Quick November Post

This November I don't really have anything to talk about, so I'm posting a couple of pictures of my kids which are only remotely related to the topic I cover on this blog; Japanese culture, music and video games.

Around this time of the year, schools in Japan have a kind of festival intended for students and parents to get together and know each other better, man! Parents involved in the PTA help plan an event where they have food and game stalls. The school is open to the locals "open-house" style, and parents and students can visit all the different classrooms, which have been decorated for the occasion.

My kids attend a local kindergarten, where one of the stalls has different character masks. Actually, if you go to almost any "matsuri" in Japan, there's bound to be a stand that sells only masks, and the masks can vary from traditional "hyottoko" (puckered old man) and "otafuku" (laughing lucky lady), to masks depicting characters kids are into at the time.

A mask shop at a festival

"Otafuku" and "Hyottoko" masks...

 

The stall at our school happened to have Mario and Pikachu masks, so we bought one of each for our younger boys.

Actually, without wanting to, this random filler post actually became about Japanese culture! Perhaps I'll expand on this topic and talk more about Japanese festivals and masks in the future!

Mewtwo Strikes Back: Evolution Review - POSSIBLE SPOILERS

It looks like I'm accidentally a Pokemon fan... well. No. Not really; my kids are into Pokemon so I'm kinda obliged to tag along.

Believe it or not, 3 years later, my family is only just getting into Pokemon GO.

My kids only just heard of it, and they have convinced me and my wife to install it on our iPhones.

One thing lead to another, and now my kids not only watch Pokemon on Japanese TV, they also often buy the Pokemon bread sold at grocery stores and collect the reusable stickers included.

My wife and kids drive me CRAZY with this Pokemon stuff!

"There's a Raid Battle going on! We HAVE to go! OMG! We need to get this new Pokemon! Tell your American friends to send you gifts! You might get an egg with an America only Pokemon!"

On weekends it's "Pokemon." In the middle of the night it's "Pokemon."

"Daddy, can I borrow your phone to play Pokemon Go? Mommy's going on a Raid battle and I want to come with."

It's taken over my phone!!!

OK. ANYWAY, I digress.

It must be known that I am unwitting, and oftentimes unwilling in all of this.

My wife thought it would be a good idea to take the kids out to see the Mewtwo Strikes Back movie. Afterward there would be an event where you could play rocks-scissors-paper with Pikachu and win some stuff.

SPOILER ALERT!!!

Do not read past this point if you're one of those people who haven't seen the movie yet and it would end your world to hear what happens.

I'd have to say the movie wasn't all that special.

Like, it seemed like any other obligatory 3D rendition of a cartoon with no real plot.

What plot is there to Pokemon other than "gotta catch 'em all?"

Essentially, "the best Pokemon trainers" meet up to have a battle royale against Mewtwo to see who wins.

Can you guess who wins?

The movie shows how Mewtwo is basically a man-made creation using Mew's original DNA.

Mewtwo, wanting to show he is the "better" of the two wants to beat Mew.

He creates "newer, better pokemon, designed to be superior" and pits them against Ash's "normal" pokemon.

Ultimately, the show down boils down to being between Mewtwo and Mew himself.

The fight arrives at a stalemate, proving both are "as good."

Someone gets hurt in the battle though, but I won't say who.

All I'll say is it's the usuall sappy ending that all kids know and love.

Anyway, I thought it was alright... Nothing special. I mostly did it for the kids.

My kids enjoyed it and that's really all that matters.

I later came to find out that the movie was actually already released in normal cartoon format, and that this was just a re-imagining of that same movie.

At any rate, we watched the movie, ate a ton of popcorn, drank a lot of soft drinks.

There were no seat-wettings in the watching of this film.

After the film, we headed out to a stage to wait for the arrival of the pikachus which would be the stars of the event. Here are pics of what happened.