BIC WiMAX

I've been giving Bic Camera's WiMAX plan a try since last month and aside from the painful initial signup process where they had made me seated waiting for over a whole hour at the counter, it's been a pretty good experience thus far.

If you live in the metropolitan Tokyo area, the coverage is pretty good as long as you are not underground.  I visited my folks in the Nagoya area over the new year holiday and I would say I was connected about 40-50% of the time on the bullet train ride there.  I believe the N700 series Shinkansen cars now provide free low-bandwidth Wi-Fi internally so combined with that, you can have a pretty reliable and reasonably fast Internet connection throughout your trip.

Bic Camera's WiMAX plan comes with a complementary Wi-Fi service so in case you are in the area where WiMAX coverage is not available or you are in need of higher bandwidth, you can try and find a nearby Wi-Fi spot and get connected.

The plan also includes a USB adapter (and a mobile wireless router if you would like).  However, I highly recommend that you pay a little extra and get the model BDSS01 which is considerably smaller and definitely is more slick-looking.  If you sign up for Bic Camera's WiMAX plan now, it'll only cost you 2,800 yen.  I signed up while they had this special one time deal where they were offering a BDSS01 adapter and a URoad-5000 wireless router together for 9,800 yen but I believe the deal has already expired.

The URoad-5000 router is about the size of a BlackBerry Bold.  Perfect for when you want to quickly check something out on the web at a cafe or even on the train.

Bic Camera WiMAX sign up form:
https://www.biccamera.com/bicbic/jsp/w/service/bic_wimax/form.jsp

20th Century Boys - Chapter 3

The last chapter of the 20th Century Boystrilogy has come out on 8/29.  Based on the comic series by Naoki Urasawa (also known for other works such as Yawara!, Monsterand PLUTO), this was one of the most highly anticipated movies of the summer in Japan with heavy advertising.  It was publicly announced that the film version of the 20th Century Boys has its own ending, meaning the identity of "Friend" (or Tomodachi), the masked cult leader who is supposedly one of the childhood friends of the main character Kenji, is different in the film.  If you were in Japan this summer, you would have seen "Friend" saying "So-dayo, Boku-ga Tomodachi-dayo" (That's right, I am Tomodachi) in the trailer aired countless times on TV as well as in the theaters.  The trailer has left a lot of people curious about who this "Friend" was and generated a even greater hype over the last chapter of the trilogy than the previous ones did.  When the film finally came out at the end of August, it went straight to the number one on the Japanese box office chart.

I personally have fallen for this clever tactic myself and started to wonder who this "Friend" was before I even watched the chapters 1&2.  After catching the chapters 1&2 on TV that were aired not too long before the chapter 3 came out, I just had to watch this film to find out who "Friend" was.

I am not going to disclose who "Friend" was here but I must say it was a bit of dissapointment..  it was almost impossible to guess who "Friend" was with the info provided in the movie because this character hardly gets mentioned throughout the series.  I personally felt a bit cheated by this.

Other than that, however, the film in itself was entertaining and did a pretty decent job re-creating the world of Naoki Urasawa, which many said to be impossible to make into a non-anime film because of its unique and out of worldly storyline that spans close to 50 years.  The scene of the music festival where Kenji performs was quite impressive.  If you are planning on watching this film, my advise would be to not get too caught up on trying and guess who "Friend" is because chances are, you won't get it right.

Superfly - Box Emotions

Superfly's much anticipated 2nd album Box Emotionscame out on 9/2.  The 1st album that came out in 2008 took the one-woman unit consisting of Shiho Ochi to instant stardom and this one is set to turn her into an icon (if she isn't already).  Already at the time of the release of the album, 5 tracks on the album have been featured on commercials as well as movies and dramas and you can bet there will be more tracks off the album used on various media outlets.
The album kicks off with a fun pop-rock tune "Alright!", which is followed by another catchy rock track "How Do I Survive?".  In comparison to her self-titled breakthrough album Superfly, however, this album seems to focus less on the rock-side of Superfly and explores more of the tender and pop side of her.  There are beautiful ballads like #4 "My Best of My Life" and #13 "Ai-ni-Dakarete" as well as more traditional J-pop sounding #3 "Searching", #10 "See You" and #11 "Haru-no-Maboroshi".  In these tracks, Superfly's voice sounds more controlled and perhaps a bit toned down, which effectively demonstrates to us how skilled of a singer she really is.  I personally, however, think that her greatest strength is in the unparalleled powerful rock voice of hers and find these tracks rather dull and uninteresting compared to the more rock-sounding tunes.  All in all, this is a solid follow-up work by Superfly aiming to capture broader range of audience and I don't doubt it will be well-received by most of them.
Superfly gave a free performance on 9/2 at the Roppongi Hills arena in celebration of Box Emotions being dropped. Although this gig was announced only a day in advance, a couple of thousands of people showed up to catch the free performance by the rising star. I was lucky enough to be in the arena to watch her perform some of the tracks from the new album for the first time as well as her biggest hit tune from the previous album "Ai-wo-Komete-Hanataba-wo". It was my first time seeing her perform live and man, this girl's got pipes. I would love to see perform live again.

Free Coffee at McDonald's

You can get a free cup of Premium Roast Coffee (ice/hot) at all McDonald's in the Kanto region if you happen to walk by one during the window of 6-7PM. This campaign runs from Fri, 8/28 - Thu, 9/3. In addition to coffee, you can get an apple pie for 50 yen and a Big Mac for 200 yen this week. Unhealthy, I know, it's so cheap, you just can't beat that.

All this for 150 yen

I would also like to make a note that McDonald's in Japan has probably made more effort in embracing technologies than any of their competitors. All their restaurants are quipped with Wi-Fi access (not free but one of the cheapest plans available), which is still rare in Japan. They have collaboratively set up with Nintendo this thing called DS download area inside their restaurants from which you can download free game trials, rare items for certain games, etc. Earlier this summer, they made some rare Pokemon data available through this DS area which attracted a large number of kids on summer vacation. If you were wondering why there were so many kids with DS running around at McDonald's, that's what they were there for. Now they are doing this campaign with Dragon Quest and you see a lot of grownups with DS at McDonald's.

Perhaps the best effort they have made yet is the dynamic mobile coupon app called "Kazasu Coupon". The way this app works is you select coupons of your choice then you just put your phone down on the scanner set up next to the cashier.  And voila, your coupons are automatically read via RFID!  You don't even need to say a word if you are not ordering anything that's nor part of the coupon(s) you are using.

"Kazasu Coupon" for a bacon potato pie and a medium Coke

http://www.mcdonalds.co.jp/menu/limited/coffee_dinner/index.html

Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance (ヱヴァンゲリヲン新劇場版: 破)

Evangelion has come back. And this time, as a movie tetralogy instead of TV series. The 1st of the new series, "Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone", came out September, 2007, 10 years after the original series had ended. The 2nd film "Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance" has come out at the end of June this year.

Although the new series is called a "remake", it appears that the new film series does not strictly follow the original storyline. Aside from the cosmetic changes with the advance in technology (which in itself is quite amazing), minor (and some not so minor) changes in the settings were seen throughout the 1st film. In the 2nd film, the series has launched itself into a whole new storyline, even introducing a new Eva pilot, Mari Illustrious Makinami.

With the changes in the plot, the way some of the existing main characters are portrayed have been changed as well. The most evident of that, perhaps, is seen with Asuka Shikinami Langley, the female half-German/half-Japanese pilot of Unit 02, whose Japanese last name has been changed from Soryu (惣流) to Shikinami (式波) for a mysterious reason. Her hair color also has been changed from red to a lighter tone and more importantly, her personality seems less twisted than what it used to be in the original. Compared to Soryu, Asuka Shikinami seems to be a bit more secure emotionally. She is also slightly more comfortable in sharing her own feelings with the people around her which makes her quite more likable than she was in the original (although some die-hard fans may miss the crazy twisted-minded Asuka). Rei Ayanami, the Unit 00 pilot and another heroine of the anime, seems to have gone through some transformation as well. There are no obvious changes made to her like in hair color or last name that are seen with Asuka. However, Rei, who is famous for her lack of emotion and interest in pretty much anything but Eva and Gendo Ikari, the head of NERV, appears to be more willing and makes effort to interact with the others in the new series. This becomes increasingly more observable as the story progresses in the 2nd film. There are scenes where we see her saying "Ohayo" (good morning) to her classmates at school and later in the film, she actually tries to learn how to cook for Shinji, the Unit 01 pilot. And last but not least, the main character Shinji Ikari actually acts like a hero in the new series instead of running away every chance he got like he did in the original. This in a way makes the story more straightforward and easy to follow. You see a growth in the characters' personality and a sense of resolution after watching (at least thus far) as opposed to the original TV series that left many questions unanswered and the audience puzzled.

If you watched the TV series and liked it, you'll get to re-live the experience again with the familiar faces and a plot fairly similar but possibly heading to a whole different ending. The 2nd introduced a number of new ideas and premises that were not part of the original and at the end of the film, it has become very clear that the new series is not following the footpath of the TV series (some say that the new film series is somehow a continuation of the original series, which we are unable to verify until the next film). Does the "Human Instrumentality Project" or "Jinrui-Hokan Keikaku" have a different purpose this time around? How is it being implemented and what will happen at the end of it? The film has all the sudden introduced a number of new mysteries to what was supposed to be a remake, by which many viewers were caught off the guard. The Internet is full of speculators, analyzing and dissecting the films from every angle and predicting what will happen in the end, reminiscent of what it was like in the mid-late 90's when people were exchanging their own interpretation of Evangelion. Only now, the Internet has come a long way and is available to a much broader audience. The heated discussions are likely to continue well into 2010, when the series is to be wrapped with the films "Evangelion: 3.0" and "Evangelion: Final" (exact date is TBA, said to be later in the year).

Summer Sonic 2009

Summer Sonic is one of the biggest rock festivals in Japan that takes place in August annually featuring a number of big-name international acts as well as local acts. The festival is a dual-location event, based in Tokyo (Makuhari to be exact) and Osaka and the artists switch the venues between Day 1 and Day 2 (i.e. Band A would perform in Tokyo on Day 1 then in Osaka on Day 2).

This year marks the 10th anniversary of Summer Sonic since it first started in 2000 and instead of the usual 2-day format, they have expanded this year's festival into a 3-day event. Day 1 in Tokyo was headlined by My Chemical Romance along with other bands like Nine Inch Nails, Kasabian, etc. Katy Perry was scheduled to perform on this day as well but she was forced to cancel in the last minute following her doctor's advise to rest for a week. Linkin Park headlined Day 2. This was probably the most popular day as it also featured other big name acts such as Lady Gaga, Elvis Costello, The Specials, Hoobastank as well as Japan's arguably the most popular rock band B'z. The tickets for Day 2 had gone sold out well in advance. The fact that Beyoncé headlined Day 3 shows rock festivals today are changing. Last year, her husband Jay-Z headlined the Glastonbury festival in UK, which caused quite a media buzz as some, including Noel Gallagher of Oasis, criticized that his music was not suitable to headline a rock festival. Summer Sonic has been relatively open to music genres other than rock. R&B/Hip-Hop artists such as Black Eyed Peas, Alicia Keys and a number of others have made appearances as main acts for the festival in the past. Other artists performed on Day 3 include Ne-Yo, Limp Bizkit, The Flaming Lips, etc.

Summer Sonic is great if you are interested in checking big name international acts. It is also good if you have a particularly strong interest in one genre of music and you want to spend the whole day enjoying just the music you love. There are several venues at the festival, namely (for Tokyo): Marine (the stadium), Mountain, Sonic, Dance, Island and Beach. The performers are assigned to the venues by the kinds of music they play (Mountain Stage is for hard rock bands, Dance stage is for DJs and electronica artists, etc) and you could just stay at one venue and you'll get to see who's who in that genre of music perform one after another. At smaller venues, in many cases they have Japanese acts performing before or sometimes in between big name international acts so it is a good way to get to know the the local scene as well.

Another thing great about Summer Sonic is food. There are dozens of food stands available, many of which offer specialties from different regions around Japan. The foods are priced reasonably, usually ranging somewhere between 500-800 yen a dish and they really are quite good for festival food. This year, I personally was saved by the warm Hakata-style Ramen I had after being soaked in the rain during the NIN performance. It was quite good.

I have been going to the festival almost every year since 2004 or so. This year, I attended Day 1 of the 3-day event. Below is the list of the artits I saw (the text inside <> indicates the venue that the band performed at):

1. Red Light Special<mountain>
2. The Big Pink <mountain>
3. Girl Talk <dance>
4. Jenny Lewis <beach>
5. Mercury Rev <sonic>
6. Nine Inch Nails <marine>
7. Kasabian<mountain>

There were several memorable moments. #1, Red Light Company, I was able to catch only the 2nd half of their performance and I had never listened to their music before but I was pleasantly surprised by them. A bit dark and melodic, very UK-sounding. #3 Girl Talk was just plain fun, lots of good party songs mixed together seamlessly and turned the whole venue into one big party. MJ songs especially seemed to have gotten the crowd going. #4 Jenny Lewis was interesting, definitely a change from bands performing at Mountain/Sonic stages. She performed at the Beach Stage, which is an open outdoor stage and gives you almost like a MTV Spring Break kind of feel, if you know what I mean. To be honest, I'm not sure if her music really suited the venue, I think I would prefer to see her somewhere closed and possibly smaller. #6 Nine Inch Nails was definitely the most memorable performance of the day and one of the most memorable I have seen at Summer Sonic. This appearance at Summer Sonic being their very last performance in Japan (The NIN frontman Trent Reznor has announced that NIN will discontinue as a band after their current tour ends), the arena was full of the hardcore NIN fans and the band played all of their classic hits as well as more recent ones. It started raining as they started performing, which somehow seemed to have matched their music.

Summer Sonic:
http://www.summersonic.com

Saint Oniisan (Saint Young Men) Volume 3

OK, this is not exactly brand-new, it's been out for over 4 months but I didn't know about this comic series until recently.

I was quite amazed by how creative the story's premise was when a friend introduced the series to me. The story is about Jesus and Budda taking vacation in Tokyo after completing their hectic end-of-millennium tasks. In some countries, I suspect this could possibly cause quite a controversy as Jesus and Buddha are portrayed to be equal (and they don't seem exactly sacred or holy) but the setup is highly unique to say the least. Only in Japan, they would even think of a plot like this where the worlds of after-life for Christians and Buddhists co-exist (from I have gathered from the story, it's one big world where all the all mighties and souls live together happily ever after).

The two saints are enjoying being away from their superior responsibilities and living an ordinary life for the first time in centuries on Earth. In the story, both Jesus and Buddha appear to be not only fluent in the Japanese language but also pretty knowledgeable about the current Japanese culture. They have no problem getting around Tokyo, however, their super-natural powers do cause problems from time to time such as Buddha not being able to conceal his halo whenever his feelings get heightened or Jesus turning hot water into wine at a public bath house.

In the 3rd volume of the series, Buddha wins a trip to Izu (伊豆), a city famous for having a numerous hot spring sites, in a raffle. They travel together and stay at a ryokan, traditional Japanese inn, where they are joined by the archangels Michael, Gabriel, Raphael and Uriel and enjoy the countryside. Other episodes include: Jesus and Buddha trying various methods to cool themselves down in one hot summer afternoon (telling each other scary stories, camping at a Denny's-like family restaurant, etc), two of them looking for a new place around Tokyo, two of them looking for a part-time job (Jesus considers selling the real "indulgences" signed by himself but forces himself to give up the idea), etc. The 3rd volume introduces many new characters such as the archangels and Bonten (梵天), one of the highest ranking gods in Buddhism. Jesus and Buddha, the saints they are, do not usually do anything that is overly outrageous or foolish and the introduction of characters with stronger personalities have made the story more exciting.

I wouldn't recommend this to someone who takes his/her religion seriously, however, having a bit of background knowledge would help you enjoy the manga better. It makes you realize how outrageous and sometimes cruel what these religions claim, especially when applied in the modern world settings. However, I don't think it's the intention of the author to ridicule these religions. Rather, she has made these seemingly serious and hard to approach subjects more accessible by converting them into a fun comic series. With that said, she is probably not trying to advocate any religion in particular either. It's just comics, not religious references or comparative analysis of Christianity and Buddhism. Take it easy and have a laugh, that's all there is to it.

You can check out the online English version of the manga here: