Reviews » Of Rice and Zen - The Kyoto Photoblog

Eve no Jikan [The Time of Eve]　(2008)

Mar 202010

The Time of Eve (Ibu no Jikan in Japanese) is an anime series by Studio Rikka and DIRECTIONS Inc that includes 2D animation cells on 3D backgrounds textured and animated to look 2D. Which is akin to saying “this DVD has a shiny, mirror-like surface”. It’s standard practice in today’s anime industry and until animators find a better way to merge the worlds of cell-painted anime and CGI we’ll be seeing quite a bit more of it no doubt.

So Time of Eve may not be the Avatar of the anime world, but it has taken on a life of its own in the last year and it seems the show is finally ready to stop skulking around in alleyways and start hitting the international market. Something about the show seems to hitting home. But what exactly is it that makes this show so timely?

Plot point: in the future a young man named Rikuo takes robots for granted until he begins to suspect his own helper Sammy has been coming and going in secret, of her own volition.

The series has gone on an exciting journey from being streamed on Yahoo Japan back in 2008 to receiving a theatrical release two years later on 6 March 2010. Time of Eve the Movie: First Season Complete Edition is, as the title suggests, a collection of the episodes taken from their tiny internet streaming windows and blasted onto the silver screen.

That’s a big journey for an anime to go on. That’s usually a sure sign that its not appealing to sci-fi nerds alone, but has something about it speaking to our common humanity. Which is apt as its an anime about exactly that. Besides which it’s a really good-looking show.

Plot point: searching Sammy’s activity log, Rikuo finds a mysterious expression, “are you enjoying the Time of Eve?” A line which he manages to trace back to a cafe called The Time of Eve to which it seems his trusty robotic slave has been secretly taking five. This is his first clue that serving him may not be fulfilling her every need. The implications of this revelation send him reeling.

The aesthetic of the show reflects its subject matter. The color palette and lighting suggest the near future without resorting to tacky cliche. It’s a somehow washed out and everything glows as if in slightly soft focus. It’s a slightly less abrasive way of suggesting the future that JJ Abrams’ recent Star Trek remake’s visual motif of multicolored lens flare.

The camera pans, tracks and dives with a beautiful fluidity, but such moves are not over used. Instead they take the place of cuts and establishing shots. It’s almost as if the creative team behind the show has realised they are a convention that holds little relevance for CGI/anime hybrids and is making tiny inroads into dispensing with them altogether.

Plot point: The Time of Eve is both solace and paradise to androids. It is a relaxed place, governed by rules promoting equality. For example robots can switch off their status rings, there is a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach identity and the front door automatically locks for two minutes after a customer leaves to prevent patrons from being followed.

This is not an action show and as beautiful and engaging as it it, what keeps you watching is not an ever-increasing pile of corpses. It has a mysterious and lighthearted tone. There is intrigue, but the characters are high school kids and no-one is put in mortal danger from the off in a hackneyed attempt to snatch your attention.

Instead a world unfolds that, like the titular Time of Eve, one wants to spend more time in. The dialogue between the two leads especially, is delivered lightning quick in a bantering, manzai-esque (Japanese two-man stand-up comedy) style, which should be familiar to any fans of Preston Sturges.

The plot thickens (where are the robots going and why?), the relationships unfold (how long have these two people been seeing each other and are they both human?), the mysteries deepen (how long have robots been secretly acting under their own will?) but it’s never as nefarious as iRobot, sorry that should’ve been I, Robot, and Blade Runner. It’s about people searching for love and fulfillment in a world of sad discrimination.

Plot point: In the first episode it is implied that Rikuo’s best friend Masaki doesn’t keep a robot because his father is involved in anti-robot activism.

In that respect it struck Of Rice and Zen as a rare example of an anime TV show that is actually worth thinking about as if it were not just throwaway entertainment. Perhaps living as a minority and being discriminated against makes one more sensitive to this reading, but it struck me how clearly Ibu no Jikan operates as a race allegory in modern day Japan.

The show deals with the emergence of a second class of citizen that will inevitably emerge as a result of the population aging that is rapidly cannibalizing the Japanese economy, shrinking its workforce and creating a paucity of carers. The show posits the idea that carers will be robots who secretly yearn for more than indentured servitude. But surely this points to the far more likely short term outcome that Japan will need foreigners to perform the role of carer.

It is already a growing trend that unskilled immigrants are being granted bed bath visas to cope with the issue. But just like Eve no Jikan’s portagonist, as much as Japan wants a class that exists only to toil, they too will come to yearn for more, to love, to plant roots, to settle and gradually to change the nature of Japanese society. Granted if one were to take Japan’s pop-culture as a guide to its prevailing feeling one could infer that its easier to make Japan care about the rights of robots than those of mirant workers. If one were so inclined. But its nice that Ibu no Jikan raises the issue.

Plot point: the status ring that glows above a robot’s head is said to have associations with a Japanese government plan to issue all foreigners with foreigner registration card (gaijin card) that emits a radio signal so they can be scanned and checked on a database by any passing policeman without the need for a stop and search.

The final mention must go to the sound, which is exemplary. Like Yasuhiro Yoshiura’s other classic, Pale Coccoon, the muted pastel shades of the color palette and the hum and glow of the near future world are perfectly complemented by the laid-back, future techno soundtrack. Yasuhiro somtimes leaves long comfortable silences in the dialogue, filling the soundscape with the sounds of technology and a judiciously employed, achingly trendy musical backdrop that makes you want to sink into the visual and aural world without even asking for the next plot point.

It’s hard to write a script that includes screen directions like “images and music are awesome enough to entertain the viewer without a single word” and have the confidence that a minimalist approach will hold your viewers’ attention, but when Yoshiura is at the helm I don’t find myself getting restless.

So the future of Japanese society is under the scanner in a very watchable way. At no point does this feel like hard work. Whether or not you want to bring to the text or to simply assume that nothing resonates for a reason, there’s plenty to enjoy about this fantastic show.

Popularity: 10% [?]

The post-Avatar world

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Feb 022010

smurfesque charms

James Cameron was kind enough to see that his latest offering was subtitled on time for a worldwide release, meaning Avatar came out in Japan a month ago. Now the shockwave has passed ORAZ believes it deserves a little calm consideration. We hope you’ll bear with us for a second if we tell you that we believe that the film industry, and indeed the electronics industry, will have to be reconsidered anew in the post-Avatar era. Allow us to justify that hyperbolic preamble.

At a modern-day trade show, no matter whether you want to sell a 50 inch 3D plasma TV or a wristwatch, standard practice has become to show a clip of Avatar to get the audiences starry-eyed with anticipation. You like Avatar? Buy our ebook reader! As such every commercial clip of Avatar has been used time and again and audiences have been utterly overexposed, nay inured, to its smurfesque charms.

impact

So what exactly was its impact? Well the answer is huge. Immeasurably, whiplash inducingly, electronics market changingly chunky. Movies like Avatar drive customer demand and customer demand convinces electronics manufacturers that 3D blu-ray players and 50 inch HD TVs can land in enough living rooms to be worthwhile. The biggest thing holding Avatar back from being photorealistic is the strobing that occurs when characters move at 24fps. Digital projecters can run at 60fps and Cameron is pushing the industry to flick the switch up a gear. This is a small example of the way Avatar is changing the fabric of film.

Gamers have been demanding these frame rates for years. The old truism that the human eye cannot register the difference between 24fps and 60 simply will not stand anymore; the boys and girls can tell. Net result? 24fps will soon go the way of the silent movie. A quaint reminder of a bygone age. Similarly non-3D TVs will soon be like the cathode ray tube. You have to endure it when you visit an elderly relative but you really only appreciate it when it’s safely behind bars in a museum.

In short, without movies like Avatar the future landscape of the 21st century late capitalist’s living room would look extremely different. Technology doesn’t drive James Cameron, James Cameron drives technology. The electronics manufacturers will step up the production of 3D home entertainment when the Lord of the Rings trilogy comes out and gives them a reason to do so. But when these changes filter back into the storytelling, how will this affect the kind of screenplays that get greenlit?

It’s a no-brainer that a smart man like Cameron would have to base Avatar’s on the timeliest archetypes he had to hand. Every element of the story is tried and tested because Avatar is a business expansion proposal in the form of entertainment. It is a technological pitch. It would be too unwieldy to offer the public a highly complex and groundbreaking narrative as well as a new way of seeing movies. Similarly it would be pointless to try to convince studios and electronics manufacturers that the future could herald HD 3D bio-luminescent environments; it’s better to just prove it with a story whose timeless themes touch millions. The only way to bring about the change you desire is to make your business proposal a multi-million dollar franchise.

archetypes

Franchise is the key word here. With Avatar Cameron has openly stated that his intention was to take cinema to the next (technological) level with performance capture and 3D technologies, but the narrative is a fairly bald statement of invasion and capitalism. This is the establishment of a technological stable and a virtual world, more than it is a story that was aching to be told. Cameron has created a world to which any creative person in any medium can return to make another installment and be guaranteed a profit. It seems clear that pornography and Star Trek are popular with nerds because they represent an unrealistically accommodating world in which the underdog would prefer to live. Cases of post-Avatar depression in those who wish to return to Cameron’s Eden-like garden prove that pandora fits that definition nicely. Fans are literally crying to go back and are already being presented with opportunities to do so across all media.

an unrealistically accommodating world

performance capture

So what was so different about the “filming” process? A live render of the actors of about the quality of a video game was available on the handheld “virtual camera” which Cameron and co used for “capturing” (no longer filming) the movie, but to render the photoreal CG for the finished movie took 30-100 hours per frame. This is bleeding edge technology that is still expensive and time consuming. As the technology improves the time taken should decrease but for now this technology is reserved by the highest funded projects. Peter Jackson was turned down by Weta, his own company, when filming District 9 because the workload created by Avatar was too great.

Future uses of Weta performance capture and 3D technology include the Spielberg/Jackson co-production of Tin-tin, which will be captured in pseudo-comic book-style 2D in 3D (yes that’s 3D 2D) and is expected to be yet another visual step forward into the paradigm-shifted visual world that will forever be associated with Avatar. Interestingly Cameron’s Terminator 2 and Spielberg’s Jurassic Park ushered in the last visual paradigm shift into CGI, which has now become standard on TV shows and dino-documentaries (albeit not quite matching the quality of Jurassic Park). It seems it is destined to be the same pair in the same order who again drag their backers kicking and screaming into a brave, new and ever more costly world.

slavering maws

The other big use of Weta’s technique is set to be Jackson’s forthcoming replacement for Universal Studios’ King Kong ride. Kong himself was sadly lost in a fire at the theme park so Jackson is now working on a project that will involve a Universal tram making it’s way to a darkened soundstage onto a motion simulator base. From that point the tram will surrounded on all sides by 8 screens onto which 8 images from 8 virtual cameras will be displayed by 8 projecters. The passengers will have a wrap around view of Kong battling T-rexes. Kong and his foes will buffet the visitors while they watch on. Audiences will enjoy 4k video running at 60 fps while wearing 3D glasses. As Kong struggles with the Jurassic giants the audience will be blasted with the hot stinky breath of their exertions and will be showered with goo from a simian right hook to their slavering maws.

The ride, due to open next summer, perfectly exemplifies how the industry is adapting to the challenge of internet piracy and peer-to-peer sharing technologies. Rather than try to solidify a single distribution technology, which has so far gone as smoothly as the proverbial bacchanalian revelry in the distillery, Cameron and co are abandoning standard TVs and DVDs to offer a new form of entertainment. Continuing the high-concept, roller-coaster ride plus merchandising model first established by Star Wars in the 70s, the left-right combo of performance capture and 3D will free actors from the constraints of the physical universe and present entertainment which blurs the line between film and theme park ride. DVD sales no longer fund movies, so movies have begun to offer an experience that cannot be replicated at home. If one wishes to experience it, It simply has to be paid for.

You may have already heard some bemoan the lack of scenes that maximise the 3D technology in the recent spate of Hollywood offerings. On the other hand you may have read complaints about the new habit of stopping the narrative dead in it’s tracks, a la Zemeckis’ A Christmas Carol, for an extended 3D ride down a sewer pipe. Watching that particular Dickens interpretation without 3D glasses is a truly baffling experience in which one must simply endure lengthy scenes designed to capitalise on a technology not available to the viewer. The wait for the narrative to pick up again is akin to watching someone else ride a roller-coaster. One can only imagine what the experience was supposed to feel like.

In short this means that traditional filmmaking does not sit well with this expensive new technology. Why would one make a Wilde or a Good Will Hunting in 3D at Weta’s studios? The expensive production process is wasted on anything but sewer dives and soaring through the sky on a dinosaur’s back. The content and stories that viewers are offered by Hollywood will have to change to adapt to this new retail model.

Good Will Hunting in 3D

The reverberations of this will reach the living rooms and bedrooms of the developed world as standard definition analogue TVs are replaced by HD flat panel LCD 3D behemoths. Anything less than 50 inches will fail to create the desired effect. Ikea’s furniture range will shortly follow suit.

So where is the venue for non-3D or “traditional” filmmaking. Well with the arrival of 1080P video on modern SLR cameras, starting with Canon’s remarkable 5D Mark II, film is now the playground of the prosumer. Now that the gap between consumer goods and pro cameras has all but vanished the prosumer can, in effect, replace both the traditional pro filmmaker and the consumer. His mode of distribution is, therefore, the Internet where 60fps digital projectors are not required. Could the future be a 2D iTunes store selling the work of the story-centric hobbyists, while the pro-store houses the high-concept 3D spectacle churned out by Hollywood?

distribution

On the release of Apple’s iPad, the world has realised that dedicated e-book readers are dead and that there are opportunities for independent book publishers. Designers are desperate to get their ebooks on the iBook store in the next 60 days before the iPad is released. Could an iTunes/iBook distribution stream develop to handle both 2D and 3D? The independent and the studio?

Could the polarisation between “artistic merit” on the one hand and “entertainment and spectacle” on the other hand be defined by two separate distribution methods? Could it be that studios will create a 2D budget for safer character pieces as well as a 3D budget for riskier “fireworks display of a toy advert” investments. If so, could it be that studios no longer balk at the idea of funding adaptations of Henry James because they, ironically, become the “safe option”.

exciting times

Whatever happens it is clear that we are living through exciting times. With yesterday’s unveiling of the iPad and the iBook store, the print industry and Amazon’s Kindle are looking increasingly like the last polar bears on a shrinking ice-cap. Avatar too has forced everybody to think differently and everybody from writers to distributors to electronics giants like Sony are going to have to keep on their metaphorical toes if they want to match the accelerating pace of change.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Love Touch for iPhone and iPad

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Jan 262010

existentialist angst

Superstition is big business in Japan. As in other countries people are willing to pay big bucks to anyone who can offer them totalising narratives that appear to lend some order to the world and assuage the existentialist angst that they are unable to deal with alone. The word superstitious in this context is an interesting one. Occasionally it can be endearing and at other times it covers a multitude of sins and essentially operates as a euphemism for “naive” at best and “smart as an 11th century hick” at worst.

While we’re on the subject. Love Touch is an iPhone app on the Japanese store capitalising on the popularity of zodiacs, blood types, palm reading and all other forms of uranai or fortune-telling which is so popular in Japan. Obviously this is a great app to whip out in a drinking hole to break the ice with that special lady propping up the bar, but the big question of “is she superstitious enough to believe that you are her soul mate based on what can be gleaned from the screen of an iPhone” is yet to be answered.

Love touch.tiff

Popularity: 2% [?]

Rakushou Cafe

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Jan 132010

Almost every tourist in their right mind who comes to Kyoto will find themselves on the trail through Higashiyama that takes in Yasaka Shrine, Maruyama Park, Nene no Michi (“Nene’s Path”) and Kiyomizu Temple. On the way they’ll pass and perhaps notice Rakushou, with its spectacular koi pond and landscaping, but relatively few will stop in for a bite. It’s possible to live in Kyoto for a long while and assume that Rakushou is, like a lot of Kyoto town houses, too exclusive to allow the hoi-polloi in to spoil the tatami. However, it is not only home to one of the most beautiful gardens in any Kyoto cafe but it’s also a very reasonably priced to boot.

One enters the cafe and is immediately ushered outside again. One needn’t take offense, however. This is an opportunity for you to enjoy a stroll around Rakushou’s small but beautifully formed Japanese-style garden featuring a beautiful pond, replete with arched bridge and full of spectacular koi carp. It is a narrow garden, which is typical of Kyoto townhouses as rent used to be calculated according to building width, but a truly spectacular example of Japanese design. As the Rakushou website says:

Take a little break from Nene no Michi. While you gaze at Rakushou’s garden enjoy some Kusa Warabi Mochi and green tea to quiet your soul. In our garden pond you’ll find colored koi carp swim around peacefully to ease your tiredness. In the spring of 1998 two wild ducks settled here and before long two ducklings were born. The male was named Kyotaro and the female Miyako. To date over a hundred ducklings have been born and adopted by interested parties all over Japan.

When you’ve had enough of the gardens you approach the sliding doors at the side of the building, remove your shoes outside on the small stone step then climb up into the tatami room. Once inside you’ll notice a large collection of trophies, each topped with a golden representation of a koi carp, that attest to the fact that these are fish of a prize-winning standard. Take a knee at one of the tables overlooking the beautiful gardens and help yourself to a menu. The cafe website recommends the Grass Warabi Mochi and who are we to disagree? The “grass” in the name is actually green tea and the warabi mochi is a jelly-like confection made from bracken starch covered or dipped in kinako or sweet toasted soybean flour. The sensation is not unlike eating a powdery cube of turkish delight off a toothpick. It is a favorite summertime snack, especially in the Kansai region and goes deliciously with a cup of powdered green tea. A word of warning: try not to inhale with a cube of warabi mochi in your mouth, because you could find yourself dusting the resulting cough out of the eyebrows of your companions before you’ve had a chance to swallow.

The powdered Japanese green tea, when whisked into a froth, has a deliciously thick consistency and a refreshing taste reminiscent of spinach. In a good way. The iced coffee costs around ¥500 a mug making it about the same as Starbucks, albeit a bit less adventurous. Although you might consider this overkill in a standard cafe, here are some words of advice for drinking green tea in general:

1. In a nice tea shop the server will often bow to you after she places your table and it would be polite for you to do likewise. 2. One holds one’s bowl in two hands, the left supporting the base and the right wrapped around the side as if strangling a giraffe. 3. One holds the bowl aloft and admires the flourish painted onto the near side of the bowl. If it’s absent one is expected to imagine it’s there. 4. One should then turn the bowl 180 degrees so that said imaginary design focal point is not near your mouth as you partake. 5. Having slurped the last dregs of powder from the bowl as if sucking up ramen one may wipe the drinking edge of the bowl, turn it back so that the design is facing you, place it back on the table and spend some time appreciating it.
6. The tea itself doesn’t vary much throughout the year, but as in all art it’s the negative spaces which define the piece so the pottery and cake vary to reflect and amplify the season and change one’s appreciation of the tea. Failure to appreciate the setting, vessel and other details is tantamount to missing the point.

7. The sweet dish/cake which is served first should be finished before the tea is begun. One uses the small, flat-edged stick to slice, spear and eat the cake first, rather than eating it “with” the tea. The qualities of this seasonally specific morsel should then add to the tea in some way.

Coffee ¥450
Iced coffee ¥500
Green tea ¥500
Green tea float ¥750
Sōmen (thin noodles eaten cold in the summer) ¥700

Address:
Kyoto-shi
Higashiyama-ku
Koudaiji Kitamon-dori Sagaru
Kawahara
Higashiiru
Washio-chou 516
(Left of the entrance to Koudaiji)

Opening hours: 9:30am – 6pm
Closed days: None
Car park: None

Phone: (075)561-6892
Fax: (075) 541-1235
Email: rakusyou@nifty.com
Web: http://www.rakusyou.co.jp/

Popularity: 5% [?]

Playstation's Home

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Jan 112010

Recently the ORAZ team took a break from it’s hectic schedule to allow its neglected PS3 make the bond with the iNt@rrw3bz and mind-meld with Eiwa to see what juicy tidbits might have been unlocked since the last time. One such nugget was Playstation Home. Once touted as social networking in 3D, Home has now been out in Japan long enough to lay out it’s stall and state it’s purpose. A polygonal world to inhabit with your own avatar? Like Facebook the game? Would it turn out to be sauteed oricalcum of Second Life-esque proportions or would it be the undercooked, half-baked cash-grab for which Sony are synonymous? The ORAZ team set minds to open and prepared to dive.

Youre looking a little “caveman” today cyber-Andy. The first thing to do is spend hours tinkering with your avatar’s forehead, watching it swell and shrink like a weird alien lung until you’ve forgotten what your real face looks like. You’ll probably spend most of your time in Home looking at this new digital you’s back but creating a digital you is a compelling experience, especially in the post (James Cameron’s) Avatar world we inhabit, so you put far too long into tweaking his nostrils this way and that in an attempt to reach a compromise between your residual self image and the fatter, uglier person your friends and family have their eyeballs assaulted with on a daily basis.

Then having failed to come close you flick on one of the presets and find out its a far closer resemblance. It appears you are more generic than you’d have thought.

You’d like to dress your avatar in a snazzy suit but only emo kid/ skate clothes are available from the outset and the rest of the kit has to be paid for. You reason that the day you pay for virtual clothes for a virtual doll with all-too-real money and use said doll to walk around a 3D environment in which you watch commercials for Sony products on which to spend more of your all-too-real cash is the day that capitalism spirals out of control and culture truly begins to cannibalise itself. If you find yourself paying to watch trailers it’s time to recognise that life in a late capitalist society is so meta the only correct response is to vomit one’s own sphincter.

Eager to get started you accept your modern day Frankenstein’s monstrosity as he is and jump into the game world. Which doesn’t exist.

Confused? It seems the economy of Home is not limited to the real sapping of your hard-earned through virtual microtransactions but also through physical hard-drive space. As a design and photography studio Of Rice and Zen is aware that hard-drive space is money, so we should be grateful that Sony saw fit to allow us the option of downloading the town square to our PS3. On the other hand we are mystified as to what makes Mr and Mrs Sony think we’d be happy trapped in our one room apartment forever like a virtual prisoner. In terms of replicating real experiences in virtual worlds it is strange to think that “solitary confinement with nary a conjugal visit” topped Sony’s Thinktank’s to-code list. It’s like Nintendogs meets Shawshank Redemption. Without the titular redemption.

So we downloaded the town square and milled around. Typing messages with a Sony controller, after typing on an iPhone or real keyboard all day, is akin to doing root canal surgery with a giant inflatable hammer. You soon give up and realise the only effective way to communicate effectively would be with a Bluetooth headset. You fail to believe that chatting up some barely audible Japanese randoms in this virtual advertising coliseum would be as satisfying as chatting to Friends and acquaintances on Skype or, God forbid, face to face in the meat world. Anyone who’s in possession of a PS3 Bluetooth headset is immediately a little suspicious.

We hadn’t yet found anything Home particularly excelled at so we devoted some time to looking around for hidden goodies. Easter eggs. Wormholes to Pandora. Couples canoodling in corners. Amusing self referential design features. Any sign of personality. Originality. Spark. Transgression. We found none.

Sony’s home is as neutered and sterile as the future as depicted in Demolition Man. It is the bald, tragic expanse of action man’s action-free crotch, interpreted as a 3D environment. We soon found ourselves wanting to break into the underground slums through a manhole for a cheeseburger and a beer. And just how do those three seashells work I wonder…

There are ads galore, projected everywhere imaginable. Doing something as simple as getting a good view of one is difficult so a handy “fill screen” button helps to maximise the image. Having taken advantage of said button you realise you are now essentially watching trailers on YouTube, but instead of simply typing the desired trailer’s title into a search box you have gone through an incredibly lengthy and inefficient obstacle course to reach this pitifully limited selection of ads for Sony products that have already been released. No insider info. No leaks. No exclusive making of documentaries. Just a few bog standard trailers.

You’re starting to feel pretty stupid for having infected your hard- drive with another man’s puffle. Being advertised at is like having another man waggle his dangler in your face. It’s offensive and distasteful, and you’ve paid a premium to see the most high tech ad delivery system known to man. What a plum.

The last thing you can try to spice this up a bit is no doubt everyone else’s reaction when placed into any system; to push a little to see where the boundaries are. So you try to type a few words into the controller based mobile phone layout, hamstrung by both the “controller” and the “mobile phone layout” factors involved in that equation. What collection of words are most offensive to Sony you wonder? “Balrog felching smeg churner”? “SD memory card”? “Non- proprietary format”? “The Wii’s innards are the same as an ancient Gamecube and it still outsold the PS3 you’re making a loss on with every purchase”? How about a link to the Of Rice and Zen homepage? The latter went through OK, to our great surpise. Waggle waggle.

So what’s our verdict? Conceptually a virtual world has the potential to be very exciting on several levels. Entertainment and a fascinating sociological experiment in one high-tech, HD, texture mapped package. In theory we’re giddy at the thought of it.

But we all know that the best laid plans of mice and men are often disfigured beyond all recognition by committees. Or words to that effect. If Japan’s lack of sensitivity to what’s real, done with integrity, passion and blessed with idiosyncracy and lack of revulsion towards all that is cheesey, tacky and homogeneous is any guide to the future of mankind it seems future generations will no longer be sensible of the difference between art and advertisement. That being the case the cynically executed, vacuous and offensively banal world of Playstation’s Home will be right up their generic alleys. For anyone with an ounce of sense or to whom having a virtual wanger waggled in his virtual face is a virtual affront, however, Home remains an utter waste of real time.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Perfume - Polyrhythm

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Dec 092009

This is one of Of Rice and Zen’s favourite bands, Perfume, with a song from their new album. female technopop group from Hiroshima, Japan consisting of Ayano Ōmoto, Yuka Kashino and Ayaka Nishiwaki. They formed locally in 2001, making their transition to a major label in 2005. As of June 2009, the group has released nine major label singles to great success.

Their tunes are punchy and excellently produced and especially those by Capsule even have some complexity and syncopated rhythms. Best of all, they’re not manufactured, this was their sound before they were picked up by a label. Their stage names and real names are different, as is common in the Japanese music industry:

Nocchi (のっち) – Real name: Ayano Ōmoto (大本彩乃)
Kashiyuka (かしゆか) – Real name: Yuka Kashino (樫野有香)
A~chan (あ～ちゃん) – Real name: Ayaka Nishiwaki (西脇綾香)

When I was in England I sang for a band that covered music by the rock band Tool, which is highly complex and not unlike classical music in structure. It’s rhythmically mind-bending and is designed to push the envelope for guitar bands, so why would I like a cheesey pop band. I’d say those people are being hoodwinked by presentation and marketing into believing that two very similar things are polar opposites. For example in this, one of Perfume’s best tracks, called Polyrhythm, the second single from their second album Game and 10th overall the song’s bridge is polyrhythmic, incorporating 5/8, 6/8 in the vocals, common time (4/4) and 3/2 in the drums. The song was used for the Kankyō Recycle Campaign by NHK.

As Wiki puts it:

The bridge of the song contains a complex polyrhythm, with vocals in alternating 5:8 and 6:8 against a 4:4 drumbeat, which then changes to 3:2 after a brief rhythmical hiccup midway through. More confusingly, the low synth has 14 regular beats over three measures of 4/4, making for a 7:6 polyrhythm. Perfume’s song may well be the most commercially successful song to contain complex polyrhythms; the single reached #4 on Oricon’s daily singles chart and #7 on the weekly chart, while the original album “Game” which included “Polyrhythm” debuted at #1.

Former Megadeth guitarist Marty Friedman even released a version of the song on his album Tokyo Jukebox. Combining musical complexity in this commercial a package is quite an achievement that is overlooked by many who refuse to listen to anything that whiffs of J-pop, but a little open-mindedness can lead to some great discoveries in the Japanese music industry. Here’s the original version by the girls.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Sekishoan tea room

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Dec 032009

Near Shiga’s Seta, in the “Culture Zone” can be found one of the best value Japanese experiences the Of Rice and Zen team have ever come across; a tea room called “Sekishoan”. For a hefty fee the large and pristine tatami rooms can be rented for private tea parties, entertaining clients or a birthday gathering. How ever for the passing gallery-goer or tourist they can be enjoyed for much more reasonable price. For ¥350 visitors can sit at a low stool in the non-tatami room and enjoy a cup of freshly whisked powdered green tea with Japanese tea accompaniment cake while enjoying a view that was made for the autumn leaves. Some words of advice: 1. We suggest you avoid trying to move the stools by grabbing the seats as they are detachable. 2. The server will bow to you after she places your table and it would be polite for you to do likewise. 3. Hold your bowl in two hands, the left supporting the base and the right wrapped around the side as if strangling a giraffe. 4. One holds the bowl aloft and admires the flourish painted onto the near side of the bowl. If it’s absent one is expected to imagine it’s there. 5. One should then turn the bowl 180 degrees so that said imaginary design focal point is not near your mouth as you partake. 6. Having slurped the last dregs of powder from the bowl as if sucking up ramen one may wipe the drinking edge of the bowl, turn it back so that the design is facing you, place it back on the table and spend some time appreciating it. 7. The tea itself doesn’t vary much throughout the year, but as in all art it’s the negative spaces which define the piece so the pottery and cake vary to reflect and amplify the season and change one’s appreciation of the tea. Failure to appreciate the setting, vessel and other details is tantamount to missing the point. 8. The sweet dish/cake which is served first should be finished before the tea is begun. One uses the small, flat-edged stick to slice, spear and eat the cake first, rather than eating it “with” the tea. The qualities of this seasonally specific morsel should then add to the tea in some way. After enjoying your tea be sure to take a walk around the expansive gardens in which you’ll find an original Japanese tea room. The tiny door attests to the fact that Japanese Sado practitioners used to be the size of hobbits. Just kidding. The small entrance was used as a symbolic equalizer. It was also designed to be an uncomfortable step up for those wearing swords, to encourage visitors to leave their weapons outside the tea room. The hook on the ceiling above the fireplace was used to hang the tea pot in the gustier seasons so that the visual of the swinging tea pot would add to one’s awareness and appreciation of the season. ●Transportation and Access： Near Shiga’s Seta, in the “Culture Zone” near the Shiga Prefectural Library and Shiga Prefectural Art Gallery Train：JR Biwako Line（Tokaido Line）to Seta Staition; bus in direction of Shiga Medical College（Shiga Idai）; get off at “Bunka Zone mae”. 5 min. Walk. Taxi：5min. from Seta Staition. 3 parking lots（320 car capacity）available． Car：Coming from Kyoto: take Meishin Expressway and get off exit of Seta Nishi Interchange（5min. from interchange） Coming from Nagoya: take Meishin Expressway and get off exit of Seta Higashi Interchange（3 min. from Interchange） Or follow directions to the nearby Shiga Prefectural Gallery of Modern Art http://www.shiga-kinbi.jp/english/E-generalinfo.html

Popularity: 2% [?]

Of Rice and Zen article published in Japanzine: Sabon

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Nov 132009

One of Of Rice and Zen editor Andy Heather’s sidelines is writing columns for expatriate publications in Japan. Japanzine is one of the more well-known examples and this month the ed was lucky enough to have the following article publish. It’s the latest in a series called Hidden Kyoto and introduces a lesser known establishment called Sabon in Sanjo.

If you’d like to download a full PDF copy of this month’s Japanzine for free, please click on this link: http://www.seekjapan.jp/article/jz/2444/DOWNLOAD+Japanzine+November+2009+Issue+HERE!

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Sakuragawa, Kyoto

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Nov 082009

Nestled in amongst Kyoto’s tiny and impenetrable establishments there is a Michelin starred restaurant that is an absolute must for anyone who wants to find out just how sublime a Japanese meal can be. That restaurant is called Sakuragawa. It has a tiny counter with 12 seats at it and three staff members.

Perhaps more than other cities, recommendations are essential when dining out in Kyoto. When faced with an infinity of anonymous, pictureless wooden frontages most travelers have no idea where to start and therefore resort to Pizza Hut. Tiny, nondescript restaurants on Kyoto’s are so numerous and so forbidding that for most foreign guests the good places are hidden in plain sight.

This is particularly true of Sakuragawa which you could easily walk past without having any idea of its pedigree. It would be a vulgar display of power for the establishment to advertise its Michelin star, so from outside there are no clues as to what may lay within besides the wooden frontage and the restaurant’s name in indecipherably stylised kanji.

In reality though any trepidation is unwarranted because once you’re seated at the counter no Japanese should be necessary. The head chef is a rather famous and kakkoii (“good looking”) chap named Maeda Yujiro. He will be your culinary safari guide leading you on the trail of taste-bud tickling treats, shooting you down some of the rarest gastronomic big game and depositing you safely back at camp with the lion’s head trophy of a bulging belly to hang on your metaphorical wall.

One of the most elegant touches of Sakuragawa and other great Japanese restaurants is the ingredients, dishware and atmosphere are supposed to change to reflect and amplify the season. If there’s something you specifically want to try you could call ahead to check its availability. If not you place yourself in the capable hands of the chef and he makes your life richer by tinkling your taste buds like a virtuoso pianist.

In cherry blossom season chef Maeda-san uses sakura petals in his dishes. In fresh October cherry blossom isn’t available in great quantities but the chef makes liberal and spectacular use of chrysanthemum petals. Our course included chrysanthemum and mushroom dishes with a memorable sour bite behind the smooth, creamy mushrooms.

There was mullet sashimi with wasabi of such quality it added to the flavour but barely had any heat to it at all. The smoky, umami flavour was provided by the seared barracuda and sea bream skin crisps. The latter in particular had a deep, smoky flavour that repeatedly shot me into Proustian involuntary flashbacks to my childhood without me being able to place my finger on what exactly it was reminiscent of. If anyone can tell me what English childhood snack these crispy skins are reminiscent of I would be eternally grateful.

There were daring eggplant dishes, opulent abalone dishes and mysterious horse-head fish dishes. Most of the dishes contained ingredients I had never heard of in Japanese OR English. It was a mystifying and bewildering array of flavors and textures I never knew existed. It was a meal that stretches you. It is more of an experience than just a meal, emotional and memorable.

One of the most surprising dishes of the evening was the dessert which the chef introduced as harumaki anko (sweet red bean paste spring rolls) with kuri aisu (Japanese chestnut ice-cream). You may think you’re full way before this beguiling mix of savoury and sweet arrives, but it’s moreish enough to overcome any misgivings you may have.

Perhaps the best way to describe Sakuragawa is with a simile. Good food, like good art is supposed to challenge us. It shouldn’t be expected to stoop to please us. We should be prepared to better ourselves and to take up the challenge of understanding why Eisenstein, Hegel or Bach are worth the effort. That’s the kind of restaurant you should expect from Sakuragawa.

Payment Since a service charge is included in the bill, you don’t need to leave a gratuity. At authentic, high-end restaurants, payment is accepted at each table. At more casual places you’re expected to take the bill to a register near the entrance. Sakuragawa (Kiyamachi-dori Oike-agaru, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto; 075-255-4477; open 11:30 A.M. to 2 P.M. and 5 to 9 P.M., closed Sunday). Dinner: around ￥２００００ each.

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Orrizonte, Kyoto

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Nov 042009

Orrizonte is a bar on the 17th floor of Kyoto Hotel Okura near Kyoto Shiyakushomae Subway in the centre of town. It is notable for a few reasons, the first of which being that it stands at a nosebleed-inducing height. Most Kyoto buildings were restricted to 10 floors in an attempt to maintain a little of the character of the city in which it used to be forbidden for any building to overlook the Emperor’s Palace.

Nowadays that rule is strictly upheld in the name of history. Except for when it isn’t. Which is usually in the name of big business. Today’s shock headline: money holds more clout than history. Kyoto’s local government is still resisting the worst excesses of late capitalism because it knows Kyoto’s cachet relies on it keeping some of its quaintness. If it becomes a concrete jungle like a mini-Osaka it ceases to have a unique selling point. Kyoto city authorities dish out “get out of height restriction free” cards to the highest bidder as a special reward, like a political panda for the leisure and hospitality industry.

Aside from its height, Orrizonte also has a privileged outlook in that it is situated on the east side and thus overlooks the Higashiyama/Gion side of town. It’s the same view you can enjoy from Ace Cafe but as its almost twice as high up and a little closer you can see a vast swathe of Kyoto’s highlights laid out before you like a scale model, from Keage’s Nanzen-ji to Higashiyama’s Chion-in. If you’re new in town, want to get your bearings and have a nice glass of wine to unwind after a long day of exploration Orrizonte comes highly recommended.

The wine is also worth a mention. The fine selection of reds starts at around 1000 yen a glass and the champagne 1600 yen. You may have heard that good reds are hard to come by in Japan. The price is usually double what you’re used to back home so only the poorer specimens make it across the border. As such the average person in Japan finds it to be a cloying and unpleasant drink. Far from letting the wine stand to bring out its full range of flavours reds in Japanese homes tend to be placed straight in the fridge and are often drunk from chilled glasses. Orrizonte’s wine, on the other hand, is the real deal. Crisp, clear and complex. It’s worth every penny if you want to introduce a sake fan to what red wine should taste like when it doesn’t come from a conbini cooler.