By the mid-’80s, there were two types of kids: kids who got hurt by imitating pro wrestling in the yard, and kids who hurt other kids by imitating pro wrestlers in the back yard. No matter how hard it is to pull off a Camel Clutch without injuring someone in real life, imitating the Kalamari Wrestler’s even tougher — he’s got eight arms and a giant bulbous head.
There’s not a lot else to say about this trailer for Japan’s Kalamari Wrestler, except what everyone already knows — as a people, the Japanese are out of their freaking minds. Every last one of ‘em:
I went to this cool Japanese pop-culture exhibit at the Kennedy Center a while back – and as you might imagine, robots were all OVER the place. There were a bunch of really cool robot toys on display, and I photographed most of them for some kind of gallery presentation. I wanted to try out a few different Photoshop techniques to make these into something other than snaps some guy took in like, ten minutes.
I’m trying to simulate they might look if I were approaching them through a gray, misty dawn, like they were looming up out of a toy plastic nightmare or emerging from mountain mist to shoot everyone’s eyes out with pre-safety obsession missiles shot from spring cannons on their arms and back.
And I have no idea what these things are named … apart from Tranzor Z and Godzilla. If you know the names, go ahead and drop ‘em in the comments.
I’ve pulled out a few of my favorites here, after the jump …
The Japanese robots at the Kennedy Center’s “Robotopia Rising” exhibit are cute, cuddly ambassadors from a future packed with smiling, happy plastic slaves. Japan’s massive aging population is creating a need for robotic elder-care assistants, machines that can remind the aged to take medicine, turn them in bed, or alert working adult children to problems at home.
This makes perfect sense for a culture that worships its ancestors, loves technology and has evolved economically to the point where family can no longer afford to care for family personally. “Robotopia Rising” asserts that Japanese robots are made to emulate their pop culture, equal parts Astro Boy and Hello Kitty. Here in America, we just chuck our old folks into crooked homes and get back to making actual Terminators as quickly as possible.
“Robotopia Rising” is part of a larger exhibit at the Kennedy Center, “Japan: Culture + Hyperculture,” and it’s easily the most magnetic part. I didn’t see a lot of wide-eyed toddlers and balding geeks like me lingering breathlessly over the admittedly gorgeous lacquer sculptures in the hallway, or straining to touch the gorgeous textile artwork with trembling, sweaty fingers.
My friend Eric called me up late the other night from somewhere outside of Barcade, panting breathlessly in the cold. “Dude, don’t go to bed yet,” he said. “I’m bringing something over for you.”
And what a something it was! In its heyday, he looked like this, functioning as an expensive karaoke toy.
Here’s a little treat for you, folks – a Japanese man wearing only a horse mask and several different thongs (including one that goes over his freaking shoulders) picks, cooks, and eats wild mushrooms. There are title cards in Japanese that may explain what’s going on. I can’t read Japanese, so I could be wrong here, but I highly doubt the words on the screen can adequately explain what’s going on here.
This may be NSFW — his “riding crop” is thoughtfully pixellated, but the whole thing is just too nuts to be safe. Stick around for a little part at about 6:05 that really makes the whole thing:
Eating mushrooms is freaking redundant for this guy. (Tip of the hat to Ectomo)
A few months ago, I saw David Levy give a presentation based on his new book “Love + Sex With Robots” at the Museum of Sex in Manhattan. While the presentation had a pretty interesting premise, I had so many questions afterwards and could’ve run roughshod over the Q&A session.
I bought the book and read it for myself, and just like the presentation it left me wanting so much more. Levy lays his belief that one day, people will have sex with robots, out like a master’s thesis that drops every idea down brick by thudding brick, cementing with precedent and detail in a way that makes you believe him while thinking “alright already, I get it. Where’s the fun stuff?” I have no problem buying the fact that pleasure robots are on the horizon … what I want to know is how they’re going to fit in, how society will change.
The book’s been talked about in a number of places online since Levy’s presentation. Wired, MSNBC, and The Globe and Mail have all done pieces on the book and its premise. I tend to agree the most with Joel Achenbach’s recent review in the Washington Post’s book section, but in all of this chatter, something’s been missing.
David Levy was kind enough to grant me an e-mail interview for this blog in an attempt to scratch my itching curiosity. The interview follows, after the jump …
My Grandpa once told me “every last one of the Japanese are crazy, Jeffrey. They’re all out of their minds, each and every one of ‘em.” He’s prone to saying stuff like that, like most grandpas are.
Although, I have to say, this commercial doesn’t exactly prove him wrong. Mildly NSFW unless the boss is one of those freaks that writes Ann Landers to gripe about public breastfeeding.
Long after humans succumb to self-induced extinction, alien anthropologists are going to visit Earth and come to an obvious conclusion: Spider-Man was our God. Even if you discount the unholy rotten truckloads of Slurpee cups and action figures used to market the films, Spider-Man’s so much a part of our collective consciousness that he may as well be a God — we use the story to tell moral fables and … forget it. Just forget it.
I was trying to put an intellectual spin on everything here, but the fact is that I’m a nerd and way more stoked about Spider-Man 3 than an adult should be. The whole point of life is to be excited about stuff, as excited as you can be, and I’m trying my damnedest to access the passion I felt for Spider-Man as a kid. It’s working pretty well, too. So instead of inflating this post with a bunch of pseudo-intellectual nonsense, I’ll get to the nerdy fun.
Here’s ten incarnations of Spider-Man that will never, ever make it into a movie:
Japanese Spider Man
The Japanese Spider-Man TV show aired in the late 70’s and did what Japanese culture does best: took a pre-existing idea and made it completely insane. Check out the opening credits:
In the following clip, several samurai led by a man with a beer can for a face have captured Spider-man and are menacing him with their swords. A Japanese mariachi appears on the hillside, strums a few chords and hoses the bad guys down with a stream of bullets emanating from his guitar, which naturally doubles as a machine gun. Spider-man escapes to thrilling music, using his spider-like abilities to strike some poses and rapidly climb a large dirt pile. Our hero bests several bad guys with a few well-timed kicks and calls for his sports car over his wrist radio. The man with the beer can face grows to Godzilla size and since this is 70’s Japan, low-budget Voltron shows up to save the day.
It’s not really Christianity that’s so bad, it’s just that Pat Robertson and Ned Flanders have pretty much given it a bad rap. I found a couple folks on Flickr that are using Spider-Man to tell Bible stories. One of them’s definitely making fun of Ned Flanders Christians … the other guy isn’t.
Spider-Man Ganesh
Why is it weak when Christians co-opt Spider-Man to tell Bible stories, but when Hindu folks make a Spider-Man Ganesh it’s cool? I’m not 100 percent on this, but I think it’s because white people are just kinda lame.
Bollywood Spider-Woman, Superman
In this clip from a Bollywood classic, Superman and a woman in a Spider-Man costume fly over the city kissing, pausing to break funky dance moves in a city park, fight bad guys and celebrate their victory with more funky dance moves and in-flight smooching.
Spider-Man’s fought alongside some pretty colorful people in his day, but none quite so colorful as WWE Superstar Lou Albano. In this Indian comic, Spidey teams up with Lou Albano, Superman, Batman and large wizard who looks like Moses to save the day. Unfortunately, an evil wizard turns Lou Albano into an violent giant and an Indian superhero is forced to kill him by force-feeding him some deadly snakes.
My Son Sean, on his 7th Birthday, with “Spiderman”
I met up with lady who use to work in the costume department at whichever movie studio did Spiderman stuff. She was able to get hold of some Spiderman films and made a costume for her son to wear. It was pretty good, except his glasses showed underneath the eye cut outs … As a single mom at the time, a spiderman Birthday Party for that many kids was a big deal for my wallet, and I was so hoping Sean would like it.
Jay Pinkerton’s Spider-Man Comic Remix
Pinkerton writes for Cracked Magazine, among other publications. His remixed Spider-Man newspaper strips are really funny .. or funny enough for fifteen minutes or so, anyway.
3 Dev Adam
Loosely translated to “3 Mighty Men,” this Turkish film delivers the stange, alright. El Santo and Captain America team up against a villainous Spider-man with glasses and giant fluffy eyebrows. He instructs some gangsters to bury a woman up to her neck in sand, puts rodents into a tube aimed at some guy’s face (a la 1984) and has a neglected physique that makes your IT guy look like Hercules.
