Big news day
JAPAN | Friday, 31 July 2009 | Views [80]
Before I go into the story about the picture...Siggraph emailed me today, 'Flip' has been selected to screen at Siggraph Asia in December. For those who don't know about these things, that's a very big deal in the animation festival circuit. The funny thing is I have been waiting and biting my nails over the Ottawa Animation Festival, they are supposed to contact us by the end of July, which is today. Actually it's North America so they're a day behind, but in any case sometime in the next 24 hours the dealine is up.
So it came as a complete shock when I got the email from Siggraph today saying 'Flip' was selected to screen in the electronic theatre, it's great news though. The thing that may throw a spanner in the works is that they require HD films for the electronic theatre and 'Flip ' is only standard definition, but I'm working on that. Because of the rough and fairly naive nature of the artwork I think it will upscale ok, and I can produce a new HD background with papergrain etc, then overlay the drawings on that and scale them up. If they go a bit soft it probably won't matter too much because of the nature of the drawings.
Anyway, as you may have noticed from the recent photos Ive been in Osaka and Kyoto the last few days. I went to Universal Studios Japan, which is really just like being at Disneyland in many ways, it's just a big theme park with rides that are mostly based on movies.
Next day I went to Kyoto, I was going to do the touristy temple tours, but then I saw there was an exhibition of paintings from the Louvre at the art museum. So I gladly dumped the idea of seeing more temples and went to that instead, it was great, but way too crowded. Worth the discomfort to see the paintings though.
Today I was just walking around Osaka, I got a bit lost and then suddenly recognised the hotel I stayed at the first time I came, almost a year and a half ago. Down from the hotel was a park with some play equipment and a few shady trees. It was stinking hot so I sat in the shade and then wandered around a little and took some photos. As I got my bearings I found they way to a shopping centre I remembered from last time, I headed that way to get into some air conditioned comfort.
Now to the photo. There's some adult themes here, which I mention because I know there may be a couple of kids who read this from time to time, parents use your best judgement please.
On the way to the shopping mall I was waiting at a corner to cross the street (traffic lights take forever to change here, probably something to do with low speed limits). As I waited a girl came out of the building on the same corner, she was really very attractive and smiled at me as she came to the corner to cross, which made my day, though my instinctive reaction to things like that is to avert my eyes and try not to fall over as I walk away. Especially since she was wearing an incredibly short dress, which is extremely common in Japan. Some western women I've spoken to have said that they believe it's because so many Japanese women are flat chested, so their fashion has evolved to show off other attributes.
I wouldn't dare comment on a statement like that, it's what I've been told by others, believe what you like.
Interestingly a really short skirt or shorts (even hotpants) seem to be perfectly acceptable when walking around major cities (not so much in conservative old Kiryu), but bare shoulders are considered inappropriate. This girl wasn't crossing in the same direction as me, but off to my right over the little side street.
Then this guy appears and starts yelling at her, I would guess he was in his mid 40s at the very least (although you can't tell his age very well from the photo), but dressed like a trendy 20 something and he was seemingly pretty upset. I saw he was getting out from a car with its hazard lights going that was pulled up illegally in front of the building the girl had just came out of.
That's another thing in Japan, it seems you can do pretty much anything you like if you put hazard lights on.
So, at first I thought this guy was angry because he'd been waiting for his daughter or something. But she didn't react like she knew him, he was waving a mobile phone around and she said something back over her shoulder to him that I couldn't understand and kept walking across the side street to a convenience store. She didn't speak loudly or aggressively, but politely and apologetically.
The guy literally snorted in what I took for disgust and went back to his car muttering to himself. Then I get my light change and cross over the 4 lane main road.
When I get to the other side I see the guy has done a u-turn and pulled up on what is now my side of the road, as the girl gets out of the store he runs across the street yelling again and waving his phone. She seems kind of flustered but stops.
Now I know what's going on, he's asking for her number and she hasn't immediately given it to him. His strategy appears to be to get angry and forceful till she gives in. There isn't anything physical going on, but his manner and body language are pretty intimidating. Anyway, I'm still watching from across the road, though it's a fair distance and they don't notice, I was taking pictures so I snapped one of the exchange. I stuck around since I confess I was kind of interested, but also concerned.
I was not at all surprised when the girl eventually left to go back to work and the guy went on his way, obviously quite pissed off. But I was very surprised at how long she talked with him and how polite she was the whole time, even when she left.
So there are two possible explanations, one is that the guy was engaging in the well known Japanese past time of 'nanpa' or 'girl hunting'. Basically it's where guys try to pick up girls on the street, it's apparently very common and considered less embarrassing than the potential of being rejected by someone you know and may have to see again. This is why the notoriously shy and insecure young men of Japan are ironically enough often engaged in trying to chat up girls on the street. It's usually the young guys who do this though, you see them out and about in the standard 'nanpa' uniform, usually a black, tight fitting suit with some hanging chains or a studded belt, and carefully arranged often orange spiky hair, like a character from some Japanese comic book.
The other possibility is that he was a tout for some kind aspect of the sex trade and was trying to recruit a new worker. That doesn't necessarily mean he wanted to recruit a prostitute, more likely a hostess for one of the many bars.
From what I understand (not first hand experience obviously) most prostitutes in Japan are actually Korean, Chinese, Filipina, Thai or some other nationality. The Japanese girls tend to be either very expensive call girls, for the rich clients only, or bar hostesses. Hostesses are paid to sit with male clients and flirt while the man buys drinks for the both of them as well as paying the hourly rate for her company. Hostesses dress elegantly in fairytale ball gowns, you can sometimes see them out on the streets of the popular night life areas. Not in bunches, but maybe one girl will be outside her bar to try and drum up business from the office workers who are probably already smashed and in no shape to go home. I was in Ginza one time with Kanae-san and she told me the girls standing around on the street were hostesses. I had naively thought that a lot of really attractive women were waiting outside restaurants and bars for their dates to show up.
It's big business here, but anyway, I'll never know what was going on for sure in the exchange I saw. I do know it was really creepy and I was glad to see the girl escape into her office building and the guy drive off.
I'm in two minds about whether to post this, but I guess it's what was on my mind today so here it is.
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