アリス九號 (Alice Nine)

It’s Halloween time again, so time for lots of parties. This year I went to the big party in my local rock club in the style of one of my favorite bands. Unfortunately most thought I was there as an “emo”, but not to worry. Unfortunately visual kei hasn’t really crossed over to here yet. One girl totally recognised my outfit, and made a comment, so that totally made my night! \(^ ^)/. My outfit was a pair of big-soled shoes, skinny jeans, black fitted tshirt, cross pendant and chain, and a band-leader’s jacket, along with blue harajuku/manga/visual kei hair.  The look I was going for was アリス九號 (Alice Nine) who are a visual kei band formed by Shou (将), Hiroto (ヒロト), Tora (虎), Saga (沙我) in 2004, playing at the Ikebukuro Cyber. A while ago, I was in Marui in Shinjuku, and saw a video on one of the screens and ran to one of the girls working there and in bad Japanese, asked her who it was. I got her to write it down, so I rushed off to HMV in Shibuya (well, I was heading that way so went to that one) and picked up the CD.

My favorite of their songs is Yami ni Chiru Sakura (闇ニ散ル桜) which is actually quite an old song, from about 2005 IIRC. Obviously they’re all absolutely gorgeous guys, and look amazing – which I guess is kinda the point for visual kei (visual style, or literally “visual system, lineage, group“) bands. I’ve blogged about this before – probably far to many times really – and I love to go on and on about visual kei to anyone who’ll listen, but if you’re unfamiliar – visual kei bands are usually quite flamboyant Japanese bands, normally playing rock, metal or punk, but very often any type of music. It’s really important to have really good style, and most of the bands wear amazing clothes, and have androgynous looks with stunning makeup and hairstyles. Clearly I’m bound to like bands like this! (^_-)-*

One of my other favorite bands is Malice Mizer, with the amazing and enigmatic Mana, but they disbanded a while ago now. I loved their style during the Klaha era, which was gorgeous funeral gothic style – a style still popular in Mana’s Moi-Même-Moitié clothing label.

The good thing is that I get the chance to dress up again as I’m having a Halloween party on Wednesday too – oh, and I get to dress up every weekend anyway (^_-)-*

From Japanese TV to Apple TV

I blogged last about Japanese TV shows, and a great source of clips is on YouTube. Normally I’d watch YouTube on my computer, but I need do that no longer.

The other day I got myself an Apple TV, which promises to revolutionise my TV watching. I do watch a lot of TV, but I’m not really a channel watcher. At least I don’t tend to sit down and watch whatever’s on TV, unless there is a particular programme I want to watch. Normally I’d download something – legally of course – or watch a DVD. I like to watch TV series episodes back-to-back, so I don’t have to wait for next week for the next episode. So during an evening, instead of watching a couple of hours of random TV, I’ll watch a few episodes of whatever series I like. One of my all-time faves is X-Files, which I love to watch again and again. Currently I’m watching LOST, My Name is Earl, Desperate Housewives and the fantastic Heroes. Generally I rip one of my DVD’s so I can watch it via Front Row on my Mac, but now it syncs wirelessly to my Apple TV so I can sit on the sofa and watch it on my telly screen, which is clearly genius. This is how I really want TV to be like: on demand.

The only things I’d add to the Apple TV is functionality to browse Flickr, and to have my Flickr stream available as a slideshow. That would get rid of the need to have one of those eStarling WIFI photo frames I’ve been lusting after for ages. It’d be really great to have a live feed of my Flickr contacts photos too. Also, I’d like to be able to stream DVD’s that are in my MacBook drive through my Apple TV – which would mean I’d not have to Handbrake everything I want to watch.

Watching YouTube videos on your TV through a device like this really makes you realise what the potential of the Internet really is for self-production of video. Now I have a TV channel which shows me content from all over the world, made by individuals….it’s pretty emancipating.

I also have my entire iTunes library available through my TV and speakers, so I no longer have to risk leaving out my Macbook when I have a party, or I’m really drunk – so it’s pretty damn good for that reason (^ ^).

Shibuya and Bins

Today I’ve been in Shibuya; teen paradise in Tokyo. The area is packed with shops and food places, along with a Mandrake (pronounced man-dala-K) anime/manga/stuff shop. It’s packed solid – and I mean *solid* with manga and anime, and has some really rare toys and fantastic cosplay outfits. There is a larger store elsewhere in the city, but this one is almost just as large, and it really is large. I’m used to shops with a small manga section – even shops selling comics and manga, but this is something else! Unfortunately I can’t read Japanese yet, so there’s little point in buying a lot, and it’s hard to work out where things are when you can’t work out how it’s alphabetised. Still, it’s brilliant to experience it, walking down loads of flights of stairs deep into the ground decorated to look like a cave or something, and then arriving in a manga mecca!

There are a lot of teen fashion shops in the area, and interestingly lots of the people that work in the shops were asked to work there as they were regular customers, and displayed a flair for predicting – and even starting – fashions. Some of these fashions last only a couple of weeks, but with plenty of money to bankroll them, quick imports from China, and the desire to be at the cutting edge; there’s always a way.

In Shibuya is a really quirky shop called ranKing ranQueen – a pun on the word “ranking”, which is the “rankings” of popular things. So you can go and buy that week’s most popular diet products, cosmetics, drinks, perfume, CD’s, magazines etc. It’s a really interesting insight into the Japanese zeitgeist. There is also the world’s busiest pedestrian crossing Hachiko (named after a famous dog that would arrive at the station each day to meet his master from work), with huge number of people crossing the road every 3 minutes, as the green walk sign appears. It’s really interesting to stand there and see the waves of people cross the road, stop, slowly build up again, then cross the road again.

All over Tokyo there is one thing that you’ll notice, and I noticed it instantly when I arrived; that it’s so clean. There is no litter anywhere. The most peculiar thing though is that there are no waste bins….at all…anywhere…whatsoever. There are dedicated smoking areas outside, so that people don’t get burned by cigarettes in the packed streets etc, but this is the only place you can find to put a cigarette end. There are some nice signs around the areas too, extolling the care needed with cigarettes. Some even have haiku-like poetry, such as:

The fire disappears beneath his shoe.
Unfortunately, the butt still remains.

Today I found a band I really like called マキシマム ザ ホルモン – which means; Makishimamu Za Horumon (Maximum the Hormone) – they have a bunch of YouTube video too, including the What’s Up People video. The album is ぶっ生き返す (Buiikikaesu)