Yuri to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito

A Shoujo ai centred Weblog

Review: Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Movie 1st – The Comics

Posted on | September 2, 2010 | No Comments

It seems like an age since I was lining up at the discout ticket booth for a ticket to see the Nanoha movie. But that time is long past and now all it leaves in its legacy is a warm fuzzy feeling in the bottom of your stomach. Oh, and this comic series.

Despite the possibly errant plural, MSLNMMF – The Comics doesn’t actually cover the movie, rather (like all the other Nanoha comics out at the moment) it covers that part which we all wanted to see – what happened after the movie (and before MSLN A’s). This alone should make it worth reading. Add to that the fact that the artist has improved signifcantly since he drew A’s and StrikerS the comics and you have possibly a winning mix.

Well, I did pretty much ignore StrikerS the comics, but I think that’s a given.

The Story

I don’t think I have to review the characters – I know and you know they are all already awesome. With the possible exception of Yuuno.

The story starts briefly recapping Nanoa’s first season (and movie). In about 1 chapter. Well, if you’ve seen the movie, then that’s all you need! Possibly the most interesting part is where Nanoha overclocks her awesome subconsciously to protect Arisa from getting owned in the face by a baseball. You see, Nanoha was awesome even before she invented her Friendship Maker *ahem* I mean, Starlight Breaker. Oh and for some reason Nanoha goes out to howl her loneliness at the moon because she feels lonely even though she is surrounded by good friends. Apparently puberty hits early in magic users.

Then we switch over to Fate’s background and her and Lilith’s memories of their childhood together, including an essay that Fate wrote about how much she loves her mother. Aww. But the saddest thing is that now her mother’s too busy even to give Fate a second glance, let alone go on a fluffy yummy picnic with her and that makes Fate sad. Actually, this was probably the best part of the comic – showing that Precia actually wasn’t just a mad bitch and tat she actually had a heart once…though since it doesn’t mention Alicia passing away, one can assume that that picnic was probably an implanted memory of hers. Poor Fate – even her fluffy childhood memories aren’t real.

Then Lindy has one of her great ideas. Even better than Green tea with cream and sugar. How about we grade the two new mages we have by pitting them against each other in a high speed battle to the death? Good idea all round I think. Needless to say, Arf thinks Fate has this in the bag from the get go, but Nanoha pulls together all kinds of awesome to draw level. The battle is yet to reach a conclusion by the end of the first volume but one can make a pretty safe bet that someone is going to be on the receiving end of a very big Friendship Maker by the end of it.

Overview

No Nano/Fate fuzzies in this volume – this is Nanoha finding her soulmate but then discovering that the only way she’ll listen to her pleas for friendship and a bit on the side is if she hammers it home with a Divine Buster through her skull. It’s OK – we all know Fate is going to end up being the Uke in this relationship anyway. The fact that Nanoha was emo, yet awesome before she even discovered magic is a nice touch. I have to say – emo Nanoha is really out of character for her and is a little jarring. Fate’s background is litle embellished in the movie and so the little background we get here is well called for and nicely done. And the fighting? The fighting is seven kinds of awesome. Makes we wonder if they’ll make a MSLNMF-The Comics Movie. Probably not.

The art is OK – it’s not luscious but it’s not pedestrian by any means. Fate is as skinny in her barrier jacket as I remember.

Rating – 4/5

Not perfect, art is moderate but story is well thought out and full of action. Fate slowly coming to realise that the only reason Nanoha has practiced every day is so that she can talk to her with her fists (so to speak) will make the end of the fight a little more than interesting. Only thing is – I’m not sure where they’re going to go from the end of the fight – Nano/Fate make-up sex scene? You bet your furries’ ass.

MSLNMF – The Comics is being scanlated by ZSS scanlations and is serialised in Megami magazine.

Category: Comment

Review: Shoujo Sanctuary – Asagi Ryuu

Posted on | August 31, 2010 | No Comments

So I get the feeling that this site is going to end up being mainly reviews of yuri manga and doujinshi that I come across in Japan from now on. Just to let you know – mainly because I’m lazy and that.

This manga is by Asagi Ryuu who also wrote “I Fell in Love for the first time” which is translated over at Lililicious. He writes regularly for Comic Penguin CLUB (a monthly mangazine of questionable content) and is now almost exclusively yuri. His previous works were mainly hetero in nature, but since the aforementioned series, he seems to have devoted himself to cute girls sexing the bejesus out of each other.

Story

This manga centres on two couples, Yuna and Hazuki and Takanashi sensei and Orisaku (thank god for WORKING! or I’d never have been able to read that teacher’s name) The story is set in an all girls’ school (original there, sensei) and specifically around the Tennis club. Yuna and Orisaku are the two stars of the tennis club and are playing in the upcoming autumn tournament. Orisaku is the ojousama/refined type of sporty girl, whereas Yuna is more the strong and butch type. Hazuki is a short girl who is a junior in the club and Takanashi sensei is the school librarian.

The story starts with Yuna being mean to Hazuki at practice. It appears she’s always mean to Hazuki, making her run laps and clear up after practice is over. However, finally, in the showers alone together, Yuna loses control of herself and starts to feel Hazuki up and it’s revealed that (predictably) the bullying was just a cover for her inappropriate feelings to a junior club member. Luckily though, Hazuki secretly loves her two and the two of them have happy shower sex.

In the other corner, Orisaku and Takanashi sensei are having sex in the library. Apparently, Takanashi sensei is quite the vixen and has been through more than her fair share of girls in the academy. Rightfully, then, Orisaku is scared that she’s going to be discarded just like the other girls but at this point, she doesn’t really care and lets Takanashi sensei twiddle her skywards.

But as the two relationships deepen, there’s trouble brewing. Kawai- the president of the tennis club hates lesbians and suspends Yuna from the club as she sees her walking hand in hand with Hazuki around town. At the same time, Hazuki finds out that when Yuna started school, she too fell into the clutches of the evil witch…ahem…I mean Takanashi sensei. Thankfully, after a touching scene by the poolside and some hot sex, the latter issue is resolved and the previous is also when Yuna discovers that Kawai is going out with her brother (who couldn’t care less that his sister was a carpet muncher)

Takanashi sensei falls helplessly in love with Orisaku to the point that she decides to quit the school to pursue her on legal terms. She starts research back at her alma mater instead.

The last chapter shows the gakuensai where all the characters are cast in a play – predictaly Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The play isn’t really focussed on, but afterwards in the classroom, all four of them have hot raw unbridled lesbian sex – everyone knows a story should end with a group scene after all.

The last chapter is a continuation of “I Fell in Love for the First time” where it’s revealed that Hitomi’s sempai at university is actually Takanashi-sensei and the happy couple go for a picnic date.

Review

The characters and setting are pretty usual for yuri. The girls school and the tennis club are all fairly standard fare. The character development throughout the story is nice and there’s a sense of warm fuzzies that the couple aren’t beating about the bush (so to speak) like some series I could mention (*cough* Sasameki *cough*). The art on the other hand is luscious. Bodies and naughty bits are faithfully drawn with a lovely flowing style – breasts actually hang nicely, expressions are varied and sexy and having an artist like this is a godsend for the yuri world.

Fetish wise, if you’re not into omorashi (watersports) then you might want to avoid this one. His usual stuff isn’t very fetish heavy, but omorashi-play features fairly heavily in this book so watch out. It’s pretty hot though.

Overall: 5/5

I like to start reviews on a good note – This is pretty much what I love about yuri all rolled into one. Cute storyline, cute characters, character development and wonderful art with a dash of fetishism. Even a tiny dose of emo. The only nitpick I have about it is that Asagi sensei draws Yuna and Hazuki’s breasts about twice as large on the cover. Don’t be misled – they’re actually normal size inside ^_^;;

Category: Reviews

Fuji Rock Festival guide up

Posted on | August 27, 2010 | No Comments

Finished the Fuji Rock Festival guide as promised.

Category: Comment

Highschool of the dead – Highschool of the Manservice

Posted on | August 11, 2010 | 5 Comments

Ecchi nano ha ikenai to omoimasu!

So yeah, another post just days after the last – what’s wrong with me?!

Let’s face it – it’s been a mediocre season for anime – Summer is always scarce and last week without Kuroko Narrator-san’s old-ladyish monologue in Ookami-san to shichinin no Nakamatachi I was pretty much caught between watching K-ON!! slowly fade into obscurity and 4 part episodes of “Masterchef – New Zealand” (why did the BBC not put up Masterchef UK on the internet?!)

Then over the weekend I decided to catch up with Highschool of the Dead.

I wouldn’t say I was instantly hooked as I’m not an enormous fan of zombie apocalypse anythings (though I played Left 4 Dead a fair amount). Let’s look at it fairly – it’s unoriginal, it has an annoying, emotionless hero and a whiny over-oestrogenic heroine who just happens to be handy in a fight (hey, it’s beginning to sound like Final Fantasy!) The other characters are your typical “Twin tailed Tsundere bitch” (character type 2), “MILF airheaded nurse” (character type 1-8b), “Strong cool sempai in the kendo club” (character type 8-8a). Oh and gun otaku guy who is AWESOME. (Why is he not the hero?) The storyline has nothing (actually nothing) that puts it apart form any other zombie apocalypse story. I mean…even Left 4 Dead had a more original take on zombies than this – and that didn’t even really have a story! Realistically (yes I am aware of the irony of using that word here) – zombies that weak and slow would not stand a chance against even the tiny amount of guns and weaponry that the police and army keep around in Japan. And it’s only spread by biting?! It takes more than that to send the world into disarray matey…(I’m probably missing something key here…)

So what makes Highschool not make one want to kick the TV in frustration every time TwinDere throws another hissy fit or Boobnurse falls on something again and is cushioned by her breasts (so big they have their own set of sound effects)? Well…

  • Breasts

    Yes, obvious I know. Even Twindere has huge ones – and that’s unusual on a tsundere. Boobnurse’s are so huge that whenever they’re on screen they take up half the camera shot. I could go so far as to say that I don’t think there’s another apocalypse type manga with this level of fanservice…
  • Panties

    In short – Twindere wears striped panties. This anime has almost as many panty shots as Ikkitousen and that’s saying something…Probably the best thing about them is that they feel a lot more natural (if panty shots can be described as natural) than Ikkitousen where sometimes the scene would start up a girl’s skirt then go on to the other less important stuff like the fighting and plot.
  • Fighting girls

    Twindere doesn’t fight though (I’m starting to sound like I’m obsessed with Twindere…) The “Ikkitousen factor” of strong girls holding their own with the men is always a good turn on for fanservice fans. But don’t date Saeko unless you want to get squeezed drier than the beer taps on World Cup final night. I don’t have a pic of her fighting, so here’s one of her licking a goya.
  • Guns

    Everyone knows that men love guns. No chainsaws as of yet though…Hirano’s nailgun reminded me of the heady old days of playing Quake over a 28k modem. Why the hell is there a sniper sight on that shotgun – could someone please enlighten me?
  • Hirano

    Seriously – how awesome is Hirano? Except for his unhealthy crush on Twindere Meganekko which is ill fated to getting repeatedly smashed in the face in a fit of jealous rage (has he not watched what happens if the hero goes for the twintails girl?) His only fault was in episode 6 where in the face of a zombie apocalypse he didn’t immediately go for the shotgun..I reckon by the end his virginity is going to be stolen by the purple haired special ops MILF. I don’t want to sully this post so here’s a picture of Twindere looking sultry.
  • Hot MILF Nurse / Gun MILF yuri
    Well – in my mind that is…
  • Zombies

    Wait – this is about zombies? I thought their purpose was to act as stepping stones so we could see Rei’s pantsu.

One could make comparisons to other male oriented semi-ero stuff such as Tenjo Tenge but Highschool is just on another level – fanservice wise…With a heady mix of swinging tits, flashing panties, swishing weapons and smoking guns it’s almost like he’s trying to appeal to all male urges simultaneously…Still not enough yuri for my tastes though – despite the male:female ratio.

I’m rooting for Kendoapron/Twindere for the win…

Category: Comment

Fuji Rock! K-ON!! lies and truths post…

Posted on | August 9, 2010 | 5 Comments

Hey everyone, I’ve been away for a while – partly because my laptop decided to die on me (then recently magically start working again) and also because I’ve been busy with commissions and such…

But anyway – This is my first full summer in Japan! They sure are hot aren’t they! Luckily the humidity has broken a little bit and it’s a lot drier now though most days the temperature is still up in the mid 30s…A far cry from the temperature back home in the UK! I had two goals for this summer – One was to climb a 3000m plus mountain while it wasn’t snowy and Two was to go to Fuji Rock!! (well, we did buy the tickets about 6 months ago)

For those of you that don’t know, Fuji Rock Festival takes place over the last weekend in July in Niigata prefecture about 200km north from Tokyo. It’s modelled on the UK Glastonbury festival in that it has an emphasis on a wide range of music on a variety of stages, environmental issues, organic farming, sustainability, Third world charity and so forth. We had a lot of fun at the Fuji Rock festival (despite the rain) and so I’ll probably be writing a full Fuji Rock guide to supplement the current one on the Fuji Rock blog which is lacking in some respects…

In K-ON!! #12 (the summer holiday episode), the girls go to “Natsu Rock” which is heavily modelled on the Fuji Rock festival. So I thought it would be fun to do a post where I Photoshopped the screenshots from the episodes with photos from the festival. See if you can guess which ones we are…

Everyone takes this photo. I swear that this is the only reason they have the sign up.

It’s a lie – the flat space on the Women’s only camping area never fills up.

Yeah, it’s not a picture of the same thing, but it looks the same alright!

The river at the place in the screenshot (Tokoro Tengoku) isn’t so wide and nice as here so I used this photo.

Everyone loves it when it rains at Fuji Rock…Not. 

The mountains are steamy.

They don’t actually run out until well gone evening. That would be a bad business plan.

Spot the British restaurant in the background. We patronised that place like crazy!

Crowds.

Yeah, and crap bands like MGMT.

They didn’t show that over half the Japanese people are sitting down. Lazy gits.

The Thunder stage (White stage) is on the wrong side of the Fire stage (Green Stage)

The top area is on a cable car and is called “Day dreaming” though you can’t read it in the official map…

Some inaccuracies:

Though lots of (urban) Japanese spray it on liberally there are no biting insects in Naeba… If you ask me how I know – they absolutely love to bite me and I didn’t get a single one.

Why isn’t anyone wearing wellies?

 

Some things that were tastefully or inexplicably omitted from the K-ON!! version:

  • Mio being frightened of the spiders and the smell in the toilets
  • Azusa missing her favourite band because of queueing for the loos.
  • Mugi faints from sunstroke in the three hour queue for the hot spring (true)
  • Mio trying to get between two stages on a tight schedule but getting caught in a crowd going the other way (happens a lot!) and missing their entire set.
  • Festival officials inexplicably close off the only path between stages because of overcrowding, trapping the girls with some horror goth heavy metal thrash band from hell.
  • Yui gets stoned out of her mind and is exactly the same.
  • The girls see the crappest band in the world but Yui thinks they’re cool.
  • Mugi gets to eat yakisoba because it DOESN’T RUN OUT.

 

Category: Comment

Deleted Fanfiction Archive

Posted on | June 21, 2010 | 1 Comment

It appears that the malware attack I suffered a year or two ago also affected the fanfiction archive but since I had no more interest in the project, I deleted the whole thing. I’m sure no-one’s crying over it so I just thought I’d inform people about it. Site should be malware free now.

Yuri

Category: Comment

A Shirai Kuroko montage #2

Posted on | April 22, 2010 | 3 Comments

Yeah, I know – I’ve been lazy. So lazy in fact, I decided to finish off the Shirai Kuroko montage from the previous post. This only goes up to episode 11, but her Yuri Rampagingness is toned down for the second arc (though her awesomeness is just as good) – I still love how awesome she was in episode 10! Squee!! More awesome than she was in the final episode I think…

Anyway, here we go!!


Surely if she’s wearing panties underneath the shorts it’s exactly the same difficulty for moving around in. I think it’s just extra Kuroko protection…

I often feel like this in restaurants.

Oh Misaka, you should have known better than saying that when Kuroko is only wearing a towel…

If only this worked in real life…

:3

The trick is to always keep your eyes on the target while you’re squeeing to avoid embarrassing situations like this

…though she’ll die of blood loss if you suggest anything that she actually wants to do.

You might not know, but it’s common for hair to grow nerves and muscles, especially in the case of twintails or drills.

Kuroko really needs to fix that “I’ll have the same as you Onee-sama” tic.


The thing is I can’t stop thinking…Does she wear those ribbons every day?


Everyone knows that in the sake of wake up kisses you should get in fast and then never let go.


I’d ask why Kuroko was lecturing Kiyama on public indecency when I realised that Kuroko only strips for Mikoto in the safety of their dorm room.

Judgement desu no!

Kuroko’s panties are so tiny you couldn’t see them in this shot.

The sad thing is that you could never deliver a kick powerful enough to send someone through a window.

Get out!! Get out now!!! She’s really mad!!

She looks a bit too happy for a girl with several cracked ribs

If Uiharu used Level Upper she might be able to…erm…Stop Global Warming!!!!

I’m not convinced those bandages are in the place where she got kicked. I think they’re just so Uiharu doesn’t get a good look at something only Onee-sama needs to see when she’s changing her bandages.

Actually, they’re probably in the right place. They must be working if she can shake Uiharu like that…

Emergency teleport! This reminded me of a game that probably no-one remembers called “Pocky and Rocky” on the SNES…ahh, those were the days.

Uiharu is really useful! she could…Stop Global Warming!! Oh I’ve already made that gag.

And it’s moments like these that say that Mikoto doesn’t really mind getting molested by Kuroko every day after all.

Something more interesting next post I promise!

Category: Comment

Heroines of Yuri #1 – Shirai Kuroko

Posted on | March 31, 2010 | 8 Comments

Sorry it’s been so long since the last post – I got the idea for this one a while back, but since I’ve been deleting the episodes of Railgun as we watch them, I had nothing to go back to and get screencaps from. Luckily, I watched the first half on my laptop and they’ve somehow survived so here we go.

In many ways, To aru kagaku no Railgun’s Shirai Kuroko isn’t a new type of character. To use my own character typing, she would be a “Vamp/aggressive” type with other yuri attributes. What makes her new is that she eschews the traditional yuri ojousama image of being reserved yet exceedingly gay (Hanazono Shizuma – Strawberry Panic) or unusually unreserved and exceedingly gay (Sei Satou - Marimite) for a rather non-typical rampaging yuri phenotype where various amusing situations crop up due to her obviously stalking Mikoto (teleport is rather useful in this situation I guess…) I say “rather”, as there is another girl with the same character type this season – Mikuru from BakaTest who I’m sure has the same amount of secret pictures of her oneesama as she has had hot dinners. Other examples of the type include Saku-chan (Candy Boy) and Remi from the rather less known ecchi manga Chocolate Melancholy (Only read the first volume).

The thing that puts Kuroko apart from the others in her field is that thanks to her status in Railgun as a main character (well, co-main), she gets a whole bag of character development which helps her evolve beyond the comedy sidekick status that rampaging yuri types usually get thrust into. She’s awesomely cool, for example – fights like a demon (in stark contrast to Mikoto who is pretty useless without her powers) and has an underwear collection rivalling, if not exceeding that of Mai HiME’s Kuga Natsuki (before it got exploded, anyway).

So here are a collection of Kuroko moments from the first 5 episodes. Her best techniques are trying to sound col and refined while secretly trying to peep at Mikoto and then getting owned by a piece of furniture. Perhaps the most puzzling thing is why Mikoto doesn’t just shun her for being such a pervert.  It’s interesting that in Index, there’s no doubt that there is chemistry between Mikoto and Touma, whereas in Railgun the feel is more towards rivals – I’m guessing that they’re taking it easy on the yuri-shippers.  In my yuri-centric imagination I think Mikoto’s feelings are something along the lines of: 1) Mikoto is not used to seeing men as anything but annoying, so Touma is an unusual middle ground – she can’t beat him and he doesn’t want to hit on her so she’s confused how to feel around him. 2) She sees Kuroko as a girl with a noble sense of duty and hard work…but extremely perverted towards her. But since it’s not in Mikoto’s nature to hate her for something like this they’re good friends.

Or something like that. I don’t think Mikoto has romantic feelings towards anyone at this point. Maybe if Kuroko tried less hard she might notice her…


…She knows kung-fu!

…and shower breast-fu

If I were her I’d have teleported very far away at this point.

And here…we see…the rare species…Shirai Kuroko…as after a long battle…she mounts her mate.

If this was a shoujo manga he’d have got all blushy and embarassed right here. Before he got kicked in the head.

The young female equivalent of Hugh Hefner

The world through Kuroko’s sepia tinted glasses.

…You’re a panther all the time Kuroko.

Panther makes Azumanga-face.

I really really doubt anyone can drown their sorrows in lukewarm red bean soup.

Damn you Japan and your reliance on courier delivery services! Damn you!!

…My attack had no effect?!

You really…really shouldn’t have said that Mikoto. Can’t you see the relationship flag?

…or was that a electro-fetish H-scene flag?

I am mystefied as to why Kuroko DOESN’T want to see Mikoto naked.

Interesting, yet obvious that Kuroko chose Mikoto’s panties to “pantsu to kao” with.

She could teleport out of this, but she’s actually getting off.

The fact that Kuroko can do more than one is awesome. Especially triceps push-ups.

Pillow munching.

Loli Kuroko knows kung-fu too!!

I tried thinking about what she would do here. Since she can’t teleport things greater than her body weight I guess she’d try and teleport his nose into his head? Or his cock up his ass?

Who knows.

Join us next time for more Kuroko awesomeness…or maybe some other awesomeness. I don’t know yet.

Category: Editorials, Humour?, Shoujo-ai

The Legendary Japanese Cake (densetsu nihon no keeki)

Posted on | March 16, 2010 | 3 Comments

A real cake

It’s just been White Day, for those of you that live here – the Japanese (actual) equivalent of Valentine’s day (i.e. the one where the guys have to make the effort and every restaurant/park/cinema/sex shop/love hotel is packed out all day).

So for a treat, the other half and I headed out to Shinjuku 3-chome to a cafe called “Sweets paradise” which is something Japanese people would call “suiitsu baikingu” or a dessert buffet. Basically, you pay 1470 yen per person and get infinite all you can eat cakes, ice cream, jelly and drinks for 70 minutes (and there’s some savoury stuff too). Needless to say after 70 minutes it was difficult to make it to the lift let alone out of the building… The effect of Sweets Paradise is like a children’s party in a leisure centre (a swimming party, ice skating party or something like that) – It’s all brightly coloured and there’s all the sweet things a kid could ever want. It was rather natsukashii.

It also got me thinking about Japanese sweets in general. The Japanese, like many other cultures, have realised that the times between meals in a day just don’t add up. breakfast to lunch is 5 hours, but lunch to dinner is usually 6-7 hours. So what do we need to put in between? Snacks of course! The British equivalent would be “Tea” had around 5pm with a little cake or scone to satisfy the food craving. The Japanese have oyatsu which is usually taken around 3pm and consists of green tea with some small sweet thing, usually made of rice and/or an paste (anmitsu is a high class example).

Fail cake

However, coming to Japan from the UK or US, you’ll never be satisfied with Japanese sweets. They look AMAZING, that’s for sure, so if you ate with your eyes you’d be made. However, the taste is always a little lacking – using more whipping cream than double cream, less butter and often sweeteners to replace sugar leaving a sickening aftertaste… When I introduced my labmates to the traditional British sponge cake recipe (equal quantities of flour, butter and sugar – usually 5 or 6 oz and 3 eggs), they recoiled in horror. “That much butter?!” is apparently the Japanese approach to cakes and unfortunately cake shops have to go with the country’s taste. Since old desserts have always been small, sugary and unfilling, there doesn’t seem to be a place for a moist, heavy rich cake such as the good old British battenburg or a piece of Jamaica Ginger cake…

Here’s a couple of recipes for comparison.

Japanese Chiffon Cake (the sponge used as the base to all cakes in Japan)

Makes a 16.5cm chiffon cake (note that chiffon cake rises about twice as high as traditional sponge)

  • Egg yolks????
  • Sugar???100g
  • Vegetable oil???60ml
  • Water???70cc
  • Flour???100g
  • Baking powder???2 teaspoons
  • Egg white???4
  • Salt??? little

And compare this to the traditional English sponge cake recipe (courtesy of Delia Smith)
(makes 2 x 20cm sponge cakes, half as high)

  • Self raising flour – 175g
  • Baking powder – 2 teaspoons
  • Eggs – 3 (large)
  • Butter – 175g
  • Sugar – 175g
  • Vanilla extract

The obvious difference is in the fat content – 175g of butter vs. 60ml vegetable oil + water is a hell of a lot of difference.  In Chiffon cake, the fluffy texture comes from the whisked egg whites causing the extra rise and the extra fluffy texture, whereas in British sponge there is a buttery richness partially imparted by the butter but also by the denser sponge resulting in a crumblier cake.

I wish we could bake cakes here…Darn lack of ovens!!

Category: Editorials, Japan living

Things you can do in Japan after midnight

Posted on | March 4, 2010 | 3 Comments

My cinema trip that lasted until half past 3 in the morning has prompted me to think about what interesting things you can get up to in Japan in the wee hours. In stark contrast to Japan, England is a country that sticks fastly to its working hours. Most shops close at 5:30pm or 6, restaurants open from 6 till around 11pm, pubs close at 12, or if you’re lucky 1am and past then the only thing that you can do is go to a nightclub or get one of the UK’s world famous Campylobacter filled chicken kebabs. In a pitta.

Not so here. If you ever heard of Tokyo described as an urban neon jungle, it’s not far from the truth. Working hours here are quite literally silly. Most shops open till at least 10pm every day (sometimes including Sundays) and most shops open holidays too (except for New Years and Golden Week). Since the Japanese culture centres around eating, many restaurants will open till 1am or even later before disgorging their full and drunken punters into the brightly lit streets. Here’s a few more things you can do in the silly hours of the morning…

  1. Hang around a convenience store and read manga.Convenience stores are a 24 hours a day, 365 days a year business. They’re probably the only thing open on New Year’s and stock a wide range of subtlely overpriced goodies and hot snacks. So common is the above pastime that most convenience stores have resorted to binding their manga weeklies in an effort to stop businessmen reading them who should be getting to work/meetings/pachinko/mistresses.
  2. Get ramen. Or beef bowl.Ramen and beef bowl chains are often open 24 hours a day, meaning that you can come in on a 3am flight and still get something hot to eat at 4am in the morning. Which is nice. As opposed to the UK where you have to survive on whatever chocolate/crisps/cookies you can afford from the inevitable train station vending machines. Oh, MacDonalds is also open 24 hours too, if you find yourself with the early morning craving for a deep fried apple pie…
  3. Go to the cinemaYeah, midnight showings are weird…But hey, they probably don’t need to have many staff on to do a single showing at midnight or 1am…
  4. Have a bathStrange though it may seem, most onsen and many public baths are open 24 hours. Although if you think about it, since the water is running 24/7 it would be silly to waste it by not allowing people in to bathe in it. For example, Oedo Onsen Monogatari in Odaiba in Tokyo is open over New Year’s, so you can count down the seconds soaking in a milky sperm coloured salt bath. Ahh…bliss…apart from the hundreds of other tour groups who had the same idea…
  5. Read manga or play video gamesThe Japanese phenomenon known as the “Internet and Manga Cafe” (Mangakissa) is available in all good towns around the country and offers both a comfy space with shelves full of manga and a dimly lit room of cubicles you can use for playing net games (or looking at porn, whatever your poison) Also, you get free refills of the soft drink of your choice so you can carry on enjoying your poison until the red rimmed dawn breaks outside.
  6. Have freshly made sushiThe hand made sushi bar (i.e. not kaiten conveyor belt style) down the road from us is open till 3am, so if you ‘re peckish after that big night out but don’t fancy the usual MacDonalds, how about stopping by for something a bit more stylish to curb those early morning munchies? And infinitely more expensive, of course.
  7. Meet a schoolgirl and have sex with herTechnically you can do this in any country if you’re awesome enough…

Things you can’t (surprisingly) do in the early morning

  1. Play pachinkoThe great Japanese pastime of Pachinko (that is unintelligible to everyone else) for some reason stops relatively early (around 11pm) in all parlours. Presumably this is because they can kick all the businessmen out and they can then finally go back home to their wives/mistresses/find a whore/enjo kosai or whatever. You’d have expected gambling to be one thing that you could do into the wee hours though…
  2. Have a cup of (good) coffeeSure you can have a crappy one from a machine at a Manga kissa or in a convenience store but no cafes or coffee shops are open and all the restaurant chains that serve coffee (Saizeriya and other family restaurants) close around 11 or 12pm meaning that the caffeine available to an all-nighter is noticably below par. Have recently discovered that certain chains of FamiRes such as Royal Host and Jonathan’s open 24 hours. So you can get a fairly decent cup of coffee…and a badly made pizza.
  3. Catch a trainI would have thought that if there was one country that you could catch a train between 1am and 6am, it would be Japan, but they stop here the same time as in the UK. I mean, it’s not as if people stop wanting to go places suddenly between 1am and 6am…I bet train companies could make a packet running trains between these times, even just once and hour but I suppose it’s just another one of those things you can nail down to tradition…
  4. Get money out without paying through the nose for itJapanese banks are hilariously ancient – most still use passbooks and take HOURS to serve you (probably stamping god knowns how many copies of the red tape that they have to do for each transaction that should be on computer by now.) One of the symptoms of this is that if you want to do anything at an ATM bar draw your own money out within banking hours, they charge you for it. So even if you manage to find an ATM that’s actually open at 3 in the morning, the chances are you’ll end up paying 250yen or so for the privilege.
  5. Go to an arcadeSurprisingly these shut fairly early too…I suppose since their customers are generally teenagers, it wouldn’t do to encourage them to stay up that late playing games when they should be studying hard for exams. Instead, lets kick them out so they can find a nice love hotel or something to have fun in…
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