Eric
Marlow
Nate
Peter
RSS 2010-08-01
I think people feel obligated to say things like “this was a really hard decision” when making announcements like this, but it wasn’t. Everyone who has participated in HikanNinja has had some pretty significant changes in their lives over the last year leading to less and less contribution, fewer updates and less regular content.
Add to that the issue that we all want to focus our time on other projects as well and it makes sense to shut down HN.
I own this domain until 2015 so until then I will leave what has been posted here unless one of us comes up with another use for the name. Or if you would like to buy it off me for the sum I paid for it (a million dollars) feel free to get in touch at hikanninja at gmail dot com.
For more generalized topics (not just focused on Japan) you can visit my personal website at ninjalicker.com
There are 1,694 entries including comments, this one will round it out to 1,695.
add comment to post #712
Dave K.:You don't know me but I think I came across your blog because of your penchant for reviewing disgusting flavors of Pepsi. It's been in my feed since. Great run, enjoyed it, good luck on whatever else you're all doing.
Nick:I blame this on Eric.
Peter:You should blame this on Eric. Blaming pretty much everything on Eric is an okay idea.
Reviews and all the stuff I did here will still exist at ninjalicker.com only you can expect a lot of other random stuff as well.
chris:otsukare! i've enjoyed this site a lot. thanks for all the hard work!
2010-07-29
See that fairly pretty young lady. She has two names. The first is Rina Nakanishi. That was the name she used when she was in the girl group AKB48. She wasn't the most popular member, in fact, there are so many members of the group that most members are not the most popular members. This has led to some problems for the fame hungry women who so desperately seek attention.
The more astute readers will be able to work out the AV in this ad means adult video, which is where Rina has ended up, but her AV name is Rico Yamaguchi.
Capitalizing on fleeting fame isn't exactly shameless in my opinion, but part of me wonders if she would have ended up in porn if she hadn't been part of a girl group in the first place. It also makes me wonder if this will reflect poorly on the rest of the group, or start a new trend.
add comment to post #711
2010-07-27
Here's some hip hop from Ryuzo from Kyoto. The video contains the clever line, "You're under arrest for the creation and distribution of drug music." Get it? 'Cuz dat shit'll get you high. Cookin Soul remix below.
2010-07-26
A secret I have basically kept from my wife is that our second child is sort of named after one of my favorite manga characters. I read the books in English so I knew her as Alita, from the Battle Angel Alita series. Turns out her real name in the original Japanese is "Gally" and the cat is named Alita, but it was switched for English publication.
There are plans to make a live action version of the movie, but I doubt it will work out. There is really too much material for a really good focused two hours unless they just concentrate on the origin story, but that leaves out a lot of the good stuff. Also there would be casting, Gally is supposed to be pretty young looking and small, so getting multiple movies out of a teen actress is a stretch.
The real reason I am writing this is because I tried to talk about this character with some Japanese people and it illustrates a fairly large misconception about Japan. I tried to tell my friends about "Gunnm" and their first assumption was I was mis-pronouncing "Gundam". That being one of the most famous long running animations in Japan and generally not my type of program.
This is actually one of the more influential comics and most, if not all of the people I encounter on a day to day basis have never heard of it. Many newcomers to Japan are under the impression that pretty much all Japanese people read and therefore have a fairly deep knowledge of Japanese anime and manga. What I have found is that most adults have maybe one comic they still read if any at all. My wife reads one piece, but doesn't know anything else about any other comic other than stories I have introduced her to. One Piece, in this case, is sort of a hold over from her teenage years and it is something she wouldn't readily admit to people unless she knew them rather well.
So if you are really into comics and come to Japan, be prepared to introduce your Japanese friends to them and not the other way round. Unless you are going to the anime cosplay summit or something similar.
add comment to post #709
2010-07-14
Japan loves it some videos. A great show here has clips of things happen slowly. So of course they chose the most tasteful things, like slapping people in the face.
2010-07-13
Loyal readers know I recently become the owner of the Sony iphone and i have been pretty pleased with it. As was Sony, which sold 300,000 of these little bitches in the first month. Others perked up their ears and all realized "Damn, we sure missed out on the large phone without the phone function phone." called the ipad.
Samsung has you covered, please click here for their website that I hate with a passion. They are going to introduce the Galaxy S, which is an android run version of the ipad.
Should be interesting.
add comment to post #707
tom said 'Just wanted to update thi...' chris said 'otsukare! i've enjoyed th...' Peter said 'You should blame this on ...' Nick said 'I blame this on Eric....' Dave K. said 'You don't know me but I t...'
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All the most recent news worth reading on Japan broken down into easily digestible chunks for those drug / media addled minds who are incapable of reading full length articles. Also, totally biased commentary which I will immediately claim as unbiased reporting.
Eric
Marlow
Nate
Peter
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