Sunday at Universal Studios Osaka: You Will Get Wet on This Ride, Because it is Raining

If there was ever a testament to the poisonous influence of American culture, the slow twisting of values and priorities away from humanity and towards okay I'm obviously just fucking with you. Here's some pictures from Universal Studios Osaka!



Universal Studios is actually where you can find some really incredible experiences, and I'm not talking about memories of spending quality time with friends and loved ones. No no no. God no. I could see how you could think that, but no. I'm talking about the designed, prepackaged experiences contained inside their "movie rides."

The Spider-Man ride is the star of the show, combining movement and the illusion thereof in perfect concert with the ride's ridiculous narrative. It does a really incredible job of dropping you in the middle of an unreal action sequence, better than anything else in the world as far as I know. No small accomplishment.

After that, of course, the rest of the park is a bit less impressive. The Jaws Ride:



The Jaws ride is a painstakingly constructed recreation of what would happen if the titular shark put himself at a huge disadvantage by only invading tightly enclosed spaces and consequently got offed in three minutes by a theme park employee. It's actually pretty cool, and the live actor running the ride serves a critical role in directing the experience; for most of the ride, she (we had a female actress, anyway) directs and misdirects the audience's attention by pointing her rifle in the direction she ostensibly thinks the shark will be coming from, and in one dark environment she does the same thing with a flashlight. It keeps the audience's eyes pointing in the best possible direction, complimenting the environment design.

The Jurassic Park ride wasn't as impressive, but it did play host to my finest moment of the afternoon. Because it was raining and JP was a water-based ride, I chose to strap on a pair of goggles I had recently purchased.



As a result, when the animatronic spitting dinosaur spat ordinary water in my face, I was completely protected. It's like I always, always say: I'm smarter than Wayne Knight.

Anyway, other highlights:



Americana! Every possible detail is absolutely perfect! Except for the "Coney Island" hot dogs, apparently. I didn't try one, but the other members of my team said they were awful. I don't know what mishmash of animals they grind up for the meat. Possibly tanuki, which means you're gettin' a pretty good percentage of testicle in there. Like, double digits.



I pointed out that there were four males and four females in our group, which no one else had apparently noticed, so we were able to buy four "Love Passes." We were obligated to hug each other before we got the passes, and thus bound eternally by the Red String of Fate.

The Job: Into the Repository of Normal-Sized Things

So... I already wrote my blog post about Universal Studios, but I want to talk about this first.

Today I got to have lunch with Tim and Rachel again. That was nice, because Tadashi, as I've mentioned, has been my insistent companion some time now. Not surprisingly, the topic of the day was why the hell Tadashi's been keeping me to himself.

"Are you getting promoted or something?" said Rachel.

"After a matter of weeks?" I said, raising an eyebrow. "What could I possibly have done to merit that?"

"Yeah, nothing really," she said. "But Tim wanted to suggest that Tadashi was gay for you and I thought I'd class up the conversation by saying something else first."

"And thank God that's over with," said Tim. He inhaled, then deeply intoned, "GAAAAAAAAAAAAA-" he paused to take a sip of CC Lemon, "-AAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY."

"I'm not ruling that out," I said evenly. "Oh, wait, I mean..."

I leaned across the table, raised my eyebrows, and smiled seductively. "I'm not ruling that out."

I leaned back. "But even still, I can't see why it's just me he'd want to hang out with. He'd love you guys. What did you two do in that interview to make him hate you so much?"

Tim: "I made unambiguous reference to my heterosexuality."

Rachel: "I laid down a fart of annihilating potency."

I crossed my arms sternly. "That's disgusting, Tim. Anyway, Tadashi just picks my brain about philosophy and science fiction and talks about the incredible potential of the holograms."

"And it doesn't occur to him that you might learn more about them if you actually did some work with them?" asked Tim.

I shrugged. From the cafeteria's front entryway, Tadashi strolled into view behind Tim and Rachel and approached our table. I casually urged Tim and Rachel to immediately say the nastiest things they could think of about Tadashi. That didn't work.

Tadashi waved me up from the table. I slumped, perhaps visibly; Tadashi's an okay guy and all, but I feel like our conversations aren't going anywhere. And yet it wasn't but a moment before I was walking behind Tadashi through a familiar hallway. Am I already an unquestioning cog in a corporate machine?

"Hey, Tadashi, we just passed the office. Where are we going?"

Oh, apparently not. Cool.

"Ah," said Tadashi. "I am showing you something different today. I think we are in agreement on the future of Hyperreal, and I want you to see how we are making it real."

We stopped in front of a solid-looking white door labeled... well, my kanji's not real good, so I actually have no idea what it said. All I really know is the kanji for "big," which is damn near ubiquitous. Whatever's behind the door is normal-sized or smaller, that's all I can tell you.

He swiped his card in front of a panel by the door and laboriously pulled the heavy door open. "I realize I have been talking at great length this week," he said, "but when you see what's in here, I don't think you will regret talking with Tadashi... ma.. tta."

Something inside the door had stopped Tadashi in his tracks. Before I could sidestep over to look, he pushed the door closed and smiled at me. "I am very sorry," he said. "Perhaps tomorrow would be a better day to show this to you. You may return to lunch."

So... Huh? I didn't see Tadashi for the rest of the day.

HAI GUISE

wooooooo

went drinking with tadashi

dudes a lightweight

likes to hear himself thalk, though

He's been talking my ear off all week about the Hyperreal's potential, actually, pretty much monopolizing all my free time ((yeah, I got tired of typing like an idiot. I'm drunk, not retarded). Tonight he was trying to finding common ground between us in terms of speculative fiction. Turns out we've both seen A Clockwork Orange, which he was happy about, very briefly, before he went into this rant about how the film was too dark, how science fiction in general was doom and gllom.

It's true! It's worth while to think about the problems of the future, but there's such a thing as being too cautious

I want nanomachines now, fuck your goo

I had to explain that reference to Tadashi. I guess another future thing I want is to embed Wikipi links in spoken words. Wikipi is what I call it.

Tomorrow I'm going to Universal Studios. Not sure what's there. Should be fun.

The Job: Workaday Bafflement with Tadashi

I went into Tadashi's office on Monday. I was the last of the English-language team to be called, which might have been an advantageous position if anyone else had given me an idea of what to expect. I'd asked, believe me, but no two people had quite seemed to have the same experience, and there was no consensus on what Tadashi was actually looking for.

"Think of it this way," Tim said, "If you fuck up, you'll have no way of knowing."

Thanks, Tim!

"Tadashi's Office" was really just an all-purpose office where any two people could go if they needed a desk for one person to be in front of and another person to be behind. Obviously, "workplace harassment" roleplaying is the first thing that comes to mind, but Tadashi didn't seem like the type.

He was there when I entered, sitting between the desk and a blank white wall, wearing the same smile I'm now used to seeing in Japanese fast food places. Not fake, exactly, just... practiced. Automatic. He beckoned me to sit.

"I've called you to discuss a concern the company has, for the content team," he said. "You are familiar with our company's philosophy."

If he meant the five-page document we'd been handed on our first day, then yeah, I was familiar with it. At a glance, it was airy-fairy rambling interposed with diagrams linking together abstract concepts in vaguely occult-looking pattens. I eventually attempted a closer reading, and discovered that the last couple of paragraphs were actually a pretty straightforward statement of purpose and responsibility.

Anyway, I nodded.

“This is a difficult thing to say, I think,” said Tadashi. “I don’t want you to get the idea that we are saying, ‘you cannot be creative, you cannot make your own ideas.’ You understand.”

I nodded again, and quietly resolved to keep nodding until the talking stopped.

“Good. What we want to say is… the product, the Hyperreal, is meant to communicate, you understand. We want to create a good communication, good ideas. I want to explain - what I mean by a good idea or a bad idea…”

I couldn’t quite tell if I was supposed to fill this pause. Eh, what the hell.

“Like, if we implied that violence was funny – a scene with two characters hitting each other, or something like that.” I paused. “Bad idea.”

“Yes!” said Tadashi. My answer seemed to ease the mood. “If people see it, and are motivated for something bad… like violence, or greed. That is not what we want to make. It is entertainment with a purpose.”

“I understand,” I said. “You want us to be careful of what ideas we promote, so people come away with the right kind of motivation.”

Again, I couldn’t quite tell whether it was still my turn to speak. It occurred to me to wonder why these were one-on-one sessions.

“Um,” I continued, “One of my favorite authors, Kurt Vonnegut, wrote a book like that.” Tadashi’s mouth silently traced the unfamiliar word Vonnegut. “Breakfast of Champions was the name of the novel. A man reads a book of science fiction, and he goes insane because he believes what it says. The idea was bad for him.”

As some of you might know, that’s an oversimplification, even without the stiff language. But it made Tadashi smile – it was clearly encouraging to him that I was familiar with the concept he was trying to get across.

“I think you understand,” said Tadashi. “We like to be creative, but to be responsible as well. If we can motivate people, it is a great responsibility. To have an idea yourself is a small thing. To give ideas to others is much bigger, and so the responsibility too is a large one.”

Before another awkward pause could descend, words of vague agreement spilled out of my mouth. I panic a little bit in situations like this, when all someone wants is for me to agree with them on something. It's no easier when the subject matter is something I don't feel strongly about, like "ideas are important." I mean, I agree, but trying to be enthusiastic about something so vague and indisputable is like trying to compose an impassioned speech about the health benefits of oxygen.

Still, I can generally mutter something that brings the awkwardness to an end, and whatever I said to Tadashi - something about ideas changing the world, I think, and the word "revolution" was in there somewhere - was apparently a good cap to the conversation. He smiled and stood, and I followed and bowed.

I have no idea what just happened.

Idle Weekend Exploration

One thing that's surprised me about Japan is how damn hard it is to find video arcades around here. Pachinko parlors, that's a different story. The place is lousy with them, and I'm a little hesitant to go in, for fear that I might develop an addiction and have to go cold turkey when I leave.

Anyway, as I implied, I've been searching for a proper arcade, and... look what I found!




I mean, I just stumbled across it by accident, but it's good to know where it is. It might not be a bad place for a date, you know? I'm sure there's some girls around here who don't know about it, and since I was lucky enough to find it, I can show them where it is.

The Job: Chatting over Noodles

Today I had lunch down in the café with Tim and Rachel, two other members of the English content team. In case their names didn’t tip you off to their gaijin heritage.

Tim’s one of those guys who couldn’t be bothered to develop a fashion sense of his own, and defaulted to “clean-cut” because it helps you get jobs and some women have a kink for that sort of thing. That’s not meant as an insult, by the way; I’ve never really trusted people who have a handle on fashion.

And Rachel… Rachel’s excited to be in Japan. She makes me feel bad for not knowing all her anime references, and she presents me daily with the uncomfortable possibility that I would be a happier person if I embraced geekiness rather than publically distancing myself from it.

Today the conversation is about work, and the ongoing process of getting comfortable in the company’s specific take on Japanese corporate culture.

“Tadashi kinda reminds me of…” starts Rachel, then thinks better of it, an anime reference dying in her throat. (no, I’m not an omniscient narrator, I’m just presumptuous)

“Tadashi seems nervous about something,” she amends. Tadashi’s our handler, a young aide to Yamata-san who speaks English on his behalf. “Like he thinks there’s a spy on our team.”

“A spy?” says Tim. “Corporate or double-oh-seven?”

“That’s the thing,” Rachel says. “It sounds like he’s looking for something ideological.”

“Terrorist, then?” I offer.

“Kinda. When I was in his office this morning, he was asking me all these questions, like he was trying to get me to let something slip. Like he expects me to steal the Hyperreal process, or blow up the building where they make them.”

“Hyperreal” is what the holograms are called. Because they look real.

“God, the company has a huge ego about these things,” I say, pushing curry udon around in my bowl. “Or maybe it’s just Yamata, and he’s got Tadashi running around trying to safeguard it like it was the cure for ball cancer.”

Oh god, sometimes I just say things. “Ball cancer”? I mean, Tim and Rachel are adults, they’re not offended, but where the hell did that come from? I swear to God, when I work blue I usually try to put more effort into it than that.

“I think he’s gone through most of the English-language team,” said Rachel, “so if there’s a spy, it’s pretty much gotta be one of you two.” She leans toward Tim. “You?”

She’s trying to make him uncomfortable, I think, in a flirty way. I guess I’m jealous, but if I wanted that kind of attention I could dress better and make an effort to look more flappable, so it’s my own fault I don’t get women trying to push me out of my comfort zone.

“Maybe,” says Tim. “For the right amount of money I would. Not the blowing-up thing, I guess.”

There’s a pause. “What, you’re not going to interrogate me?” I ask, visibly hurt.

“No, it’s definitely you,” she says. “Tim’s clean, but you just have this-”

“Aura of treachery,” I say. She nods solemnly, still kidding. She changes the subject, and the conversation ultimately turns to maid cafes, somehow.

Sounds like Tadashi’s been through just about everybody, though, so if there’s really a spy on our team, I guess it’s Tim. Or someone who’s good at lying, I guess. You wouldn't hire a guy to sabotage a company unless he could pass an "are you evil" interview, would you?

The Job

My job is the reason I'm here in Japan, so I suppose it bears mentioning.

I'm working on holograms. The term "hologram" means more things than you think it does, but what I'm working on is perhaps the least daunting of all possibilities: a little moving image printed on a flat surface. It can do some neat things, and the company that hired me is gearing up to foist it on the public.

The holograms have a lot in common with those old hologram baseball cards, actually, except instead of two images switching back and forth as you move your head, you get a progression of images, like a short movie. I'm not totally wowed, but I’ll admit that the image quality is, all things considered, pretty amazing.

A picture wouldn't do it justice, as you might imagine.

Don't expect me to explain how it works, by the way. I'm on the English-language content team; the tech team's all Japanese. As for how I got involved... let's just say I was in the right place at the right time and I got scooped up by the company's net. In this metaphor, the net is made of money, and I am a fish who likes to eat at restaurants and get nice haircuts.

Honestly, I see where they're coming from with this big push to get creative talent behind the technology. I just don’t see these holograms becoming a canon entertainment medium. I don't really even see them becoming a fad - they’re gimmicky, right?

Agree with me on this, so I can grumble about my job.

That having been said, if anyone’s going to do something amazing with these things, you bet your ass it’s gonna be me. And my team, I guess. They’ve all got non-refundable tickets to ride my Genius Train.

And I’ll leave you with this: apparently our entire universe might be a hologram! So that’s something to hold onto if I ever get fed up with this job. And just think – those old hologram cards where you turn them and it looks like a baseball player is hitting a ball? Those are tiny universes, and that little man and that little ball are the entirety of that universe’s grand cosmic ballet.

[Reader take note: this blog has held its breath for too long, and this post is its first great gasp as it slips into a dizzy, oxygen-deprived dream of embellishment and utter fiction. Posts containing observations of Japanese culture will continue to be largely true; posts concerning the author's personal and work life, this one included, will be irresponsible fabrications.

The Coffee Brewing Institue Presents:

Last time, I talked about Valentine's Day in Japan, but if there's one thing the Japanese love more than other people, it's coffee.

One of the many conveniences I'll miss when I return to the US is this thing:





It's a little coffee filter that sits in your cup! Okay, but here's something actually interesting about coffee in Japan, related to me by a teammate. You can go to a cafe anywhere in Japan and get a slice of cake and a cup of coffee, which is perfectly nice, and which my teammate did. But when she finished her coffee, she decided to order another cup.

It wasn't free, which is not altogether surprising. It was, however, unheard of. Her eating companion and the waitress, both Japanese, looked at her like she was crazy. So there you go: Japanese people love to drink a cup of coffee, but they hate hate hate to drink two cups of coffee.

I don't think there's an equivalent to that in the US, where getting second helpings of pretty much anything is pretty well acceptable.

Next time maybe I'll talk about my job out here...