The Tokyo Stormtrooper, Danny Chou, loves to go dancing in the street where he can interact with folks, and maybe shock and surprise a few of them. If you don’t already know Danny from his Culture Japan website and TV show, odds are good you have seen videos of him dancing around the world. The first video is his dancing in Paris a year or so back, the second took place in Singapore. And then there was Rock Trooper… you gotta love this stuff. Then a touch of a French 3D animation Storm Trooper dance sequence, just to contrast the live action with the animated, and finally the OP from Danny’s Season 2 version of his Culture Japan show.
MC Frontalot has a new CD out, with many good tracks. Zero Day is a fun one, somehow merging Zero Day OS Exploits with the Zombie Apocalypse. Enjoy!
A few more fun bands from Japan for you to check out. A lot of these folks have albums released in the US and UK as imports, although they can be pretty hard to find (hint: Amazon and the like are good places to look if your local brick and mortar doesn’t carry them). First up this time is a favorite band of mine, Uplift Spice with her song Omega Rythm. The second band is another favorite, Scandal, doing a live version of Shoujo S, which is the opening song for Bleach. The final tune this time around is Psycho x Letter by Aicle, a Visual Kei band. As with all Visual Kei bands, it is a bit difficult to tell which band member is what gender, but the music is great.
There is some amazing music coming out of Japan, and I thought it was time to share a few more of my favorite tracks. The first one is the 5th single from One OK Rock, called Answer Is Near, it was uploaded by the band and it rocks. The second one is The Plasticzoom’s Witch, which was both directed and uploaded by Yu Wakatsuki, and it rocks. The third track is a live version of the Asian Kung Fu Generation song Re-Write, and it rocks. Are we noticing a pattern here? If you go to the YouTube page each of those videos came from, you will find more tracks by the same artist.
This may be one of the most surreal young musical artists to come out of Japan for a long time: Kyary Pamyu Pamyu. Her songs have one hell of a lot of energy and are very upbeat (at least musically; I don’t speak enough of the language to know if that holds up lyrically) and perhaps the most kaiwaii live action sequences every filmed. After the two songs, a brief interview to give you an idea of what else she is up to.
There are several interesting movies this time around, starting with Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, a twisted little comedy starring Tyler Labine and Alan Tudyk. Every variation of a Deliverance movie you have ever seen, with the twist that the Good Ole Boys are under attack by suicidal yuppies. The other quality movie for the week is Another Earth. Having a duplicate planet Earth orbiting on the other side of the sun has been done before in 1969’s Journey to the Far Side of the Sun, but this time the premise is used to explore interpersonal relationships rather than political ones. It’s theatrical run was extremely limited, so for some this will be the first chance to see it.
For TV, there are two super choices of the same entry; Smallville: The Complete Series, and Smallville: The 10th Season give you closure on that series, whichever one you need to add to your collection. The other TV show worth noting this week is a bit of a classic, the Six Million Dollar Man: Pilot TV Movies & Season One. We can rebuild you…
If there is a western animation series this week, it snuck right past me. There are a few Eastern animation series, including One Piece: Collection 3, continuing the story of the Straw Hats as the rescue a little girl and her dragon companion. Also released, Star Driver Part 1, where would-be giant mecha riders battle shrine maidens for power. Another new title is Chaos;Head, where a caffeine-addicted gamer suddenly becomes identified as a schizophrenic murder suspect, as his life falls apart overnight. If you are a fan of Welcome To The NHK you will not want to miss this one, and you can watch the first several episodes online at that link.
There is also a stand alone movie this week called Loups=Garous, about life in a world where a virus has wiped out a major percentage of the human race. The survivors communicate online and avoid physical contact, but a group of girls seeking contact must solve a series of murders before they become the victims. SCANDAL does the music for this one, which means at the minimum I have to have the soundtrack, since they are one of my favorite J-Rock bands. They animate up pretty good too.