Last month, I went to Cinema Clair (the little independent theater near Symphony Hall) to see a showing of a 1971 Western called Red Sun. It stars Charles Bronson and Toshiro Mifune, two legends from opposite sides of the Pacific.

It had a limited run – Feb. 14-20. Every showing was at 9:50 a.m. To me, that seems much too early for a movie…but somehow I got myself out of the house and down to the movie theater.

I was happy that I did. The movie, which features an unlikely team-up between a Wild West bandit and a Japanese samurai, turned out to be thoroughly entertaining. It had an engaging plot, great performances from all the main actors, and plenty of good one-liners.

While many old Hollywood movies don’t show Japan in a fair or respectful light, I thought Red Sun’s portrayal of Mifune’s character was relatively well-done. The way they treat Native Americans was much more problematic, but that’s a discussion for another time.

If you’re looking for an offbeat, interesting film experience, check out the schedule at Cinema Clair: http://www.cinemaclair.co.jp

Several months ago, I was talking in class with our student T. We talked about Japanese manga that we like. They mentioned they like the manga ‘Akira’. I told them that I had seen the animated movie, but I had never read the manga and always wanted to. The movie adaptation of Akira is world famous. A lot of people have not read the manga overseas however. I had heard the movie changed the story and ended much sooner than the original manga story does.

About two weeks ago, at the end of class, T. suddenly said “I have all of Akira in my car, you can borrow it”. I was surprised. We talked about it many months ago and they never suggested the idea. None the less, I have recently been reading through it when I have the chance. Despite the manga being over 35 years old, it still holds up. Its setting and art are extremely high quality, and it’s interesting to see how they imagined a strange dystopian version of our future. I am over half-way through currently and the story has shifted a lot.  I expected the story to involve a lot of talking, however to my surprise Akira is full of action too. It has constant action / fight scenes and has a non-stop pace.

I will probably finish it sometime in the next few weeks. If you like dark, dystopian settings or unique stories then it is worth checking out. It may be old, but it still holds up today.  

Every year, we usually have a New Year’s Party instead of an End of the Year Party.

Our students are really busy people, so they often have several parties to attend in December for work, friends, or other social groups.

Our New Year’s Party is often at the end of January or the beginning of February. Somehow this year, we decided to have the party on February 15th, which is the latest that it has ever been.

About 18 staff and students gathered together for dinner at Ryoutei, an izakaya downtown.

We had a wonderful time talking to each other and sometimes getting to know new people, too.

I thought the food was excellent, I ate plenty and left feeling full and satisfied.

Nearly half of the party continued on to a second party at Pinball Cafe, right by the Nishigawa, one block off of Momotaro Street.

It was a great night of chatting and relaxing.

NEO’s next party will be cherry blossom viewing in April.

バレエ、オペラ、劇団等、舞台で行われる公演はすべて理解不能な私です。自分から人形浄瑠璃を見に行くなんて思いつくこともないのですが、誘われて人生初経験として行ってきました。ちなみに淡路島上陸も初です。この淡路座は最近NHKで取り上げられたらしく、それ以来多くの人が関心を示して来られるようになったそうです。公演そのものは短く、1話が25分程度。舞台裏紹介の付いている時間帯を選んだので舞台裏や浄瑠璃が初めてさんにも分かるよう、団員さんが細かく説明してくださいました。その舞台裏紹介を含めて全部で50分です。観客席は昔は床に座る座席だったそうですが、近年風に腰かけて座れるように変えてあり、雰囲気も十分、とても快適です。海外から来られる方もたくさんいらっしゃるようで、団員さんに尋ねてみると、語学に堪能なスタッフが対応されるらしい。

正直なところ、浄瑠璃ってなに？と思っていた私です。瑠璃色はわかるけれどそれに浄がついたら何が違うの？清浄なものを表す仏教語だそうだけれど室町時代の語り物で「浄瑠璃姫」がいたそうな。そこから引いた表現だそう。昔から知っている言葉でも説明をしようとすると何も言えないものは他にもあります。「侘び寂び」もその代表選手。そんなもの、感性で感じ取ってくれと願うばかりです。そしてこの人形浄瑠璃を英語で簡潔に表現するならばどうなるでしょう？会場に貼られてあった英語の説明を見てちょっと愕然としました。

Japanese puppet show

ぱ、パペット？ やだー 人形浄瑠璃がKermit The Frogと同じものに分類されちゃうのかー。

The front row is the bean team, the back row is the demon team.

This year Setsubun was on February 2nd instead of February 3rd. When Setsubun is on a weekday, we usually celebrate at NEO by having the students throw beans at me while I wear a very scary demon mask. This year February 2nd was on a Sunday, so I just quietly celebrated at home with my family by eating some ehomaki and facing the lucky direction of west southwest.

I usually get an ebi-fry maki for my ehomaki, because it is the best! I am facing West Southwest in this picture.

On Tuesday some of NEO’s adult students came to their lesson with paper demon masks and beans, so I got out my scary demon mask and we took some pictures. I did eat the roasted soybeans after that, but the official Setsubun was already over, so I’m not sure if I will get the good luck or not…

Simulating a bean throw at Dave. “Demon get out! Good luck come in!”

I love music, and when I was younger I went to a lot of classical music concerts. This was especially true during college – I had several friends who were musicians, so there were numerous chances to hear orchestras, chamber music, and solo recitals.

Sadly, there’s been very little of that since I moved to Okayama. I’m aware of some concerts at Symphony Hall and sometimes Harenowa, but those venues can be pretty expensive.

So you can imagine how excited I was when a friend invited me to a New Year’s Concert at Symphony Hall, where we got tickets for only 3000 yen. I said yes right away. Our seats were up in the highest level, of course, but still – it was a reasonable price.

The concert was billed as “Italian opera,” but actually, it wasn’t a full opera like you might imagine. There were no costumes or props. However, they had several amazing singers who performed some notable songs from various operas. The orchestra also played a couple of famous pieces by Johann Strauss, and there was an extremely talented violinist who performed Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy.

It was a great show. From now on, I’m going to check the schedule at Symphony Hall more often!