In late 1970′s, a singer song writer made a big hit with an exotic song, Ihojin ( or Stranger in English) . She wrote this song and it became annual big hit in Japan then.

She got talent, at the same time, she had a real beauty in her face.

Her beauty is still shining in the video, and her song makes her beauty out-stand with exotic and melancholic feeling.

Saki Kubota made several songs after this, Ihojin, and made hits. But she didn’t stay in the music scene for a long time.

She was not an idol girl with singing songs, but a real singer songwriter.  Knowing it, we can’t deny that she could play like an idol with her real beautiful face.  She didn’t like the idol singer. She left the scene when she found her songs couldn’t rise the hit chart up.

RAMEN is becoming famous. It’s original is China. Japan arranged the Chinese taste and completed Japanese style noodle called Ramen. Now Ramen is one of the most popular foods in Japan.  The price is low and the taste is good, which means it’s for all the public in Japan.

Ramen already became the local food in each area of Japan. So if you travel, you can probably taste the local style Ramen with local taste. 

KOBOSHI is a Ramen from Kitakata City in Fukushima Prefecture. The characteristics of this Ramen is the light taste soup and resilient noodle.  Pork is meltingly sweet. Also the price is unbeliebably low.   You should simply order ” Ramen”. Then, the soup, Noodle, and Pork are fully ready in the bowl. If you like more pork, you can also order YAKIBUTA Ramen ( Photo is RAMEN, not Yakibuta Ramen )

This restaurat has some chain shops in Tokyo. If you find it in Tokyo, it’s not a bad trial to experience this taste.  For us Japanese, taste is really good. And the price is low.  This is the Ramen that should be.

As a note, there is one more restaurant name, BANNAI.  Koboshi and Bannai are run by the same company, so the taste and menue are all the same.  Whichever brand you find, it’s not bad choice to go in and have !

Do you know Eric Clapton’s best favourite restaurant in the world is in Tokyo ?

It’s true. He often says that he loves Fukuyoshi’s Tonkatsu best in the world. Exactly speaking, Eric Clapton seems to love Chicken Katsu rather than Tonkatsu ( Pork Katsu).  Anyway, Clapton never misses coming back to this restaurant whenever he comes to Japan.

Eric Clapton is known to Japanese fans that he loves Japan and he often comes to Japan not only for concerts but for private tour too.  Actually he’s been to Japan more than 20 times ( 18 times concerts included ).

Some people really witnessed Eric Clapton here. Also some say that Eric Clapton was having Tonkatsu in the other Tonkatsu restaurant in Shinjuku, so it’s sure that Clapton loves Tonkatsu of Japan.  Maybe he became the Tonkatsu repeater after checking Fukuyoshi out.

Fukuyoshi is a old Tonkatsu restaurant with a long history in Tokyo.  It also  has many fans in Japan and from the world. Some say they like Chicken Katsu better just like Clapton.

We Japanese like Tonkatsu dish.  As far as Clapton, a foreigner, choses this restaurant as the best in the world,  Tonkatsu could be a world taste.  Please try next time !

SEIKO MATSUDA was a biggest idol from late 1970′s to 1980′s  in Japan. She followed the top idol status after MOMOE YAMAGUCHI as Momoe retired the singer at the time of her wedding.

Momoe’s retire was a sudden shock for her fans. Maybe all the Japanese idol fans thought no new idol like Momoe would be born soon.

Against their hopelessness, SEIKO MATSUDA made her time after that.  She was just an ordinary idol star for the first time. After the big hit of AOI  SANGOSHO ( or  BLUE LAGOON in English ), SEIKO soon grabbed the top status as Momoe used to have.

If an objective comparison is needed, probably many would coose MOMOE as the real idol of Japan in the 70′s and 80′s. But Momoe’s active time was too short.

On the contrary, SEIKO MATSUDA kept singing.  She is still a star although the fans numbers went down.

All her single song records at the time were all big hits. Those who spent young days in 80′s still remember her songs in their ears.

SEIKO MATSUDA is known to all the Japanese still and actually she hit a big time then.

HITOMI ISHIKAWA certainly made her time in 1980′s in Japan. Her smile melted men’s heart and her haircut became national fashion.  Everything she does looked cute and she often appeared on TV all over Japan.

Unfortunately, she failed in keeping her health and that she needed to quit the stage work and TV work in the middle of her huge popularity.

She scarecely comes up on TV recently. However, memory of Hitomi Ishikawa still remains in Japanese youngster then. She was a real idol at that time.

CADIES was a very big idol group in 1970′s of Japan. They first came up with a hit song, Toshishitano Otokonoko or Younger Boy in English . Ever since they made a hit with the song, they continued idol status till they break and quit in late 70′s.

They were still so popular when the last concert was given, but they chose the different life from idol girls on TV.

Ran, the center girl, often took lead vocal.  Sue, the right side gir, first took the leading vocal but when missing the hit chart with the song, she gave the leading role to Ran.  Miki is always a cute and humble girl in the left side. She took a leading vocal song at the ending time of the group in late 70′s.

Each member has fans respectively. In that sense, Candies could not be possible if they came up as solo singer. 3 members made a strong idol unit, that was the Candies.

Looking back the video then, they are all charming enough to be able to stand todays stage.

Micheal Jackson is still popular in Japan too. The news of his new movie, This Is It, reports that Michael’s movies is expected much in the world.

Personally, I was not such a huge fan of Michael Jackson.  Some of my friends were following him from album to album, but to be honest, his fans were not many around me.

However, many of my friends knew his songs. That’s because his songs were on air everywhere we went especially in the time of album, Thriller.  That album became a kind of hurricane into Japan. His songs and dance were always imitated at Karaoke time as party entertainment.  Everybody enjoyed the time of Michael Jackson.

After that, the sales of his album were not convincing in Japan compared to Thriller.Gradually, Michael Jackson fans turned back to where he should be. 

I’m not a Michael fan but I’m a huge music fan in Japan. In my opinion, Michael was a god-sent entertainer for our generation. His music is indeed a high quality music, though, his music needed other entertaining factors, dance, fashion, or gossip. In the total image of Michael Jackson, we enjoyed the time with him.

Often the legendary musicians like Beethove, Bach, Mozart, or Beatles don’t need any other information than music. As far as we listen to their music, we are deeply moved by the inspirational music by their talent.

Michael was not like these artists. He formed all the sense into himself and he expressed the time of our generation. 

When we think back about Michael Jackson, we, at least my friends and I, don’t neet to listen to his music again anad again. Maybe the best way is that we enjoy his movie, This Is It, on the screen. Then we can take our memory back in our heart with total image of him.

SPIRITED AWAY may be the most famous movie of Miyazaki animation in the world because this one took Academy award, Gold Award at Berlin Film Festival, and a number of awards both in Japan and in the world.

In this sense, Spirited Away is the highest achievement of Miyazaki works. If you know Miyazaki animation works, you might be thinking that his works are for all the family. That’s true. But this film is sometimes hard to understand for kids because this contains Japanese cultural and traditional way of thinking, very unique understanding to life, and a kind of philosophy about moral of people.

Of couse, art works are incredibly beautiful and characters are funny and impressive, so maybe children also can enjoy simply watching the screen. For adults, this story could be a door for the new world of fantasy.

Leading role girl tries to help her parents by her own efforts in this story, which shows how a child should grow in the world and how life is hard, wondrous, or beautiful. This story is also interesting but again a little hard to understand even for Japanese adults if they are not familiar to sense of Japanese mental cultures.

In this point of view, this movie is a highly adult oriented movie with high sense of intelligence. That’s why this work could get many awards of great value.

In Japan, Spirited Away made the box office record in the movie history and it has never been replaced by another. As a reference, the second record is HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE, and the third one is PRINCESS MONONOKE.  Miyazaki Movies still have top 3 records of Japanese box record movies.

As a fan of his works, I also like this movie. He was seriously considering about children’s future of Japan when Princess Mononoke was made. He often commented that he was worried about the healthy future of young people because at the time there were many social problems concerned with urban children in Japan. At the time, some lost the social contact ability working too much on games or internet, and some lost hope or ambition to their future because Japan was suffering from serious recession.  In Princess Mononoke, Miyazaki gave them a strong message ” LIVE ! “. That was a splendid attitude then, so many praised his work.

I was also pleased to see Spirited Away because I thought Miyazaki came back to his own creative world, or in a healthy condition. He could put the serious message aside in this movie, and I thought he could focus on his original and creative world with beautiful story and wonderful textbook of life in it. I like both types.  Miyazaki’s attempt often gives us a good philosophy of life, and dreaming fantasy too.

If Princess Mononoke was categorized in the first type, I would say Spirited Away is a mixture of 1st type and latter type at the rate of 30:70. In Spirited Away, message is covered with soft filter, but it sure is in the movie. And the fantastic world of hope and beautiful humanity are exactly expressed in this art of work.

The first time I saw Spirited Away, I wondered what Mr. Miyazaki wanted to tell in this movie because his movie more or less has a theme or concept in it. My first impression about this movie is that this movie tells about the growth of a girl or a person.

Still the impression prevails in my mind, but later again, when I saw it next time, I thought that Miyazaki tried to describe good old time of Japan through Japanese old tale.

In Japan, there was a firm moral or people’s faith in mind. But now with the change of the society, it’s about to fade away. Some are greedy and some are selfish now. In the old time of Japan, people are always caring of each other. Beautiful moral and custom rested in our mind.

In the movie, the parents turn into animals (pigs) when they break the rule of the society. And the girl remained there needs to struggle with her own efforts and judgement.

 Throguh this experience, she grows. This story tells both beautiful aspect of human and evil of human mind. Long time ago, Japanese children needed to work with their family for help. But now it’s not like that, and parents themselves are becoming selfish.

Miyazaki might try to tell the good old virtue of Japan in this movie as a common human heart.

Without hesitation. I can recommend this movie to family, and especially adults who forgot family mind should see this movie. You will find them again and some Japanese flavoured story will give you exotic presentation from different culture.

Nausciaa of the valley of the wind is a strong impact movie with solid messages to modern world.

I think Mr. Miyazaki’s utopia and ruins of heart are both staying here. He is probably disappointed with the technology society that has no attention to nature in this world, and he has a strong desire to bring the utopia back to this world.

The  symbol of  his hope is NAUSICAA.

Nausicaa is really strong, warmhearted, nature oriented, and talented. She has tremendous leadership with her own personality and she sacrifices herself at any desperate moment if it contributes to rest of the world.

When we see this movie, some cry with touching ending, and the other might think that this is more a social movie than a simple animation. I think both results are right. This movie has all the emotions we human have. Some agree to an aspect, and the other can say NO to the same scene, maybe. But at the end, I’m sure that everybody will be influenced by the beautiful and strong message of this movie, which will not disappear in the rest of our life.

Message is really strong, but emotionally this movie tells softly to each person. That’s why many audience got moved, that’s why Japanese people and animation industry were deeply impressed with the birth of a new animation era.

Nausicaa of the valley of the wind is such a monumental animation movie in Japan. Also probably you will agree with me if you watch this great movie. Just like Star Wars moves us even if that is a space fiction movie, Nausicaa also gives us never ending pleasure. I think Nausicaa is more for adults than children because the plot is set with high intelligence.

As above, story is amazing. Animation art is also amazing. This movie is often called ” PERFECT” . How can we criticize it ?

Lupin the 3rd; The Castle of Cagliostro is the first film of Mr. Hayao Miyazaki as a film director. But this is shared with the other person as directors, also the basic idea, LUPIN the 3rd, was the other people’s original. In general, this is not regarded as a 100% pure Hayao Miyazaki Movie. Many people in Japan say the first one is Nausicaa of the valley of the wind. However, the animation production and plot works are real Miyazaki’s world.

He was still working as a company staff at this time, so maybe he did not totally have the direction right. But this movie has a lot of Miyazaki animation essence.

Story is funny and characters are all very unique. Words are interesting and they have tricky fun with a lot of Japanese comedy sense. Miyazaki fans often say this movie is the origin of his world, and it’s certainly true. A lot of applause came over on this movie after the release from animation workers and movie critics. But for the first time, it was not a big hit at the theaters. Maybe the marketing was not good. Also LUPIN was long seller in Japan so LUPIN solely had core fans, therefore, some of the fans did not like Miyazaki’s comprehension about LUPIN.

But gradually this movie created more and more good reputation, and Japanese major TV station liked to rerun this many times. No sooner than these things happened, Lupin the 3rd; The Castle of Cagliostro became the common textbook for the future animators because this animation movie has a lot of hints, imagination, and techniques for making good animation. Also the fans recognized this is the LUPIN the 3rd.

It’s said that, in the editing works, some voice talent said NO to Miyazaki because they have worked long for this series. But after they saw the result of finished movie, everybody began to obey with Miyazaki with saying ” Sir “.

I don’t have to say many things about this movie because this is a real fun movie, and this is a touching movie at the end. Ending word of detective, Zenigata, is still a memorable word for many fans. He says ” Lupin stolen nothing but your heart ! ”

Fantastic word ! ( You will understand what I want to say after seeing this movie )

If you like Miyazaki works, I’m sure you will love this one too.