The Old School Otaku Lounge

Several head staff from anime conventions in the U.S. and also of other major events around the world were in attendance at Tokyo Anime Fair 2013. The Tokyo International Anime Fair is one of the largest animation trade fairs in the world and held annually in Japan. More information on Tokyo International Anime Fair can be found here: http://www.tokyoanime.jp/en/.

The following photos were taken by my friend, Ani-Jam president Antonio Airoso (who is on this forum, but is more of a lurker) on March 22nd. You can see more photos here:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... 253&type=1

Public Day 1: More photos can be seen here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... 253&type=1

Wow, Otakon has a booth there? That's kinda cool.

Love the wall of doodles, and how all the little kids' drawings are way at the bottom. XD So cute!

Just wondering if they have a trade show as such for movies or TV from Japan? Seen so little output of live stuff, especially sci-fi over the past decade. Tons being produced in the West and in Europe but the only things out of Japan that seem to have caught on over here are grisly horror films.

Anime is still a big draw (no pun intended) but only some stuff sells. What about the other 90%? It's like looking at what manga gets translated into English, then looking around to see what has come out in French, German, Italian and Spanish. Like night and day!

_D_ wrote:Just wondering if they have a trade show as such for movies or TV from Japan? Seen so little output of live stuff, especially sci-fi over the past decade. Tons being produced in the West and in Europe but the only things out of Japan that seem to have caught on over here are grisly horror films.

Well, Japanese TV is not as exciting as one would imagine. Turn on the TV and you'll see some cooking show. Then the people eat the food, and overreact as if it was the best thing they've ever eaten in their life. Flip the channel and it's some dumb show with people who think they're being funny by hitting each other on the head with a plastic mallet that squeaks. Change the channel and you may see some boring period drama set in the Sengoku period or something. Flip the channel and it's a video that the celebs are watching, and you'll see a small square in the corner showing alternating faces of the celebs, making exaggerated facial expressions in reaction to what they're watching. Next is some show abut some celebs going on a vacation together, visiting an onsen, staying at a ryokan, where they eat the food and overreact as if it was the best thing they've ever eaten in their life. Flip the channel and it's some boring person droning lifelessly on about something. Then you've just exhausted all whopping 10 channels or however many there are.

As for movies, from what I see, there's not much worth exporting out of the country because there isn't much market for it.

greg wrote:Well, Japanese TV is not as exciting as one would imagine. Turn on the TV and you'll see some cooking show. Then the people eat the food, and overreact as if it was the best thing they've ever eaten in their life. Flip the channel and it's some dumb show with people who think they're being funny by hitting each other on the head with a plastic mallet that squeaks. Change the channel and you may see some boring period drama set in the Sengoku period or something. Flip the channel and it's a video that the celebs are watching, and you'll see a small square in the corner showing alternating faces of the celebs, making exaggerated facial expressions in reaction to what they're watching. Next is some show abut some celebs going on a vacation together, visiting an onsen, staying at a ryokan, where they eat the food and overreact as if it was the best thing they've ever eaten in their life. Flip the channel and it's some boring person droning lifelessly on about something. Then you've just exhausted all whopping 10 channels or however many there are.

LOL, thanks Greg, I'm glad to hear that when I was popping channels at the hotel that what I saw was normal and it wasn't just really bad timing for me.
(The one weird, but strangely compelling thing we saw one time was a big competition between grade school teams where all the kids were tied together "3 legged race" style, but instead of just two it was like 20 kids and they were tearing across a field and being timed. It was like watching the 40 yd dash but with packs of kids tied together at the ankles and arms looped over shoulders. It's yet another thing that almost makes me wonder if Japan just comes up with things so they can be like this line from Chihayafuru: "Karuta is played almost exclusively in Japan, so if you're the best karuta player in Japan you're the BEST IN THE WORLD!" (emphasis mine), but other than that, yeah most Japanese TV I saw was exactly as Greg describes)

Yeah, that's a big culture shock for many people. "Oh golly, I can't wait to watch TV in Japan!" Then when you get here, you realize how rather dull it is. I just now finally bought a TV last week, but I have yet to hook it up to watch TV. I know on Sundays they show anime like Chibi Mariko-chan and Sazae-san. I think Detective Boy Conan is still on TV after all these years, still using a paralyzing dart on that old man, propping him up, and explaining the mystery using the old man's voice. Then nobody notices how the old man can unravel a mystery while asleep and his lips are not moving. Then of course, later the old man wakes up and has no recollection of what had happened. At least that was pretty much 99.99% of the episodes I used to watch when I first lived in Japan until '02. That was back when they'd show it with Inu Yasha on Monday nights. And of course, One Piece is on TV as it will be forevermore, if that's your thing.

Sekai Marumie is a pretty cool show though. They show funny home videos from around the world, plus they go around to different places all over the world and find uncanny people.

Twice a year they show Kasou Taisho, my favorite show in Japan. Look up "Matrix Ping Pong" on YouTube and you may have already seen this.

Apparently if you stay up way late until 2 or 3 am, you may come across some weird, racy shows on TV. My friend once told me he saw some table tennis contest with topless girls. I have never, ever come across anything like that, but then again, I guess I don't really try. This is also when the bulk of the really interesting anime is shown, like Berserk, Fate/Stay Night, etc. If you're into the ultraviolent and/or adult-themed anime, that's when they show it. By "adult" I'm not talking about porno, but just mature stuff.

I guess if you want to watch lots of cool anime, you'll have to pay for Animax. It looks like Net Lex has this channel. He uploaded a video of it to his YouTube channel. I should ask him about it. They even show Legend of the Galactic Heroes on that channel.

When I first lived in Japan, you needed to buy a special VCR to be able to get the BS channels (satellite). Domo-kun was the mascot for BS-2 or some such channel. They show movies on some of those channels, too. Back then, I would watch Future Boy Conan on there, plus some other very, very old SF anime about space exploration. Very '70s, and almost like a hard SF-style space exploration style show. I can't ever for the life of me remember what that was called.

greg wrote:Flip the channel and it's a video that the celebs are watching, and you'll see a small square in the corner showing alternating faces of the celebs, making exaggerated facial expressions in reaction to what they're watching.

Just to re-highlight this one, as someone who lives there (and hopefully speaks more Japanese than me) what is the deal with this? There are some where the video is of something crazy, but I remember SOME things where the video isn't even all that unusual, but you STILL get celebrity Picture-In-Picture following along. It's almost like in Japan people REALLY need the evidence that other people are watching this too. Like, it's not enough for you to watch Animal Planet, so here, Rika Ishikawa will watch Animal Planet along with you so you know that society says it's ok for you to watch TV.

In the old days (1990s), when they lifted a lot of laws pertaining to what could be shown on TV, Gilgamesh Night was the tops. Anything from the latest in the AV World, to a tour of BDSM places and the correct way to flog a patron! I kid you not...I have lots of tapes of the show but there have been some DVD releases as nostalgia. I don't think a full box set has been released owing to one of the hosts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ai_Iijima) dying in 2008. Some interesting info on the show here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilgamesh_Night

Heero wrote:Just to re-highlight this one, as someone who lives there (and hopefully speaks more Japanese than me) what is the deal with this? There are some where the video is of something crazy, but I remember SOME things where the video isn't even all that unusual, but you STILL get celebrity Picture-In-Picture following along. It's almost like in Japan people REALLY need the evidence that other people are watching this too. Like, it's not enough for you to watch Animal Planet, so here, Rika Ishikawa will watch Animal Planet along with you so you know that society says it's ok for you to watch TV.

I'm not sure why, but I believe that the main reason is that any show that shows video footage for long periods of time detracts from the celebrities/talento who are on the show. I think for one thing, having their faces constantly appear in the corner of the screen reminds the viewers of who is on the show, and probably also their contracts stipulate that they be shown as much as possible on these shows.

One other annoing thing about these talento is that they are mostly a bunch of one trick ponies. By that I mean that there is one certain behavior or tagline that is specific to them, and they constantly repeat it over and over again. For example, look at Billy Crystal in the early '90s and his phrase, "You look mmmmmarvelous!" It's what he became known for. From Diet Pepsi commercials to hosting the Oscars, it like he was expected to say that. Eventually it got old, I guess.

Look at TV in Japan, and it is just like that. There's a chick called Laura who always does the "OK" hand gesture against her cheek. There's a guy named Hiroshi who mopes around and whistfully says, "Hirosh desu." So many of these people on TV have their one trick that they do, and they are expected to do it. It's amusing for a while, but I guess it eventually gets old. They have to milk it out for all it's worth.