Andrez Bergen's Blog, page 7

Eight Isn't Enough

Last weekend — after nearly driving myself to madness — I finished off my second novel (as I crowed about in undignified fashion below!) and on Tuesday, signed it to a new, rather cool publisher called Perfect Edge Books.

Yep, it goes without saying that I'm still over-the-moon at the present time, if somewhat exhausted, and to celebrate I quaffed a little saké.

Just a smidgeon, I promise.

Which brings me in a celebratory mood to this month's Flash in Japan over @ Forces of Geek, and thereby to one of my favourite Japanese myths - which also revolves around saké, as all the good ones do.

I actually did the research on this subject a few years back, for an article on nihonshu (saké) in the pages of the late, lamented magazine Geek Monthly.

That was how I stumbled upon the tale of a monster with a taste for the hard stuff, especially rice wine.

In my new novel, One Hundred Years of Vicissitude, I decided to nick some bits of my old research and stick them into the story, albeit padded out with dialogue, and (hopefully) a bit more fun.

The monster myth was one of them.

So, let's jump straight into the unedited, raw manuscript I just finished - there might be a typo or two at this stage.

Just click HERE to go to Forces Of Geek.

One Hundred Years of Vicissitude

OK, I'm relatively over the moon, and a few kilometres beyond that. Last Sunday morning, at 7:09am precisely (I'm going by the time-tag on the email I sent), I finished off my second novel.

It's titled One Hundred Years of Vicissitude, and this time the focus is... JAPAN.

Strange, that, since I've lived here eleven years.

Here's the current promo-teaser we're using:

Narrated by a man we suspect to be dead, One Hundred Years of Vicissitude tells the story of identical twin geisha born on the first day of the Great Depression - and one of whom harbours an Iago complex toward the other. Thrown into the resulting concoction are zeppelins, A-bombs, 1940s Tokyo, 1970s Melbourne, King Arthur, Red Riding Hood, saké, and comic books.

I'll mention more here as things unravel, but in the meantime I'm heavily smitten with Damian Stephens' mock-up artwork - see picture.

Tokyo International Anime Fair 2012

Well, it's been one week to the day since I popped in to this year's Tokyo International Anime Fair (東京国際アニメフェア), held as always at Tokyo Big Sight.

When I say always, however, I lie. The event was called off last year (for the first time in a decade), since it was scheduled a couple of weeks after the big Tōhoku earthquake.

It's nice to see it back.

We call this "TAF" for short; for reasons as-yet-unknown, the organizers drop the "I" bit, maybe because it just looks better in terms of logo concepts.

Think displays by anime producers like Production I.G, Gonzo, Madhouse, Toei, Studio Ghibli, Aniplex, Sunrise, Bones and Bandai flaunting their upcoming wares, and not just via the scantily clad pseudo-cosplay girls outside their booths.

Here's my overview of the last serving, back in 2010. You might even find I nicked some of the editorial there for this piece, since time is previous right now - I'm in the middle of finishing off my next novel, One Hundred Years of Vicissitude, and in fact was editing the bugger on the sidelines of TAF.

"TAF is the Mecca for anime fans around the world," Makoto Tsumita - the former marketing manager for the international division of essential anime production house Gonzo - mentioned to me about five years ago.


At that time, Japan produced almost two thirds of the animation watched around the globe "and 70 percent of this is produced in Tokyo," a spokesperson for the TAF Executive Committee Secretariat told me in article that year for the now defunct Geek Monthly, making the argument that this city was the natural setting for the hugely successful anime trade affair.

"It's the best place for foreign buyers to find everything under the same roof," reported Stephane-Enric Beaulieu, a spokesperson for the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo.

According to the organizers, TAF2012 attracted 98,923 visitors during the four days of the Fair - less than that of the previous Fair in 2010, but the number of visitors on the Business Days were about the same, with an increase in foreign reps.

This year, the best displays were devoted to perennial favourites Lupin III, Smile PreCure!, and the zany merchandise for Hayao Miyazaki's old 1972 classic Panda! Go, Panda! (パンダ・コパンダ).

And I think that's half the problem: the things that excited me most this year are, well, three ageing franchises.

When I first started going to TAF events here in March, from 2002 on, there was a helluva lot of excitement about the brand new, innovative TV shows and feature films that would be unveiled for the first time.

Ten years on, with the changes in the anime/media industry and after the cancellation last year, things have changed.


While the pomp and ceremony, and definitely the professionalism, is still there - it all feels a little jaded and lacking oomph. Just a little. It takes more than cute poster girls, anime character suitcases, and flash cars to keep this wunderbar industry alive.

I know several of these companies, including I.G, Gonzo, Madhouse and Bones, will be working to rectify the problem - so here's to supporting them in these endeavours.

TAF2013 will be held from March 21 to March 24th next year.

Upcoming Japanese cinema, 2012

Well, by the time you read these words, the silly season is well and truly over (two months is fair enough time to lay it to rest), and over here in Japan we started 2012 with a bang: on January 1st there was a fairly hefty earthquake that shook Tokyo, just to ring in the new year in an oh-so-special special way.

Fortunately – this time around – there were no fatalities, tsunami or major damage.

Anyway, without further ado, I decided to get off my buttocks and do a mini round-up of some of the recent Japanese movies winging over your way.

You can over-analyze (or ignore) the article @ Forces Of Geek.

Booked #63

I usually try to keep this blog at an arm's length from my ulterior activities with writing and muzak - usually, but occasionally I fail. This is going to be one of those times, and apologies if you want to debunk the posting since it's hardly focused on Japan at all.

Over in the USA there's a highly-esteemed weekly podcast called Booked, in which two avid readers (Robb Olson and Livius Nedin) review and discuss books (mostly noir), conduct author interviews, and make recommendations for good books they've read. Their goal, they say, is to deliver book reviews by everyday readers, for everyday readers.

They've previously overseen tomes by Caleb J. Ross and interviewed Allan Guthrie and Gordon Highland.

For Episode #63 however, which just aired, they set their sights on my novel Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat. In fact they spend the first 28 minutes of the podcast doing an analysis/review. Obviously, I'm pretty darned chuffed (actually, I'd steer towards "decked").

These guys just rocked my little world.

You can tune in or download this podcast here, if you're at all curious. Regardless, Booked is a cool, laid back show helmed by two guys who are passionate about the page, and I highly recommend you bookmarking (boom-boom!) their website.

Odd Bedfellows on a Plate – Part 2

As I mentioned in the first part of this article back in December, Japanese food isn't just about the sushi.

Or the fugu.

There's a whole lot more, starting with the biggest meal of all – that consumed by... the sumo.

Sumo is one of Japan's more internationally famous sports, probably because the spectacle of two exceptionally plump men – in a nation of exceptionally skinny people – wrestling one another, clad only in loin-cloths is, well, fascinating.

Sumo wrestlers would be nothing without their diet, though we do dangle the word "diet" here in an ironic sense.

Chanko-nabe is the food of the sumo. It's a huge, simmering hot-pot that is chock-full of meat, fish and vegetables, best mixed with soy sauce, but sometimes also blended with mirin, miso, sake, and dashi stock (shavings of dried skipjack tuna mixed with edible kelp).

Leftover broth is often then consumed with a hefty plate of noodles.

It's as highly nutritious in protein as it is gut busting, and is the principle dish gorged by sumo wrestlers to extend their hefty waistlines and add to already-impressive girths.

Some wrestlers enjoy the concoction so much that they quit the ring and instead become the chanko-cho, or chief chanko chef, for their wrestling stables, and eventually open their own restaurants – often with sumo memorabilia from their workhorse days adorning the walls.



READ MORE @ FORCES OF GEEK, with commentary from Japanese DJ/producers DJ Wada, Jin Hiyama & Lili Hirakawa.

Long in the Roof

Is this old? ...yes, it is bloody archaic!

This is the oldest abode I've yet discovered in Tokyo, a tumbling down hovel I accidentally discovered today in someone's enormous backyard in Ōokayama - yep, the same wonderland I explored in my last entry (see below).

I had to climb a fence and was harassed by an over-friendly Corgi "guard-dog" (it made me wonder if Queen Liz was in town), but was able to rattle off a few pics.

Old stuff, Ōokayama 大岡山, Tokyo

The other day I dropped my daughter off at her kindergarten and had a couple of hours to kill, so I wandered around the local area.

It's called Ōokayama, near Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) and about 20 minutes by train from Shibuya.

Anyway, somewhere along the ramble I stumbled across this amazing oasis of miniature shrines alongside an artificial waterfall and huge carp in a pond. The place is located slap-bang in a minor valley, deserted and looked, well... old.


Obviously I loved it!

Plus there were some interesting old houses and objects around the same area. The refugee old rotary dial phone particularly appealed to me.

Also a great place to sit and read - since I'm currently getting into Shuichi Yoshida's novel Villain - and mull over the directions of my own, parts of which are going to be set in older Tokyo.

End of Year Top 10 Guff - 2011

I know a lot of people decry these things, and most of us are worn out by the concept by the time the clock hits 11:59pm on December 31st, wherever in the world you may reside. Here in Japan we get there way earlier than North America or Europe, but a couple of hours behind Australia, so over all we're pretty fortunate.

Funnily enough I just stumbled across an old one I did at the end of 2009 (here), so it's interesting - or p'raps not - to compare and contrast.

Anyway, things Japanese again take precedence since that's the subject this unruly blog is supposed to relate to, and I live in Tokyo; however, I have other interests (I'm a music journalist, a hack DJ/producer, and this year I published my first novel, Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat), so I'm going to throw a few more things into the mix.


If 2011 in Japan was a movie, we'd probably find it far-fetched fodder.

This year we've had multiple earthquakes including a doozie that hit the 9.0 mark back in March – and thereby triggered huge tsunami that overcame concrete tsunami walls and carried about houses like they were made of tin foil. Around 20,000 people died.

We've experienced typhoons that killed hundreds more and created mudslides that destroyed villages. Then there's been the ongoing nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi, radiation in the food supply and radioactive hotspots in Tokyo, revolving door government ministers, and hints of possible future economic meltdown.

The trouble is that this has been the reality, not some movie pushed through by Toho. In comparison, the movie and telly industry this year in Japan quite simply pales.

It's been an eventful year in other ways as well.

In July we lost Sakyo Komatsu, author of the novel Japan Sinks – to natural causes at age 80 rather than in any great disaster – and manga artist Kei Aoyama died far too young at the age of 32 in October. Last February Tura Luna Pascual Yamaguchi, better known as Tura Satana of Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965), passed away.


Contrary to Internet rumours, however, neither Satoshi Tajiri (the creator of Pokémon) nor Masashi Kishimoto (creator of Naruto) passed away at all.

The spate of scuttlebutt that followed hot on the heels of the March 11 tsunami included one that Hello Kitty creator Yuko Shimizu was also a victim. Again – not true.
And as rather spiteful Twittering has proved false, we do get to see beyond the general sense of doom, gloom and mayhem that's prevailed here this year. Things are still happening, and creators like Tajiri, Kishimoto and Shimuzu are still alive and operating - even if I'm not the biggest fan of their stuff.

I doubt that the disasters this year affected the downward slide that anime has suffered over the past few years.

While studios such as Production I.G, Bones and Madhouse are still producing the goods – if on a more subdued level – others like Studio Ghibli appear to be on the wane. There are still anime gems to be found on TV here (even if I struggled with a Top 5 list) and the occasional big screen feature movie, but there's been no imaginative smash hit like Spirited Away or Summer Wars since, well, Summer Wars in 2009.

That said, my mates at Madman Entertainment in Australia released the English language version of Summer Wars earlier this year, and if you haven't indulged yet, you should.


Meanwhile Production I.G has hardly been asleep at the wheel. Earlier this year they released a brilliant mini-feature anime called Drawer Hobs (Tansuwarashi in Japanese) that's doing the international film festival circuit instead right now. What it lacks in the action quotient the story more than makes up for with a playful sense of humour and a refreshing, quirky and whimsical look at contemporary life in Tokyo – disasters be damned.

Director Kazuchika Kise has credits that include the two Patlabor movies helmed by Mamoru Oshii, along with Oshii's more famous Ghost in the Shell and Innocence. Kise was also involved in the production of Blood: The Last Vampire, Musashi: The Dream of the Last Samurai, and all the xxxHOLiC animated adaptations.

Another I.G offering also doing the film festival merry-go-round is A Letter to Momo, a hands-on creation by Hiroyuki Okiura (he also handled the script and storyboarding).

Regular readers of this rambling blog might connect the dots: Okiura directed the fantastic action anime Jin-Roh – The Wolf Brigade (1998). This latest baby took seven years to finish, and anime production masters involved include Masahi Ando (Spirited Away), Takeshi Honda (Evangelion: 2.22 You Can (Not) Advance), Hiroyuki Aoyama (Summer Wars), and Hiroshi Ono (Kiki's Delivery Service).

I.G's Blood-C was easily the best animated thing on TV this year, although it was almost equaled by the resurgent studio Bones in October with the debut of Un-Go, directed by Seiji Mizushima (Fullmetal Alchemist).


Not only did I publish my own novel this year, but I got right back into the swing of reading as well - probably to start with to help save on electricity after all the nuclear reactors were switched off around the country.

While I dug out old faves like Raymond Chandler, Kristopher Young, Dashiell Hammett, Haruki Murakami, Joseph Heller, Philip K. Dick, Ryu Murakami, James Ellroy and Yasunari Kawabata, I also got to explore the terrain of some newer cats like Kristopher Young, Steve Mosby, Molly Gaudry, Guy Salvidge, Urban Waite, Shuichi Yoshida, Tony Black, Allan Guthrie, Grant Jerkins, Justin Nicholes, Josh Stallings, Marcus Zusak, Nigel Bird, Paul D. Brazill, Gordon Highland, Heath Lowrance and Yuko Matsumoto. There were some great reads tucked away on trains here in Tokyo over the past twelves months; thanks to all of these people for keeping me inspired and/or marginally sane.

I'm currently about 120 pages into my next novel, titled One Hundred Years of Vicissitude, and fingers crossed it pans out reasonably well in 2012.

The reception to Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat was bloody brilliant, thanks in large part to fellow bloggers Elizabeth A. White, Marcus Baumgart, Jacob @ Drying Ink, Tony Pacitti @ Forces Of Geek, and Guy Salvidge @ Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus. Thanks for the other sweet reviews, too, from Verbicide, SF Book Reviews, Farrago, Amber, Jody, Gordon, Jessica, Colin, Jane and M. L. Sawyer. Some of these are here.

I also have to thank my publishers, Another Sky Press, for making the dream-thing come true, as well as every single person who's bothered to read the wayward tome. Ta, mates!


Music-wise, I still adore my electronic/leftfield techno stuff, and there were some amazing slabs of vinyl from Slidebar in Germany including a new one, Behind Moisture Crack, with Cristian Vogel, Bill Youngman, Tobias Schmidt (and me - shhh), and the latest outing from Neil Landstrumm. I also had the absolute privilege of remixing Detroit legends Aux 88 - alongside Gez Varley from LFO - on the Black Tokyo Remix Sessions 2 12-inch.

Elektrax in Sydney is continuing to do amazing things under the helm of the very talented and prolific DJ Hi-Shock (the Lucy remix of Ground Loop's Ampersand was one of my tracks of the year). Sebastian Bayne is doing a great job running IF? Records - well, he did release my latest Little Nobody album Hard Foiled, plus an EP (Linoleum Actress) with remixes by himself, and the great Justin Robertson and Paul Birken - plus there's great stuff from Seb himself, Enclave, Mike Holmes, etc.

Hats off to my mate Shinji Tokida who runs Plaza In Crowd here in Japan, for releasing the Commix CD of my stuff, remixed by the likes of Shin Nishimura, DJ Wada, Mijk van Dijk, Dave Tarrida, James Ruskin, Luke's Anger, Dave Angel, Justin Berkovi, Ben Pest, etc.


Finally, rounding out a crazy year in too many respects, Auricular Records in the USA got out my most recent release. Titled From the Back of the Fridge, they say it's "A retrospective/archival collection of the works of Andrez Bergen. Packaged in a futuristic resealable silver bag. Features a 30-page full color book spanning almost 14 years of the musical career of Andrez as he passes through his many incarnations as DJ, producer, author and family man. The book is a colorful collection of art, photos, adventures, and insights accompanied by enlightening text bits by Andrez himself. Also included with this package is a 2 disc collection of audio, remixes, and videos."

It's also only $25. Go figure.

Anyway, enough self-indulgent waffling! I tacked on some inane year-end Top 5 lists for you to sink your teeth into, but most of all... happy new year!!


TOP 5 ANIME MOVIES 2011

1. Drawer Hobs (d. Kazuchika Kise)
2. Macross Frontier – Sayonara no Tsubasa (d. Shoji Kawamori)
3. A Letter to Momo (d. Hiroyuki Okiura)
4. Broken Blade: Bastions of Sorrow (d. Tetsuro Amino)
5. Doraemon: Nobita and the New Steel Troops – Angel Wings (d. Yukiyo Teramoto)



TOP 5 TV ANIME 2011

1. Blood-C (Production I.G)
2. Un-Go (Bones)
3. Suite PreCure♪ (Toei)
4. Usagi Drop (Production I.G)
5. No. 6 (Bones)


TOP 5 JAPANESE LIVE ACTION MOVIES 2011

1. The Detective is in the Bar (d. Hajime Hashimoto)
2. Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai (d. Takashi Miike)
3. Once in a Blue Moon (d. Koki Mitani)
4. Karate-Robo Zaborgar (d. Noboru Iguchi)
5. Tormented (d. Takashi Shimizu)

Odd Bedfellows on a Plate

If you grew up in the 1960s or '70s you'd probably remember a kids' book by Dr. Seuss titled One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.

Alternatively, if you're a child of the '90s you may recall an episode of The Simpsons titled "One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish".

It's the episode in which Bart Simpson and family make a visit to a new sushi bar called The Happy Sumo, and Homer demands fugu while the chef is out canoodling Edna Krabappel on the backseat of her car.


Cue assistant chef's stressful splicing and dicing of the deflating delicacy.

For those who may have missed this cartoon, fugu is the Japanese name for blowfish or pufferfish of the Tetraodontidae family, the majority of which have extremely high levels of a neurotoxin called tetrodotoxin in their ovaries, liver, intestines, gonads and skin.

The Encyclopædia Britannica has labeled fugu the second most-poisonous vertebrate in the world and there is no antidote to the poison – a fact that doesn't seem to faze Japanese consumers, however, since some 10,000 tons are eaten here each year.

When I first arrived in Japan in 2001 I really had no choice but to play Homer Simpson and indulge in the expensive dish, which can cost anywhere between ¥4,000 (US$50) and ¥20,000 (US$250) depending upon the restaurant, the quality of the serving, the size, and the kind of dish.

The most common way to have fugu is sashimi-style, sliced exceptionally thin and raw and served with a special dipping sauce called ponzu (a canny blend of citrus juice and soy sauce). Each piece is almost transparent and the texture softer than most other fish. The impression is that it discreetly dissolves in your mouth.

The delicacy is also deep fried or conjured up in a nabe (hot pot), and often combined with fugu hirezake: Toasted fugu fin served in hot sake. It smells a wee bit fishy, but has quite the celebratory kick to it.


You can usually tell the fugu eateries by the huge storefront tanks full of the fish: Swimming, carousing, looking a little the worse-for-wear, and occasionally floating listlessly upside down.

The allusion of those bottom-up types runs a little close to home when it comes to fugu.

Both in fiction and reality the fish has had a huge impact on the culture of this country and fugu is quite often lauded in traditional haiku. While its price sets the dish up as the foodstuff of kings (but not the emperor, who is not allowed to partake), many Japanese office workers with big annual bonuses aspire to tuck into the marine delight.

Even so there is a hint of the morbid and fatalistic involved. Fugu, while outrageously priced, could be viewed as the Russian roulette of the wining and dining set – and mortality is, after all, the great leveler.

YOU CAN READ MORE ABOUT TASTY FUGU, ALONG WITH HACHINOKO (BEE LARVAE) AND INAGO (LOCUSTS) IN THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE @ FORCES OF GEEK.