Japan Air Guitar Championships

I've never been a fan of air guitarists, but when I saw the event lineup in front of Yamakataya and Lotteria for the 2019 Japan Air Guitar Championships, I figured it would be good for a few photos for the blog.



Sunday, the weather was pretty good - a bit overcast, but humid. The event itself was pretty well attended, but it started out extremely slowly.



The schedule stated that the opening act would be around 3 PM, and then the first stage would start at 3:40. I got in at 3 PM, and the main host, an old guy with lots of earrings and a fake stick-on mohawk still hadn't begun warming up the crowd, and when he did he just spent too much time heckling the high school students that joined him on stage.



The "opening act" turned out to be a high school boys cheerleading dance squad that wasn't very good. And, after they finished, they left Tenmonkan and went off somewhere else. They didn't even stick around to watch the competition.



The MC, preparing to give the lead cheerleader a hard time.



I liked the design on the fans they were handing out to the audience. The kanji in the middle is for Yamakataya department store, the main sponsor. I kept hoping that someone would riff on the fan for their act, but they didn't.



When the competition itself actually started, I was so bored that the air guitarists would really have to work to get me interested again. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. Everyone seemed to have a gimmick - air soccer player, air ballerina, air Cinderella, air gorilla, air masked super hero, air old man - that took the first 1-2 minutes of the act to set up, and no one knew how to pretend to play guitar. Here, we have the soccer player starting things off. After each act, the MC would interview the performer until the judges finished scoring them, and then the judges would make comments. By the time the second stage was to start at 4:50, there had been fewer than 6 people on stage.



The performers ranged from young boys to high school students, men and women. The ballerina showed some promise until she tried to do a leap and only got a couple inches off the ground. All of the music was copyrighted, so there was no point in recording anything for youtube or facebook. The little pocket camera had problems snapping shots of everyone, with all the bouncing around they were doing, so I decided to go into Lotteria and eat a burger in front of the second floor windows, and just wait things out. The finals were supposed to be around 6 PM, but I didn't see anything I cared enough to follow further, and I went back home then.

The announcers made a big deal about how the winners might be able to make it to the world's championships in Finland in 2020. I don't think any of the players I watched have a chance to make it past the elimination rounds. There was too much emphasis on the gimmick, and not enough on stage craft and being able to play convincingly.

Inoshishi Aroma

An aroma therapy shop still has this sign out for the Year of the Boar, giving a little story about inoshishi. They're cute when they're small.

Found Item

You can find the oddest things lying around on the street.



Literally. I don't know what this is supposed to be.

Enekey

(Image from the Eneos Enekey site, used for review purposes only.)

Not sure what to make of Gundam's Char doing web ads for Eneos' "enekey" electronic payment system. I guess trying to take over the universe doesn't pay as well as it used to.

Movie Fliers for July

KonoSuba


I was up at the movie theater floor of Amu Plaza, and I saw the poster for the latest Lupin III movie, featuring Fujiko. It's a beautiful illustration, and I was hoping they'd have the flier for it so I could post it here. Unfortunately, they didn't, and neither did the Tenpara theater in Tenmonkan. So I grabbed the fliers I could find to put them here instead.

First is for something called "Kono Subararashi sekai ni shukufuku wo! Legend of Crimson" AKA: Kono Suba ("God's Blessing on this World"). According to the wiki article, it's a parody of Japanese RPGs, which started out as a web novel, got turned into a light novel series, and then adapted to manga. The movie is an adaptation of the manga. For RPG parodies, I prefer Dragon House Hunting.



EVA


This one seems to be a bit odd. Looks like an ad for a traveling screen truck that's touring from city to city during the summer. I never really cared for EVA, so I'm not going to bother with this. Visit the website for more details.



You can also get an EVA smartphone app.

Ni no Kuni


I played the Ni no Kuni ("The Two Countries") 3DS game a couple years ago. Beautiful artwork, but spotty gameplay. Didn't quite live up to its potential. Looks like there's a movie version for it now.



One Piece


Finally, One Piece. You probably know more about this movie than I do, so no point in my saying anything here. Check out the website for the trailer.




"Nice hat, Luffy."

Lupin the IIIrd: Mine Fujiko's Lie

(Image from the website. Used for review purposes only.)

Check out the site.

Droning Lawn

I was at the Volunteer Center Friday morning, and as I was leaving I saw this big yellow tape square cordoning off the front lawn. I hadn't seen any signs advertising any events for the day, and I didn't have time to stick around to watch what happened (I had a class at the English school in a few minutes).



It kind of looked like some sort of drone flight practice course had been set up.



There were a few people standing around at the tent closer to the building, but they weren't doing anything interesting then.



It's a nice drone, anyway.

Ohgoku Jinja Matsuri, July 11-12

It's Rokugatsu-gou season again (June), which is celebrated at different times throughout Kagoshima prefecture, from July to early August. It's dedicated to Nariakira Shimadzu, the last of the Satsuma feudal lords of the 1800's (back when Kagoshima was named Satsuma). The merchants at the intersection of Streetcar and Izuro streets have their annual matsuri on the 11th and 12th of July in front of a small shrine (jinja) near the corner. (Terukuni Shrine has its event next Monday and Tuesday.)


(Kazu, folk)

The food stalls sell yakisoba, some other festival foods, soft drinks, beer and shochu, and there's some live music, from 5 PM to 10 PM. Last year, things kept ending at 8:30 PM, just before I could arrive after work, or from after dinner at home. This year, because the celebration was on Thursday and Friday, I could arrive at 6 PM. Unfortunately, the one American that used to work the yakisoba grill, and would give me free beer, moved down to Yakushima island, and none of the other merchants know me, so no free beer this year. Also, the music was traditional folk songs and copyrighted theme music from Japanese movies. I just hung around on Thursday long enough to take a few photos before going home.



On Sunday I could find a schedule, but there were only 6-7 acts total. Kazu (above), Sayo (below), Lighthouse (no idea), Hime no Kai (Princess Association, which looks like geisha dancers from the promo photo on the schedule), Joker (no idea), some kind of a prize giveaway quiz for children, and Fomoto (the really obnoxious MC that I can't stand, who I've seen at other events).





(Sayo, movie theme music)



I swung back again on Friday, had a 400 yen ($3.75 USD) cup of beer, and listened to the last of Kazu and the first two songs by Sayo. They're both enthusiastic players, but it's obvious that they're also both amateurs. Then I went home for dinner and to work on the computer for the night.

At least the weather was nice this time. I'm hoping it holds out until Monday, for the Terukuni Jinja matsuri.