I can sort of see the thought process that leads to this. “There aren’t many Japanese people in Australia and NZ, we need to target non-Asians in our advertising to increase soy sauce consumption!” -> “Japanese people use a lot of soy sauce, we should target them directly by placing an ad in a Japanese magazine” -> “Let’s translate one of our other ads into Japanese!”. Which leads to… *facepalm*

Nice soy sauce though. For my Japanese marketing/advertising and consumer information needs, I usually browse Japan Marketing News and JapanConsuming. On a more lighthearted note, Konbini Life is fun – microreviews of various sweets bought at convenience stores in Japan. Lisa at TokyoMango also has the occasional entry about (generally non-edible) interesting Japanese products.

And I’ll return to more regular blogging… some day. Maybe not right now, but I just had to share this.

There was a better article on this, but I can’t find it anymore so have this one – The Gamesman bought out by EB/Gamestop. I kept meaning to write about it back when it first broke, but… I’m lazy. It’s kind of a big deal because it means that the only game specialist stores in New Zealand with more than one branch will be EB stores, which are in a strange quantum state of being overpriced yet constantly on sale. I’m a bit surprised by this, because the management of GDE, which ran The Gamesman, seemed pretty anti-EB.

As in, it was not unheard of for staff in the course of a normal trip out to the mall to feel compelled to enter an EB store for the sole purpose of making disparaging comments about the decor, hygiene of the staff and general inferiority of the chain. Sure, the first few times it was amusing, but every single mall trip got to be a bit excessive, and wound up with this writer dragging said staff member out of the store forcibly and trying to avoid future mall visits. Talking to the girlfriend of another staff member dispelled the notion that this was an individual quirk. An entire company full of people who do this seems a bit weird, but I suppose their corporate culture was kinda weird anyway…

Plus there seemed to be a bit of bad blood due to EB’s decision to stock Madman DVDs from Madman Australia rather than the (now formerly) GDE-run Madman NZ, the reason for which was, from what I remember, that they suspected a conflict of interest due to their running of The Gamesman chain. While that’s ancient history due to EB no longer stocking DVDs and GDE no longer distributing Madman, I do wonder how much it cost to get Phil to swallow his pride and accept this offer. I’m also a bit wary that they seem to be setting the online business to compete directly with GP Store, but hey, I’m not telling anyone how to run their business.

The Vodafone iPhone pricing came out and wow, 1GB per month for $250 a month? Mmm, price gouging. There’s little else to say other than “Are you exploiting a monopoly here?” Gah this makes me remember why I hate marketing types.

So tl;dr – Australia fucking us over, America fucking us over, corporations fucking us over. Sucks living in a small country. The answer is always import.

Via Kotaku and video from Campbell Live

To be honest, this year I’m pretty underwhelmed by the range of films. I’m usually pretty big on seeing anime at the cinema, but there isn’t even very much of that. But this is a long entry nonetheless…

Anime is represented by Evangelion 1.0 and Vexille. I’d never heard of Vexille so I looked it up – it’s by the director of the live action Ping Pong. It’s also already been out in the States on DVD for the past month, ugh. So shit, basically – I’m pretty pissed that Madman NZ have screwed us out of any chance of seeing anything good. I’ll still wind up seeing Evangelion, but… eh. It’s at the Skycity cinemas, for one, which is highly unatmospheric (for any non-locals reading this, the main screenings are done in the theatre from the modern King Kong movie – you know, where they’re exhibiting Kong and he breaks free and escapes into New York).

There’s Sukiyaki Western Django, for the Takashi Miike fans here (the guy who did Audition). It sounds… kind of odd, but that’s Miike for you. I still have no idea what it’s about, so read the synopsis for yourself.

The new movie by Nobuhiro Yamashita (directed Linda Linda Linda, and The Matsugane Potshot Affair from last year’s film fest), which is apparently based on a shoujo manga series. It’s been given the horribly bland English title of A Gentle Breeze in the Village. A good watch if you like boring tedium/slice of life stories, I imagine – Linda Linda Linda was worth seeing for the opening tracking shot through the high school festival preparations alone. Also I Just Didn’t Do It, which won a boatload of things at the Japanese Academy Awards. Still looks… eh.

Lots of Chinese, Hong Kong and Taiwanese film for those of you who are into that sort of thing, including a retrospective on Edward Yang. Top of my list there is probably Stephen Chow’s CJ7 – it’ll be interesting to see him do something a bit different to his older work (Kung Fu Hustle, Shaolin Soccer). Also Wong Kar-wai’s Ashes of Time Redux, relegated to the ghetto of the Skycity theatre. I didn’t even know he did wuxia. Only two Korean films this year, and both look rapeful, so I think I’ll skip that.

Lots of American and French film, especially docos like King of Kong, Gonzo: The Life and Work of Doctor Hunter S. Thompson and Standard Operating Procedure. Personally I want to see Michel Gondry’s Be Kind, Rewind, partially because of this video (Probably best to watch the official trailer first though).

Zombies (though I haven’t been able to get into Romero), Nazis (Best Foreign Film at the Oscars last year), Das Experiment Lite, Turkmenistan, Ben X and Boy A both showing on the same day in Auckland (bound to cause confusion), the world’s most descriptive title, The Next Karate Kid, among others. Also lots of European torture porn in the Incredibly Strange Film Festival section, if you’re into that sort of thing.

There doesn’t seem to be anything too horribly pretentiously indie, which is a relief, but still seems like slim pickings this year. Especially The Incredible Film Festival section – I expected more than splatter movies, and it did not deliver.

So anyway, so a list of what I’m interested in.

A Gentle Breeze in the Village

Yeah, what the hell, might as well. If it isn’t boring as hell, it might not be so bad.

Be Kind, Rewind

Michel Gondry is an imperfect director, but I forgive him. Plus I like Jack Black and I think Mos Def is a highly underrated.

CJ7

Stephen Chow hasn’t steered me wrong so far.

Earth

Apparently the BBC’s Planet Earth is one of the best things on bluray right now, and this is derived from it. Sometimes you’re in the mood for a grandiose nature doco, though it remains to be seen whether I’ll feel this way in a few weeks’ time.

Evangelion 1.0

Because it’s a moneygrubbing attempt to leech money out of a classic series, and I’m stupid enough to fall for that shit.

Flight of the Red Balloon

The director Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s earlier film Cafe Lumiere holds a firm place in my heart – the main character in the film lives a few steps away from my grandparents’ house in Tokyo, and while the film’s slow pace is definitely not for everyone, for me it managed to perfectly capture a certain time and place that’s very special to me. If he can manage the same for the city of Paris, it’s definitely something I want to see.

In Bruges

Must see Irish humour, apparently.

In Search of a Midnight Kiss

This film apparently manages to make downtown Los Angeles look romantic. Kind of curious as to how that goes…

Obscene

One of my favourite poems is Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” (along with Oscar Wilde’s “Ballad of Reading Gaol”, if you must know) and this film covers, among other things, the legal battle to publish it in Britain. Plus censorship is something I’ve been fairly uneducated about and feel I should care more about.

The Orphanage

Apparently a great spooky Spanish horror film, strong on atmosphere. It’s a Spanish blockbuster too, which I like – I generally go to the festival to see popular foreign films, rather than stuff that’s niche even in its own country. Produced by Guillermo del Toro, and apparently it’s got that creepy Pan’s Labyrinth vibe. Plus, you know, orphanages are scary as shit.

Persepolis

It lost out on the Best Animated Feature Oscar to Ratatouille last year. Plus you know, Iranian Revolution black and white animated coming of age film in French… deep. It looks interesting, even though the last animation I saw in French was The Triplets of Belleville. I won’t hold that against it.

Standard Operating Procedure

I read this blog entry by the director Errol Morris regarding the Abu Ghraib photographs and immediately realised that I’d been doing the same kneejerk reaction. I don’t agree with everything he says, but from reading some of the other stuff he’s blogged, I admire his depth of analysis. Go read that article!

The Visitor

The director Tom McCarthy made The Station Agent, which was all sorts of things I should hate – Sundance acclaimed full of self-absorbed Americans wandering around doing nothing, yet McCarthy managed to make me thoroughly enjoy his film. While the synopsis worries me, I hope he can do the same this time around.

So like I said, slim pickings this year, heh.

Strangely enough the “iPhone coming to New Zealand in July” rumour was actually right. Doubly strange because I got it from The New Zealand Herald 2 months ago.

Feature summary:

• US$200 for 8GB model, US$300 for 16GB model (also available in shiny white). US$200 works out to around NZ$260 currently. Which is ridiculous – an 8GB iPod Nano currently retails in NZ for NZ$299. NZ$250 currently buys you one of these:
  
  Admittedly, yes, the US$200 pricetag takes the whole AT&T subsidy into account (then again, the same applied for the previous US$399 price), but at the same time the WWDC Keynote Address (you can watch it here, but it’s a bit cult-like) says it’ll be a maximum of $199 (I assume Steve Jobs means USD).

  Seriously, considering the iPhone is a high end smartphone that competes with the likes of the Nokia N95 (retailing for NZ$999), I can’t see any other scenario than Vodafone massively jacking up the prices (even more than they usually do!) in order force it to fit in with their existing catalogue, which makes me sad. It’ll blow my mind if they actually do sell it here for ~$260.

  But yeah, the price is a big thing for me. As Time Magazine rather sarcastically notes, “Steve Jobs did something never before seen in the history of Apple: He unveiled a cutting-edge product that’s relatively cheap.“

• 3G – yay, catching up to the rest of the world!
• GPS. Or more precisely, GPS + roaming (what with 3G and all) + Google Maps. Fuck yes.
• App store and release of the SDK – because sometimes with Apple product, the best and most useful apps are open source, 3rd party and free. I’m hoping for the best of that sort of development environment growing up around the iPhone somehow in conjuction with something like the iTunes store. I don’t really like the idea of paying for stuff because I’m stingy, but who knows, they may come up with something I like. Basically I’m hoping for a more transparent environment that doesn’t make things difficult for users who simply want to get more out their device.
• Improved battery life – sure, the press release figures are probably in no way relevant to real world use, but that’s the same with all promotional specs released.

Of course, that being said there’s still various flaws. The camera is still 2 megapixel with no flash, and no front camera for video calls. No video recording either, and I use that sometimes. The battery is still non-removable, so if it goes, you’ll be a sad panda. The new iPhone is actually thicker than the old one (but still weighs less, and the difference is in millimetres anyway). No MMS, so no sending or receiving PXTs. Bluetooth is still somewhat crippled, not that I’d really use it for anything other than copying stuff onto and off the phone. Copy and paste is still unavailable also, which I guess is an issue, but not really a dealbreaker for me. Storage is still 8GB and 16GB, with no 32GB iPhone in sight. And the back is plastic compared to the metal casing of the first iPhone, so durability could take a hit.

That said, I kind of want it. My main issue of lack of 3G has been solved and I like the GPS. Certainly the price is attractive. Ideally if it didn’t do what I wanted it to there’d be a 3rd party app to fill that void also, which would be neat. I’m really pleased about the worldwide launch – this is more the iPhone launch version I was expecting, rather than what happened last year. I’m loving the little Aqua country flags on the site. It’s gone a long way towards assuaging my feelings of unease about the original device.

Vodafone NZ is promising data plans to go along with their iPhone launch and so maybe then they’ll stop gouging us for mobile bandwidth. I think that’s about the only thing that would get me off my current Prepay phone plan – the now defunct Motormouth Prepay plan. Supa Prepay does nothing for me personally, and I don’t use my phone enough to warrant a plan. But a good enough data plan may change that. Who knows. I guess it’s time to wait and see, we’ve got a month till the July 11th release anyway.

Via Gizmodo and CNet

We’ll probably get a Naruto guest to round things out *sigh*

No, didn’t think so, that’s why I included it. Turns out the American voice of Kakashi, Dave Wittenberg, has been confirmed for the October event. Also Grey Delisle, aka Mandy of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. Useful since Richard Horvitz, the voice of Billy (and Zim and so on), came over last year.

So my only purpose in posting this was to prove myself right. Mind you, it’s a hollow victory, given the size of the Naruto cast compared to the size of the pool of American voice actors.

Demo for Civilization Revolution coming out on PSN tomorrow. Only on the US PSN, but a PAL gamer should already have at least 2 PSN accounts anyway. Time to see whether it sucks or not!

Lastly, Red PS2 and Blue PSP for Japan. I want both, which is ridiculous because I only want them for the pretty colours. Such pretty colours.

Via Armageddon Official Site, Eurogamer and Kotaku

Well ok, there never was a Nintendo New Zealand technically – instead, there is a company that distributes their product locally under licence. Or rather, was a company. See, it turns out Softprint Interactive who used to do this (and Activision and also Logitech and a whole raft of other brand names) has gone under, with no replacements yet in sight. Which means no Wii Fit and no Super Smash Bros Brawl in New Zealand for the foreseeable future.

Most people would consider this bad news, but then, I’ve never really been a big fan of Nintendo. So much so that I’m currently doing the Sony fangirl jig of delight.

This isn’t the first time Nintendo distribution has failed epically in New Zealand, of course. The previous distributor Monaco threw in the towel right before the release of the Wii, which I think left things up in the air for us a bit back then (hey, I didn’t really want a Wii so I wasn’t following the news too carefully). And even when distribution has been functional, Nintendo consoles and handhelds haven’t been hugely popular – the DS was being beaten by the PSP fairly regularly even back when the rest of the world had written the PSP off, the N64 did poorly and so on and so forth back through all the generations. So really, it’s just another chapter in a book of failure.

Anyway, recommence jig of schadenfreude!

Via Geekpulp, Kotaku and NZGamer

Apparently what appears to be a Ghibli licensed patisserie, making nothing but Totoro shaped cream puffs, has showed up in suburban Tokyo. This image is making me hungry. The details, in case anyone who reads this is anywhere near Tokyo:
3-21-21 Takaido Higashi, Suginami-ku, Tokyo, and the map shows it as close to the Takaido station off the Keio Inokashira line. The hours are 11am-7pm with Wednesdays off. Website: http://www.shiro-hige.com

Of course, I’m far more likely to end up there than at Patisserie Swallowtail. Even if… mmm, delicious…

Except, goddamn, now I’m craving omu-rice. With something cute drawn on the top in tomato sauce, or something. Which of course any self-respecting maid cafe in Japan, or even less self-respecting places outside of Japan would do.

Of course, there’s other novelty cafe options in Tokyo. I don’t exactly make a habit of trying them all (maybe I should?) because so many of them are temporary affairs, but there’s always this place:

The menu is… a bit odd. There’s a disconcertingly large amount of pasta on there, and there was also a photo of a burger containing kiwifruit. And to top it all off, there’s an Outback Steakhouse next door *shakes fist*

The address, in case you’re interested, is 6-1-3 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo. It’s fairly close to Roppongi station on both the Oedo line and Hibiya line, and there’s more info on the site if you need it.

Probably my favourite of the places is Jackson Hole from the live action film, anime and manga franchise NANA. It technically doesn’t count as a novelty food place, given the bar existed before the manga, but it’s still nice because the entire place is exactly as it appears in the show. And of course there’s the Jackson Burgers, which are kind of small and kind of expensive, but oh so tasty.

Unfortunately, they closed their original store at the end of March this year and moved, and I can’t find their new address. It’s on the north side Chofu station on the Keio line (changing at Shinjuku is the easiest way to go) in Tokyo though, as opposed to the south side where it was previously. I don’t know if they’ll keep the decor or anything, but no doubt they’ll still have the burgers.

Via Nausicaa.net and Yahoo News

First off, a big fuck you Australia! Turns out they’re just a bunch of uptight pricks after all.

Basically, our local distributors rely on Australian distribution channels and ended up with the censored Australian version of GTAIV which was rated R18 (i.e restricted to people 18 and over). However, the uncensored version was recently submitted to the Office of Film and Literature Classification, and passed with the same R18 rating. Unfortunately our lazy major retailers will no doubt keep importing from Australia, but it means you won’t be arrested for importing it from the States or UK, or paying someone else to import it. After all, it doesn’t make sense banning the uncensored version on the basis of prostitution scenes in a country where you can legally go out and get a prostitute at that age.

Madman AU being bought out again? After being bought out by Australian toy company Funtastic, it turns out Funtastic has been going down the shitter ever since. Buying another company only tangentially related to your main business might not be such a good idea after all! I should have guessed something was up when they lost the bidding war for Evangelion 1.0. But yes, right when Funtastic were considering setting Madman adrift again, the Archer consortium is trying to buy Funtastic out.

Certainly the Funtastic takeover seemed like a bit of a shambles from the New Zealand consumer perspective – Funtastic bought out Planet Fun, a local toy distributor and transferred control of Madman NZ to them while they were at it, whereas previously it was operated by Gamewizz Digital Entertainment (which had its own problems, but we should probably let bygones be bygones). While we only really see our monopolistic distributors at the Armageddon conventions, the changeover was immediately obvious with a rather glaring and disappointing change in policy (spearheaded by the folk of Madman AU) – that of DVD convention pricing being little different from RRP, which led to some rather annoyed customers.

From what I understand, Madman NZ distribution and so on is controlled as a smaller piece of the larger Funtastic machinery in operation here – which puts Urotsukidoji right next to the High School Musical game, and of magnitudes less importance. It doesn’t help that Gamesplus (a local gaming chain and anime retailer) closed down last year, leaving far fewer retail stores stocking anime DVDs and generally fucking over their plan of getting their DVDs into the Sounds music stores run by the same folks. Not all the business set-backs are their fault. But at the same time, the word from their existing retailers seems to be that things are still a mess on their DVD distribution front – do they even have a dedicated manager for the DVD part of their NZ business? It doesn’t seem so, given they still have Sylvester Ip from the Australian arm of the business coming over to manage con events. Like I said, a mess.

If you live in Auckland, you might want to try JB Hi-Fi instead – I’m under the impression they get their stock direct from Australia (like EB Games used to until they stopped distributing DVDs altogether). Last I saw they had plenty of Death Note Limited Edition Vol 1 and 2 boxes, which Madman NZ has apparently long run out of. Of if you aren’t already, consider importing. It really makes more sense, particular given our whole DVD region free thing.

About the only good thing Planet Fun have achieved is managing to get the Madman DVDs into The Warehouse chain, which is effectively the largest DVD retailer in the country, from memory. Yet their business still appears haphazard and ill-managed, with the New Zealand fan ultimately losing out. So will this buyout improve things? Somehow I doubt it – Madman NZ is now a small part of Madman Australia, which in turn is a small part of Funtastic, which is in the process of being swallowed by a progressively larger whale. Doesn’t seem good. And they still need to make the shift over to Blu-ray.

Sorry, this turned a bit ranty. Hmm.

Also, because there’s always so little local news, there’s this: Warhammer Online worldwide simultaneous release actually including us, with a dedicated server even. I was rather excited about this bit of local news until I realised that I honestly couldn’t give a shit about Warhammer.

Via Stuff.co.nz, Anime News Network (ugh, I need a better source) and Kotaku

• Adam West – I loved his bit part in Drop Dead Gorgeous.

• Doug Jones – Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth – Seeing as his longtime collaborator Guillermo del Toro is doing The Hobbit down in Wellington, will he be involved? Might be something to keep in mind to ask…
• Anime voice actors – Crispin Freeman, Sean Schemmel – again, recycling guests from previous years. We’ll probably get a Naruto guest to round things out *sigh*
• Ernie Hudson – Ghostbusters – Kind of cool, I guess.

The rest I don’t really care about (well, care even less about is more accurate I guess):

• Michael Shanks – Daniel Jackson in Stargate SG1

• David Anders – Adam Munroe/Takezo Kensei in Heroes and Julian Sark in Alias
• Jim Lee – Comic Artist
• Stargate Atlantis stars David Hewlett and Andee Frizzell

Nothing too awe-inspiring yet, but it’s still 5 months away. Anything could happen, really. Yeah I know, I’m having trouble sounding enthusiastic about this. You would too.

Via New Zealand Armageddon Official Site