I was tooling around the internet, trying to figure out what to post about (since I haven’t posted in some time now), and I came across the opening credits to one of my favorite shows from my childhood, Ultraman.

Ultraman was a type of show known in Japan as tokusatsu, which at it’s core means specia filming in Japanese.  Probably the best known example of the genre is “Godzilla” and it’s many sequels.

But “Ultraman” is what I remember from my youth.  Sitting cross-legged in front of our old 13″ black and white tv… Cheese sandwich heavy on the mayo in hand as I sang the theme song:

Ultraman!  (Ultraman!)

Here he comes from the sky!

Ultraman!  (Ultraman!)

Watch our hero fly!

Ultraman wasn’t the only tokusatsu shows I watched as a kid, either.  There was Johnny Socko and his Giant Robot… The Space Giants…

For those of you who are a few years younger than me, don’t feel left out.  You had your tokusatsu imports as well.  Who here remembers Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers?  They were a part of the Superhero Tokusatsu movement.  VR rangers were popular then.

But what I find fascinating is what I didn’t know.  Did you know that Japan had a live action Spider-man show?  Before you get all excited, the only thing that show had in common with the Spider-man we know and love is the uniform.  After that, the universes veer off wildly.  Peter Parker becomes Takuya Yamashiro.  The radioactive spider becomes a space warship.

You can see all the episodes for free on the Marvel website.

There’s more to learn about tokusatsu.  Here’s a few sites to explore.

• Rising Sun Tokusatsu
• Tokusatsu on Wikipedia

That’s all I can find right now.  Til next time.

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Satoshi Kon, the Japanese animator who blew all of our minds with his mind bending films died today, losing his battle with cancer.  He was 47.

Kon created such movies as the cult hit “Perfect Blue,” where a pop star is stalked by a fan who seems to know everything about her, and “Millenium Actress” following the long career of a Japanese actress.

But what many consider to be his masterpiece was the trippy “Paprika” where a psychiatrist is able to help her clients by going directly into their dreams.  This film was said to be one of the inspirations for the summer blockbuster “Inception.”

Enjoy this title sequence from that movie:

Who’s gonna step up and take the reins of his legacy?

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Then I saw this:

Okay, so now I’m interested.

When I first saw this video I was a bit mixed up.  Even though I realize that the Japanese love of the USA will create some really cool art forms, sometimes things just slip through the cracks of my consciousness.  The girls in the video are the Sugiyama sisters, Rum and Jewels, aka Heartsdales.

The guys are Soul’d Out, comprised of Diggy MO, Bro. Hi and Shinnosuke.   Toghether, Soul’d Out and Heartsdales created the preceding song, “Candy Pop”

I’m a bit ashamed to say that I have mixed feelings about this particular song, and maybe Japanese Hip Hop in general.  On the one hand I love the beat and while it’s a bit cliché, yes I can indeed dance to it.

On the other hand I’m not sure how I feel about the use of the word “nigga.”  Especially since I’m not sure they know that most of us black folk don’t like it when OTB’s use it.  Hell, I don’t like it when blacks use it but that’s just me.

But girls are sexy as hell, and I have to admit that the guys know how to work a beat.  And this makes me wonder about other Japanese Hip Hop artists, and Jpop in general.

One thing I do like about this song is the ratio of English to Japanese words.  I wasn’t able to follow along a lot since I’m still learning Nihongo but it seems to me that there seems to be about 50% Japanese and English each.

Another thing that struck me is that there didn’t seem to be an Japanese accent at all.  I don’t know about the guys, but the reason for the girls mastery of English is that they spent much of their childhood in New York.

I also liked the huskiness of the girls voices.  They sort of made me think about what two Japanese girls from the hood might look and sound like.

So the verdict on this video is a positive I like it.  Enough to want to find out more about Japanese hip hop in particular and Jpop in general.  I do know that Heartsdales no longer exists as they split up in 2006 to pursue their own interests individually.  But as I understand it, Soul’d Out is still in business.

I’ll be posting more on this as time goes on.

If there is anyone out there who’d like to do a guest post about this, please contact me, with the words “guest post” in the subject line.

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So if you came here looking for information on the Japan/US alliance or something like that, I’m sorry.  You’re going to have to wait for more content to be generated.

Stay tuned for more content.  Sigh.