Archivo para el mes April, 2010
The Kuril Islands dispute
Walking around Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaido (the northernmost prefecture in Japan), we saw several times these signs claiming: “Let’s regain Japan’s Northern Territories with the Spirit of the Whole Nation”. All Kuril Islands were Japanese from 1875 until the San Francisco treaty was signed in 1945, since then the Kuril Islands belong to Russia. [...]
10 Japanese movies
Due to lack of funds not many new movies are made in Japan these days, the Japanese movie industry is in crisis. Even so, the movies produced are usually pretty interesting. To watch movies made in different countries is an excellent way to understand the diversity of cultures, values, ways of thinking and lifestyles around [...]
Tsukiji fish market
Tsukiji fish market has been recently on the news because it has been temporarily closed to the public. I visited Tsukiji fish market for the first time when I just arrived to Japan in 2004. These were my impressions when I visited Tsukiji at the time, which I wrote in my Spanish blog: Tsukiji, in [...]
Having money so close and so far at the same time
I captured with my camera these two men that live on the streets of Tokyo next to a couple of banks; I felt sorry for them and they made me think about the irony of this world in where we live. The first one is next to Acomu offices, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi UFJ bank, [...]
Sanyo Eneloop
The brand “Eneloop” has been lately one of the most popular Sanyo brands in Japan. The first product under the Eneloop brand was a battery recharger with no special features; maybe the key to its success was its design simplicity which reminds you a lot of Apple products. Another key to its success was that [...]
The largest population of robots in the world
Many American science fiction movies portray robots as a danger to humanity, some movies even portray robots as rulers of the world above humans. On the other hand, Japanese movies and manga usually show robots as kind and empathic creatures plenty of feelings. For example, in some anime shows robots help humanity to save the [...]
Osamu Tezuka in Takadanobaba
Osamu Tezuka, considered the father of manga, was born in the neighborhood of Takadanobaba in 1928. Takadanobaba is a quiet student neighborhood in Tokyo located near Waseda University, north of Shinjuku. Tezuka lived practically all his live in Takadanobaba and the neighborhood appears sometimes in some of his works; for example in his manga Astro [...]
