TokyoScope NEWS: Mondo Tokyo Book Cover Reveal, Space Pirate Model Kits, and Robot Cat Art!
A round up of recent Japanese pop culture headlines and ephemera
Introducing: Mondo Tokyo - Dispatches From a Secret Japan
WOW, the cover for my next book Mondo Tokyo - Dispatches From a Secret Japan has been revealed and I do believe it’s quite a stunner! The illustration is by Japanese artist MITSUME, who I’ve collaborated with several times before, including the HYPERSONIC music club manga and my short story There's No More Tomorrow (Today).
In addition to the cover, the publisher (Sutherland House) has also supplied the official book description, which you can read down below. Enjoy…
Tokyo, in the early aughts, was a weird place. Lonely single men wanted to marry action figures instead of women. High school girls worked at maid cafes and were paid to act like Manga characters. Nightclubs filled with kids in anime cosplay who danced to remixed versions of cartoon theme songs.
People’s private obsessions, once confined to bedrooms and computer screens, were transforming entire city blocks.
Long before global media, Pharrell Williams, and millions of tourists twigged to the strange new energy emerging from Japan, author Patrick Macias was there, chronicling the emergence of “Cool Japan” in a famous blog entitled “An Eternal Thought in the Mind of Godzilla.” Now with biting humor and cultural insight, he looks back on the trends, personalities, and happenings that dominated the bleeding edge of Japanese pop culture in those years. You’ll meet maids who imitate Michael Jackson, anime producers sent to prison for guns and drugs, school girls determined to resurrect surf rock, nightclubbers who worship “uncool foreigners,” and all manner of wide-eyed ex-pats, weirdoes, and dreamers who came to Tokyo in search of a stranger, more surreal version of life.
Mondo Tokyo - Dispatches From a Secret Japan is set to publish on January 23, 2024, and you can preorder it here now!
Anime: Goods: Space Pirate Captain Harlock Arcadia Die-Cast Model
Legendary anime and manga artist Leiji Matsumoto may have left us for the cosmos earlier this year, but his most famous creations continue to live on via the miracle of merchandising.
Space Pirate Captain Harlock’s awe-inspiring battleship, the Arcadia, is getting the deluxe treatment starting this August with the release of a new weekly magazine that includes one model part per issue that, when fully assembled, completes a massive die-cast kit nearly 1 meter long (that’s 1/400 scale of those of you counting)!
Starting with serious light and sound features, there’s almost waaaaay too many bonus goodies and gimmicks included in the total package to mention (my favorite is the life-sized Cosmo Dragoon laser pistol), but if you’re even kind of a fan of Captain Harlock and the Arcadia, then you need to see the official website for the Arcadia kit to believe it. Now… gimmie dat!
Art: Anime: Manga: Famous Japanese Artists Imagine Their Own Version of Doraemon, Japan's Famous Robot Cat, At Nagasaki Exhibition
A who's who of Japanese contemporary artists have re-imagined beloved Japanese cartoon time travelling robot cat Doraemon for a newly opened exhibition in Nagasaki, Japan. "The Doraemon Exhibition" features 28 contemporary artists including big names like Takashi Murakami, Yoshitomo Nara, Mika Ninagawa, Sebastian Masuda, Makoto Aida, Kumi Machida, Yasuyuki Nishio, and lots of other Japanese art stars. Some of the works in the exhibition have toured the world previously, but f you want to see them in person this year, you'll need to visit Japan's largest theme park, Huis Ten Bosch in Nagasaki before October 1, 2023.
More info: THE Doraemon Exhibition NAGASAKI 2023
Internet: Japan's largest YouTuber management company "UUUM" announces it's losing money for the first time since going public
Japanese news site Fashion Snap warns that "the YouTube era may be at a turning point" with news that Japan's largest YouTube management company has gone into the red for the first time since going public in 2017. UUUM - home to Hikakin and other top Japanese YouTubers - blamed falling video views and write-offs related to unsold influencer-backed brand/products for the loss. YouTube Shorts and other short video formats (TikTok, Reels, etc.) appear to be cannibalizing the viewing time of longer form videos that UUUM relies on for advertising revenue. UUUM's stock price, which hit an all time low earlier this year before staging a rally, began falling again on news that its core business may be faltering.
Quick Links: Crunchyroll, Miyazaki, Osaka Expo
World’s Top Anime Site Crunchyroll Is Sony’s New Money Maker
Box Office: Hayao Miyazaki’s ‘The Boy and the Heron’ Opens Strong in Japan (Despite No Marketing)
Foreign countries yet to apply to construct pavilions for delay-plagued 2025 Osaka Expo
Retro: Random Mode
Aya Matsuura stars in Sukeban Deka: Code Name = Saki Asamiya, aka Yo-Yo Girl Cop, 1996
