Psychommu Gaijin: 2005

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Mazinger Real
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Odd things from Japan / Curiosidades de Japón

THE ENGINE > Tokyopop Tribe Of OEL

Mobile phones making a monkey out of Japanese - MSN-Mainichi Daily News

Mobile phones making a monkey out of Japanese - MSN-Mainichi Daily News
Mobile phones making a monkey out of Japanese
Sapio (11/23)

Going bananas over mobile phones for so many years is turning Japanese into monkeys, according to Sapio (11/23).

Nobuo Masataka, a professor at the Kyoto University Primate Research Institute and author of the monster best seller "Keitai wo Motta Saru (Monkeys With Mobile Phones)," argues that the proliferation of mobile phones has got young Japanese making monkeys of themselves, aping the behavior patterns of chimpanzees.

He says that young Japanese have lost the ability to discern between public and private space. He adds that they have formed what he calls the dearuki-zoku (out and about tribe).

"There's been a dramatic increase in the dearuki-zoku. They don't eat meals at home with family members and you can clearly see with your own eyes the large increase in young people who hang about on the streets together with the same old friends," Masataka tells Sapio. "They make places like Shibuya their territory and rarely head even to places like (nearby entertainment and shopping districts) Shinjuku or Harajuku. They get tired going to new places or meeting new people. If they get hungry while they're strolling around, they simply get food by going into a convenience store, buying something and sitting down outside on the curb to eat it. If not that, then they just hang around for hours in fast food joints."

The primate specialist says the actions of the dearuki-zoku closely resemble behavior patterns in chimpanzees, which tend to travel in groups, walking around for a long time without going to any specific place, then eating and disposing of their wastes in the same place before bedding down on piles of grass whenever and wherever the inclination takes them.

"This ability to loiter on the streets exists only because of the proliferation of mobile phones. Parents let their kids go out because they think they're only a phone call away. And even if the kid doesn't come home, parents don't call them because they believe the child's mobile phone offers them an unbreakable link," Masataka tells Sapio. "Behind this imagined ease of mind, though, lies a breakdown in communications among the family members. Mobile phones have made it possible to connect to family members or other parts of society 24 hours a day, drastically changing the nature of relationships that humans have created through their evolution."

The problem is, Masataka notes, despite having this communication device, there's little real communication going on with parents or children rarely calling each other.

Masataka adds that a tendency for the young to lash out in wild, unprovoked attacks also draws on primate instincts drawn out by over-use of mobile phones that have stopped people from speaking in favor of sending text messages and thus made them more emotional and unable to express their feelings in words.

"Apes will suddenly strike out at people for looking at them. Naturally, apes can't talk and they're expressing their emotions in the only way they can. People prone to rage are doing exactly the same thing," the primatologist says.

Masataka claims that mobile phones have deprived people of brainpower because memory functions now eliminate the need to try and remember phone numbers and GPS functions mean people have no need to learn about their surroundings.

"Mobile phones are now performing tasks that minds once did, such as think and talk. If this continues, people will continue losing their ability to think. Information Technology may have liberated us from a whole series of daily burdens, but IT has also dragged us down. Incidentally, the only people so caught up with mobile phones and use them to send so much mail are the Japanese," Masataka tells Sapio. "Some may criticize me for likening the behavior of humans with monkeys, but having studied primates for so long, I can clearly say that it's a fact the proliferation of IT has made human behavior closely resemble that of apes." (By Ryann Connell)

November 10, 2005

JapanFiles.com

Razor Ramone's Blog?

WTF?

Download Google Videos here.

AkibaTV

"Where is the restroom?"

Morngin Musume vs Lizard

An Eternal Thought in the Mind of Godzilla: Back Brain Kick

An Eternal Thought in the Mind of Godzilla: Back Brain Kick: "Back Brain Kick

They used Bu-Chan as the medium.

'Fuck your cold, ' he begins, putting the cat toy down for half a second. 'Be in Jimbocho around 4pm to make the pick-up. Use the book festival as cover. Order an 'M Fries' and pretend to sleep at the counter on the second floor of the McDonald’s on Yasukuni.'

That’s dear, sweet ESPY for you. Obscure and demanding. Jump through fruit loops for some pocket cash. But a trip to the Shitamachi means a chance to swing by Akihabara, yes, again, to buy a USB headset. I need to talk to Jay. I don’t talk to Jay nearly enough, and we must hasten the demise of NTT by making real phone calls as pass�as possible.

Time to kill between the here and now. Retracing my footsteps from the other night when Watanabe, Yamazaki, and I were out chasing maid. You see, the massage was only a third of it. We did maid kissa and maid pasta and curry house well before we ever dropped the socks.

Turkey trot down Chuo dori. Make the first left on Hongo dori. Peep the first alley on your right, directly across from LAOX Computer. You’ll see two vending machines full of these...

Behold! Instant oden in a can, man! Being test marketed. Still don’t have the gumption to try it myself, but how bad can it be? A salaryman was happily slurping liquid out of the container just as I looked up...and then gazed into the cold heart of banal evil.

(Sinister chord)

Behind these happy vending machines is the building where the AUM cult used to have their retail shop.

Watanabe remembers, “they used to stand right here, handing out fliers to people walking by.” But they’re long gone, and the place is perfectly harmless now, folks. So here's to good eating in the event horizon of human tragedy.

November 01, 2005"

Hollywood wins as Grokster agrees to end P2P service

Hollywood wins as Grokster agrees to end P2P service: "Hollywood wins as Grokster agrees to end P2P service

By Brooks Boliek
WASHINGTON -- Hollywood and Grokster ended their legal war Monday as the recording and movie industries and the P2P service agreed to settle a lawsuit that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

According to a settlement agreement, lead plaintiff Grokster will shut down its infringing service.

While lawsuits against other P2P services like Kazaa continue, the injunction against the lead party is a significant move.

'This settlement brings to a close an incredibly important chapter in the history of digital music,' said RIAA chairman Mitch Bainwol. 'This is a chapter that ends on a high note for the recording industry, the tech community and music fans and consumers everywhere. At the end of the day, this is about our ability to invest in new music. An online marketplace populated by legitimate services allows us to do just that.'

The settlement includes a permanent injunction prohibiting infringement, directly or indirectly, of any of the plaintiffs' copyrighted works. This includes the immediate cessation of the distribution of the Grokster client application, and the cessation of operation of the Grokster system and software, according to a music industry release.

After the settlement was announced, the grokster.com Web site carried a warning that the Supreme Court 'unanimously confirmed that using this service to trade copyrighted material is illegal.' The site includes links to respectcopyrights.com and musicunited.org, entertainment-industry supported Web sites that support intellectual property rights.

The case put an indelible stamp on the rules that control the distribution of copyrighted works on the Internet. It was the biggest copyright case decided by the court since its 1984 decision that Sony Corp. could not be sued if consumers used VCRs to make illegal copies of movies.

Writing for the court, Justice David H. Souter said lower courts could find the file-sharing services responsible by examining factors such as how companies marketed the product or whether they took easily available steps to reduce infringing uses.

He dismissed Grokster's argument that legal uses of the service were important enough to override copyright concerns since very few people use the services for benign uses.

'While there is doubtless some demand for free Shakespeare, the evidence shows that substantive volume is a function of free access to copyrighted work,' he wrote. 'Users seeking Top 40 songs, for example, or the latest release by Modest Mouse, are certain to be far more numerous than those seeking a free Decameron, and Grokster and StreamCast translated that demand into dollars.'

According to copyright industry claims as much as 90% of songs and movies copied on the file-sharing networks are downloaded illegally.

The Supreme Court's ruling sent the case back to the district court for trial, but apparently Grokster didn't have the stomach for the fight as Monday's action ends the case."

An Eternal Thought in the Mind of Godzilla: Ass Sashimi

An Eternal Thought in the Mind of Godzilla: Ass Sashimi
Ass Sashimi

The café ESPY (Extra Sensory Perception Youth) in Shimokitazawa. Nice name. Ugly painted walls in yellow, just like all the other franchises here. Potted plant dying across from me. Girl with a bandage and cotton ball taped to her face, dabbing at her cheeks with foundation. They try to pass it off as a deli, and I come in craving pastrami, but all they have is pasta and what’s not pizza – but they call it pizza anyways - on the menu. But I bitch too much. Saving graces and sweet imports on the menu: pints of them and for not too much scratch. Also, we’re near a nondescript apartment block, the best kind. Sure to be a wireless signal here somewhere. Secret acts within four walls. Sure enough, it gets me online. Praying the Bass hasn’t gone skunk before the garlic toast arrives. And it’s not until the second one that I realize it hasn’t happened. Matt Gray should appreciate this. They’re playing Hocus Pocus by Focus on the house stereo.

Two days ago, in a cushy Shibuya noodle shop leeching bandwidth, maybe yours. Light samba with ba-ba-ba vocals swirling around. Who says the kei is passé? Skinny ass Japanese answer to the Olsen twins planted next to me. Flashing Nano and the fake diamonds. Honda-san says over asa gohan: “If she says she wants a Vitton handbag, smack the bitch up.” Next, he explains the particle “de” to me by smashing a cup over my head.

Da Buya: tinkering the opening pages of the Goka Jyu-Pun Senso, a prologue by a happy-sad narrator set in the Meishotai jidai, after they turned Youna into a statue and the Government of Darkness is dealt with. The message comes in from Batty. There’s a Mighty Moguls concert tonight in Shimokitazawa, sharing stage with two other bands - The Neatbeats and The Privates - rounding out the bill.

By the time we get inside, the Mighty are seriously pounding it out. Three chord stupidity: the devil’s music with a wild caveman stomp. A lot of Japanese garage bands do it well enough technically, but tend to play up the vocals. Others merely skip around the edges of real peanut butter R&R. Soul wa ja nai. Not so with Moguls, who jump in wearing tiger print togas screaming, twisting the night away. Duck walk. Ass shaking. Inspirational as always. A trio of dull white guys stand in back, too lame to rock with the rock. Is there a frat nearby? The Animal House would be ashamed.

By two am, the bands are all played out. Time to mix it up. Goodbye Batty and Cherry-san. I’m going to the Prince All Night Dance Party at Loft Plus One. Every one looks at me like I’m nuts. Facial expressions reading, “Prince? You mean that skinny motherfucker with the high voice?”

You’d think people as into black music as they are would get it, but sadly, no. I mean, it should be a fairly short walk from Little Richard to Lovesexy, but turns out the cab from Shimokitazawa to Kabuki-cho is about 2500 yen.

am now too e-wasted to write anymore.

ｋａｗａ／ｙｏｏ

asahi.com：Weekend Beat/ `It's not really sex': Nothing stops teens from selling their saliva�-�ENGLISH

asahi.com：Weekend Beat/ `It's not really sex': Nothing stops teens from selling their saliva�-�ENGLISH
10/08/2005
By AKIHITO USUI

AERA

One thing about Shibuya never changes. On any day of the week, you'll see throngs of young people hanging around looking flamboyant in anything from denim miniskirts to traditional yukata, their dyed hair and loud colors seeming an extension of the ubiquitous big-screen advertising that flashes and blares perpetually here in Tokyo's premier youth haunt.

Miyu and a friend are sitting on a stairwell at Fashion Plaza 109, the famous tower full of boutiques. Miyu extends her hand. "Got any money?"

She is wearing an orange camisole and work pants. Her braided hair is dyed blonde. She said at first she was a college student, but as we talk, it emerges that she is 16, a first-year student at a Tokyo private senior high school.

However much money she has, it's never enough. On her fingers she ticks off her list of necessities: "Food, makeup, clubs, games, meals." The 10,000 yen a month she gets from her parents doesn't cover her expenses.

So three months ago, she started what she calls a part-time job: enjo kosai, enko for short--sex or quasi-sex with generally middle-aged men in return for cash handouts.

"Enko is everywhere," she says. "You just stand there in your school uniform and men'll come up to you, asking for enko."

If she accompanies a man to a restaurant or a karaoke box, she gets 5,000 yen to 10,000 yen an hour. If the man wants to take pictures, she'll spend 10 minutes posing in a parking lot for 3,000 yen.

She has a friend, she says, who works at an unsavory establishment where men pay to feel girls through their clothes. Four hours' work nets her 20,000 yen. The girls consider it easy money--and since it's not really sex, they say, it's not prostitution either.

Yuka (not her real name) is 17, a second-year senior high school student. She carries a flashy bag and, during the summer vacation at least, lives more or less homeless. She sleeps at friends' houses.

Yuka has a part-time job which she describes as "selling." Selling what? Underwear and socks, which she removes in front of the customer. Her junior high school uniform. Her saliva.

Saliva?

"At first, I thought, `No way!'" she admits. "But they pay real money for it."

Her parents don't seem to care that she's hardly ever home, but on one point their discipline is firm. Her allowance is 5,000 yen a month and not a penny more. What kind of fun can you have on 5,000 yen a month?

That aside, she and her mother have little to say to each other. Her mother, she says, is too busy playing the piano to take much of an interest in what her daughter is up to.

Yuka says it would be scary to cross the line into actual prostitution. But when she encounters a man on the Internet who proposes meeting at a karaoke box or in a department store stairwell so he can buy her panties, she sees no reason to refuse.

"It's money," she says simply. "It's not dangerous for me, and it gives him pleasure. But if someone offers me 50,000 yen to 60,000 yen for underwear and karaoke, I say no. That's dangerous. You see how careful I am."

Last March, on an Internet chat site, a man said to her, "All I want is five minutes of your time-I want to buy your saliva."

They arranged to meet at the Yamanote Line platform of Ikebukuro Station. He would be wearing a black business suit, he said.

They recognized each other without difficulty, and everything went as planned. The man produced a glass bottle; Yuka spit into it several times; the man handed her 5,000 yen and vanished into the crowd.

The transaction, incidentally, is illegal. An amendment last year to Tokyo's ordinance on the healthy development of youth bans traffic in such personal items as underwear, saliva and urine when the seller is a girl under 18.

Some seedy shops in Shibuya selling saliva and underwear offer an added attraction: The girls will spit, or remove their panties, in full view of the customer.

A price list on the counter of one reads: "B--8,000 yen. S--11,000 yen. D--12,000 yen."

The shop is one of many commercial establishments crammed into one building. B means bloomers. S stands for a Japanese word for urine. D, also from the Japanese, means saliva.

The man at the counter gives me a thorough pat-down at the entrance. He checks my pockets and shoes. "Some guys take pictures with concealed cameras," he explains.

I clear the inspection and am led to a one-way mirror, behind which I see six girls in a room, watching TV. They are talking loudly and laughing.

I indicate my choice--a relatively quiet girl with black hair. She is dressed in a school uniform consisting of a pink blouse with a ribbon tie and a plaid skirt.

I am led into a small room, about the size of one tatami mat. A moment later a door opens and the girl appears. She says hello and sits down.

In her hands she holds a bottle about 5 centimeters tall. Into this she spits and spits repeatedly, her cheeks swelling and deflating, swelling and deflating. It takes her 10 minutes to fill the bottle. Throughout, she is the very model of detached aloofness, her gaze distant, her expression blank.

"Thank you," she says, politely but indifferently, as she gets up to leave.

"Is she a high school student?" I ask the manager.

"No comment. In view of the law, you see," he replies.

Business is brisk, here and at similar establishments. The Internet is the place to find them. Customers range in age from their 20s to their 50s. Their occupation can be anything--banker, teacher, what have you. One man, an interior decorator, came all the way from Kobe, the manager tells me.

"We all have our secret pleasures," he says. "People will pay any price for them. Thanks to the Internet, we get them coming in from all over the country."

For girls looking for even bigger profits, there are ways to earn them. One particularly profitable enterprise goes by the mangled English name "delivery health." "Health" is a euphemism for sex, and "delivery" means the girl goes to your place. The trade is reportedly rife with underage girls--high school students, junior high school students, runaways--working illegally.

In a one-room apartment off Center-gai, Shibuya's main drag, a man of 40 introduces himself as the general manager. His business is delivery health.

"The girls ask me: `How much can I make a day? Thirty thousand? Forty?'" Many of them are in senior high school. The manager turns them away, he says--even though, he adds, "Most of the customers say they prefer somebody young."

Enjo kosai prices have fallen lately. Even so, enko can be worth 30,000 yen to 50,000 yen for a girl willing to go all the way. In the delivery health trade, that fee is expected.

Writer Misato Nakayama, 28, spent a year as a high school student engaged in enko. She wrote a book about her experiences called "16-sai datta" (I was 16).

Why did she do it? "It gratified me to think that someone was willing to pay good money for me," she explains. "The reward was tangible. There it was--money in your hand."

The scene has changed since her day, she says.

"I have the impression that girls today think nothing of selling their bodies, their underwear, whatever. The erotic entertainment industry is growing and growing--that too is an influence. `Everyone else is doing it,' they say, `so I may as well do it, too.'"

Tsuneo Akaeda is a gynecologist who offers free health consultations at a table at the back of a hamburger restaurant in Tokyo's Roppongi entertainment district and also runs a clinic nearby. He is the author of a book whose title says a good deal: "Sekkusu ga Chikyu o Horobosu" (Sex is ruining the Earth).

"These kids have no idea that sex can be dangerous," he says. "What are they--schoolgirls? Prostitutes? The boundaries are disappearing."

The past seven or eight years have seen a particularly rapid descent into unrestrained sexual behavior, Akaeda says. Abortion is on the rise; chlamydia and gonorrhea are spreading.

"These girls have just had abortions, and there they are, cell phones in hand, chattering and giggling. It's astonishing.

"They are so ignorant of the possible risks," he says.

On a Saturday evening in late July, I met an 18-year-old on Center-gai. She had this to say about enjo kosai:

"If men didn't approach me, I'd quit. But they do approach me. And so I do it."(IHT/Asahi: October 8,2005)

Anime News Network - 1.72 Million Otaku in Japan

Anime News Network - 1.72 Million Otaku in Japan: "Survey Finds Japanese Otaku Market to be Worth �411 Billion a YearThe Nomura Research Institute has published a survey of the Japanese otaku market. According to the survey, there are 1.72 million otaku in Japan and the market for otaku related products and services is worth �400 billion (US$3.6 billion) a year.

The otaku are not limited to anime and manga otaku, but include those obsessed with electronics, computer games, idols and so on. In all, the study breaks otaku down into 12 different groups, based on their obsessions.

Manga otaku were identified as the largest group, numbering 350,000 and spending �83 billion a year on manga and related products.

The second largest group, dedicated to idols and other celebrities, numbers 280,000 and spends �61 billion a year.

Travel lovers were fewer but spent more, numbering 250,000 and spending �81 billion. Next were computer otaku, numbering 190,000 and spending �36 billion, followed by video game otaku who number 160,000 and drive a �21 billion market.

The remaining groups were:

Cars: 140,000 otaku, �54 billion market
Animation: 110,000 otaku, �20 billion market
Portable IT Equipment: 70,000 otaku, �8 billion market
AV Equipment: 60,000 otaku, �12 billion market
Cameras: 50,000 otaku, �18 billion market
Fashion: 40,000 otaku, �13 billion market
Railroad: 20,000 otaku, �4 billion market

The study also identified a number of different behavioural categories of otaku. The largest group, accounting for some 25% of all otaku, were 'closet otaku,' people who have little time or money for their obsession and often keep it a secret. Many of the closet otaku are married and have children, so their family lives leave them with very little time to devote to their hobbies.

Other categories included 'Internet otaku', those who devote time online to their hobbies and 'proselytising otaku,' those that try to get other people into their hobby.

While otaku are generally looked down upon in Japan (the word itself is somewhat derogatory) the report suggests that companies market directly to the various otaku markets, 'The otaku who lavish as much money as possible in the areas they are particular about are a group that should not be ignored in making corporate marketing strategies.'

The Study was conducted over the Internet using a sample of 10,000 Japanese citizens."

Pojo's Dragonball Web - Anime Links - theOtaku.com

Link submitted to DragonBall and is a general site.

Click here to view the original Webpage.

Protein� Feed - Man Arrested for Virtual Mugging

Protein� Feed - Man Arrested for Virtual Mugging
A man has been arrested in Japan on suspicion carrying out a virtual mugging spree by using software "bots" to beat up and rob characters in the online computer game Lineage II. The stolen virtual possessions were then exchanged for real cash.

The Chinese exchange student was arrested by police in Kagawa prefecture, southern Japan, the Mainichi Daily News reports. Several players had their characters beaten and robbed of valuable virtual objects, which could have included the Earring of Wisdom or the Shield of Nightmare. The items were then fenced through a Japanese auction website, according to NCsoft, which makes Lineage II. The assailant was a character controlled by a software bot, rather than a human player, making it unbeatable.

Ren Reynolds, a UK-based computer games consultant and an editor of the gaming research site Terra Nova, says the case highlights the problem of bots in virtual worlds. By performing tasks within a game repetitively or very quickly, bots can easily outplay human-controlled characters, giving unscrupulous players an unfair advantage. Many games firms employ countermeasures to detect this bot activity. For example, they can ask the character questions or present them with an unfamiliar situation and monitor their response.

"There's an ongoing war between people who make bots and games companies," he told New Scientist. "And making real money out of virtual worlds is getting bigger." Furthermore, the line between virtual and real cash has already disappeared. The game EverQuest, for example, lets players buy and sell virtual items and characters for real money through an authorised online trading site.

Reynolds says the growing number of online game players will only increase the incentive for scammers. "There's nothing exceptional about the virtual world," he says. "Wherever there is that sort of money, there's always crime too." Bruce Schneier, a renowned computer security expert, adds that the distinction between virtual and real crime is rapidly disappearing. He points to recent reports of crooks trying to hack into games or steal players account information to make cash.

"I regularly say that every form of theft and fraud in the real world will eventually be duplicated in cyberspace," Schneier wrote on his weblog. "Perhaps every method of stealing real money will eventually be used to steal imaginary money, too." There are also reports that some online scammers are using “sweatshops” in countries such as China and Indonesia in which people monitor teams of bots in order to generate money whilst avoiding bot traps.

[New Scientist]

Dai Bouken's Fruits Basket Site - Anime Links - theOtaku.com

Link submitted to Fruits Basket and is a general site. We highly recommend this site.

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