Twentythree

The hero car from “Truck Guys” is now a real-life hero too.

One of the more colorful quasi-English words in the Japanese language is dekotora, and, fittingly, the term describes some very colorful things. A mashup of the Japanese pronunciations of “decoration” and “truck,” dekotora are gloriously gaudy cargo trucks, covered in lights, ornaments, and massive murals in a style evocative of ukiyo-e paintings, Japanese tattoos, or fishermen’s flags.

Every one of these personalized trucks is distinct, but one of the most famous of all is the Ichibanboshi (“First Star”), and we recently got to see the king of the dekotora with our own eyes.

Dekotora are a whole subculture unto themselves, and their ability to command attention and captivate imaginations inevitably led to a series of dekotora movies called Truck Yaro (“Truck Guys”), and the Ichibanboshi was the truck of its hero, long-haul trucker Momojiro Hoshi. In each film, Momojiro would meet a beautiful woman who needed his help, often in a different region of Japan from his last adventure. Every time, he’d fulfill her request, then have to say a bittersweet goodbye as she began her happily-ever-after with another man. It’s sort of a more rough-around-the-edges version of Japan’s Otoko wa Tsurai yo movie series, or maybe you could think of it as something like a 1970s blue-collar Japanese Fast and Furious.

▼ A scene from one of the Truck Yaro films, in which a trucker beats up the construction crew building an unwanted nuclear power plant, then smashes up the site using his truck with a decorative shark on its roof.

They made a total of 10 Truck Yaro films between 1975 and 1979, all steeped in the pathos of post-World War II, pre-Bubble Economy Japan. After the series wrapped, the Ichibanboshi bounced around between a few private owners, and since 2014 it’s been in the hands of Saitama Prefecture resident Junichi Tajima.

With more than 30 years since it had last appeared on screen, the Ichibanboshi wasn’t exactly ready for its close-ups when Tajima bought it. So he decided to restore it to its former glory, and he went all out. Because this is the original Ichibanboshi, not a replica, Tajima went so far as to track down Tadayuki Kuwana, the man who’d served as art director for all 10 Truck Yaro films back in the ‘70s at film studio Toei, so that he could supervise the repainting of the truck’s murals to their original standards.

▼ And yes, that includes the gigantic calligraphy on the trailer’s roof that reads “A man’s journey is a solitary one.”

For maximum authenticity, they even made sure to use the same type of paint they did in the 1970s, so that it would have the identical thickness and level of luster. The difference between more modern paints is small enough that most people probably wouldn’t have been consciously aware of it, but true Truck Yaro fans would have known that something was off compared to their memories of how the Ichibanboshi looked in its heyday.

Also part of the restoration: making sure every single one of those lights is in proper working order.

▼ Yes, that is a chandelier in the driver’s cab.

▼ The truck has its own garage to keep it looking nice and clean.

Tajima’s desire to own and restore the Ichibanboshi isn’t just because he’s a Truck Yaro fan, though. He’s also the head of the Zenkoku Utamarokai, a charity group that helps with raising money for and delivering emergency supplies to victims of natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods. The Ichibanboshi helps out on the former front by making appearances at charity fundraising events, like the one shown here.

▼ Tajima, holding an Ichibanbosh charity calendar

In a way, the Ichibanboshi’s new life of helping those in need mirrors the role it played in the Truck Yaro movies, showing that it’s not just human actors who have the ability to give something back after they make it big.

Related: Zenkoku Utamarokai official website, YouTube channel
Images ©SoraNews24
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Rent-A-Girlfriend will keep lucky fans company through lonely nights.

A lot of harem anime are powered by a fanbase that’s looking for some sort of pseudo-companionship. Rent-A-Girlfriend, though, is savvy enough to bake that aspect right into its narrative, focusing on a college student who becomes involved first with one woman who’s working at an escort service, and then meets several other young ladies in the same line of work.

Perhaps logically, anime merchandiser Slash Gift has come to the conclusion that Rent-A-Girlfriend’s fans would also like someone to keep them company, even if they’re not in a real romantic relationship, and so they’ve put together this acrylic art panel of female lead Chizuru Mizuhara, designed so that it looks like she’s lying next to you in bed.

It’s a unique concept, and since sleep-with-your-anime-crush merch usually takes the form of huggy pillows, it might be kind of hard to envision exactly how the panel looks in use. Thankfully, Slash Gift has provided some sample photos, and the answer is that it looks absolutely bonkers.

Chizuru makes such a dramatic impact that you might not even notice at first glance that that guy’s not even sleeping in a bed, but on top of a desk. Also, while it’s a dream-come-true for many otaku to have a life-size representation of their favorite anime character, Chizuru here is actually larger than any normal human being would be, as the panel is 140 centimeters (55.1 inches) long, but only shows her head and torso.

▼ Would her presence during a work-from-home shift be reassuring or terrifying?

The panel can’t be bought outright, however. Instead, it’s an available prize for an online Rent-A-Girlfriend merchandise lottery, in which you can also win much more compact items such as stickers, keyholders, and towels.

Specifically, the giant Chizuru panel is being offered as the lottery’s “Double Chance Prize.” For every ten tickets/pulls you buy (each priced at 880 yen [US$8]), you get one entry into the drawing for the panel.

The lottery is taking pace through the Slash Gift website here between now and September 12, with shipping for the panel scheduled for early November, thus giving the winner roughly two months to rearrange their living space for Chizuru’s arrival. Actually, we should say the winners, since Slash Gift is giving away two of the giant Chizuru panels, which makes sense, since no one person could really own a rental girlfriend, right?

Source: Slash Gift via Otakomu
Images: Slash Gift
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New regulations surprisingly don’t include the phrase “You know, when I was your age…”

In recent years, Chinese-made online games have been steadily surging in prominence and popularity. But while gamers around the world are playing more games from China than ever before, there’s about to be a lot less gaming going on inside the country itself.

On Monday, China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency reported that the country’s National Press and Publication Administration has introduced new limits on gaming for minors, which equates to people under 18 years old in the Chinese legal system. Under the new rules, minors will be allowed to play games only on the weekends and holidays, and for one hour a day. To clarify, that’s not anytime they want on the weekend, and only one hour a day during the week, but for only one hour each on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and forbidden from playing at all other times.

What’s more, kids won’t be free to pick the hour in which they want to play, nor will even their parents be given the freedom to pick when their children’s gaming hour will take place. Instead, all minors nationwide will only be allowed to game between 8 and 9 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Finished all your homework, done all your chores, and got an hour of free time from, say, 7 to 8 while Mom and Dad get dinner ready? Sorry, no video games for you. Watch some TV, or maybe go play in the street after sundown.

The goal of the gaming limit is to “strengthen education and family life,” and comes after a previous Xinhua article this month referred to video games as “spiritual opium” and asserted that “No industry, no sport, can be allowed to develop in a way that will destroy a generation.”

▼ We’ll have to go back and check our textbooks for historical examples of a society that was destroyed not by war, disease, or natural disasters, but by, say, soccer.

The three-hours-a-week regulation comes just two years after the Chinese government put in place gaming limits of three hours a day on weekends and holidays and 90 minutes on weekdays. The new rules also come with more forceful calls for minors to be required to play online under their real names, not made-up gamer handles. Japan’s Nihon Keizai Shimbun says the announcement’s wording includes a call for “game companies to limit the provision of their services to minors to one hour a day on weekends and holidays,” which suggests that publisher could face penalties for underage gamers who find ways to get around the rules.

It’s definitely sad news for gamers in China, and all of a sudden, kids in Japan’s Kagawa Prefecture are probably feeling sort of lucky.

Source: Nihon Keizai Shimbun via Game Spark via Jin, Reuters (1, 2)
Top image: Pakutaso
Insert image: Pakutaso
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Our resident otaku gazes into the future and chooses four shows to watch that keep getting left off others’ “most anticipated” lists.

Some people feel a certain bittersweet emotion as they stare at a late August sunset, with gradually cooling temperatures heralding the end of summer. Not our Japanese-language reporter Seiji Nakazawa, though. Seiji can’t wait for the fall season, because he can’t wait for the fall anime season.

In preparation for the new crop of shows, Seiji has been looking at online poll results for the most anticipated anime debuting in fall 2021, but he can’t help but feel they don’t tell the whole story. The top-rankers, i.e. the ones that get the most votes, are the series with the broadest appeal. As a veteran otaku, though, what Seiji’s more concerned with are finding series that hit right in the center of his particular strike zone, and what he’s done is put together his own list of his preemptive picks for the four best anime that’ll be premiering next month.

Let’s take a look into his crystal ball for what he believes are going to be the four best anime of the upcoming season, in no particular order.

1. takt op.Destiny

It’d be difficult enough to read even without the invisible S, but Seiji promises there’ll be more to “Takt Ops Destiny,” as it’s pronounced, than funky linguistics. The original anime portion of the new takt op. animation/game mixed media project, the official website describes the premise as “a fragilely beautiful and fateful tale of girls fighting with the power of music in a music-less world.”

There aren’t a lot of concrete story or character details yet, so why is Seiji so confident this will be worth watching? “Because the series creator is Oji Hiroi, who also created Sakura Wars and Tengai Makyo/Far East of Eden,” two of the most popular video game series in the 1990s in Japan. There’s more ‘90s-solidified pedigree with the involvement of animation studio Madhouse, who’s teaming up with the highly respected MAPPA to produce the visuals, so odds are we’re in for something with a grand scale and gorgeous art.

2. Deep Insanity THE LOST CHILD

“A near-future dystopia where a strange disease ravages humanity” may be a baseline premise that’s been done before (arguably most recently by real life since the start of the pandemic). It’s all in the execution, though, and once again Seiji is betting on the people behind the project, anime studio Silverlink and director Shin Onuma, whose previous credits include the light-hearted Baka and Test. Onuma has also handled stories with some darker sides to them too, though, directing Watamote and Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya, and it’ll be interesting what he does with an especially gritty setting.

3. Muv-Luv Alternative

Seiji has been a big fan of the Muv-Luv anime and game franchise since way back, and he’s happy to see the Alternative arc of the series get the anime treatment. The source-material visual novel game was released back in 2006, and given the lengthy, optionally branching storylines of the genre it’s a given that not every possible scenario will make the jump to the anime, but Seiji’s keeping his fingers crossed that his favorite scenes will.

4. Megaton-kyu Musashi

And finally, we come to another series that doubly ignites Seiji’s twin otaku and gamer souls, as Megaton-kyu Musashi is getting both an anime and a video game from developer Level 5, whose resume includes Ni no Kuni, Professor Layton, Yo-kai Watch, and Dark Cloud. The “kyu” part of the title means “class,” and while Seiji isn’t sure what the exact parameters of a megaton-class mecha are, he’s still excited to see the robot power up and leap into action in what looks like it’s also going to be an emotionally moving series.

Now, of course, no true otaku are going to limit themselves to watching a mere four shows per season, and Seiji has plenty more on his viewing schedule. These are the ones he wants to check out first, though, and he has a hunch he’ll be sticking with them through the whole fall season.

Top image: Press release
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Gyoza suppliers to the Tokyo Olympics create a cheat meal that’s no longer a cheat meal.

If there’s one thing our food-obsessed reporters Go Hatori and Takashi Harada never tire of eating, it’s gyoza. In fact, if it was an Olympic sport, they’d definitely be out there winning gold for their abilities on the world stage, so when they heard that Ajinomoto, gyoza suppliers to the Tokyo Olympics, had released a new gyoza especially for athletes, our reporters immediately fired up their pan and got out their plates and chopsticks.

▼ The new product was released on 25 August and comes in two varieties: “Energy Gyoza” (left) and “Conditioning Gyoza” (right).

According to Ajinomoto, Japanese figure skater Yuzuru Hanyu was the key to developing dumplings for athletes, after he publicly declared his love of gyoza by saying, “Even if you don’t have an appetite, you can eat gyoza” and “Gyoza increases your energy“.

Our reporters may be good at eating gyoza, but they’re not so good at sketching Hanyu, who’s been showered with Winnie the Pooh plushies from fans ever since they noticed him using a Pooh-shaped tissue box at every event.

Hanyu’s love for gyoza inspired Ajinomoto to develop new dumplings aimed at athletes, providing them with the fuel and nutrition they need for daily sporting activities.

▼ The Energy Gyoza delivers energy with a thick skin and nutritious amino acids.

▼ The Conditioning Gyoza pays attention to the recovery needs of athletes, with plenty of garlic and cabbage, vitamins A, C, E and protein, and a gentle flavour.

Ajinomoto sent our non-athletic reporters one of each pack to try, so Go placed the dumplings in a frying pan and cooked them over medium heat for about six minutes (five minutes for the conditioning gyoza). .

They were quick and easy to make, and they looked crispy and delicious, with the Conditioning gyoza turning out lightly grilled and the Energy gyoza slightly darker, due to the longer cooking time.

Our reporters decided to start with the Energy gyoza, hoping it would add a spring to their step and maybe even make their biceps suddenly bulge like Popeye’s after a bite of spinach.

Because muscles don’t usually grow on good-tasting food, Takashi braced himself for an inferior-tasting gyoza, fearing it might taste like a health supplement.

However, to his great relief, these were actually tasty! They were light yet flavourful, with a filling that didn’t skimp on taste, as each morsel contained onion, cabbage, and oyster sauce.

▼ For athletes on restricted diets, the energy gyoza is like a cheat meal that’s no longer a cheat meal due to its non-greasy filling.

Next up to the tasting podium we have the Conditioning Gyoza, which was noticeably greener than the Energy Gyoza.

▼ That green hue comes from the abundance of vegetables in the filling.

These gyoza contain a plethora of healthy ingredients like carrot, onion, ginger, garlic chives, cabbage, egg whites, pumpkin paste and spinach powder. If anything was to turn Takashi or Go into a muscle-bulging Popeye it would be this gyoza variety, which had more protein and less carbs than the Energy version.

Go was surprised by this one, as it had a hot kick to it, likely from the ginger, and despite about 67 percent of the contents being vegetables, it was still surprisingly tasty, thanks to the fact that it also contained chicken seasoning.

However, compared to normal dumplings, Go and Takashi both agree that these athletic versions aren’t quite on par in terms of deliciousness. That’s to be expected, though, as they’re less fatty and oily than regular gyoza, and they only use meat seasonings rather than real meat in the fillings.

In the hands of a non-professional, these gyoza could have been a dismal fail, but thanks to Ajinomoto’s experience with frozen gyoza, they’ve been able to create a healthy version that’s still a tasty and rewarding meal for athletes.

You don’t have to be an athlete to enjoy these dumplings, though, as both versions can be purchased online, with the Energy Gyoza retailing for 1,200 yen (US$10.93) and the Conditioning Gyoza retailing for 1,500 yen. For those looking for a more decadent type of dumpling, Go and Takashi highly recommend trying the croissant gyoza, which they waited a whole year for.

Photos © SoraNews24
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TGS2021 is making the best of yet another online convention.

With summer gradually fading away, it’s once again time for the semi-annual Tokyo Game Show (TGS) to hit the scene, bringing all sorts of previews and announcements in the gaming world. However, like last year, the COVID-19 pandemic has once again made it too difficult to organize live, so the whole show has been moved online.

Though it doesn’t quite have the same live excitement, one bright side is that we can all take part from anywhere in the world. And to make it an even better virtual event, TGS2021 upped their own game by adding in a full music festival!

Naturally, the theme will be video game music, and TGS is promising “numerous gaming masterpieces that painted various generations.” This means we might be able to expect classics dating as far back as the Mappy theme song.

And in true music festival fashion there will be three stages. Two stages will hold full orchestras playing pop versions of our favorites alongs with the sweeping scores to epic games like Final Fantasy VII.

▼ No set lists have been revealed yet, but how can this not be included?

The third stage will be for other styles of performance such as big bands and jazz ensembles, and if none of the jazz groups open with the intro to Grand Theft Auto III, then this whole venture will have been a profound waste of time.

At the moment there are few details, but we know it’s going to be big and streamed online for the whole world to see. An online presentation announcing the details of this year’s TGS will take place at 5 p.m. (JST) on 1 September, during which time more details are sure to emerge.

#TGMF 速報
TOKYO GAME MUSIC FESでは、
2つのフルオーケストラステージと、ビッグバンドやジャズカルテットなど様々な演奏でお届けするステージの、3つのステージをご用意

すべてオンライン配信なので、世界中のゲームファンの皆様にお楽しみいただけます
詳細はお楽しみに#TGS2021 pic.twitter.com/95FePvSXFf

— TOKYO GAME SHOW／東京ゲームショウ (@tokyo_game_show) August 26, 2021

Whatever these details may be, the event seems sure to please. Many netizens came out in response to the announcement to show their support and curiosity.

“That looks totally great.”
“I sooooooo want to see this!”
“And it’s streaming?!”
“Music from current games is good, but I really want to hear stuff from NES and SNES.”
“It’ll be better than the Olympics because they’ll play Nintendo music.”
“Nintendo doesn’t exhibit at TGS, but maybe their music will be there.”
“I’m tired of orchestras though. Too many orchestras in video games.”
“I can’t think of a lot of famous music from Japanese video games, but do western video games have any memorable songs?”
“It looks like they’re taking advantage of moments from the Olympics and spreading the greatness of video game music even more.”

It does seem like TGS is taking the warm reception the Olympic opening ceremony got for its use of video game themes, and throwing in Fuji Rock’s wise idea of not making it necessary to go to Fuji Rock at all by streaming most of their content online for free.

Throw in TGS’s industry connections, and it ought to be a pretty stellar lineup of classic game music. It’d certainly be nice to hear some nostalgic classics like Super Castlevania or Mega Man II, but with nearly half a century of music to choose from you can’t throw a fireball without hitting a masterpiece, so they can’t really go wrong.

Sources: Twitter/@tokyo_game_show, TGS2021, My Game News Flash
Top image: TGS2021
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Boss fears the worst, shows that he’s the best.

“There’s something I need to talk with you about” aren’t the most reassuring words you can hear from your boss at the start of the workday, but they can cause panic in the opposite direction too. So when system engineer, supervisor, and Japanese Twitter user @Wizardlow had an employee come up to him on a recent morning with a serious look on his face and say the phrase, it quickly triggered visions of multiple unfortunate scenarios.

“Is he going to leave the company, like someone else recently did? Did he make some kind of mistake that’s going to be difficult to fix?” @Wizardlow wondered. His concerns weren’t only work-related either. “Is he going to say he’s gotten sick?” he worried, an especially serious concern in the current health climate.

Most Japanese offices have an open-floor layout, but since it sounded like whatever the employee wanted to talk about was going to be a delicate topic, @Wizardlow led him into the company’s separate meeting room, where they could talk in private. Once inside, he asked the worker what was the matter, to which he replied:

“My kid hasn’t finished their summer vacation homework yet, so I was wondering if I could take the afternoon off…”

It turned out the worker wasn’t quitting because he’d grown dissatisfied with the job, nor was there a medical issue that was going to prevent him from handling his workload. Instead, he just wanted some time off to help his kid with their homework, something all Japanese children are given over summer vacation, so that they could finish it all before it was time to go back to school for the fall semester.

So how did @Wizardlow respond to this request for purely personal, non-work-related time off? With complete understanding and accommodation:

“Yes, yes! Take the time off!”

部下が朝っぱらから深刻な顔で
「ちょっとお話が…」
なんつーから、また退職者が出るのか…それとも何かやらかしたか…まさか病気？などとげんなりしながら個室で話を聞いたら
「子供の夏休みの宿題が終わらないので午後から半休を…」
休め休め！まぎらわしい！JAROに通報すんぞ！

— 魔導師 (@Wizardlow) August 25, 2021

Given Japan’s reputation as an industrious society that regularly makes work a high priority, such a kind-hearted reaction isn’t always a matter of course, and @Wizardlow’s handling of the situation prompted praise and smiles from other Twitter users, with comments like:

“A very important reason to take time off.”
“This world aint so bad after all.”
“Sounds like an awesome place to work!”
“When I was a kid, my dad helped me with my summer homework too, especially with arts and crafts projects.”

@Wizardlow couldn’t resist a little tongue-in-cheek tongue-lashing. “Just don’t scare me like that,” he pleads to parent employee for the ominous manner in which the request was made, joking “I’ll have to report you for false advertising,” while proving that he’s a truly considerate boss.

Source: Twitter/@Wizardlow via Jin
Top image: Pakutaso (edited by SoraNews24)
Insert image: Pakutaso
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