There are many gangs in Japan now. They've committed crimes, and a lot of people have been killed or hurted by them. For example, a kabuki actor, Ichikawa Ebizo was hurted by a gang.Because of this injury, he was not able to appear on stages for a while.
These days, some celebrities in Japan have relationships with them. After Japanese comedian, Shimada Shinsuke, these relationships have been regarded as bad habit. Since this news was reported, the Metropolitan Police has tried to arrest gangs as many as possible. To achieve their goal, they made a regulation. This is a campaign poster below.
What do you think about this regulation? Do you think this regulation works?
I think it doesn't mean. It is sure that this has power to save the actives of gangs, but it is not enough. If we really want to decrease tha number of gangs, we should make a law. However, I think gangs' rights also should be respected, because they are people. This is the difficult point. It is true that gangs have caused many problems, but can we stop their activity completely?
According to Jeff Sneider, a journalist for Variety. News, "Japanese advertising agency Dentsu and Hayakawa Publishing Corp. have entered into a live-action feature rights deal for Japanese sci-fi novels that have attracted the interest of 'Transformers' producer Don Murphy and 'Shoot 'Em Up' helmer Michael Davis."
Don Murphy is primarily known as an American film producer for his science fiction films, such as the "Transformers" trilogy. "Transformers", "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen", and "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" will be aired on WOWOW Cinema (charged), starting at 15:45, June 16. (I will get a chance to watch these then for the first time.)
Transformers Trailer
Michael Davis is primarily known as a screenwriter, and has written/directed "Shoot 'Em Up" (2007), which was produced in collaboration with Murphy.
Shoot 'Em Up Trailer
Tow Ubukata （冲方丁） is a renowned Japanese sci-fi author, who has given birth to works such as "Tenchi Meisatsu" （天地明察, probably best translated as "Eureka"） and "Out of Control". Some novels, such as "Fafner of the Azure" （蒼穹のファフナー）, have become hit anime adaptations. Davis is now considering a film adaptation of "Mardock Scramble" which has an on-going anime film trilogy, the third of which will premiere September 29 this year.
Mardock Scramble The First: Compression Trailer
Issui Ogawa （小川一水） is also another renowned Japanese sci-fi author with award winning works such as "Little Star" and "the Demon that King Arisuma Loved" （アリスマ王の愛した魔物）. Murphy plans to adapt "The King of Time-Sand" （時砂の王）.
Japanese on-lookers have mixed feelings about Hollywood film adaptations. Most do not deny the excellence in Japanese writers achieving global attention, especially concerning science fiction and fantasy literature, which are clearly neglected in Japanese society. However, Hollywood adaptations inevitably warp the Japanese style of conveying ideas, and many would argue that the works would be better represented in anime media. For instance, "Mardock Scramble" has an intense casino scene where the main characters play roulettes and cards in order to strategically rake in cash. Japanese people have the impression that this entire casino scene may be morphed into a flashy gun-battle scene, which would ruin the originality of the sequence of events. However, no adaptation can readily do justice to the original novel, so then others may argue that there is no problem as long as the adaptation is acknowledged by the original author, and the author is credited within the staff roll.
What are your ideas on Hollywood film adaptations of Japanese literature?
Hi! This is Natsumi Akita. Many people may know that news, I want to share opinions in religon with you.
In December 31st 2011, Makoto Hirata presented himself at the police station. And, Naoko Kikuchi also arrested in July 3. Please look at this movie.
It is a movie of Aum Shinrikyo. What do you think about this movie?
That recent surprising happenings seems to make Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway being solved. Sarin incident happened in 1995. In this case, 13 people were killed and many people got serious injuries. Even now, injured people are still suffering from damage in both physical and psychological. Not only in Japan but all over the world, there are so many incidents caused by differences in religion, for example, 9.11 and 2011 Norway attacks. 9.11 was caused by Taliban, and Norway attacks was caused by Anders Behring Breivik, who hates Muslim.
If you want to know it more, please click here. This website shows about 9.11.
I think it is very sorrow that many innocent people are killed by intolerance in religon. I think religon should be extinct because religion cause injury accidents. On the other hand, I know that humans cannot live without relying on someone like Gods. I can't say that believing in Gods is good or bad. It is difficult to prevent from happening. I want you to think about incidents caused by some religion groups.
"Time is money". This is probably one of the
most famous phraseｓ in the world, meaning that time is as valuable as money. In the movie "Time", time is really dealed with like money. But different from our world, losing money means losing your life on the spot.
In this movie, people stop growing at the age of 25. But that doesn't mean they're immortal, after reaching the age, a digital timer on their wrists go off, ticking away what amount of life they have left. If you don't want to die, you need to get time in some way. Time substitutes for money in this world, for example, you work in a factory and earn a few hours, if you want a cup of coffee, you pay a few seconds. All the time, you could see the length of your life changing. The more time you earn, the more you can live. Same thing as money, there are poor people-who never has more than a day left when they wake up-and rich people-who has lived more than a hundred years and is assured to live more-. This story is about a man, Will, who has lived in the slums all his life, but accidently got a hundred years from a man from the city. Suddenly becoming immortal, Will leaves for the city, but getting stalked for the hundred years.
What makes this movie different from others, is that the audience could know exactly how close the character is close to death. Extremely, just walking slowly will reduce life. If the clock turns to 0, it is lierally time out for the character. In the first part of the movie, a lovely young lady dies, falling down all of a sudden, as if she were a toy which ran out of batteries, a shocking scene which would stick to the audience during the whole movie.
Since losing money means losing your life, events that has money to do in them-like gambling or robbing-means much heavier than normal. It is a serious problem for the characters, but to the audience, it is even more exciting. Here, Will's character works strongly to the situation. He is just a man who lived in the slums, no fighting abilities or special techniques, but just guts. Will's life risking bets gives a real shudder to the audience. But in opposite, the action scenes did not really match the movie. It looked as if they were forced to move violently. Since such an interesting setting, I think it would of been better if they put more focus on the fights of the brain. Like I wrote above, just showing the ticking away timer makes a very tense atmosphere, a much stronger one then sticking guns against each other. I really loved the idea, and it was a movie I'd like to watch if there were a 2.
The official preview of "Time". Coming to rent soon.
In December 2011, Japanese Prime Minister, Noda Yoshihiko, decided to raise consumption tax to 8% from April 2014 and to 10% from October 2015. After this decision, some of the people opposed this plan.
In this blog, I'll see this problem from two different views.
(ⅰ) Advantages of Raising Consumption Tax
There are two advantages of raising consumption tax. First one is government can tax all Japanese nation. Second one is this tax is fair for all people. Let me explain one by one. First, government can tax all Japanese nation, because everyone purchases something almost everyday. That means you pay not only for the cost price but also consumption tax. Second, this tax is fair for everyone, because this tax is proportioned to the money people spend. Shortly, more and more people use their money, more and more the government get consumption tax.
(ⅱ) Disadvantage of Raising Consumption Tax
There is one disadvantage of raising consumption tax. That is Japanese business condition could be dull. If consumption tax is raised, most of all Japanese nation (especially people who don't have much money) try to save their money, because all products are more expensive than ever. That means less money circulate through the market. This bad circulation could cause the depression.
Next, I'll show you some data about consumption tax. These data are based on the website of Ministry of Finance. The consumption tax is about 11.0% of all taxes.
Then, I'll show you another data. See the graph below.
Compared with other developed countries, Japanese consumption tax is one of the lowest rates. EU countries' consumption tax rates are very high this is because this is the duty of this union.
Lastly, I'd like to give you my opinion. I believe Japanese Government should raise consumption tax, because Japanese Government requiring lots of money to solve some problems, such as pension system and social welfare. It is sure that some people disagree with this plan, but this is the time when we should raise consumption tax.
How do you think about this problem? Do you agree with raising consumption tax?
This is data about consumption tax.
Today I would like to talk about an activity I have been enjoying and practicing for about 4 months now :Yoga. The gym I go to in Ikebukuro offers regular yoga lessons and I have been going at least twice a week in order to stay in shape.
It is also for me a way to relax and add some spirituality to my life...
Tokyo,being quite a hectic and stressful city at times,I had to disconnect from the crowd and find some time to spend in a much more calm environment.
I like to practice “relaxed”,also called “restorative” yoga the most.Unlike power yoga,
or other more intense forms of yoga,it allows the muscles to rest after a long day but also makes them more flexible and tone up the shape of the body.
Here are a few easy poses I would like to introduce you to and you can do in the comfort of your own home:
-the seated and twist (shown below) is a basic yoga pose which helps stretching the muscles from the thighs and arms. It is also a good exercise to do before going for a jog .
-The downward facing dog: I really like this pose, though its a little harder than it looks when you do it for the first time.It strenghtened the spine and stretches the calves.
-The cobra: I do this pose to work my abs inner muscles.the key is to open the chest,keep your hands flat on the mat ,feet together.
-the low lunge: streteches every muscle of the body,strengthens the arm muscles,overall a great pose if you are trying to walk with more grace and balance.
Once you have mastered the basics move,you can add a few more challenging poses to your..”repertoire”.
For me,yoga is one of the few sports which helped me sculpt my body the way I wanted it to be.
Even though this sport can be practised by everyone,I would especially recommend yoga to girls and women wanting have a more feminine shape.What is great about yoga is that unlike common muscle training which tends to "bulk up" the body ,yoga helps elongate the thighs and still enables you to build inner muscles.
The first time I tried,it did hurt but gradually,after weeks of practice and always adding new moves,my body became used to the pain.I also pair relaxed yoga with pilates or/and jogging after a yoga session to add some cardio to my workout: It is a great way to burn fat and have a leaner and toned body (which is,I have to say one of my main motivations when working out )
I hope it made some of you want to try yoga, and for those of you who already are yoga aficionados,it would be great to have a chat in order to see which poses work for you and why :D
Hope all of you have a great week,
I would also like to apologize for the blog post delay ,
There are many movies which uses time warp as a theme, so much, that time warping may well be called a classic. But I'm pretty sure that there has never been a time warp using a bathtub for the time machine. Thermae Romae has done this, grabbing many interests just from the trailer.
As expected, the movie was a great comedy. Viewing the movie as a time slip, it was the good old "if a man from the past comes to our time". But, the movie does not show the familiar "man from the past being overwhelmed by the future city" or anything like it at all. This is because the Roman who came from the past, only cares about Japanese bathtubs. He is dead serious, trying to understand the mechanism of our bathtubs, but to us who are watching, each of his actions are just funny. This situation, and Abe Hiroshi`s sincere acting(his body is very muscular, like a Roman) created an endless laugh in the theatre.
But, there were some disappointing points, especially the climax. A contrast to the comedy of the first half, it was mostly serious. To the audience who were being excited, to what hilarious thing the Roman was going to do next, the last half may have lowered their tension. Though, thinking this movie's story from a manga which is not finished, I think there is a need to admit that it was a clean ending.
