Japan Times reports:
He has a great story — evidence of a network of tunnels and possibly an underground city beneath Tokyo that the public is totally unaware of. “Why am I ignored? Can I be on to something, and there is a conspiracy to silence me? I believe so.”
Full Story: Japan Times: Seven riddles suggest a secret city beneath Tokyo
Japan’s censorship bureau for cinema finally lifted its long-standing ban on “pickles and beavers” (60s industry vernacular for “you-know-what”- teehee!). On the upside: you can now see all the Japanese snatch you like. On the downside: people with a fetish for the blur (see Bizarre‘s recent article “Japanese Sex Explosion”) seem completely fucked.
This is a bit sad.
Japan’s growing elderly population from will be able to buy companionship in the form of a 45-centimeter (18-inch) robot, programmed to provide just enough small talk to keep them from going senile.
AFP: Japanese robot to chat lonely elderly out of senility
(via Last Word Blog)
Most of these are pretty mundane, some look extremely useful (like the mobile phone recharger). But then there’s this “used” (?) school girl panties machine. This probably doesn’t do much to fight the western stereotype of the Japanese as a bunch of weirdos, does it?
(via Peep Show Stories)
Leading prophylactic company Sagami Industries Co. has released a series of condoms vibrating condoms. According to their PR rep: “Various substances emit vibrating waves. These create an extremely weak energy, which we think is how ki manifests itself. As each of these substances has its own fixed pattern of throbbing, we have learned that throwing them all together creates a variety of influences. These substances quivering together have given the vibrating condom some amazing features. We’ve had some customers tell us how it has given them greater staying power or permitted greater sensation.”
(via Die Puny Humans)
Update: The link above is dead, but here’s a Gizmodo post that I think is about the same product.
William Gibson has written a bit on the The Guardian about London, Japan, and Vancouver. An interesting read:
‘Why Japan?’ I’ve been asked for the past 20 years or so. Meaning: why has Japan been the setting for so much of my fiction? When I started writing about Japan, I’d answer by suggesting that Japan was about to become a very central, very important place in terms of the global economy. And it did. (Or rather, it already had, but most people hadn’t noticed yet.) A little later, asked the same question, I’d say that it was Japan’s turn to be the centre of the world, the place to which all roads lead; Japan was where the money was and the deal was done. Today, with the glory years of the bubble long gone, I’m still asked the same question, in exactly the same quizzical tone: ‘Why Japan?’
Because Japan is the global imagination’s default setting for the future.
The Japanese seem to the rest of us to live several measurable clicks down the time line. The Japanese are the ultimate Early Adaptors, and the sort of fiction I write behoves me to pay serious heed to that. If you believe, as I do, that all cultural change is essentially technologically driven, you pay attention to the Japanese. They’ve been doing it for more than a century now, and they really do have a head start on the rest of us, if only in terms of what we used to call ‘future shock’ (but which is now simply the one constant in all our lives).
Hajime Sorayama is a world renowned artist known for his photo realistic depictions of the fantastic. Sorayama makes you believe the impossible with his fascinating erotica that blends in traditional fantasy and science fiction. He frequently melds metal and flesh to make beautiful futuristic pin-up women. His work has influenced countless modern artists and has appeared hordes of publications.
Sorayama was born in 1947 in Japan the son of a carpenter. He did exceptionally well in art during high school but had little interest in pursuing the field. He went to college to study Greek, but the Greek professor had left the university he attended. His sophomore year he started a school magazine called The Pink Journal which was criticized by both teachers and students. He grew to hate the place, dropped out, and went to art school.After graduating in 1968 he initially worked as a graphic artist but eventually became a freelance artist in 1972.
Further Reading:
Sorayama.com New official website
Sorayama Masterworks Book collecting Sorayam’s work.
Old official Sorayama Page Includes samples, contact info, sales, etc.
Dark Moods Sorayama Gallery Hundreds of images, not categorized.
Suicide’s Sorayama Gallery 96 categorized images w/ thumbnails.
Melt Hajime Sorayama gallery a few dozen images, not categorized.
Posts tagged “Sorayama” on Tumblr Lots of images coming in all the time. Not organized.
Gering and Lopez Gallery: Hajime Sorayama 1970 – 2010 Several images from a gallery showing of Sorayama’s work.
The Art of Hajime Sorayama small collection of images. Categorized and thumbnailed.
Muesuem One’s Sorayama Gallery collection of a few un-catagorized, un-thumbnailed images.
The Shrine of Sorayama A wealth of information and a small picture archive. This site is an excellent starting point. [dead link]
ImageNETion Presents: Hajime Sorayama 339 categorized images w/ thumbnails. [dead link]
Zim’s Sorayama Gallery An interesting gallery that allows searching as well as filtering images by rating. Includes thumbnails. [dead link]
Tom Marshall’s Cyber Art Spotlight a collection of non-adult images. [dead link]
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