the real-life historical figures; others are inventions used only in Sengoku Basara. And some are nothing more than in-jokes between fans.
In the west, new fans often seem to comment that it's very difficult to learn who all of the characters are. The nicknames don't help and there don't seem to be many resources in English to help people decipher them. I decided to try to put together a list of the most common ones - partly to be helpful, and partly because I was curious to see how many I could remember all by myself. The answer turned out to be 'a lot', though this list is far from complete, and doesn't even touch on honourifics or the multitude of personal pronouns the series employs.
Firstly, a list of nicknames for individual characters. It's hopefully obvious which of these are official in-game nicknames and which are jokes.
103-year-old 103歳 Motonari. A joke based on the age he would actually have been if he were at the Battle of Sekigahara. Anaguma 穴熊 Kanbee. 'Badger'. Aniki アニキ Motochika. 'Older brother', but used more like the slang expression 'bro'. Benmaru 弁丸 Yukimura. His real-life childhood name. Bishamonten No Keshin 毘沙門天の化身 Kenshin. Literally 'Bishamonten incarnate'.
Note: This post follows directly on from part 2. If you haven't read that one already, please check it out first as I refer back to it for some explanations.
If the city of Shiroishi in Miyagi prefecture is all about Katakura Kojuurou, then the region's capital of Sendai is passionately devoted to Date Masamune. The real life Masamune founded the city in his domain more than four hundred years ago; since then it's grown into a busy urban hub and tourist destination, full of relics from the Sengoku period.
As soon as you step out of the train at Sendai station, you're met by endless references to the celebrated city founder and Musubimaru, the riceball-shaped regional mascot whose design includes nods to Masamune's famous armour. A beautiful stained glass window depicting the historical Date Masamune keeps watch over the station lobby.
And it's likely that you'll also come across the occasional Sengoku Basara poster in between the more traditional ones.
The second part of my travel report is all about Shiroishi Castle. There are a lot of pictures this time. I'm delighted that I managed to get it finished in time to post it on 'Kojuurou Day' (2013/5/16 - a goroawase play on words).
The original reason for this particular trip was a shallow one: I'd bought the Sengoku Basara Travel Navi CD for the Oushuu area and the two seiyuu spoke so affectionately about their experiences in the city of Shiroishi that I became fascinated with the idea of going there myself. Travel Navi CDs are also available for Ueda, Osaka/Gifu and Sekigahara, if you're a fan who needs further convincing to pay one of those areas a visit.
I like historical sites anyway and the Sengoku Basara link added an interesting twist, so last summer I hopped on the Shinkansen to Miyagi prefecture and went to go and see the area for myself. Unfortunately the most prominent of Shiroishi's local attractions, Shiroishi Castle, had suffered significant damage from the terrible Touhoku earthquake which hit the region in 2011. I couldn't change the dates of my planned holiday even though the castle's website had explained the situation in advance.
The beautiful gate, in front of a building site
Due to the extensive repairs that were required visitors were only able to see the grounds; the castle building itself was covered in scaffolding and inaccessible. In spite of this problem I loved what I'd seen of the area and wanted to go back when the repairs had been finished.
It was impossible to see the structure of the walls
Not willing to be defeated, I decided to revisit the area as part of my trip in March 2013 to see what it was supposed to look like.
There are three main ways you can get to Shiroishi by train from central Tokyo. The first is to take one of the luxurious Hayabusa Shinkansen trains all the way to Sendai, then change for the JR Touhoku line to take you back a short way to JR Shiroishi station. This takes you closer to the centre of the city and the historical sites, and if you're planning on seeing Sendai first it's the route which makes the most sense.
Alternatively, you can take a slower Yamabiko Shinkansen and change to the JR Touhoku line at Fukushima station, avoiding going all the way into Sendai and then back out again.
My preferred route is to take the Yamabiko Shinkansen train to Shiroishi Zaou station, which is slightly farther away from the castle than JR Shiroishi. The advantage of this is threefold; it makes it easier to get to Shiroishi directly early in the day (which is important when the tourist attractions closer quite early in the afternoon), and it doesn't require any changes after getting on the Shinkansen so you can relax. It also gives you a chance to visit Shiroishi Zaou station.
Descending into Shiroishi Zaou station from the
Shinkansen platform
Shiroishi Zaou station is almost worthy of a sightseeing trip on its own. It contains a tiny 'Uumen Noodle and Kokeshi Doll Mini-Museum' on one side of the ticket hall, traditional handicrafts, replica armour pieces, Sengoku-themed beer, a mikoshi portable shrine shaped like Shiroishi Castle and an incredible gift shop decorated with Sengoku Basara imagery which sells goods from all over the Touhoku area.
I started to write a single post about my two visits to Shiroishi Castle from the perspective of a Sengoku Basara fan. It soon became so long that I ended up having to split it into three parts - all because I kept wanting to include details of other things I did on my trips!
Therefore, this first post is all about some of the other Sengoku Basara sights I've enjoyed on my trips to Japan. The castle will come afterwards.
Tokyo International Anime Fair
I went to Tokyo International Anime Fair 2013 (TAF) for the first time on Saturday 24th March 2013, one of the public dates. Buying a ticket in advance was easy thanks to the convenience store reservation system and there was no queue at all when we arrived at Tokyo Big Sight just after 10:00am - we were inside within minutes. The most surprising thing was how tiny the event was, spread over the three East halls. It always looks huge when people post photo reports, but I'm used to attending much larger gatherings whenever I head to Big Sight in search of doujinshi at Comic City or Comiket. I'd never seen the venue so quiet before! The other culture shock was how many foreigners there were. Many of them arrived dressed in cosplay before making a beeline for the fenced-off cosplay area. The whole thing felt just like one of London's MCM Expo events (only without the rampant piracy and stormtroopers).
Dragonball, One Piece and Toriko at the Toei booth
The reason I went to TAF wasn't for the anime coverage this time, even though I was pleased to see Kobayashi Yuu participating in a Ginga He Kickoff panel. It was for something much dorkier: I wanted to buy the special Sengoku Basara goods that appeared on this blog previously!
It's no secret that I adore Sengoku Basara. It's the reason I visited the Sengoku Basara karaoke room in Akihabara and the official Capcom shop in Odaiba, and it's a contributing factor to several of the pilgrimages I've made to historical sites in Japan before.
As part of this obsession, one of the locations I made sure to visit on my 2012 trip to Japan was the Capcom Bar, an 'entertainment bar' situated in Shinjuku, Tokyo. This post is mostly going to cover the crazy food my friends and I ordered during our visit, but I'll start by describing the bar itself in case anyone needs help planning a visit one day.
Capcom Bar is located in Shinjuku and might be difficult to find. The easiest way to get there is to navigate to Shinjuku Sanchoume station then take exit B9; it's a long underground walk but hard to get lost that way. A map and list of opening times is kept up to date on the bar's official website.
The first thing which needs to be understood when planning a visit is that the Capcom Bar is very popular. It's so popular that on the day we dined there, a queue had formed which stretched down the road even though the bar wasn't scheduled to open for another hour and a half. If you are a fan of the Biohazard series (Resident Evil), it might be worth trying the separate Biohazard Cafe and Grill S.T.A.R.S. in nearby Shibuya instead.
Everyone in the line ahead was female
Because of the high demand, the bar requires that every visitor reserves a time slot in advance (that's why we were queued up outside to begin with). At the time it was only possible to book in person - slightly annoying, as even though we'd arrived early the queue was so long we had to pick the second time slot of the day, leaving us with a long wait before our meal. Since then, the staff have introduced telephone bookings and Lawson convenience store reservations which should streamline the process.
I'm not sure whether it's still done this way, but we had to complete an order form for our food in advance as well to avoid delays; each time slot is only two hours long so you don't want to waste any time. The names of the menu items are all in Japanese, so if you don't speak the language it's a good idea to check the website before you visit and make a list of all of the dishes you want to order. It will make completing the reservation form much easier. If you can read Japanese, there are detailed menus outside the bar which give much more information about the food than the website. It's quite fun to wait in the lobby area leafing through the menus, making use of the free shaved ice machine and gazing longingly at the merchandise on display.
When our reserved time slot was due to begin the staff rounded everyone up and gave a rousing introduction ("Let's party!") to get all of the guests in the mood for some fun. We were then led inside the Capcom Bar and given time to look around at the decorations bathed in blue neon lighting. Small screens were set up next to the tables to show trailers from various Capcom games and merchandise from Monster Hunter and Sengoku Basara covers all of the available wall space. There were some consoles available too for people who had time to play (nobody did when we were there; the food was too interesting!).
The most prominent Capcom games represented on the menu are Monster Hunter, Gyakuten Saiban (Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney), Sengoku Basara and Biohazard, with Street Fighter and Devil May Cry appearing too. Since my visit a few items from Dragon's Dogma have also been added to the list and there are occasionally special events for other games.
As soon as everyone had settled in, it was time to dine!
Instead of finishing my latest meandering review, today's post is a rant! If you don't like that kind of thing please skip it. There'll be more of my usual over-enthusiastic babbling next time.
Doujinshi: a world which is often misunderstood
I felt completely demoralised earlier this week when I clicked a Crunchyroll news story about how some Japanese doujinshi artists are helping others remove unauthorised links to their work from Google search results. The article itself was fine - though I did wonder how well the writer understood what he was talking about when he filled the post with illustrations drawn by someone else without their permission. The problem was that I curiously checked the comments.
A lot of people seem to have strong opinions on doujinshi culture in Japan without having the slightest idea about the realities of the situation there. This isn't the first time I've been exposed to these attitudes and it won't be the last; there was a huge scandal last year when Amazon.com started reselling illegal scans of parody doujinshi (several of which were explicit) on its Kindle store. Amazon weren't responsible directly; they'd been tricked by an unknown party who had acted as an agent and provided the illegal materials. Artists in Japan were appalled when bilingual blogger Komatsu Mikikazu alerted them to the situation, but with many individual creators lacking fluency in English it took some time before the situation was resolved and the material removed.
The biggest fear of many of the artists who were affected by this was never that they might lose revenue from the pirated doujinshi being made available like this, or that the translations might not be good quality, or whatever other reason the bulk of skeptical foreign commentators were suggesting. It was that the creators of the titles that were being parodied would see the works listed and jump to the wrong conclusion about the doujin circles' intentions. It was imperative that the problem be dealt with as quickly as possible, but Amazon's cumbersome complaints process required a physical letter written in English from each artist whose work had been stolen. Many of the artists had long moved on since the time they originally drew those old books, and even being able to understand the foreign complaints instructions was a challenge for non-English speakers. The procedure required them to then write a formal letter to Amazon in the US and wait a week for it to arrive by international mail, then wait a further month while Amazon deliberated the case. This scenario left plenty of time for the problem to escalate even if the artist was fluent in English and dealt with the problem immediately, a situation which terrified the wider doujinshi community with its implications.
What I found additionally disconcerting about the situation then is that most western commentators were only upset that the rights of the scanlators who had made the unauthorised material available in digital form in the first place were being infringed by the unknown person who listed all of the books on Amazon. Very few English-language discussions mentioned the doujin circles' rights anywhere in the debate. I don't disagree that scanning, lettering and translating without permission takes time. However, planning, writing, drawing and printing a whole doujinshi takes a great deal more, not to mention talent. I'm not sure whether this is a xenophobic attitude since fandom on the whole is usually very vocal about protecting the rights of local creators of derivative works. Is it seen as acceptable in some communities to disrespect the work of others if they can't easily complain about it in English?
This idea was reinforced by the comments on the Crunchyroll article today.
I was always taught that two wrongs don't make a right yet it seems that for some people here in the west, they do. Many posters used the rationalisation that the doujinshi are unauthorised parodies, therefore there's no problem with making unauthorised copies of them and spreading them around the Internet without permission. I don't think it's possible to change the minds of those who have already taken a hostile stance, but perhaps if I can gather together everything I know about doujinshi in this post newer fans might stumble upon it one day and understand that the statements parroted by many fans overseas aren't always based upon solid facts.
What are doujinshi?
Doujinshi are fan-made 'books'. The vast majority of these take the form of printed B5 comics drawn by amateur artists, though novels (printed fan fiction) and art books aren't uncommon. Doujinshi are just one part of the doujin scene, which also includes other indie creations such as doujin games, doujin music and doujin goods (fan-made merchandise).
Japanese fans often use the English word 'coterie' in place of 'doujin' to describe the groups of fans which gather together to create a doujin product. As this word isn't commonly used where I'm from, I personally prefer to stick to 'fanzines' or 'fan comics' depending on the situation or just leave the word in Japanese.
The group which created an individual doujinshi is called a 'circle', and it may be made up of several participants or just one person (a 'kojin' circle). Circles with only one member are very common in fandoms with an older demographic, while larger circles often grow from university clubs or close-knit groups of friends.
For the purpose of this blog post I'm focusing mainly on parody doujinshi, the fan comics based on existing manga, anime and games which are best known in the west.
Doujinshi facts and fiction
I'll close this post with a few observations in the hope that they'll help tackle some common misconceptions about the doujinshi environment.
Last week (Saturday 6th October) I attended the fourth annual Japan Matsuri (第四回ジャパン祭り) in London. This year, the event was held in the middle of Trafalgar Square with a stage set up beneath Nelson's Column. We'd missed last year's Matsuri (held at County Hall) due to family commitments, so in this summary I'm going to be comparing everything to the first two.
The weather the previous day had been awfully wet. Miraculously, on the day of Japan Matsuri, the skies cleared completely and the sun shone down all day long. We had arrived before the 11am start time deliberately to scout the area before the crowds arrived, only to discover that the new venue had some stricter rules. Visitors weren't allowed to enter Trafalgar Square at all until the gates were opened. We peeped inside and read the slick pamphlets we were given. A small crowd of eager people gradually gathered, several of whom were dressed for the occasion in beautiful yukata.
Having had some festival experience previously we knew that the first thing we should do once we were allowed to enter was to ignore the stage events and head for the stalls around the perimeter of the area. We had come hungry. I picked up some oden early on (pictured).
Most festival staples were present in the food stalls, with okonomiyaki, nikuman, yakisoba, bentou, dorayaki and maccha ice cream on offer. One type of food notable for its absence was, strangely, fresh takoyaki. The takoyaki stands at the first two Japan Matsuri events had received a lot of interest from attendees and here they were all missing. In their place, several of the larger food stalls were serving pre-prepared takoyaki deep fried to order. It's not the same thing at all, so my takoyaki-loving partner went without his favourite festival treat this year. I can only presume that the fresh takoyaki stalls had run into problems caused by their relatively slow service (they require special equipment and couldn't keep up with demand swiftly enough in the past). It is a shame that it wasn't possible to compensate for this by adding more vendors to spread the load.
Another thing I noticed was less variety in the non-food stalls. The early Japan Matsuri events had dabbled in art displays, samurai armour costuming and there had been exhibitors selling books, magazines and merchandise. There was significantly less of that this time. Perhaps the proximity of the Piccadilly area and its Japanese bookshops was a contributor to this; still, I doubt many of the casual visitors were aware of JP Books, Mitsukoshi and Japan Centre a short walk away.
While the independent stalls had taken a hit, various Japanese associations had taken up the slack and added some traditional games to the list of activities on offer. Kingyo Sukui was my favourite. As the picture shows, real goldfish were replaced by bouncy balls, presumably to avoid problems over animal rights (the organisers stoically continued to call it Kingyo Sukui anyway in Japanese, or Net The Flotsam on the English signs). The prizes were humble with the best incentives available for scoopers who managed to catch 20 or more balls in their bucket. We failed to achieve this and walked away with some penny sweets and smiles on our faces. Other traditional activities on offer were making origami kabuto, yo-yo water balloons, chopstick 'races', calligraphy and a huge 'manga wall' outside the National Gallery. People were encouraged to draw their own manga on the wall for others to enjoy, so it of course immediately turned into a collection of messages in languages from all over the world accompanied by doodles of various anime characters. I liked the Fullmetal Alchemist reference someone had sneaked in next to Gintoki in my picture below. 13th October 2012 is a significant date in the series so they'd added the famous message from Ed's pocket watch as a subtle nod.
There probably wasn't that much space for a larger number of stalls in Trafalgar Square. When Japan Matsuri was held at Spitalfields it was able to spread traders through the labyrinth of passages and open spaces. Here, they lined most of the perimeter of the area. The famous fountains, statues and staircases dotting the area this year likely served as annoying barriers when it came to assigning additional space to exhibitors. The martial arts stage was a victim of the space constraints too; it was crammed in a corner and unless you were in the front row it was almost impossible to see what was happening.
Owing to the compact venue, even though we didn't settle to properly watch the events on the main stage until a couple of hours into the event we were able to enjoy the stage events from the outset. The organisers following up the opening ceremony with a pair of taiko performances and two choral medleys so the people buying food at that stalls could still hear everything that was happening. The acoustics in Trafalgar Square were surprisingly good! The noise generated by the early performances probably also helped draw in tourists from the surrounding area as the small crowds gradually began to swell. I'm afraid I can't differentiate between taiko patterns but the choral singers covered classic Japanese pop songs such as Shounen Jidai and Jupiter, along with a few staples Studio Ghibli fans would recognise.
Once we'd finished touring the stalls, it was early afternoon so we settled down on the steps opposite the stage to watch Ichikawa Hibiki and Akihiro in a lengthy Tsugaru-shamisen performance. The artistic appeal of shamisen is something that is lost on me, but Mochida Alika also participated with some minyou singing which was lovely, really drawing the whole thing together. Mochida has appeared at Japan Matsuri before. I recorded a short (and very wobbly) video to capture the experience:
She also taught the audience to participate in one of the folk songs. British reservedness was in evidence everywhere we looked.
After the shamisen, there was an interlude for some Radio Taisou! NHK had brought Tago Hajime and two flexible assistants to London to coax the British festivalgoers through some exercise programs set to the music from NHK's radio calisthenics series. This particular event had the Japanese community on Twitter in stitches, as it's not really the kind of thing you'd see at a traditional culture festival at all - yet it's quintessentially Japanese and a surprising number of visitors became nostalgic watching it.
From our vantage point we had an excellent view of the crowd as the day went on. There were normal tourists mixed with local Japanese societies and people in martial arts outfits, cosplay, Lolita costumes, yukata and happi. Some people chose to blend traditional London punk hairstyles and makeup with Japanese festival wear. If I was more skilled at photography I could have had a field day taking pictures at Matsuri.
The stage events continued with some very young children demonstrating Okinawan Eisa dancing. Some of them returned a little later to perform a Yosakoi-soran dance (one of my favourite stage events every year). In between the dances by the younger participants, there was a strange stage event: Lolita Fashion by the Tea Party Club. I have to say that I found this one quite disappointing; it seemed to be more for the club itself and its participants than for the wider audience. One of the people in my party had spotted a few of the girls wandering around in Lolita dress earlier in the day and when she asked, I told her that the stage event would explain the style to her. However, after the fashion show had finished she was even more confused by the phenomenon than before. There was no clear explanation, just a long parade of pretty young girls in very expensive outfits, each with a similar-sounding name. If they run their fashion show again next time I'd prefer fewer girls on display and instead more description of the quirks of each type of outfit, to make it relevant to the non-cosplayers in the audience.
The final stage event we enjoyed at Matsuri was Nodojiman. As the regional subtitle 'The J Factor' implies, this is a live karaoke contest on stage, where a batch of hopeful local singers compete to win extravagant prizes such as flight tickets and vouchers. The rules require that the songs chosen must be in Japanese, so there was a range of skill on display from enthusiastic amateurs energetically grappling with Japanese pronunciation to native speakers whose main challenge was shyness. I recognised a few performers from previous years. Every selected singer gave it their best shot and performed beautifully for the crowd, so much so that it was genuinely difficult to guess who was going to win until the results were announced. I agreed that the chap who ended up triumphing had sung very well and earned his victory.
We decided to leave mid-afternoon as we had other things to do that day. Although I always want to see more stage events than I'm able to, by afternoon the queues for the stalls at Matsuri are intense and the crowds had become huge; a testament to the popularity of the event. Festivals in Japan are exactly the same when it comes to busy crowds swarming the stalls later in the day. Of the events we didn't get to see, the Nihon Buyo, Bon dance and Suzuki Naomi music show were the most regrettable omissions. The quirky retro music group Frank Chickens were also present, and after their fantastically memorable performance at the very first Japan Matsuri it was a shame we couldn't stay longer to see how they did three years later.
The final picture shows a glimpse of the teeming crowd around the food stalls from the relative peace of the way out. As I mentioned before, it felt as though there were far fewer stalls in general than there had been in previous years. Japan Centre had a very large area to themselves and a lot of the regulars such as Yoshino, Wagashi Japanese Bakery and Yakult were present, but the crowd could easily have supported two or three times as many food stalls alone and there was less variety than there had been in the past; I remember enjoying shiruko and other tasty treats in previous years. Hopefully as the event continues to be successful year after year, we'll eventually see it taking place in a venue large enough for the crowds it draws, with more and more exhibitors joining in to sell diverse foods, drinks and crafts.
All in all, I had a fantastic day at Japan Matsuri 2012 and will be visiting again next year!
