Why women should not fall asleep outside

UPDATE: This video was taken off YouTube. Took them long enough.

*Don’t worry: Nothing nasty happens in this video.

While Google is very anal about inappropriate content on the English side of YouTube, I guess they get a little lazy about finding foreign videos documenting questionable content. Sexual harassment? I think it’s kind of sleep at your own risk. If you are on a bench asleep with your legs wide open then, yeah, don’t be surprised if your stuff is on YouTube the next day. The crazy thing is that these shots were taken by a woman. Imagine how the guys must be.

C’mon, Kyoto, you can do better than this

All of the large Japanese newspapers have bureaus if not their headquarters in Tokyo. Some people forget that Tokyo was not always the center of activity in Japan. The city of Kyoto, which means “capital city,” was Japan’s capital from 794 until the late 19th century.

The Kyoto Shimbun News is a community newspaper that focuses on the cities of Kyoto and Shiga. The paper has a company mission of upholding “justice, freedom and truth.” The Kyoto Shimbun Web site looks like something your novice programmer designed, however, its simplicity and to-the-point features are appealing to foreigners.

The site is offered in both Japanese and English. The English version of the site is regularly updated with three “fluffy” main stories on the home page. While that’s not a lot of content, the way that the page is designed with images and article summaries make it okay visually and easy to read. The articles are extremely short. They are more like news briefs than articles. I think that they could afford to fit more of the articles on the home page. They could also invest into making slide shows which visitors would find helpful. I like the “Guide,” “Photos,” and “Festivals” navigation. These are topics that they don’t have to spend time maintaining. The Japanese version of the site is a little more meaty in order to better inform the paper’s main readership – one of the 1.5 million Kyoto inhabitants. Still I think it leaves a lot to be desired.

Just to be fair, let’s compare this site to that of an American community newspaper that serves a similar amount of people – Philadelphia.

TV Tokyo, The Small Station With The Big Heart

So I have to write a blog post about the Web site of a local news station. I thought it would be cool to review TV Tokyo’s site. There’s only one issue – it’s in Japanese.

This does present a problem, however, technically if the Web site is organized in the right way I might be able to still discern if it’s a good site or not.

TV Tokyo is the smallest of the Tokyo television networks. It’s nicknamed “Teleto” = terebi (television) + Tokyo. It’s known for it’s anime. TV Tokyo is responsible for broadcasting some of my favorite cheesy anime such as Bleach, Naruto, Love Hina, and Pokemon.

NHK Online Hurts My Eyes

NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) is the only public broadcaster in the country. Each household that owns a television pays a fee that is used to finance the company. When I look at NHK’s English Web site, my eyes hurt. It’s kind of like the way a scene of Pokemon on EDTV made more than 700 people (mostly kids), vomit and suffer from convulsions. “Gotta’ catch them all!”

Hand clap for NHK for even having an English-language Web site. We, Americans, think that everything is suppose to be in English nowadays, but that is just not the case. However, I do think that news outlets, depending on their size, should have an English version of their Web site for international users. I also think that in the United States that news outlets should provide something in Spanish for Hispanics. Anyway, back to NHK’s Web site.

G4, TV That’s Plugged In

At school, I just started to get the G4 gaming channel. If you don’t have it, don’t sweat. With all of the features offered on the G4 Web site, it’s a wonder anyone needs to watch the TV station at all.

If you are not a gamer then you probably have never heard of G4. It just came out in 2002. It’s a cable channel that focuses on the gaming lifestyle. It used to be all about games, but if you have ever watched people playing games on TV (think ESPN’s Madden Nation) that gets pretty old fast. Now, G4 hosts not only talk about new games and tech news, but the channel also tries harder to cater to the male population by broadcasting shows such as Cheaters, COPS and The Man Show. I think, from a journalistic standpoint, G4 is doing a great job catering to the gaming market. Some people would disagree with me. Despite what some critics say, more people buy video games than go to the movies so the station is definitely fulfilling a need.

Kanye, Lupe and other Hip Hop Artists Bloggin’

XXL had a short article about rappers who blog. As I said in a previous post, one of the ways a blog could be good is if it’s written by a famous person. People are just a lot more interested in what the person is thinking and doing. Kanye just launched his blog in September and he (or someone he is paying) is doing a very nice job updating it frequently with not only news about Kanye but also some of his favorite designers and personal photos. I find it weird that Twista is publishing a blog on The Chicago Tribune’s Web site. I wonder how they convinced him to do that. Lupe Fiasco’s blog is fresh too, though I’m not a MySpace fan.

FUNimation Web site as prehistoric as its anime

Well, I visited FUNimation’s Web site a few weeks ago or at least I thought I did. When I say it was atrocious I really mean it was atrocious. They only had three news stories for the last two months: one of them was that you could buy their crap online and another was that Cartoon Network (a rival station) was playing one of their cartoons on Saturdays. Apparently www.funimation.com is the Web site for FUNimation Productions, A.K.A. the corporate Web site. Oops my bad. Then the Web site for the actual channel should be better right?

Wrong! What are they doing?

I recently discovered the FUNimation channel at my boyfriend’s house one evening. I think they only provide it for Verizon customers. Besides the obnoxious, repetitive commercials promoting Peach Girl and Suzuka DVDs, I really liked what I saw.

I remember watching classics such as Case Closed in Japanese when I was a kid. FUNimation gives me the chance to discover anime from when I was young and anime I have never seen before such as Baki: The Grappler and the extremely unusual Revolutionary Girl: Uetna. Plus there’s Afro Samurai, Dragon Ball, Kiddy Grade, Hare + Guu, Kodocha, and Negima!

To blog or not to blog?

I want to thank everyone who has been reading my blog over the last couple of weeks. BlackOtaku has had more than 1,000 page views. Most of you got here by searching for news about the cover art for Kanye West’s new album. Some of you got here because you were interested in anime or manga or more specifically hentai (naughty). Many of you sit in front of me in class and have to visit and comment on my site to get a grade. No matter, I thank all of you for your support. I love writing this blog because it gives me an excuse to not only read about Japanese popular culture but also to analyze it.

Photo from Flickr

My professor wanted me to post about what I thought makes a blog a blog and what specifically makes a “good blog.” While answering those questions, I also came up with a stance on the role blogs play for the newsroom. BTW I am using examples selected by my professor. Some times I feel that the class is restricting as to the sites we study and the online styles we are taught. I’m currently boycotting The Washington Post web site because it’s my professor’s favorite web site to use as an example (I think he is secretly a WP recruiter). Check out some of the sites I enjoy in my blogroll to the right. Let me know what blogs you guys visit.

Sorry to burst your bubble; TokyoPop’s new site Sucks

You know a site’s navigation is out of whack when 1/6th of the home page is a large, orange “How to use this site” box. The main problem with TokyoPop’s web site is that it has more cool features then it knows what to do with. The web site is still in it’s BETA testing stage so there’s still hope that the online editor can make a few improvements with navigation.

TokyoPop is a manga powerhouse. Based in L.A., the mega-publisher prints English-language comics to markets across the world. It has offices throughout Europe and Asia (of course this includes Tokyo). TokyoPop also releases animated DVDs and produces television programs.

The new official Web site is confusing to me. I’m not only irked about how it is organized, but I also don’t like how TokyoPop manages to make up weird names/titles for every piece of content.

In Japan, They’re Not Afraid To Let It All Hang Out

 

 

 

 

 

 

From Mainichi Daily News; The cover of Shukan Taishu, a publication that Mainichi uses for some of its “more interesting” articles; From DannyChoo.com; The sign says “Warning: Perverts lurking.”

News in Japan is just a whole lot sexier. Check out some of the more popular headlines from Mainichi Daily News:

1. “1 in 17 Shibuya teens found to have contracted STDs”
2. “Young salary man nabbed for abducting 12-year-old girl he met online”
3. “Woman dies, 2 other people in critical condition after blaze destroys sex shop in Naha”
4. “Jealous schoolgirl torches 32-year-old, longtime lover’s Tokyo home”

Their WaiWai section pushes the envelope even further. These stories are often steamy and come with disclaimers at the bottom of the articles:

WaiWai stories are transcriptions of articles that originally appeared in Japanese language publications. The Mainichi Daily News cannot be held responsible for the contents of the original articles, nor does it guarantee their accuracy. Views expressed in the WaiWai column are not necessarily those held by the Mainichi Daily News or the Mainichi Newspapers Co. WaiWai © Mainichi Newspapers Co. 1989-2007.