#jiro nagasaki

[ultimate-waifu-bait]

Here is the first official character in Ultimate Waifu Bait! Fittingly, we start with the protagonist. Junichiro "Jiro" Nagasaki is an average highschool boy who isn't particularly good at anything. He's a slacker who doesn't take school, or anything, seriously. However, his dad was a famous baseball star, which earns Jiro a lot of popularity at school. He wants to get a girlfriend so that his parents and his friends will get off his back about 'doing something'. With his lack of skills and accomplishments, he thinks he'd be lucky to get any girl. But his popularity and friendly reputation means that he could take his pick of the girls in his class. Which one will be the right match for him?

[revenger444]

080 - nagasaki prefectural convenience school 〜attendance〜

illustration by jiro suzuki (see original)

[dan6085]

List of 20 popular types of Japanese ramen, along with brief details about each variety.

1. **Shoyu Ramen:**

- **Broth:** Soy sauce-based, clear and brown.

- **Noodles:** Thin, curly wheat noodles.

- **Toppings:** Typically includes sliced green onions, bamboo shoots, nori, and chashu pork.

2. **Shio Ramen:**

- **Broth:** Clear, light, and salty.

- **Noodles:** Thin, straight wheat noodles.

- **Toppings:** Seaweed, green onions, boiled egg, and sometimes seafood.

3. **Miso Ramen:**

- **Broth:** Thick, rich, and flavorful, made with fermented soybean paste (miso).

- **Noodles:** Medium-thick, curly wheat noodles.

- **Toppings:** Corn, bean sprouts, minced pork, and sometimes butter.

4. **Tonkotsu Ramen:**

- **Broth:** Creamy, rich, and hearty, made from pork bones simmered for hours.

- **Noodles:** Thin, straight wheat noodles.

- **Toppings:** Chashu pork, green onions, black garlic oil, and often a boiled egg.

5. **Shrimp Ramen:**

- **Broth:** Clear, seafood-based with a prominent shrimp flavor.

- **Noodles:** Thin, straight wheat noodles.

- **Toppings:** Shrimp, seaweed, green onions, and sometimes narutomaki (fish cake).

6. **Tsukemen:**

- **Broth:** Concentrated dipping broth, often more intense in flavor.

- **Noodles:** Thick, chewy wheat noodles served cold for dipping.

- **Toppings:** Similar to ramen, but served separately for dipping.

7. **Tanmen:**

- **Broth:** Clear, light, and vegetable-based.

- **Noodles:** Thin, straight wheat noodles.

- **Toppings:** Stir-fried vegetables such as cabbage, carrots, and bean sprouts.

8. **Curry Ramen:**

- **Broth:** Rich and spicy, flavored with Japanese curry.

- **Noodles:** Thin, straight wheat noodles.

- **Toppings:** Potatoes, carrots, onions, and sometimes minced meat in a curry-based soup.

9. **Yuzu Ramen:**

- **Broth:** Clear and citrusy, flavored with yuzu (a Japanese citrus fruit).

- **Noodles:** Thin, straight wheat noodles.

- **Toppings:** Yuzu zest, green onions, and sometimes seafood like shrimp or scallops.

10. **Vegetarian Ramen:**

- **Broth:** Varies, often miso or shoyu-based, made with vegetable stock.

- **Noodles:** Thin, straight wheat noodles.

- **Toppings:** Tofu, mushrooms, seaweed, and assorted vegetables.

11. **Nagasaki Champon:**

- **Broth:** Rich and hearty, often made with a combination of pork, chicken, and seafood.

- **Noodles:** Thick, chewy wheat noodles.

- **Toppings:** Assorted seafood, vegetables, and sometimes pork slices.

12. **Hiyashi Chuka:**

- **Broth:** Cold ramen salad, served with a tangy, soy-based dressing.

- **Noodles:** Thin, straight wheat noodles served cold.

- **Toppings:** Thin omelette strips, cucumber, ham, and various fresh vegetables.

13. **Jiro Ramen:**

- **Broth:** Heavy and rich, often tonkotsu-based.

- **Noodles:** Thick, straight wheat noodles.

- **Toppings:** A mountain of bean sprouts, cabbage, garlic, and thick slices of chashu pork.

14. **Abura Soba:**

- **Broth:** "Soupless" ramen, served with a flavorful, oily sauce.

- **Noodles:** Thin, curly wheat noodles.

- **Toppings:** Green onions, minced garlic, chashu pork, and sometimes a raw egg yolk.

15. **Mazesoba:**

- **Broth:** Also "soupless" ramen, mixed with a thick, flavorful sauce.

- **Noodles:** Thick, chewy wheat noodles.

- **Toppings:** Green onions, nori, ground meat (often pork), and raw garlic.

16. **Hokkaido Ramen:**

- **Broth:** Miso-based, hearty and rich.

- **Noodles:** Thick, curly wheat noodles.

- **Toppings:** Corn, butter, green onions, and often seafood like crab or scallops.

17. **Okinawa Soba:**

- **Broth:** Clear and light, often flavored with bonito fish.

- **Noodles:** Thick wheat noodles, sometimes with an earthy flavor from ingredients like mugwort.

- **Toppings:** Green onions, kamaboko (fish cake), pork slices, and sometimes pickled ginger.

18. **Kitsune Udon:**

- **Broth:** Udon noodle soup with a soy-based, slightly sweet broth.

- **Noodles:** Thick, chewy udon noodles made from wheat flour.

- **Toppings:** Aburaage (fried tofu), green onions, and sometimes tempura.

19. **Zaru Soba:**

- **Broth:** Cold soba noodles served with a soy-based dipping sauce.

- **Noodles:** Thin, brown buckwheat noodles served cold.

- **Toppings:** Nori, green onions, and sometimes grated daikon radish.

20. **Tempura Soba:**

- **Broth:** Clear and light, often made with bonito and soy sauce.

- **Noodles:** Thin, brown buckwheat noodles.

- **Toppings:** Tempura (battered and deep-fried seafood or vegetables), green onions, and kamaboko.

Each type of ramen offers a unique culinary experience, reflecting the diversity and creativity of Japanese cuisine. Enjoy exploring these delicious varieties!

[denimbex1986]

'Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer" just might be the biggest surprise of 2023, a tremendous box office success that tells the crowd-pleasing, four-quadrant story of ... J. Robert Oppenheimer's work on the atomic bomb. 

In his review for /Film, Chris Evangelista called the film "a conflicting movie with an unknowable core. It's also one of the best movies of the year." Nolan's best movie, "Oppenheimer" unites virtually every white male actor in Hollywood for a film with endless talk about physics and math that still manages to be thrilling.

Nolan's crowning achievement is condensing the gargantuan 700-page biography "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer" into a functional screenplay, but that meant cutting some things. This made the film a target for audiences disappointed that the film undermined the point of view of those who were wronged, attacked, harmed, and/or killed by Oppenheimer's work, like the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the victims of radiation from the Trinity test in New Mexico.

Tina Cordova, the co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, wrote in The New York Times about how the film does a disservice to the inhabitants of the area where the Trinity test occurred. In the film, Oppenheimer says the entire area where the Los Alamos town was built was uninhabited, but that is inaccurate. In reality, more than 13,000 New Mexicans lived within a 50-mile radius of the test side, with many of those people were not warned about the test in advance. 

"Eyewitnesses have told me they believed they were experiencing the end of the world," Cordova wrote, and many "simply dropped to their knees and recited the Hail Mary in Spanish" before being slowly poisoned with radiation that has resulted in generations of people getting cancer since 1945.

For the love of craft

Nolan's "Oppenheimer" omits many things from the Manhattan Project and its deadly effects, but it is a deliberate creative choice to omit those things. Is it a failure on Nolan's part not to at least have someone mention that the Los Alamos area was not uninhabited? Perhaps, but it served a purpose. 

Nolan is not arguing that those things didn't happen or that they did not matter, but that Oppenheimer himself was single-mindedly focused on getting the job done – focused on the scientific achievement of creating an atomic reaction, of doing something that had never been done before, and also of creating the bomb before Hitler did, as he fears throughout most of the film.

If anything, Oppenheimer has the most in common with a similar film about a highly controversial figure that focuses on craft over the deadly aspects of history: Hayao Miyazaki's "The Wind Rises." The Studio Ghibli co-founder's last film before retiring (before he then un-retired) tells the story of Jiro Horikoshi and his work designing the Mitsubishi 15M and the A6M Zero fighters, which Japan used during World War II to deliver incredible destruction and tragedy of their own. 

Like "Oppenheimer," the film mostly ignores the war aspect to focus on Horikoshi's sheer love of engineering and his dreams of designing beautiful aircraft. The war and the violent use of Horikoshi's work looms over the entire film, even if the film doesn't strictly show it, similar to the way that "Oppenheimer" technically includes footage of the bombings in Japan, but chooses to frame it so we only see Oppenheimer react to it.'

[deuteriumuniverse]

Gosho's Detective Picture Book Reviews

My review of detectives (and detective novels) based on Gosho's Detective Picture Book (also called Gosho's Mystery Library) are as below, to be completed not in the near future.

❤️ denote my personal favorites

Sherlock Holmes (Arthur Conan Doyle) ❤️

Kogoro Akechi (Edogawa Rampo)

Hercule Poirot (Agatha Christie) ❤️

Arsene Lupin (Maurice Leblanc)

Jules Maigret (Georges Simenon)

Kousuke Kindaichi (Seishi Yokomizo)

Lieutenant Columbo (Richard Levison and William Link)

Zenigata Heiji (Kodo Nomura)

Philip Marlowe (Raymond Chandler)

C. Auguste Dupin (Edgar Allan Poe)

Ellery Queen (Ellery Queen) ❤️

V.I. Warshawski (Sara Paretsky)

Father Brown (C.K. Chesterton)

Cordelia Gray (P.D. James) ❤️

Heizo Hasegawa (Shotaro Ikenami)

Mitsuhiko Asami (Yasuo Uchida)

Nero Wolfe (Rex Stout)

Shunsaku Kudo (Nobumitsu Kodaka)

Hannibal Lecter (Thomas Harris)

Miss Marple (Agatha Christie) ❤️

Sam Spade (Dashiell Hammett)

Shozo Totsugawa (Kyotaro Nishimura)

Ninzaburo Furuhata (Kouki Mitani)

Perry Mason (Erle Stanley Gardner)

Mikeneko Holmes (Jiro Akagawa)

Inspector Samejima (Arimasa Osawa)

James Bond (Ian Fleming)

Kyosuke Kamizu (Akimitsu Takagi)

Charlie Chan (Earl Derr Biggers)

John Thorndyke (Richard Austin Freeman)

Touyama Kin-san (Tatsurou Jinde)

Mike Hammer (Mickey Spillane)

Philo Vance (S.S. Van Dine)

Akakabu-kenji (Shunzo Waku)

Drury Lane (Ellery Queen)

Katherine Turner (Misa Yamamura)

Henry Jackson (Isaac Asimov)

Denshichi (Tatsurou Jinde)

Lew Archer (Ross Macdonald)

Kiyoshi Mitarai (Soji Shimada)

The Old Man in the Corner (Baroness Orczy)

Joseph Rouletabille (Gaston Leroux)

Hanshichi (Kido Okamoto) ❤️

Koichiro Munakata (Seiichi Morimura)

Eitaro Imanishi (Seicho Matsumoto)

Gideon Fell (John Dickson Carr)

Yuichiro Goda (Kaoru Takamura)

Ukyou Sugishita (Yasuhiro Koshimizu)

Steve Carella (Ed McBain)

Hideo Himura (Alice Arisugawa)

Riyako Asabuki (Shizuko Natsuki)

Robert Ironside (Collier Young)

Akihiko Chuzenji (Natsuhiko Kyogoku)

Kiyoshi Shimada (Yukito Ayatsuji)

The Continental Op (Dashiell Hammett) ❤️

Ningyo Sashichi (Seishi Yokomizo)

Joseph French (Freeman Wills Crofts)

Yoshibumi Takagi (Kenzo Kitakata)

Mom (James Yaffe)

Rintaro Norizuki (Rintaro Noziruki)

Koko (Lilian Jackson Braun)

Manabu Yukawa (Keigo Higashino) ❤️

Daisuke Kanbe (Yasutaka Tsutsui)

Inspector Zenigata (Monkey Punch)

Robert Langdon (Dan Brown)

Akojuro Senba (Juran Hisao)

Kanki Ibaragi (Futaro Yamada)

Bannai Tarao (Yoshitake Hisa)

Richard Cuff (Wilkie Collins)

Philip Trent (E.C. Bentley)

Gregory House (David Shore)

Yoshio Kuraishi (Hideo Yokoyama)

Adrian Monk (Andy Breckman and David Hoberman)

Inspector Onitsura (Tetsuya Ayukawa)

Enshi Shunotei (Kaoru Kitamura)

Lincoln Rhyme (Jeffery Deaver)

Kei Enomoto (Yusuke Kishi)

Keisuke Shiratori (Takeru Kaido)

Genya Tojo (Shinzo Mitsuda)

Shioriko Shinokawa (En Mikami)

Handyman of Susukino (Naomi Azuma)

Kageyama (Tokuya Higashigawa)

Hotaro Oreki (Honobu Yonezawa)

Lisbeth Salander (Stieg Larsson)

Lieutenant Fukuie (Takahiro Ookura)

Takeshi Yoshiki (Soji Shimada)

Jiro Egami (Alice Arisugawa)

Kyouko Okitegami (Nisio Isin)

Sakurako Kujou (Shiori Ota)

The Phantom Thief Detective Yamaneko (Manabu Kaminaga)

Riko Rinda (Keisuke Matsuoka)

Shinichiro Hanaoka (Koji Hayashi and Junpei Yamaoka)

Richard Castle (Andrew W. Warlowe)

Hiroto Miyama (Manabu Uda)

Yukimasa Yugami (Hideo Iura)

Mikoto Mitsumi (Akiko Nogi)

Keita Kurokochi (Takashi Nagasaki)

Totono Kuno (Yumi Tamura)

Maomao (Natsu Hyuga)

Sherlock Holmes (Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss) ❤️

Rohan Kishibe (Hirohiko Araki)

Seiko Fuji (Miko Yasu)

[nagasakidivision]

Shirou Sonozaki: Second Member Impressions

Jiro Yamada

Ah, the delinquent, right? I hope he grows out of it. That sort of thing is hard to shake off later in life, especially if you get a record. Hmm, but he’s employed by his brother…it might work out for him.

Jyuto Iruma

Oh my, it’s about 75% of the reason that Yokohama’s district has a reputation for being irreversibly corrupt. I admit I’m not fond of lying, so I will be perfectly honest. He’s the kind of person I hate the most, and there’s more people like him within law enforcement than there should be. I’ve run into a few of them who’ve put a certain amount of pressure on me to tip the scales in an investigation by exaggerating or falsifying evidence. I can’t stand it. I'd rather lose my job than give into that.

Gentaro Yumeno

To have such power with words and use it for frivolous purposes…

Oh, I don’t mean the books. Pursuing the arts is a fine vocation. I mean the compulsive lying. What a shame. I’ve never been the most charismatic person, and falsehood doesn’t come naturally to me, so I suppose I’m jealous.

Doppo Kannonzaka

Good heavens, and I thought I looked overworked. Has he slept in the past month? What an awful world we live in that someone has to work themselves that hard for something so superficial.

Jyushi Aimono

Is it…fashionable for teenagers to act like that now? With the dramatic speeches and posturing? I feel out of touch. This is what getting old feels like, isn't it?

Rosho Tsutsujimori

Dealing with the rest of his team must be exhausting. Small wonder he doesn’t look more tense than he usually does. I’m afraid I can relate to that given who I have to deal with on a daily basis.

Ryozan Kokuri

He’s claiming he knows me? That’s odd. I never go near Yokohama or Akabane. Nagasaki is busy enough as it is.

…How did I know he was originally from Yokohama? Haha. As much as I hate it, I do work with law enforcement, you know. I pick up a few things here and there. At any rate, he lies for a living. I wouldn’t trust a thing he says if I were you, whether it's about me or anyone else.

Masamune Kogata

Oh, how do I say this…he’s a nice person but a terrible influence. The last time he went drinking with us I had to carry Damien and Haruto back home. Unfortunately, he’s worked out Haruto has a bit of a Napoleon Complex and that it’s easy to provoke him…

[stiri-noi]

O tehnologie din 1998 este eficientă în eliminarea particulelor virusului SARS-CoV-2

Tehnologia PlasmaclusterIon, folosită în purificatoarele de aer Sharp încă din 1998, este eficientă în eliminarea particulelor virusului COVID-19 din încăperi, arată două studii publicate în umă cu câteva săptămâni de savanți japonezi în domeniul virusologiei, în urma testelor de laborator.

Virusul SARS-CoV-2 poate rămâne în picături minuscule în aer, iar oamenii se infectează inspirându-le. Un prim studiu, realizat în sub tutela Universității din Nagasaki, arată că, prin folosirea aparatelor care dispun de tehnologia Sharp cu ioni Plasmacluster în spații închise, riscul de infectare cu coronavirus este redus cu peste 90%.

Pentru infecția prin aerosoli există puține contramăsuri eficiente

“Se știe că dezinfectanții precum alcoolul și detergenții sunt eficienți pentru a reduce riscul de infectare cu virusul contactat de pe diverse suprafețe. Cu toate acestea, pentru infecția prin aerosoli există puține contramăsuri eficiente, cum ar fi purtarea unei măști. Acum s-a demonstrat inactivarea eficientă a SARS-CoV-2 în particulele de aer prin tehnologia Plasmacluster de la SHARP. Această tehnologie devine utilă în reducerea riscului de infecție în spații precum birouri, case, facilități medicale sau vehicule”, a explicat prof. dr. Jiro Yasuda, unul dintre autorii studiului.

Tehnologia Sharp, eficientă în suprimarea coronavirusului felin

În 2004, tehnologia Sharp s-a dovedit eficientă în suprimarea coronavirusului felin, membru al familiei Coronaviridae, iar în anul următor, s-a demonstrat că luptă cu succes și împotriva coronavirusului SARS-CoV (virusul de gripa aviară), genetic similar cu noul coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2).

Un studiu realizat de conferențiarul universitar Masashi Yamakawa, de la Institutul de Tehnologie din Kyoto, expert în analiza particulelor virale aeropurtate, arată că un dispozitiv de tip purificator de aer care distribuie corespunzător ionii Plasmacluster în spațiu poate colecta cu o eficiență foarte mare particulele virale aeropurtate, potrivit Mediafax.

Este important ca virusurile aeropurtate să fie captate sau îndepărtate în aerul exterior

“Particulele virale plutesc în aer și pot fi inhalate de către oameni. Din acest motiv, este important ca virusurile aeropurtate să fie captate sau îndepărtate în aerul exterior. În timpul funcționării aparatelor de aer condiționat, în special vara și iarna, ventilația se efectuează mai rar și sunt necesare măsuri noi. Prin simularea comportamentului particulelor virale aeropurtate într-o cameră, considerăm că am găsit o metodă prin care se reduc într-o anumită măsură virusurile aeropurtate, chiar și în mediile în care este mai dificilă deschiderea geamurilor pentru aerisire”, a observat Masashi Yamakawa.

Sharp a dezvoltat, împreună cu cercetătorii, dispozitivul prin care a fost expus coronavirusul timp de aproximativ 30 de secunde la ionii Plasmacluster, iar pentru cel de-al doilea studiu a oferit tot suportul logistic necesar simulărilor.

Articolul O tehnologie din 1998 este eficientă în eliminarea particulelor virusului SARS-CoV-2 apare prima dată în Descopera.ro.

[imagenesabismo]

Conversando con Sunao Katabuchi

A propósito de En este rincón del mundo (Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni; 2016). Traducción del japonés de Nicolás F. Rico Guastavino y Jiro Miguel Kobayashi.

I.

“Pienso en dibujar cosas que no pertenezcan a nuestra realidad. Imaginar es gratis. Estas imágenes que me vienen a la cabeza las plasmo sobre el papel. Dicha creatividad (cuyo origen está en épocas pasadas que actualmente no puedo visualizar) me hace recuperar las cosas que quiero usar en mis películas. El resultado de ese proceso se titula En este rincón del mundo, un largometraje que tiene algo de máquina del tiempo”.

II.

“En Princess Arete (Arete Hime; 2001), Mai Mai Miracle (Mai Mai Shinko to Sennen no Maho; 2009) y En este rincón del mundo he escrito sobre la imaginación que reside en el mundo interno de un personaje femenino. La imaginación de Suzu-san, no obstante, es inútil ante un hecho tan grave como el de la guerra”.

III.

“Suzu siempre está sonriendo y es agradable con los demás. Aunque su personalidad no solo se reduce a esto, sino que posee facetas diversas y complejas. Hay en ella una poderosa sensibilidad artística, aunque ni la propia Suzu se da cuenta de dicho talento. No se aprecia a sí misma como alguien que posea ese tipo de cualidades. Su vida no es como la de un pintor o un mangaka, sino que vive como lo haría un ama de casa común. Es el tipo de persona que actúa según le dicta el corazón”.

IV.

“Como ha reflejado el cine de tiempos pasados [al ser preguntado acerca de Kurosawa e Imamura], en el Japón de nuestros días se ha asimilado completamente la tragedia de Hiroshima y Nagasaki. Dicho de forma más clara, es una realidad ‘tan’ asumida que quizás haya acabado perdiendo su significado. En ningún rincón de la cabeza de los japoneses está presente la catástrofe. A través de En este rincón del mundo, quiero enseñar a las personas qué supuso realmente lo que sucedió allí”.

V.

“Hay un rotundo malentendido con respecto a las cualidades del anime producido últimamente. No existe un declive, sino que hay producciones de muy buena calidad al margen de las de Studios Ghibli. La gente tiene la tendencia a fijar su atención en una marca, sin poner sus ojos en lo que se hace al margen de ella. El año 2016 fue especialmente fructífero, quizás aquel con mejores películas japonesas de animación que yo recuerde”.

VI.

“Como creador no me puedo valer por mí mismo, creo que es importante observar el trabajo que realizan las demás personas. Cualquier película es maravillosa, incluso las creaciones modestas de estudiantes universitarios, para influenciarlo a uno”.

[varsoviacomix]

Semblanzas: Kazuo Umezu

Un país que quería postular a su dibujante de cómics más prominente al premio Nobel, es un lugar en el que estos artistas definitivamente ocupan un puesto importante dentro de la sociedad. Algunos dibujantes japoneses rehuyen el status de celebridades, otros lo asumen de forma discreta o indiscreta, y Kazuo Umezu, pues nada, él es de los indiscretos. 

Umezu no es un maestro de la figura humana y la perspectiva, como Takumi Nagayasu o Jiro Taniguchi, no tiene la agilidad y elegancia gráficas de Urasawa, y asimismo carece de la soltura de los aclamados Akira Toriyama o Rumiko Takahashi, lo que hace especial a Umezu, amén de sus excentricidades, su sueter y su casa a rayas, o sus incursiones en la música pop, es la expresividad de sus personajes, y su capacidad para fusionar, de manera limpia y precisa, las historias terroríficas con el melodrama folletinesco y la comedia. En su obra maestra, Drifting Classroom (Aulas a la deriva) lo interesante no es que una escuela de primaria viaje al futuro (el edificio completo, con todos los niños y sus maestros), a una época en que la humanidad ya no existe e incluso la morfología del planeta ha cambiado, tampoco resulta tan absurdo que en esta situación los profesores enloquezcan y sean los niños los que conserven la razón, aunque finalmente protagonicen una cruenta guerra digna de El señor de las moscas,  lo realmente increíble es que el protagonista, Sho, que carga un sentimiento de culpa desolador ya que lo ultimo que hizo con su madre antes de viajar en el tiempo fue tener una grotesca pelea doméstica, pueda comunicarse con ésta a través de una inverosímil, pero inmensa, barrera del tiempo. Nacido en 1936, Umezu crecería escuchando antiguas leyendas de fantasmas y sucubos de toda especie, surgidas de la mitología popular y narradas por su padre, desde los 19 años el joven Kazuo iría plasmando estas fantasías en sus cómics, empezando por una versión bizarra y jocosa de Hansel y Gretel, The Sibling in the Forest (Mori no Kyodai), a la que seguirían incursiones en el underground de la época (el Gekiga) y más adelante los relatos de terror que lo harían famoso: Kuchi ga Mimi made Sake-ru Toki (cuando la boca llora hasta las orejas) y Hebi Shoujo (La chica serpiente).

Pero su obra más exitosa es la mencionada Drifting Classrooms, publicada entre 1972 y1976 en la Shonen Magazine. Esta extensa epopeya infantil que mezcla terror, melodrama y ciencia ficción, es comparable a la serie de TV LOST. El dibujo de Umezu es descomplicado en extremo, el acabado es ágil (y no precisamente preciosista) y los personajes están dibujados al estilo del Dick Tracy de Chester Gould o el Taxista de Marti, enfatizando en las expresiones, abusando de las líneas cinéticas y tomándose todas las licencias posibles con el dibujo del cuerpo humano. Pero todo esto no afecta la calidad del producto, Umezu solo quiere contar su historia de una manera eficaz, y vaya que lo consigue. La historia es políticamente incorrecta hasta el extremo, sumidos en la crisis y perseguidos por los profesores adultos que han enloquecido, los niños llegan a extremos de fanatismo absurdos, intentando crucificar a los que creen culpables del extraño fenómeno en el que están envueltos. Buscando evitar el caos deciden crear un gobierno, uno de ellos, el más inteligente, recomienda no incluir en el improvisado gabinete de ministros a ninguna niña, dado que “las mujeres no son capaces de pensar en gran escala, si no solo se preocupan por lo inmediato” (sic). Hay evidentemente, en el ambiente apocalíptico de Drifting Classroom,  en la desoladora imagen del lugar donde estaba la escuela y ahora solo hay un muladar sin forma, una alegoría a las ciudades destruidas de Hiroshima y Nagasaki (idea que se desarrolla menos poética y más literalmente en Gen el descalzo), hay además momentos de ternura confrontados con una triste realidad: en un mundo donde no quedan seres vivos, el único enemigo real del hombre es el hombre mismo. Ya en 1982 Umezu se aventura en Watashi wa Shingo (yo soy Shingo), una obra que no es tan famosa como Drifting Classroom, pero que, a juicio del crítico Tomofusa Kure, " no es que esta obra sea una de las mejores de Kazuo Umezu, ni siquiera una de las mejores obras de terror-suspense del manga, sino que merece ser considerada una de las mejores obras del manga en general" . Y es que   Watashi wa Shingo no es una obra común, es un manga extenso de más de 2000 páginas en los que se entremezclan el costumbrismo y la ciencia ficción, la historia de un niño conociendo el amor, la tecnología y la tragedia, y tal vez el juicio de Kure, quien es tal vez el estudioso más importante que tiene el manga en Japón, no es desacertado. Pero Umezu tiene otras muchas  historias en las cuales destacan, Baptism, el relato de una actriz que busca prolongar su juventud perdida transplantando su cerebro al de su hija, y Oroshi, la historia de dos hermanas encerradas en una inmensa mansión donde son acosadas por el niño que da título a la historia.

Tristemente, la última obra de Kazuo Umezu no es de sus mejores, Fourteen, un relato de ciencia ficción que podría entenderse como una precuela del universo devastado de Drifting Classroom, pero la historia peca de descabellada y el dibujo decae notablemente con relación a las obras anteriores del autor. Umezu abandonaría los cómics en 1995 aquejado de una fuerte tendinitis, y se convertiría en una celebridad televisiva participando en diversos programas de variedades, sus historias han sido adaptadas al anime y a series de TV y películas de imagen real. Su excéntrica figura lo ha ayudado a seguir apareciendo constantemente en los medios desde entonces y se le considera un orgullo nacional en su natal Japón, la lectura de sus atípicos cómics es recomendada a todos los que ansíen leer un manga realmente original.

[keepingthespiritalive]

WRESTLE-1 results for March 10, 2018

WRESTLE-1 TOUR 2018 TRANS MAGIC, 3/10/2018 [Sat] 18:30 @ Sasebo City Taiiku Bunka-kan in Nagasaki (1) Hajime vs. Masayuki Mitomi (EPW) ◆Winner: Mitomi (5:46) with the Salty Splash. (2) Seigo Tachibana vs. Asosan (Kyushu) ◆Winner: Asosan (6:28) following the Magma Driver. (3) Andy Wu, Jiro “Ikemen” Kuroshio & Skull Reaper A-ji (FTO) vs. Alejandro, Tsugataka Sato & Umanosuke Ueda (FTO) ◆Winner:…

[ultimate-waifu-bait]

Hey guys! There's a new gaming series on my youtube channel featuring the characters of Ultimate Waifu Bait! Come check it out!

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079 - nagasaki prefectural convenience school 〜lunch break〜

illustration by jiro suzuki (see original)

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MIYAZAWA BEACH, Japan — The weather-beaten wood fishing boat still harbored its secrets as it lodged in the sand, frigid waves beating against its side. All that remained were a few clues, strewn across the deck.

Spotted onboard were a bulb of garlic, tangled fishing nets and ropes, a yellow cable knit sweater covered in sand. Then there were the hints of the boat’s origins: a jar of brown sauce that might be gochujang, a Korean fermented red chili paste, and several boxes of cigarettes, bearing labels in Korean that warned, “smoking is the main cause of cancer and heart disease.”

Eight men died on this 40-foot boat that washed ashore here on the Oga peninsula along Japan’s northwestern coast late last month. The Coast Guard found their bodies, some reduced almost to skeletons, on the boat, which is believed to have come from North Korea. But what exactly the fishermen were doing and how they found their way to Japan remains a mystery.

The boat that landed on Miyazawa Beach in Akita prefecture was just one of 76 fishing vessels that have ended up on Japanese shores since the beginning of the year, 28 of them in November alone.

Photo

Objects found inside the North Korean boat that washed ashore on Miyazawa Beach, including cigarette packages with Korean script. 

Credit

Ko Sasaki for The New York Times

In the past two weeks, at least seven boats have arrived in Akita, all of them bearing signs that they came from North Korea. One of them carried eight live crew members to Yurihonjo, a medium-sized port town in Akita, where they were kept in police custody for more than a week before being transferred to an immigration facility in Nagasaki last Saturday. Japan’s Immigration Bureau said the men will be returned to North Korea.

With tensions mounting on the Korean Peninsula as the North’s nuclear and missile programs continue to advance, the arrival of this ghostly armada has stoked anxiety in Japan, where residents are questioning the motives of the fishermen and those who may have sent them.

Continue reading the main story

“I am wondering why so many of these have all of a sudden come in such a short time,” said Kazuko Komatsu, 66, who lives in a house close to the marina in Yurihonjo. North Korea, she said, “is a mysterious country. We don’t know so much. I don’t know if they are coming here to escape or whether they just accidentally drifted here.”

For years, North Korean fishing boats, mostly ghost ships that ran aground either empty or carrying the dead bodies of their crew, have arrived in Japan, often in the fall and winter months when rough weather roils the sea and conditions grow dangerous for crews using outdated boats and equipment.

The recent rise in numbers of fishing boats landing on Japan’s western coast has spooked local residents, whose views of North Korea are shaped by media accounts of the hermit kingdom and stories of Japanese citizens abducted by the North.

Photo

Yurihonjo, a port city in northwestern Japan. A boat carrying eight living North Koreans washed ashore here.

Credit

Ko Sasaki for The New York Times

Suspicions are particularly high when live fishermen have come ashore. This year, 18 North Korean crew members have landed on beaches in Japan, the highest number in the last five years.

The crews have told authorities that they hit bad weather and suffered mechanical problems on their boats before drifting with the currents toward Japan. But some Japanese doubt those stories, suspecting darker purposes.

Those doubts were fanned last month when Japan’s Coast Guard discovered a North Korean boat anchored near an island off Hokkaido. When questioned, the fishermen confessed that some of the boat’s 10 crew members had gone ashore and taken refrigerators, televisions, washing machines and a motorcycle from fishing shacks. Police in Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan’s main islands, say they have not determined whether they will be arrested.

In Yurihonjo, where the eight living North Koreans washed up in a fishing boat on Nov. 23, a lack of information has fueled speculation. “Are they spies?” read a headline in the Akita Sakigake Shimpo, a local newspaper.

Outside a grocery store in Yurihonjo earlier this week, Mariko Abe, 66, said she was suspicious. “Maybe they were trying to kidnap some people,” she said. Her friend, Tomoe Goto, 41, said she wondered if the fishermen were trying to defect. She also worried that there were other crew members hiding in town.

Photo

Posters at Akita police headquarters demanding the return of abducted Japanese from North Korea. Many Japanese suspect the washed-up North Korean fishermen are actually spies. 

Credit

Ko Sasaki for The New York Times

Unlike in South Korea, where authorities disclosed details about a North Korean soldier’s dramatic escape through the heavily guarded border with South Korea last month, the police in Akita have been frugal with specifics about the North Koreans arriving here.

Yoshinobu Ito, deputy chief of the Yurihonjo Police Department, declined to say if the eight fishermen who landed ashore had applied for asylum, or what other information the police had learned from the men during the nine days they stayed at the police station.

“There are parts of the press reports that were accurate and parts that were not,” Mr. Ito said.

The Akita prefectural police said immigration authorities had issued emergency landing permits to the fishermen and determined they were not spies. But Shogi Hashimoto, a superintendent at Akita police headquarters, said, “we cannot tell you the criteria of how we assumed they are not spy agents.”

Fears about North Korean spies entering Japan surface regularly. Such agents are known to have abducted Japanese citizens in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and in Akita, the police said they had arrested North Korean spies in the 1960s and at least once in the 1980s. When the fishermen first came ashore in Yurihonjo last month, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that the crew members could be spies.

Satoru Miyamoto, a professor of political science at Seigakuin University, said he doubted the North Koreans currently landing in Japan are engaged in espionage.

Photo

Ryosen Kojima, a Buddhist monk, at the temple where he keeps white boxes containing the ashes of the eight North Koreans who were found dead at Miyazawa Beach. 

Credit

Ko Sasaki for The New York Times

Spies, he said, “would come on a better ship.” He said the current crews were likely fishermen or farmers trying to supplement their incomes. Some were relatively inexperienced, he said, and ran into trouble when they encountered wild ocean currents in aging wooden boats.

According to propaganda videos released by North Korea, Kim Jong-un, the country’s leader, has heavily promoted commercial fishing. In one video shown on Japanese broadcaster Nihon TV, the regime said it wanted to double the country’s catch this year.

Under United Nations Security Council sanctions against North Korea, the country cannot sell seafood abroad. Jiro Ishimaru, a journalist with Asia Press who covers North Korea, said many fishermen are trying to sell their catches domestically, and take big risks to fish for squid in a particularly treacherous area of the Sea of Japan known as the Yamato Rise.

Along the eastern coast of North Korea, “there are fishing villages known as ‘widows’ villages,’” he said. “Many people don’t return.”

Indeed, the eight men whose boat washed ashore in Oga will never make it home. According to Hiromi Wakai, a spokeswoman in Akita for the Coast Guard, their bodies were badly decomposed by the time their boat reached the shore. In autopsies, a medical examiner concluded that two of them died by drowning, but could not determine a cause of death for the other six.

Photo

The rough Sea of Japan, as seen from Yurihonjo. 

Credit

Ko Sasaki for The New York Times

Over the weekend, the city of Oga cremated the bodies. The Coast Guard is keeping fingernails and toenails for DNA identification in case family members come forward. In past cases, the Japanese Red Cross has helped to return remains to North Korea.

For now, the ashes of the eight are stored in unmarked white boxes that sit on a table at the back of the main hall in Tousenji, a Zen temple in Oga.

Ryosen Kojima, 62, Tousenji’s priest, said the temple would keep the ashes indefinitely. If they are not claimed, they will eventually be buried in a grave for unknown souls in the temple’s back garden.

“They are humans just like us,” said Mr. Kojima, who said the temple usually takes in two or three sets of anonymous remains of North Korean fishermen a year. “But they have no one to look after their ashes.”

“Since they were born into this world,” he said, “they must have parents and families. I feel so sorry for them.”

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078 - nagasaki prefectural convenience school 〜library〜

illustration by jiro suzuki (see original)

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077 - nagasaki prefectural convenience school 〜rooftop〜

illustration by jiro suzuki (see original)

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076 - nagasaki prefectural convenience school 〜health room〜

illustration by jiro suzuki (see original)