Media Mix, Aug. 21, 2011

Posted on August 21, 2011 by philipbrasor

Nothing never looked better

Here’s this week’s Media Mix, which is about the controversy over remarks that actor Sosuke Takaoka made several weeks ago regarding South Korean TV dramas. A good deal of the column refers to an article in Shukan Post that outlines the decline of quality in TV programming and attempts to explain the reasons. Many of the article’s points have been discussed in Media Mix in the past, but as a distillation of what’s wrong with Japanese TV, it’s quite thorough and convincing. The only part I found less than convincing, and which I didn’t mention in the article, is the implication that the recent changeover from analog to digital broadcasts was somehow engineered by the television industry to protect their interests. The change to digital was inevitable from a purely evolutionary standpoint, and considering that most other developed countries are making the switch in some form it seems a worldwide trend separate from any circumscribed interests of one industry. In fact, if any one industry does benefit from digitization it’s home electronics manufacturers, who enjoyed increased sales, at least for a while, of high-definition TVs and related hardware. The broadcast industry, on the other hand, had to pay a huge amount of money to change over; money they didn’t necessarily have any more because of the decline in advertising sales.

Moreover, as mentioned prominently in the Post article, the changeover to digital freed a huge amount of bandwidth. And while the Post claims that the commercial TV networks have managed to somehow protect this resource from falling into the hands of potential competitors, it seems by that token that they would have been better off not changing over to digital, since remaining with an analog system would have made it easier for them to maintain their monopoly of the airwaves. Perhaps there’s something in the article I missed that better explains their theory, but in the end I think digital was going to happen regardless of what the industry thought or tried to do. The real question from now on is what the government will do with that resource, which, theoretically, belongs to all the people of Japan.

Correction: I describe Takaoka’s most famous role, in the movie Pacchigi, as being “Korean-Japanese.” Though it’s been years since I saw the movie, it occurred to me this morning that the label isn’t correct. Though the character has lived his whole life in Japan, as with all zainichi (resident in Japan) Koreans, his nationality is Korean, though I don’t remember if it’s North or South in his case.

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Notes on Summer Sonic 2011

Posted on August 16, 2011 by philipbrasor

Whalin'

While inching my way into the bottleneck that always forms on the platform of Kaihin Makuhari Station Saturday morning as Summer Sonic ticketholders make for the exit, I heard two Japanese guys in back of me trading voiceless labiodental fricatives. Since the “f” consonant doesn’t properly exist in Japanese, practice was, apparently, in order, and they cracked each other up with the attempt. Preparing their “fuck” cheers for the festival?

***

“Fuck” was practically the only word I understood during the first performance I saw on Saturday, Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, the famous teen hip-hop collective from Southern California. Summer Sonic is consistent about these sorts of booking coups. I remember a few years ago they snagged one of those next-big-thing bands in England before the group had even released a record–and after Fuji Rock had turned them down because of the band’s demand for $80,000. The thing is, I forget the name of the band because after their appearance they quickly vanished.

That’s not likely to happen to Odd Future, mainly because there are too many talents in the collective, if “talent” is the right word. On stage they demonstrated exactly what it is that made them instant stars: a capacity for unhinged adolescent clowning. As on their various records, the music was more difficult to appreciate, much less penetrate, and not just because the beats are harsh and atonal. With up to five rappers trading lines willy-nilly while dashing about shirtless and reckless, crashing into each other, mooning the audience, and making private jokes they knew would go over the heads of everyone (“How many of you niggas like chips?”), the 30-minute showcase bordered on performance art; which is to say, it was entertaining in its own, wholly peculiar way. These are boys who have no intention of ever growing up, and probably haven’t even contemplated the possibility. Tyler, the Creator, the most talked-about member of the group, was actually the most subdued and least concerned with projecting the sort of menacing vibe the collective owns as a style constant. The smile plastered to his kisser the entire show was a kid grin: irrepressible and, as a result, irresistible. The other rappers, Hodgy Beats and Mike G, in particular, stalked the stage as if marking out territory, and Tyler let them take it, happy to fade into the background when he wasn’t rhyming. “Konnichi fuckin’ wa” was his personalized greeting, followed, as if an afterthought, with, “You guys are awesome.” He wasn’t talking to his mates, but to the audience, who were game if uncomprehending. Hodgy offered totally pointless mock provocation, prodding the crowd into an acknowledgement of his skills and then came back with, “You lie. You can cheat on me but don’t lie.” One wonders what the folks in the audience thought of Mike G’s T-shirt, whose large Chinese characters said, “Nihonjin Kanojo Boshuchu,” which could be translated as “Now Soliticing Japanese Girlfriends.” Some might be alarmed, considering how violent the sexual component of Odd Future’s raps are, but one thing that came through clearly is that it’s all an act. And a pretty good one. Of the Odd Future albums I’ve listened to, the only one I get is Frank Ocean’s, probably because he’s an R&B singer and not a rapper (he didn’t seem to be in the group that came to Japan). I should try harder, I know, but I’m sure Odd Future wouldn’t give a flying fuck if I did. In fact, I think they said that. Continue reading →

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Media Mix, Aug. 7, 2011

Posted on August 7, 2011 by philipbrasor

Beyond belief (Kyodo)

Here’s this week’s Media Mix, which is about the various schemes to influence public opinion with regard to Japan’s nuclear energy policy. As I pointed out at the end, the press is mainly using the word “manipulate” to describe what the authorities are doing, but I think “manufacture” is a better verb. It has been well-documented in recent months how carefully planned the public relations component of Japan’s nuclear policy has been, extending back to the mid-50s when the Americans recruited a number of high-profile Japanese individuals in government and industry to support the peaceful use of nuclear technology as a means of making the Japanese public more accepting of America’s nuclear deterrence policy. It’s correct to say that people who remembered the war and the atomic bombings had to have their perceptions manipulated in order to accept nuclear energy, but every generation since then has started with a clean slate. Regardless of how you feel about the safety of nuclear energy, the relevant bureaucratic organs and their industry partners felt it necessary to nip debate in the bud as early as possible; which is why the bulk of the money budgeted for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency goes to “education.” It’s basically a PR organ.

This is just how things are, and for the media to treat it as a “conspiracy” is ingenuous. For sure, the real intent behind the email scheme outlined in the column is hidden, but every few years the press uncovers a similar scheme and reports it as a scoop. Officials are left with red faces and promise an investigation, but nothing really changes because the sensibility behind the yarase (fakery) is one of confrontation. They know that the only people who will make their opinions known in the pertinent public forum are those who are against them, so they feel justified is providing counter-arguments, even if they’re for the most part manufactured. The various mainstream media outlets who breathlessly reported the chicanery going on in Saga neglected to say that, for the most part, the citizens don’t know what to think. As one journalist told Tokyo Shimbun, “The people have a responsibility, too.” In other words, they have a responsibility not to be manipulated; because, in truth, anyone who watched the local TV show in question, the one where Kyushu Electric employees sent in questions, had to wonder why there were almost no counter-arguments. Skepticism is an integral component of democratic involvement, but mostly what the Japanese public exhibits is cynicism: They don’t trust the government, anyway, so why get involved? There is a difference. As Prof. Kawakami also told Tokyo Shimbun, “If the silent majority remains silent, there’s no way you can prevent fakery.”

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August 2011 movies

Posted on August 2, 2011 by philipbrasor

Here are the movie reviews I wrote for the Aug. issue of EL Magazine, which was distributed in Tokyo last week. The movies are opening here between late July and mid-August.

Edge of Darkness
Mel Gibson’s first lead role in eight years is a Boston cop whose grown daughter is murdered outside his home. At first, it’s assumed the shotgun blast was meant for him, but as he starts looking into his daughter’s recent history he learns she may have been involved with a radical group trying to expose illegal research at the top secret facility where she worked. Though everything in Gibson’s bulldog performance and Martin Campbell’s direction indicates a vigilante revenge fantasy, the movie doesn’t go full-tilt gonzo until the very end. The script, based on a British TV miniseries, has pretensions to sociopolitical seriousness that are undermined by the presence of a shadowy fixer (Ray Winstone) whose loyalties waver right from the start. Assigned by the government to keep an eye on Gibson’s investigation, he makes friends with the ornery detective for no other reason than to provide the movie with macho banter (“Who am I? I’m the guy with nothing to lose”). It’s a waste of time and distracts from Gibson’s effective demonstration of star power. (photo: GK Films LLC) Continue reading →

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August 2011 albums

Posted on July 27, 2011 by philipbrasor

Here are the album reviews I wrote for the August issue of EL Magazine, which was distributed in Tokyo yesterday.

James Blake
(A&M/Universal)
Bon Iver
(Jagjaguwar/Hostess)
The pendulum swings eternal in pop, bringing old styles back into fashion and replacing certain aural trends with their polar opposites. The preference now among the musical cognoscenti is for quiet and contemplative, after almost two decades of continually loud product. James Blake, a young producer from England, is a nominally bedroom artist whose m.o. is to take soul-inflected melodies and process/reduce them to within an inch of their digital lives, sometimes adding sampled voices on top, more often adding his own heavily processed vocals, which, under the circumstances, sound a lot like Antony Hegarty’s. As far as new things under the sun go, Blake is the real deal. As derivative as his methodology is, the end results are like nothing that which usually emerges from bedrooms these days, English or otherwise. What’s surprising is how resiliently popular his minimalist tracks are, since they contain no insistent rhythms, much less a groove. On the relatively expansive “I Never Learnt to Share,” the synth loops are tightened to the point where they resemble a beat but Blake prefers keeping the listener slightly off-balance, and the tension of “no release” creates its own sort of compulsion. The low volumes focus attention on textures that are all the more synthetic in contrast to the surrounding silence. As if to prove he can do it straight, there’s a cover of Feist’s “Limit to Your Love” that opens with Blake’s voice and piano, but is quickly augmented by a stuttering bass pattern. As a statement of artistic purpose it’s simple and direct and original, but since the song itself isn’t original it begs the question of where Blake goes from here. As beautifully realized as James Blake is it feels necessarily unsubstantial, the work of an artist who is still formulating what he wants to do. It’s an odd position to be in for someone who’s attracted this much attention; almost as much as Justin Vernon attracted with his debut solo album as Bon Iver, For Emma, Forever Ago. The record was made in a remote, snowbound cabin where he played all the instruments. Vernon fashioned the perfect breakup record that topped more Best-of-year lists than any other album in 2007. His stylistic markers are conventional: Singer-songwriter sentiments of the 1970s, with music to match. The eagerly awaited followup is, like James Blake, a self-titled affair, thus indicating some sort of recalibration, in particular the voice, which, while it isn’t as processed as Blake’s, also mimics Antony’s in its equating of feeling with vibrato and falsetto. With a budget comes more complex sonics and arrangements but less in the way of memorable melodies. Though composed of 10 songs, seven of which have place names for titles, the album works best as one long swoon, a tribute to Vernon’s attention to detail but indicative of his limited breadth. Like Blake, he’s the creator of a quiet, beautiful sound that he’s still figuring out what to do with. Continue reading →

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Media Mix, July 24, 2011

Posted on July 24, 2011 by philipbrasor

Does crap look better in 3D?

Here’s this week’s Media Mix, about the end of analog TV broadcasts, which takes place today at noon. In the column I touch on satellite broadcasting as an example of a standard system that might have made more sense than terrestrial digital broadcasting, but, of course, BS broadcasts are available in Japan and NHK makes money from them. In fact, many of the same people who seemed reluctant about making the changeover to digital terrestrial have the same reservations about having BS forced on them. That’s because if you buy a digital tuner or new TV, you automatically get a feature to receive BS broadcasts. Recently, a Tokyo Shimbun reader wrote to the paper saying he had just bought a new TV and wondered if it meant he now had to pay NHK the extra fee for BS. He had never watched NHK’s BS broadcasts before and had no intention of watching them in the future, but apparently NHK expects you to pay if you have a BS tuner or TV that receives BS signals.

The guy has a point and one that the media hasn’t talked about at all in the runup to the digital changeover. We recently moved into a new apartment complex that does not have a digital antenna. If we want to receive normal digital broadcasts we either have to put up our own antenna or subscribe to the apartment complex’s cable TV service, which comes with BS channels. As soon as we subscribed a guy from NHK was at our door asking for the BS fee in addition to the regular NHK fee for terrestrial broadcasts. We’ve always paid for both and had to go through a complex song-and-dance about direct bank transfers that hadn’t been registered yet by NHK because of the move. But what impressed me was that NHK obviously receives subscriber info from the cable TV company. The bill collector didn’t ask us whether or not we watched BS, he simply said we had to pay for it. And that’s apparently also true of people who buy new TVs. Because of the B-CAS card, which comes with every new TV sold since 2002, NHK knows who has a TV or a recorder with a BS tuner, since the card automatically sends this data digitally to a foundation (obviously another amakudari concern) that monitors digital TV usage. In the old days, the NHK bill collector simply looked to see if a house or apartment had an antenna and then knocked on the door, demanding that the resident pay his NHK fee. The B-CAS system makes this shakedown process more sophisticated, but the end result is the same: NHK can demand you pay even if you say you don’t watch NHK.

The sensible thing to do would be to implement a scramble system similar to the one used by pay satellite content providers like WOWOW and Star Channel. Thanks to the B-CAS card, broadcasters can “turn on” certain channels for specific TV sets whose registered owners have paid their subscriptions. Everybody else just gets a blank screen. NHK could do the same thing for people who say they don’t intend to watch their BS channels. Instead they allow anyone to watch and then demand they pay for it. At ¥950 more a month, it’s a considerable expense for many households, especially considering what you get. A good portion of the content on the two BS channels is eventually broadcast on NHK’s terrestrial channels. All you have to do is wait a month or two.

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Media Mix, July 17, 2011

Posted on July 17, 2011 by philipbrasor

Here’s this week’s Media Mix, which is about a comment made by comedian Sanma Akashiya that he may stop appearing on TV after he turns 60. My feelings about Sanma as a comic are mixed. I can appreciate his quick wit, but often I think that appreciation is relative. Much of this ambivalence, I know, is cultural. I’m not a big fan of puns, and the ijirigei (making fun of the weak) style, as I mention, is limited. In the past two decades, most Japanese humor, at least the kind that makes its way to TV, is fundamentally derived from shtick: a specific comic hits on a pose or phrase that strikes a chord with the public, but as proven by the increasingly high turnover rate for TV comedians, this sort of humor is even more limited than ijirigei. Nevertheless, while I will concede I’m not the ideal audience for this kind of humor, I wonder if the majority of Japanese are. Most of my Japanese acquaintances say they don’t really think most comedians are very funny and agree that sketch humor is really lacking. When I point out the cultural significance and influence of the old Drifters comedy revue show, Hachijidayo, Zeninshogo, forty years after it was first aired, what people usually say is that the show’s popularity is mostly nostalgic. The boomers who still buy the DVDs of that show were children at the time, and the humor’s slightly risque tenor (at the time it was on, PTAs throughout Japan complained bitterly about it) was seen as stimulating. But most people seem to agree that it wasn’t that funny. The same goes for Oretachi Hyokinzoku and the other ijirigei shows it spawned: People were drawn more by what the comedians were getting away with than with the actual jokes and routines. So when I read the interview that Edan Corkill did with comedian Koji Imada in the Japan Times a few weeks ago about the new Saturday Night Live Japan and Imada remarked that the show would mostly avoid topical humor because it’s obvious and “easy,” I wondered what he meant. For sure, a lot of the topical humor on SNL in the U.S. is pretty obvious and, at least since the mid-80s, has lost much of its bite because everyone in the media, including non-comedians, are into topical humor. But easy? In the sketches I watched on the second installment of SNL-Japan, laughs were derived not from the sketches themselves or from the lines, but from the way the players stepped out of character. This sort of thing brings the audience in on the joke, makes them feel like a part of the routine. That’s pretty much the hallmark of all Japanese sketch comedy, and, I would think, a lot easier to pull off than coming up with routines that are themselves truly funny.

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Media Mix, July 10, 2011

Posted on July 10, 2011 by philipbrasor

Yamato does some heavy lifting

Here’s this week’s Media Mix, which is about how express delivery companies now represent the spirit of Japanese service as well as the virility of Japanese men. Though the column dwells mainly on the role that Yamato and Sagawa have played in promoting these images, in many ways they were self-perpetuating. Though Sagawa no longer uses the cartoon symbol of a hikyaku—the traditional couriers who was famous for running the length of the old post roads—it’s that sort of hustle that today’s drivers are supposed to embody. However, what was more interesting to me is how such a job came to mean more than just a paycheck to the workers themselves, and instinct tells me that no one sticks with delivery work because of the image boost. I know, because I was a delivery person in San Francisco for a number of years after university. I actually enjoyed the work because it got me out on the streets, but pay was based on how many packages you handled, which means you had to not only hustle but cultivate the dispatcher and cheat a bit on routes. One aspect of the job that isn’t really covered in reporting about delivery services is commissions, which tend to be downplayed in Japan. There isn’t even a good word for it in Japanese. Dekidaka-barai is the closest I’ve heard, though it’s usually used to describe piece work. In the West, commissions are usually associated with sales work, which implies that the salesperson is working more for himself than for his company. I don’t know if that’s the reason salespeople in Japan don’t work for commissions, but it might explain why “sales” (eigyo) is usually a more group-oriented endeavor in Japanese companies. For delivery people, however, commissions are a more direct indication of their effort and efficiency, and apparently wages in the industry are pegged to how many customers a driver can cultivate on his route. My partner used to work in the shipping department of a famous fashion designer, and the Sagawa guy stopped in every hour or so checking if there were any packages and constantly berating her to “send out more,” as if it were her decision. When we recently moved, we used Yamato, who gave us a deal that was better than ones offered by dedicated moving companies, and they did a great job. Labor standards don’t seem to apply to drivers, who often work more than ten hours a day and six days a week with no overtime. Really good drivers can make in excess of ¥5 million a year, which doesn’t sound like much considering how many hours they work but in today’s job environment that probably sounds good to a lot of people stuck in contract or part-time jobs. And if you can get sex on the side, it’s gravy.

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July 2011 movies

Posted on June 29, 2011 by philipbrasor

Here are the reviews I wrote for the July issue of EL Magazine of movies that are being released in Tokyo from late June to mid-July.

The American
Back in the day, smart European directors paid tribute to American noir by not trying to copy it slavishly. Antonioni with The Passenger and Wenders with The American Friend downplayed the more sensational qualities of the genre and dialed up the existential angst. The American attempts something similar. George Clooney plays a shadowy assassin-for-hire who bolts his Swedish hideout when an attempt is made on his life and holes up in rural Italy, where his taciturn contact (Johan Leysen) finds him a job fashioning a special weapon for a fellow assassin (Thekla Reuten). Clooney’s man of few words who is good at his job fits the stereotype of the lonely hit man, but the plot device of having him fall in love with a hooker (Violante Placido) smacks of desperation. Anton Corbjin, directing his second feature film, understands the moody undercurrents that Rowan Joffe’s screenplay emphasizes, but the movie wears its European pedigree like a hair shirt and Martin Booth, who wrote the novel on which it’s based, is no Le Carre. (photo: Focus Features LLC) Continue reading →

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July 2011 albums

Posted on June 26, 2011 by philipbrasor

Here are the album reviews from the July 2011 issue of EL Magazine, which was published in Tokyo today.

Born This Way
-Lady Gaga (Interscope/Universal)
Stone Rollin’
-Raphael Saadiq (Sony)
It’s encouraging to note that the biggest artist of this young decade is primarily a songwriter. Whatever her credentials as drama queen, outsider spokesperson, or fashion disaster, Lady Gaga paid her way into the pantheon of pulchritude by penning instantly likable disco-rock singles. Not for nothing is the name of her boutique label Streamline: Efficiency is Gaga’s watchword, not so much in the economy of instrumentation or instantly recognizable sentiments, but rather in the way her variations-on-a-riff style focuses the hooks where they count. That’s actually a better description of good rock than it is of good disco, but the beauty of Gaga’s approach is that she doesn’t distinguish between the two, since they are the pop genres closest to the common folk, and if she seems over-identified with queers and club kids, they’re the kinds of queers and club kids who work for a living. It’s easy to make too much of Gaga’s message, especially when it’s delivered with such theatrical flair, but the real message is in the beats, the slamming sloppiness of “Judas” or the precision lockstep of the title cut, which slices the word “born” into four sixteenth notes. Her vocal agility won’t make Annie Lennox lose any sleep, but she’s learned how to channel her operatic tendencies more effectively. What she owes Madonna isn’t the idea that packaging can make up for technical shortcomings but that spectacle need not be outwardly spectacular. “Americano,” with its faux Mexican accent and faux Spanish musical phrasing is both ridiculous and sublime. Madonna wouldn’t have dared get this camp, but Gaga always acts (and sings) as if she has nothing to lose. Of course, there’s calculation in the hyperbole, but the zeitgeist seems to demand an extravagance of expression. Indie just doesn’t cut it any more when all you want to do is dance, a credo that Raphael Saadiq has come to by the long route. Saadiq led the neo-soul group Tony Toni Tone for years before striking out on his own with an anti-commercial sound that won him little more than a high-minded cult. On his last album, however, he embraced his forebears at Motown with a collection of originals that sounded like an undiscovered cache of Holland-Dozier-Holland tunes. More than being mere mimickry, The Way I See It absorbed the Motown sensibility as being at once sophisticated and fun, and it held up as a unique work of pop. Saadiq sticks to the formula on Stone Rollin’ but gets bluesier in the singing, rockier in the rhythms, which declare their dominance on the opening cut, “Heart Attack.” And if the background vocals still owe too much to the Four Tops and the Jacksons, the touches of synth and the impressionistic drumming bring Saadiq’s aesthetic fully into the 21st century. In interviews, the former Ray Wiggins has complained that Motown comparisons are made by people who “don’t know music.” Maybe, but they’re definitely made by people who know what they like. Continue reading →

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