Tokyo Times

Photographs from a small group of islands

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Mildly amusing Japanese-English #9

burapi

The Japanese seem to enjoy shortening words and names. A remote controller is known as a rimocon. Jimi Hendrix becomes cute and cuddly jimi hen. And Hollywood hunk Brad Pitt gets the rather unfortunate new name of burapi.

Apparently it’s now official that Mr. burapi is the second most desirable male in Japan. The top dog of course being the god of fashion and football, David Beckham. Even despite Beckham’s recent dalliance with his assistant, Japanese ladies still regard him as the hottest catch. Allowing the England captain to continue making millions from dodgy chocolate commercials.

But lets not take anything away from Hollywood heartthrob burapi. He recently arrived in Japan to promote his latest offering Troy, and was greeted at the airport by more than 1,000 screaming fans. With presumably all of them chanting the mantra, “burapi, burapi, burapi, burapi.”

I just wish I’d been there to hear it.

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burapi in Japan yesterday

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A lovely pair of melons

Are you fond of big juicy melons? If the answer is yes, then you should consider trying a yubari melon. They come from Hokkaido in northern Japan, and unlike other melons, have orange coloured flesh.

There’s only one problem. They are expensive. And sometimes ridiculously so. A department store had two such melons for sale over the weekend. Retailing at a cool 210,000 yen (1,050 pounds) each!

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Pictured above is a department store worker proudly showing off her big melons yesterday.

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17-hour police chase

After a 17-hour police chase in Sapporo on Thursday, Yasuyuki Suzuki eventually gave himself up. He called the police station from his mobile phone and said, “I give up. I’m yours.”

The mammoth chase involved 18 police vehicles, and two helicopters. And one police officer tried to make excuses for the failure to catch Mr. Suzuki, claiming that, “We could have arrested him earlier if we had skimmed our vehicles against his, but we were afraid of involving the public.”

How on earth a chase of this magnitude could go on for 17 hours I don’t know, unless perhaps they had come to some agreement on rest breaks and toilet trips. But go on for this long it did, and if the suspect hadn’t given himself up, we can only speculate on how much longer it would have dragged on for.

And the crime Suzuki-san was eventually arrested for? Murder? Rape? Wonton death and destruction? No, he’s on the wanted list on suspicion of stealing a DVD player from an electrical shop in April. It was a good one though, it retailed at 40,000 yen. About 200 pounds.

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Above is a picture of a similar chase yesterday. A group of policemen close in on a suspect alleged to be a week late paying his gas bill.

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Folding fanatics

The Japanese really know how to fold. And they even have TV shows for those lacking the necessary knowledge and skills. To learn for yourself, just click on the picture and watch the video. But be warned, it’s not as easy as it appears.

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Also, it’s not shown on the clip, but if you manage to master the skill, be wary of repeating the process on an already folded T-shirt. The procedure is so effective, that after 2 successive folds, the selected garment can be reduced to the size of a postage stamp. A third attempt can actually make the T-shirt disappear. So be careful!

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Mills & Manga

The violent and sexually explicit world of manga, and the romantic idyll of Mills & Boon would appear strange bedfellows. But despite their different backgrounds, they’ve decided to get it on. As under the banner of their Canadian parent company Harlequin, Mills & Boon novels have been published in a manga format.

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As well as sci-fi, gangster, and pornographic genres, manga has an extensive romantic collection. And it’s here where Mills & Boon is trying to make inroads. The company has had to accept that the younger generation is less willing to read novels, and manga is the obvious answer.

But changes had to be made. Not only in the stories, but in the looks of the relevant characters too. The decidedly different covers for Lucy Gordon’s (apparently) very popular The Sheikh’s Reward shows two distinct approaches.

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But subtle story changes and big-eyed characters may not be enough to sway many Japanese readers. If Mills & boon is to really crack the Japanese manga market, it might have to significantly ratchet up the raunch factor. Japanese women it seems like their romantic manga to contain explicit sex scenes, and perhaps more worrying for the publishers, love stories between men. So could the Sheikh’s reward turn out to be something very different from what he expected?

Now if Mills and Boon do make such story concessions to please the Japanese market, and it proves to be popular, would the company consider publishing the re-written novels in Britain (or indeed anywhere else in the world)? It would certainly be interesting to see the reaction of all those little old ladies who systematically plough their way through the extensive Mills and Boon catalogue.