Star Wars in Japan
This isn’t technically MY post, but the first by none other than Our Man in Japan, George Guida. George and I went to high school togteher and shared countless hours speculating on who would play Wolverine if they ever made an X-Men film, and discussing the finer points of Nicholas Hammond’s acting in the live action Spiderman TV show from the 70’s. We also made an ambitious film of our own (more on that later).
George has been living in Japan now for 5 years now, and when my wife Julie and I visited George in 2003, he was our enlightened cultural ambassador. I have been heavily courting George to write a regular Sumo feature for invisibleman (he’s a bit of an expert on all forms of professional fighting), but this great bit he sent along will have to do for now:
Star Wars: Episode III just opened in Japan last weekend so there’s a lot of promotional work going on right now for the film, as can be expected. Yuiko and I spotted this ad in the vast underground network of connecting train lines at Shinjuku station. It’s an for a company known as “au” which is one of the leading mobile phone providers here. The ad speaks for itself, but I thought it was just a classic shot. Two joshi-kosei (high school girls, but I use the Japanese here because it carries more cultural context…sorry if that sounds pompous) showing Darth Vader the latest shots they took on their keitai (mobile phone…and again I use the Japanese term for the reasons mentioned above) on the bench is just great stuff. Hope you enjoy it.