JAPANESE FILMS

Evangelion after Fukushima (Part 3)

This is Part 3 of the series. Part 1 and 2. “MAZINGER Z“, the first and the most influential Robot/Mecha Anime was aired in 1972. It was the time of consumerism, aftermath of turbulent sixties, the entrance to the highway of economic boom, Japanese technology revolution. In MAZINGER Z, the question of “perfect” only applied to the perfectness of the machines. The viewers of the program were kids born in sixties, the generation too far removed from the days of the Imperial military. The archenemies in MAZINGER Z are the worst kind of worst ex-Nazis, who are grotesque, sadistic and …

 
JAPANESE FILMS

Evangelion after Fukushima (Part 2)

This is Part 2 of the series. Part 1 is here. As we learned about the true extent of Fukushima accident and nuclear fallout, our feeling toward the government, the energy industries and the media shifted from distress to distrust, then to disgust. Many people, from independent journalists to political activists, from artists to housewives, used the term “the Great HQ Announcement” to describe this failure of major media to deliver vital information and critical view of the Fukushima incident.

 
JAPANESE FILMS

San Francisco, December 9, 1941

via Shorpy This is the photograph of Cafe Ginza at Buchanan Street in San Francisco on December 9 1941.  (The photograph is found at Shorpy, the ever-inspiring photograph archive site.) It speaks volumes, many different stories … the Japanese American Community of the prewar era, the strange calmness of the morning after Japanese attack on U.S. soil, the photographer who took this photograph (John Collier), and the demise that would fall upon the proprietor of the Cafe and the doctor next door in coming years. But for now, we would visit Bukkyo-Kai Hall (Buddhist Temple Hall) and Kinmon Hall (Kinmon …