American summer ritual more vulgar than Japan?

Just so no one thinks Japan has a global monopoly on vulgar summer festivities, I am happy to show an American summer vulgarity crossed with this year’s start to the 2012 presidential race. At state fairs, like this one in Iowa, when Americans are not eating deep fried butter on a stick, they are often shoving corn dogs into their faces. Fittingly, in Japan corn dogs are referred to as “American dogs.” Combined with religious nuts, this is not only vulgar but also distasteful.

(Thanks to Ericthefez for assembling this pictorial).

Current Japan PM’s wife offers him tough love

The last PM’s wife claimed to have traveled to Venus and to feed daily by eating the sun with her husband. Current Prime Minister’s wife Kan Nobuko wife said that if she lived her life again, she would not choose the life she had already lived. And her reports of tough love suggest that their daily life is full of volatile policy and personal conflicts.

From the BBC News (via tipster Christophe):

The prime minister’s wife said she supported him by giving him such a tough time at home, and that he preferred going to parliament for question time.

“My husband sometimes says to me: ‘I really hate going to the Diet because everyone is so mean and critical, but it’s a lot easier being subjected to this criticism at the Diet than fighting at home with you’,” she said.

“That’s a way to get him out of the house and go to the Diet, so maybe that’s the way I can support him.”

These would be unimaginable words spoken by the Stepfordly obedient and adoring wives of United States presidents. Is this a sign of freedom and power, or something else entirely?

Unmentioned in this new story is the role that Ms Kan reportedly played rehabilitating her husband’s political image after a sexual harassment scandal in the 1990s. Others credit her outspokenness to the powerless of Japanese women, whose statements do not carry much importance no matter how incendiary.

Oh, and apparently she wear very elegant kimonos and speaks in a vulgar manner. I will try to learn more about Ms Kan.

(Don’t worry, Kathryn, there’ll be more Nakano yankii hotties soon after this political detour).

Random men in Shibuya

In keeping with the moe theme of this blog, I would like to end this year with a completely shamelessly, inappropriate and vulgar medley of random Shibuya men. With 10 minutes to spare for a business meeting at Hachiko, I turned my new Canon S90 on the crowd.

The photo above is perhaps the best: the central subject fetishized, the public zipping by, and one woman in the background smiling knowingly towards the lens.

If you asked me what is my favorite Japanese uniform, I would say the mask: ubiquitous, a sign of danger inbound or outbound, of dubious functionality, and quintessentially Japanese. Above this boy rocks his mask with ipod, shaggy orange perm, and the skinny pants tucked inside some girlish boots. I am slayed.

Continue seeing and reading more after the jump.