The quarter pounder with cheese recently made its debut at McDonald’s in Japan, and the campaign they’re using to promote it baffles me. Purchasing a quarter pounder value meal nets you this little package:
It contains a scratch off ticket, both sides of which are shown below: Front: Big Mouth! Quarter Pounder: Japan’s Rose-Colored Plan Back: Scratch off the panel with all your might! If it says “winner”, you’ll receive a rose-colored t-shirt.
Am I missing something here? Is the quarter pounder eating demographic clamoring for pink clothing?
But that’s nothing compared with the button that was also enclosed:
Packaging/Concept: This product hits most of the EXTREME foodstuff packaging clichés nicely: extreme is misspelled beginning with an uppercase “x”, it has a grunge aesthetic, there’s faux stenciling in the background, all that stuff.
But two things about it struck me as not being particularly EXTREME. First is the flavor itself, pepper. When I think extreme flavors, kiwi or jalapeño or whatever come to mind, but pepper? That’s a stretch.
But if they’re going to go with pepper, couldn’t they come up with a more extreme name than “Extra Pepper”? Something like “Pepper OVERLOAD!” or “PeppORGASM!” (Y’know, like a pepper orgasm. Tell me that’s not gold.) In the very least, they could have spelled it “Xtra Pepper”, am I right?
But I have to give credit where credit is due: they have created the most EXTREME PEPPER GRINDER I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE. Just look at it–it’s literally blasting out peppercorns like a goddamn shotgun!
Granted it doesn’t seem to be doing any actual grinding, as the peppercorns seem to be coming out whole… but maybe they shatter on impact when they smash into something at a hundred miles an hour.
Your dinner will never know what hit it. SUCK ON IT, food.
Ack! I completely forgot to prepare a blog entry this week, and I’ve run out of “funny” photos, so this week’s eleventh hour entry is an episode of Oden-kun, an excellent Japanese kids cartoon. It tells the story of anthropomorphized pieces of oden, a Japanese dish often served in winter. [Wikipedia link about oden]
This is one of my favorite episodes, featuring a rap battle. How interesting it is if you can’t understand Japanese I can’t say but… er… enjoy!
I was having lunch with my friend C.W. Kelly when he spotted this on a jumbotron screen near Tokushima station.
What does it mean? The answer came, needless to say, from OgreYouAsshole.com. It’s the name of a Japanese indie rock band.
If my translation skills are worth anything*, they got the name thanks to the American indie band Modest Mouse. It was during a Japanese tour, and the members of the yet-unnamed Ogre You Asshole asked Modest Mouse bass player Eric Judy, who was drunk at the time, to name their band. He wrote down “Ogre You Asshole”, said “how about this?” and the rest is history.
Never trust drunk bass players.
*The original Japanese explanation can be found here
Here’s a little tabletop ad I saw at a sushi place. What I like about it is the horrifying fish head in the upper right-hand corner:
Doesn’t that look like it belongs on a poster for a horror movie? To me, this is not the image you want in your head before you eat. But that is, apparently, a Western attitude. When I pointed it out to the Japanese friend I was with, he said when he looks at that, he just thinks “Yummy!”
Above is the cover of this year’s student handbook for Shikoku University. Looks fine at first glance, but take a look at the sweatshirt of the guy on the right:
Whoopsie. Not a big deal, but I just find it funny that they’re advertising another school on the cover of the book they give to new students.
Progress Bar Key Scripting/Page Layout: Self-explanatory Artwork: The Drawing, Inking, and Computer Work for the comic Final Edits/Incidentals:Post-Production Edits, Designing the Cover, Preparing for Press, etc.
(More information about Tonoharu can be found here.)
****
It took me a lot longer then I would have liked, but I’m finally halfway done with the artwork for Tonoharu: Part Two! Oh boy!
Not only that, but I’ve also finished up the loose ends for the script & page layout, which had been stalled at about 9/10ths of the way done. So I know the final page count, and know exactly just how much I have left to do. I’ve still got a long way to go yet, but at least I’m over the hump.
If you’re curious, the book will contain 140 pages of comics, making it a whooping 40% longer than the prologue and part one put together.
In the last progress report from way back in December, I promised to show off some artwork for the third progress report, so let’s take a look at that: [Read more →]
At the end of last week’s entry, I promised some big fancy announcement, so here it is: I’m writing a nonfiction prose book about my experiences studying calligraphy in Japan! The very tentative title is:
Blood, Sweat & Ink An American Cartoonist’s Immersion into Japan’s Calligraphy Culture
When I first started thinking about it and planning it out a few months ago, I envisioned a graduation thesis of some kind. Just a short, straightforward account about how East Asian calligraphy is relevant to modern-day cartooning, to be presented to Shikoku University’s professors & students when I graduated.
But as I started getting into it and really reflecting on my experience, I saw many areas ripe for expansion. It occurred to me that if I wrote and organized it in the right way, that the subject could appeal to a general audience in the English speaking world. I’ve read several English language books about East Asian calligraphy, and have been struck by how academic and inaccesible they tend to be. It always seems to me like they’re preaching to the choir, that they’re for people who are already familiar with the subject. I’ve come to find East Asian calligraphy to be absolutely fascinating, and want to try to express that enthusiasm in a way that could be read for pleasure by laypeople. And so the idea for a book was born.
The project has become quite ambitious. It’s part autobiography, part journalism, part history, part art theory, part cultural studies…it’s quite a juggling act. Since it’s still in the early stages, I’m not sure exactly what form it will take, or how long it will be. But I’m firmly committed to it, and hope to have something done before I leave Japan in a year’s time. I’ve been pretty bad at meeting my self-imposed deadlines for comics, but maybe prose will be different, we’ll see. Right now I’m about halfway done with the rough draft.
Anyway, I’ll update and post excerpts from the book when I get a little further along, so check back, or subscribe to my RSS feed if you’re interested.
Oh, and if there’s anyone out there that’s familiar with the subject who knows of books or websites they would recommend as I continue my research, please let me know. Thanks!
As longtime readers may recall, I moved to Japan in April of 2008 to study East Asian Calligraphy at Shikoku University on a two-year research scholarship. (Newer readers can read all the sorted details starting here.)
Now as April 2009 begins and I’ve reached the halfway point of my tenure, I thought now would be a good time to show a couple examples of my calligraphy, and to write a little about the experience so far.
Regarding the calligraphy: it takes a long time to gain proficiency. I’ve read many accounts of East Asian calligraphers that started when they were schoolchildren and didn’t feel satisfied with their work until they were in their fifties or sixties. So as you might imagine, my work, the result of just one year of practice, is far from masterful. But okay, enough with the excuses, let’s take a look at it: [Read more →]
Not much this time around. Just wanted to mention that Tonoharu: Part One made a few top ten lists for 2008, including that of Booklist magazine. (Yes, this is very timely announcement.)
*** High-Low / Rob Clough wrote a top fifty favorite comics of 2008 list, and even then I still only managed to get an honorable mention. Ah well.
As always, thanks to everyone who took the time to review my work! If you’d like to see all the coverage Tonoharu has received to date (that I’m aware of), check out my press releases/coverage page.
Pictured above is a sign I saw hanging outside of a restaurant in downtown Tokushima. There are three things I find amusing about it:
1) Even though it’s written in pretty good English (no spelling mistakes, word order is okay, etc.) I’m still not exactly sure what they’re trying to say. Because it sounds like a paradox: the only way to get food “to go” is if you’re eating at the restaurant. Or maybe they’re trying to say that you can only get take out food as a doggie bag, after you’ve eaten some of it in the restaurant? I dunno…
2) Either way, I don’t get the need for the policy in the first place. They apparently have the means to accommodate “to go” orders, so why even bother making the sit down customer stipulation? They want people’s money, people want their food, so who cares where they eat it? Actually, it seems to me that a take out customer would be preferable to a sit down customer, since the former isn’t taking up a seat in your restaurant that could go to someone else.
3) And finally, I find it amusing (and unlikely) that an English language sign like this is even necessary in the first place. Tokushima isn’t Tokyo or Osaka; even downtown, I hardly ever see any other foreigners. This is the only time I can think of that I’ve seen an English sign for the benefit of non-Japanese readers (outside of airports and train stations). Were there really that many foreigners demanding take out food from this one restaurant that they needed this sign? I wonder if they just had one crazy Australian asshole that made a big ruckus about not being able to get food to go, and they thought, “Never again! We need a sign!”
There’s a ramen shop near my school called Todai Ramen. Their hours of operation baffle me. They are open from 7pm to 4am (except for Mondays, when they’re closed).
Sometimes I’ll leave school at 6:30pm and want to grab some ramen on my way home, but I can’t because they aren’t open yet. Couldn’t they be open from 6pm to 3am instead? You could argue that 6pm to 7pm isn’t a prime dinner hour, but are there really more people that want ramen at 3:30am? Like, on a Wednesday?
I guess I could understand if the nightlife in the area was thriving, but it’s pretty dead. The only other businesses nearby that are open past 9pm are a convenience store and a karaoke joint, both of which already sell food. There’s also a university dorm nearby, but they have a 10pm curfew, so no late night business from them.
This area has even less going on at night.
They’ve been around for years, so I guess Todai’s proprietors know what they’re doing. But still… I don’t get it.
