Japan Hammer: Weird Japan Part 2

So here's part 2 of Weird Japan. I review the weirdness of certain images or ideas from the internet regarding Japan. All credit for linked images goes to their respective sites.


5. Yamanba or Mountain Hags
Nice makeup...

Weirdness: 2/10


This isn't so weird. Maybe this extreme is a bit weird, but the Ganguro style was relatively popular in Japan in the 1990s and early 2000. You don't really see it much outside of Tokyo, so it is weird to see somewhere like Yamanashi or something. This immediately turns heads of foreigners though and is widely regarded as one http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifof the weirder styles. It still exists in smaller and less extreme pockets, but Japanese people don't seem to be very bothered by it.

4. Random People on Food
Tastes like...something.


Weirdness: 4/10

This is Putin Pudding. It's higher on the weird scale as it's not an American or Japanese celebrity on the food. And the last thing I think of when I see pudding is Vladimir Putin. The idea of putting public figures on food probably won't end here. It's definitely eye-catching. And a bit weird.

3. Ridiculous Parodies of American Culture
I am cholesterol incarnate!

Weirdness: 5/10

Almost any time my students think of American food the first thing they say is hamburger. So suffice to say, Japanese have tried to emulate the outrageous, gluttonous extremes of American food by making these monstrosities of beef. I've seen these tower burgers all over the place. I'm assuming they're made for more than one person? Anyway, it's moderately weird when first seeing it but then it starts to become the norm at some burger joints. There's always the "WTF Burger" at any given place.

2. Ridiculous Blends of American and Japanese Culture
Limit Break: McOmnislash!

Weirdness: 8/10
This is only so weird because it's also very creative. Taking Ronald McDonald and Colonel Sanders and blending them with Final Fantasy 7 characters Sephiroth and Cloud is pretty unique. The most common examples of this sort of splicing of culture are the McDonald's Big America series. Hamburgers with eggs and salsa and whatever other thing they can come up with. Just bizarre mixtures.

The popularity of Colonel Sanders specifically is rather interesting. There's a famous story about a group that threw a Colonel Sanders statue in a river near Osaka that was dredged up like 20 years later. Mysterious!

1. More Stuff for Lonely People
Forever alone...

Weirdness: 9/10

This is just weird to me. It's not really a sex thing. But more of a comfort thing. Which is weird they have pillows shaped like a woman's lap. It makes me sad that people buy these things. I'm hoping they aren't that popular.

I'm assuming this is weird in any culture though.

Well, that's it for part 2. Next blog I'll explore cute Japan! What really is cute and what is just "meh."

So what did you think of the Weird Japan blogs? More? Or any other suggestions?

Final Fantasy Memories Part 3: The Playstation is Born (Mostly due to FF7)

Well, it wasn't Crash Bandicoot. Almost single-handedly selling millions of Playstation units was the RPG of RPGs, Final Fantasy 7. I remember thinking back then, screw getting a Nintendo 64, Mario sucks anyhow. My whole console buying experience was banked on where the Final Fantasy series went. Nintendo let it slip away for the moment. So Playstation it was.

Final Fantasy 7 marked the moment where the series took a controversial turn. It was abandoning its "fantasy" roots and embracing a more steampunk-ish, sci-fi stance. In retrospect, I am not sure why FF7 is widely regarded as the best in the series. It wasn't. Maybe top 3?

It was definitely a great game. Cloud Strife represented a long string of semi-mute, brooding anti-heroes in JRPGs that would come afterward. He wasn't the most sympathetic of main characters, but he had a ton of interesting characters around him that brought out the story. Most prominent being Aerith. Simply being, Aerith's existence in FF7 made Sephiroth, the white haired enigma with the black coat, one of the most hated villains in all of video games. SPOILER! Diving from the heavens, plunging his massively wicked Masamune through Aerith's back and through her stomach, he cemented himself as a calloused, despicable villain. And the scene where he burns the village and disappears into the flames is one of the most chilling, bad ass moments a villain can have. Geez...

Cloud, Sephiroth, Aerith, these are not just iconic Final Fantasy characters, these are iconic video game characters period.

So I would say Final Fantasy 7 brought the series to the mainstream for sure. Is that a good thing? I guess.

I remember being in junior high and hurrying home to play. The four discs were unprecedented in games at that time. Just made it seem even more epic. In retrospect, I vaguely remember finishing the game. I remember it being hard. Sephiroth being one of those transmogrifying multi-tiered bosses that wreck the most casual of players but give a genuine challenge to hardcore Final Fantasy enthusiasts.

I am by no means a Final Fantasy completist. I am happy just finishing the game. FF7 was well known for epic summons such as Knights of the Round and the hard-as-balls Weapons who caused many a headache for my friends who were more into that kind of thing.

Big ass swords, Mako reactors, tragic characters, planet destroying summons, weird dream sequences, a talking cat robot that rode on top of a big stuffed animal that looked like a deformed polar bear. This game had it all.

It was so popular in fact that it bred spin-off titles. The critically panned Dirge of the Cerberus featured vampiric gunslinger Vincent Valentine in a sort of 3rd person action game. It wasn't very good from what I remember. A better 3rd person action game came later in the form of Crisis Core, which in involved super-duper minor character Zack, who is barely in the original FF7 for 2 minutes. But the big super duper Buster Sword came from him and you get to swing the bastard around so that is kind of cool.

Since living in Japan, I have found that the most available game related Final Fantasy merchandise seems to be from FF7. I have several FF7 post cards and even a Barrett key chain (yeah, it is massive as well). The Japanese love FF7 that's for sure.

What would follow were two more Final Fantasy titles for the Playstation. The misunderstood and possibly better than I remembered FF8 and the dark horse of the series even though it is awesome, FF9. I'll cover them next time. Stay tuned!