Movies, and being bored at work

This is frustrating. I have absolutely NOTHING to do at work as I'm leaving (normally I at least can start planning next term’s lessons, or talking with teachers about what we're going to do) and a million things to do at home (tidying, packing, sending boxes...) but as I've used all my annual leave up I'm stuck in the staffroom doing very little. Except making pointless blog posts like this.

I've been watching loads of Japanese movies recently. Something to do in the week, and although you can't really pigeonhole a whole country's cinema, there do seem to be a lot of nice vague pondering films which I like.

Anyway, I rented them all from Tsutaya, and have burned most of them to my hard disk, but wanted to buy some before I leave as a ripped file on your HD can't compare to having the real physical product on your shelf. Thing is, although most things here are similarly priced or cheaper, DVDs and CDs are generally more expensive. DVDs rarely, if ever, drop below £15, and newer releases are over £20. So I thought I'd check on Amazon UK to see if any of the movies have been released worldwide, as I know some of them (Dare mo Shiranai and Tony Takitani in particular) have an international reputation. So anyway, on the UK site they were both available for £7.50 ish, way less than the Japanese ones. (I bet you're thinking what an interesting story this is.) Anyway, the point of it was, the trade off was that the cover was kind of shit compared to the Japanese one. I checked a couple of other movies (I have nothing to do at school and was killing time... it's not my hobby) and in most cases the Japanese was better. And I feel bad for the Americans who always seem to get terrible covers. I guess maybe design is more important in Japan than in Europe? (and more important in Europe than the US?) Although that's quite a broad statement to make. What's also interesting is that most of the Western movies I've seen have the same (or really similar) covers to the UK versions (don't know about America) so I wonder why the designers abroad seem to want to play around with covers so much?

The order - although it's obvious - is JP, UK, US. I love the JP cover of this one.



Think the UK and JP covers of Nobody Knows are equally good, although the JP one sums up the feeling of the movie better. The US gets a bum deal again.



Think the UK has the best design for Zatoichi. America's effort isn't that bad this time compared to Japan's which is surprisingly not that good.



The things you do when you're bored at work... This post... lots of pictures, America bashing, pointlessness... I think I have it all covered.

Me, at work today.

My School

My blog has mainly been about the places I've been in Japan, which has always been at the weekends as there's not a whole lot round here. So this post is just about what I've done Mon-Fri, at my little school which I'm rather fond of. So, this last year, I have been working here:

with classes like this:


spending a fair bit of time in here:


working with teachers like this:

[A side note about the social studies teacher, the guy who is left on the second row giving the thumbs up and with the anpanman on his desk: like a lot of young teachers, he hasn't yet passed the full teaching exam, and so still is technically a trainee. I can't see what difference this makes in workload, they can be form tutors just like regular teachers, they work just as long hours, the only difference I think is in pay and conditions. So anyway, the teaching exam, which is only held once a year, was on the same day as a baseball match for the school team (which he coaches), and we're not brilliant at baseball or anything, it was the second round of the national high school baseball championships which is normally as far as we go. The guy is so dedicated that he gave up the chance to pass the exam and become a fully fledged teacher just to attend the match as coach. Then later on over dinner Mitsutake sensei told me he did the same thing last year! That is love for the school. (We lost the match by the way.)]

and teaching kids like this: (I know it's wrong to have favourites, but these kids are, they're from my Sogo Eigo class or the Paper Debate writing class and so feature the creators of Sou Chan, Konnyakun, Balloon Chan and Tanbo Bros).


It's been fun. The kids are pretty low level and not all that interested in English to be honest, but they're really good natured (in general, a couple of the new first years have dreams of being rudeboys but compared to London it's nothing) and if you put the effort in to a lesson they'll always give it a go and often surprise themselves.

There's something very sweet about being in a small school, as I think I mentioned before, you get to know all the kids pretty well (which is a massive plus when getting them to work in class) and everything feels small and cute. Our soccer club had one member! He used to disappear for two hours and read manga/do kickups in his Celtic shirt.

I'm not going to become a teacher but the experience of working in education has been great. Working around kids has been brilliant, just like those 'use your head. teach' government ads with all the slogans about working with kids being interesting and never stagnant. It's true! I've gained a lot from my year here and I'd like to think the kids have got a little something from it as well.

Me and Taro, (I'd go as far to say something terrible like 'partners in crime') about to teach English real nice like.

Club Theme Songs

Or something like that. It seems I'm not the only one to love Club Noon in Osaka, Sunaga t (him of the fantastic mix albums 'worldline' and serious jazz dance dj) wrote a song for it called High at Noon. Got to say though, loving the light jazz beat in the background (not very clear on the mp3 sample) and the chant bit, but really not feeling the nasally vocalist (I've heard her on some other stuff with Hajime Yoshizawa or Jazztronik or someone, but I can't say I'm a fan.) In particular, the piano solo on this is such a nice example of smoky floor jazz done right that I uploaded my own little sample. Persevere past the singer to hear a deep solo. Anyway, it's an ode to such a cool venue I can forgive it.

Also, 'The Room' in Tokyo, a fantastic small club right at the heart of the jazz crossover scene, has a very chilled (and admittedly better) song written for it by (my hero) Hajime Yoshizawa, just called The Room. Had a couple of great nights there and might head back again if there's time. I'll miss these places.

Tamba Tourist Board

Today was the last day of school with the kids, and I want to make a big post about the school, but I'm off to Osaka in half an hour to hear Theo Parrish DJ at Grand Cafe! Woo. So don't have time. But I'll start off with this that I meant to post a couple of weeks back but kept forgetting.

As a final fun project for my Sogo Eigo class, I had them make tourism pamphlets about the town. Just simple things, creating a slogan, information about where is a nice area, what to see and what you can do here etc. (In fact one of the students wrote about Miwakare Park which I had never heard of the week before I went.) Anyway they seemed to enjoy it, but the bit they enjoyed most was designing a mascot for the town. We had a little brainstorm in English about what makes a good character, then they all got really into this (including taking it home to finish, which they NEVER do) and got really creative. I present sogo eigo's characters (and also the slogans they wrote for the town) along with the little introductions they wrote for them:

Let's Go Hikami with Sou Chan!

SOU CHAN
He is very busy. He is always running. His name is Sou-chan. He is researching more things about Hikami. He has girl friend and rival. His girl friend call Ayumi chan. His rival call Skipkun. His pet call Jagapet. Jagapet is alien.

Sou chan was far and away the best. And the girls decided to draw the other characters on the back of their pamphlet too. They gave me the pamphlet, and also therefore I assume all the rights to the character. I hope one day to become rich off the back of Sou chan merchandising.

Aogaki: The Konnyaku Is Waiting!


KONNYAKUN (a play on Konnyaku, the food, and Kun, the suffix for young boys)
His eyes made from diamond.
His hobby is dance. His body is soft, but he gets angry when touch. Please be careful.

Konnyakun is awesome. I would like to draw your attention to the small konnyakun in the top right poking his head around the corner. On the other pages of the pamphlet, around the town information and places to see, they drew loads of little konnkyakuns poking out from various places.

Hikami: Frank Town, Come Down

Balloon Chan.
This is Yume Town balloon everyday look to Hikami Town. Name is "balloon chan". This is from "Jamaica". He is afraid of high places. In child hood he was picked up in slum.

I feel Balloon Chan, while not the most visually pleasing character, is a complex creature, with a difficult back story and a fear which is kind of inconvenient given his occupation.

Aogaki - Environment No. 1

He is mountain. The tree is old brother. He makes clean air at town. His hobby is look at stars.

This one was just too cute. The tree on his head is his brother.

Let's Go Tanba! Let's Go Tanbo!

TANBO BROTHERS (means rice field brothers)
Taue man plant is Nae. Taue man will die without water. Inekari man cut is Ine. In winter is sleeping. Tanbo rhythm [musical note] tanbo rhythm [musical note]

These characters are great. There should be a company making Sou Chan and Konnyakun goods seriously. I'll leave you with another picture of Sou Chan.

Fukuyama and Kyoto Final Trip

Weekend of many things.

Friday night, rushed straight from work to the station to go to Osaka to get the Shinkansen over to Fukuyama. It was Black Friday, black themed event which Trish was organising, which was fun. Saw Rose for the last time in Japan, sad (she's one of the first friends I made at the London orientation... over a year ago now! and we sat together on the flight out... which still feels like last week!)

Saturday was a crazy day for weather. Japan's been having a bad time of it recently from mother nature. The kids were sent home early on Friday due to a typhoon warning, and there was the big earthquake yesterday (which delayed all the trains home). Fukuyama was mad with rain and wind and eventually in the afternoon we caught the Shinkansen over to Kyoto. In Kyoto they have the Gion Matsuri all through July, and it was 3 days before the big parade, I don't know what they would have done on this night, the roads were closed off so I assume something, but the rain was torrential and unrelenting.

After dinner at a very chilled izakaya we wandered around in the streets for a while (with a quick stop to play some Bomberman in a game center) before heading to a very small but cool club called Collage where Yoshihiro Okino was doing a Brazilian night. It was Kyoto Jazz Meeting, a monthly (or so) night, sister party of the Tokyo Jazz Meeting we went to last month, but this was a special Brazilian version called Tokyo Brazil Meeting. I guess being the height of summer the thinking was it would suit the summery vibe but in reality it provided a musically sunny escape from the gloomy weather outside!


Yoshi, as I've said before, is such a great DJ and he stuck with the Brazilian classics, I recognised less than if it were more dancey (not to say it wasn't as good), and there was some Djavan, some Sabrina Malheiros, Marcos Valle, and he gradually gradually started to drop more beat heavy tunes til around 3 it was half dancey. (Oh yeah and 'Sombre Guitar' - from being an obscure tune for me I've heard it out everywhere this year) Really good music, and got a fantastic mix CD of classic Brazilian music with entry! Have to check with some people what the tunes are when I'm back in London as some of them are seeerious. Great night, good crowd who knew and loved the tunes including everyone surprisingly knowing the unusual double claps in Guida de Palma's 'New Day'. I realised another thing I like about Japanese clubs. At first I thought they all had amazing soundsystems (and they probably do, they don't do things by half here) but it's not that, it's that the music is quieter as people aren't shouting on the dancefloor. If you're there for the music, this is awesome.

I think this is Yoshihiro's assistant/girlfriend/groupie/friend or something as I've seen her with him at other events. I can't imagine many other countries where sleeping on a bench in the dingy corridors outside a club at 3 in the morning would be safe. Go Japan!



Next day, we went to check Tadao Ando designed Time's Gallery, but the cafe was closed so had breakfast in Ogawa Coffee instead. Really nice coffee shop chain, I mean chains will always be similar, but it has a nicer feeling than your generic lowest common denominator Starbucks. After, checked Time's properly. Apart from an Evisu shop and a Onitsuka Tiger shop, theres nothing really there, which is probably bad for the owners, but it gives it a really cool feeling to have a wander round, it feels kind of cool and empty.

Wandered round some backstreets, where outside their houses some people seemed to have done some impressive things with bamboo (left) before doing a little shopping in some highstreet shops. (I'm gonna miss places like journal standard, ships and united arrows... but maybe not the prices.) Drank some bubble tea for the first time and had some cheap conveyer belt sushi for lunch, including my first taste of horse (right).

Wandered down the main street, which had now been closed again as it was getting dark. Loads of people, some of who were wearing yukata and eating festival food. And I mean LOADS.


There were people in the floats ringing their bell things, but they weren't moving as it was still 2 days before the parade.


There were all the festival foods out, so bought a sausage on a stick and started the walk back to the station. Took quite a long time, but nice to wander through the city for the final time (I won't go back to Kyoto in my last 3 weeks) taking it all in, before getting a final chance to admire the wonderful architecture of the station. We chilled there for a while before saying goodbye to Trish for the last time and leaving Kyoto for the last time. Saaaaad.

Just popped to Osaka as I had some stuff to do the next day, and lay in my capsule thinking how change is crap. But also exciting. But crap. But exciting. But crap.

As it was a bank holiday, used the day just to kit myself out salaryman style in preparation for the job hunting when I come back. Last week with the kids this week... Expect an update about my (wonderful) school soon.

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Nothing to do with this weekend, but finally figured out what the tune was I posted about back in November or something, "Soul Fever" (Remix) by Simbad from France. You have no idea how happy this makes me! And surprisingly the release on Raw Fusion is available on the iTunes store! Cue a good couple of hours of the thing on loop with the bass up. I guess thats what we do for entertainment in Aogaki...