An old Japanese tradition in a modern manga and anime
Touched off by my last post, I've decided to make this post about the traditional Japanese print designs found in the anime "Kimetsu no Yaiba."
In Japan, the anime Kimetsu no Yaiba (鬼滅の刃, きめつのやいば, AKA "Demon Slayer") is all the rage at the moment. Children and adults wear Japanese print designs on their masks to show their fandom to the world.
But did you know that the prints used in this anime are actually inspired by traditional Japanese prints?
I think that is the beauty of Kimetsu no Yaiba; it's a cool way to introduce traditional Japanese culture to the masses. In a world where Japanese youth and even older generations alike, are losing touch with their Japanese traditions, getting lost in school exam study and being too tired after nights of zangyo. (残業, ざんぎょう, late work)
We've already talked about Nezuko's pink design in my last post, so I'm going to segway right into our next Japanese print design; the black and green checkered pattern belonging to the protagonist Tanjiro.
A two-colored checkered pattern is known a "Ichimatsu" in Japanese. While it's black and green for Tanjiro's clothes, this pattern comes in a variety of other color combinations. It is common woven pattern since ancient times, but it became known as Ichimatsu in the 18th century, when the kabuki actor Sanogawa Ichimatsu popularized it by using it on costumes. Readers might be interested to know that this design was used in the logos for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Next up is Zenitsu's clothes' pattern.
Zenitsu's clothes' pattern is a variation of a traditional Japanese print design known as "uroko," or "fish scales."
The real design looks like this:
It features symmetrical triangles in two colors, and is said to resemble the scales of snakes or fish. It is said that samurai would wear clothing with the uroko pattern as a talisman to protect themselves from harm.
Next up is the design used on Sabito's clothing.
Sabito's design is a unique variation of the hexagonal "kikko" pattern. I've actually already talked about this pattern in a previous post. (See my post about Kikkoman.)
"Kikko" (亀甲, きっこう, lit. turtle shell) is a design modeled after the hexagonal shapes found on turtle shells.
Traditionally, it is believed that a turtle lives to be 10,000 years, so this is a lucky design representing longevity.
Sabito's design is a variation of the kikko pattern called "Bishamon Kikko."
It is called so because it's often found on the clothes of a deity known as "Bishamonten" (one of the Seven Lucky Gods, by the way).
See the pattern?
Well, that about does it for this post. If you come to Japan, you'll notice people of all ages wearing masks with these patterns on them.
But there are way, way more traditional Japanese print designs than mentioned here. I hope to make a future post featuring some of my favorite.
So like, I've been living in Japan for about 14 years now, and I've got to say, experiencing Halloween, or basically any western holiday is Japan is kinda weird.
I mean, they're western holidays; they're not supposed to be here.
And in a sense, they kinda aren't.
In my experience, it feels very few to no Japanese actually understand the holidays they celebrate; it's just an occasion to sell holiday-themed chocolates and merchandise.
So even though, yes, holidays such as Christmas, Valentine's Day and Halloween are observed in Japan, most of the time they're rather hollow and meaningless; just a decoration people put up and down.
To be fair, for most people in the US, it's kinda the same, but in Japan, it's even more so.
What you experience in Japan is kind of an empty shell of what the holiday is supposed to be like, with a Japanese take.
Take Halloween for example.
In America, we kinda build up to the holiday, with Halloween culminating on the 31st of October.
Pumpkins are carved, scary ghost stories are told, and, at least I feel, the meaning of what Halloween was supposed to be about is discussed.
We discuss the origins of Halloween coming from All Hallows Even, first celebrated in what is now the United Kingdom.
We talk about Samhain and the reason people dress up as skeletons, spirits and haunts.
In Japan, though, it just seems like a good occasion to sell Halloween-themed candies and snacks and engage in a huge cos-play block party.
Halloweenies gathering in the streets
In my opinion, it's kinda creepy, because there is this kind of subculture in Japan of people who like to dress up as anime characters and other such things as role-play lolitas and furry animals, and, rather than a one-time celebration to dress up as something you like, this is more like a good occasion to do out on the streets what is usually something you do at say, a maid cafe or secluded cos-play party.
That's what Halloween in Japan feels like to me; one giant cos-play party divorced of what Halloween was supposed to be.
Cultural differences, of course, necessarily command that the holiday be altered.
It's just strange in Japan for children to dress up and go door-to-door trick-or-treating for candy.
Instead, what tends to happen, at least for the children, is parents at school get together and plan a controlled event where the kids dress up, get together, play games, eat snacks and receive pre-made bags of candy. The whole thing takes place in one large facility, no knocking on doors or anything.
As a father of three tots, I've actually been to events where some parents play the role of monsters children have to go to to trick-or-treat to simulate the door-to-door atmosphere one would normally encounter in the US.
A couple years back, our family dressed up as Super Mario characters.It was at a local event just for families with children.
Halloween for the adults can get a bit out of control, with large parties happening on public streets and/or on the train, and the police having to come in and try to enforce laws.
In the past, where I live, foreigners had this kind of "tradition" to sort of, take over the local JR Loop Line to have what was known as the "Osaka Loop Halloween Party," annoying the locals.
I've seen footage of Tokyo Police having to reign in some of the participants which got a little crazy.
I haven't seen anything get too bad this year, though, perhaps due to corona virus restrictions.
This year, due to corona virus, events for children were often low-key; a limited list of participants and shorter party times just to be on the safe-side.
I can't tell you what the adults did, as I kinda just stay away from that scene; I'm a father now, and I need to be with my kids.
I noticed that this year, there were a lot of children dressed up as characters from the anime series "Kimetsu no Yaiba" (鬼滅の刃, lit. Blade of Demon's Bane, or "Demon Slayer" as it's known in the West.)
I'm not an anime geek in the slightest. OK, there are some anime I liked in the past, but I've never really followed anything. I really like Studio Ghibli, and in the past, back in like the late 90s, I liked Dragon Ball and Ranma 1/2, but that's basically it. So the only reason I know about Kimetsu is because all three of my boys watch the series on TV.
I'm not sure how any parent could let their kids watch this anime series at all.
My own children gushed on and on about Tanjiro and Nezuko and I never really bothered to check the show out.
That is until I noticed that the children at the schools where I teach couldn't stop talking about it.
So a few weeks back, I finally sit down to watch the show, and I'm horrified to see blood gushing, arms, legs, hands, feet and heads flying, horrific demons gnashing their teeth and ripping limbs off.
But I guess if my Japanese wife is OK with it, and the parents of hundreds of thousands of children are OK with watching this, then I guess it's OK?
NO.
I don't think it's OK, but whatever... I'm one of those sucker parents who don't want their kids to be the only ones not in the know of things... Oh well...
So anyway, where was I.
Oh yes, every school I went to that had Halloween dress up events for the kiddies, out on the streets, you can see kids dressed up as Tanjiro and Nezuko.
The green and black squares and pink Japanese print designs, not to mention the green bamboo muzzles, were unmistakable.
Tanjiro and Nezuko from the Demon Slayer series
Don't get me wrong, the anime is amazing, the story is heart-wrenching, the characters are all very strong, but for children this anime is not.
One of the things I like about this anime is how it attempts to preserve Japanese culture, tradition and folklore.
Nezuko's Kimono Design
Take Nezuko's kimono design, for example; people might be interested to know that actually, this pattern dates back centuries. It's known as "Asa no ha," (麻の葉, lit. hemp leaves), and it is supposed to represent hemp leaves. Hemp is associated with having a strong vitality since it grows vigorously without the need for a lot of care, so this pattern was often used on babies’ and children’s kimonos with the hope that they would grow up big and strong.
This may not sound like much, but this is a sort of gateway to Japanese traditional cloth prints, and now this design will forever be in this generation's mind. You see this design, you think "Nezuko." Genius! (I've already discussed another design called "Kikko" in a past post. And there are other designs in a different post regarding the JR Tozai Line)
In world where Japanese traditional culture is fading, I think what Japan needs are different ways to instill traditionally Japanese things in the youth, and what better way to do it than by bloody, gory manga where the hero slices demon's heads, arms and legs off!
I'm being facetious.
Obviously I think there was a better way to appeal to the Japanese youth regarding traditional Japanese culture, but I guess as they say, there's more than one way to skin a tanuki.
The anime is excellent, with a wonderful soundtrack, unforgettable characters and captivating stories.
That's all I have to say about Halloween in Japan this year.
It's moon viewing season in Japan! That time when the Japanese take time to appreciate the harvest moon.
I've already written about Otsukimi and Otsukimi-related things in the past. Check out my list of links to past blog posts at the end of this post below.
Life's been rather busy for me as of late. I've got a job that keeps me rather late, my kids are growing up and I'm attending their events, I've got little time to blog. But as you can see, this blog is still on my mind; have you noticed the new layout? This blog is now on its own server now! Yay me for moving my blog from blogger to its own WordPress site, even though I don't know a single thing about what I'm doing!
I'm a bit disappointed that I've got nothing much to talk about, so this time around, I'm going to share some pictures of an Otsukimi burger I enjoyed at McDonald's recently.
This burger is only served during September and October when the Japanese take time to appreciate the moon. It features a burger patty with cheese, topped with a fried egg. For whatever reason, an egg evokes the moon. Maybe it's the yellow yolk? I'm not sure.
I always enjoy this burger and look forward to it this time of year. Look for it if you're ever in Japan September/October.
In my last post, I wrote a delicious lemon snack I found this year.
For those of you who don't regularly follow my blog, I'm very fond of lemon-flavored snacks, drinks etc., and every year during the summer months, different confectionery companies release lemon-flavored snacks. I look forward to finding these snacks, so sometimes I post them here.
At any rate, I recently found a couple more snacks I really liked at Family Mart (a Japanese convenience store), and I just had to share them here.
Here they are!
First on the bill is this lovely old-fashioned-style donut.
As you can see, it's merely an old-fashioned donut with a lemon-flavored glaze. There are even yellow stripes to hint that this snack cake has lemony in it.
I must say, it was a rather pleasant experience that did not disappoint. It was like eating an old-fashioned donut with an extra zing of lemon in the glaze.
Here's a close-up so you can see the texture and layer of glaze.
Next on the bill is this excellent lemon cheesecake bar.
The snack cake comes in this plastic container so as to keep things from crushing the cake within.
This snack cake features a nice crust with lemon-flavored cheesecake filling, topped by lemon-flavored crumbs.
This was another snack I rather liked. Unlike the donut above, the taste of this snack cake lingered a little bit more, whereas the donut above had an initial zing to it that dissipated quickly.
I’ve got a lot I want to blog about, but recently I haven’t had time to sit down and write a blog post as detailed as I’d like. For now, here’s a post about Japanese trivia.
If you enjoy going to Chinese and Japanese restaurants, or just enjoy cooking Asian food at home, I’m quite sure you’ve come across the soy sauce brand Kikkoman.
This blog post is about what the name of this brand and their logo means.
First off, let’s analyze the logo.
It’s composed of two concentric hexagon outlines, the outer hexagon being extremely thick in width, and the inner one being extremely thin.
At the center is a stylized character for the Chinese character for “10,000” or “myriad”, 萬. It is in fact, the older, traditional form for the character 万.
In the Chinese number system, and consequently the Japanese number system, larger numbers are counted differently. Instead of breaking up large numbers in terms of how many thousands (1,000) they have, they're broken down in terms of how many ten thousands (10,000) they have.
That is to say, that in the Chinese number system, there exists a singular unit of ten thousands, called a "wàn" in Mandarin Chinese, or "man" in Japanese.
What to Westerners looks like "ten thousand," (10,000), in countries where the Chinese number system is used, this is seen as one unit, in older English called a "myriad." (1,0000)
The next unit up is called an "oku," (億) which is a unit of one hundred million. Where commas are placed after every three places in the Western number system, commas are placed every four spaces.
So in Western numbers, one hundred million looks like 100,000,000, it looks like 1,0000,0000.
The original meaning of the word "myriad" in English was an archaic unit of 10,000, but today it means a large, innumerable number.
As in English, the character 萬 can also share the meaning of the word "myriad" of a countless number, in which case it is read よろず (yorozu).
So what is this logo’s meaning? Why were these elements chosen?
It all begins to make sense once we realize that traditionally, the Japanese referred to the hexagon as “turtle/tortoise shell,” 亀甲 (きっこう, kikkou) because of the patterns found on turtle shells.
When looking at a turtle shell, it’s easy to see.
The turtle is an auspicious symbol in Asian culture, because it is thought to live a long life, 10,000 years in particular.
Starting to get the picture?
In short, the literal meaning of "kikkoman" is "myriad in a hexagon," and the logo itself is the image of a stylized character for "myriad" enclosed in a hexagon.
The double meaning that can be found here is that "kikkou," or 亀甲 when written in Chinese characters, actually means "turtle shell."
So the word "kikkoman," and its visual representation are auspicious symbols of longevity and good luck.
It's a name that reflects the founders' hopes of the company lasting 10,000 (a myriad) years. (Basically forever.)
In Japanese art, one can often see the turtle paired with a crane. It is said the crane lives 1,000 years, and the turtle 10,000. Together, they are auspicious symbols of longevity.
I’m quite sure you’ve heard of the Japanese expression “banzai.” (万歳, ばんざい) It literally means “10,000 years.” (In some compounds, 万/萬 is read “ban”.)
By the way, any Megaman lovers on here remember the turtle boss from Megaman 7?
Check out the turtle decorations in the stage leading up to it.
Here it is; a documentary to a part of my childhood that no one ever asked for.
I was deliberating whether or not this was the place to write about a part of the formative years of my life. After serious consideration, I thought there couldn't be a more appropriate place to do this, as this is about music, and it is, if but remotely, related to video games. If you're interested in sentimental, nostalgic, miss-my-hometown sappy pabulum, and American pop-culture history that no one ever talks about, read on.
There are some memories that just stay with you all your life. But then, I'm the kind of guy who just remembers a lot of trivial things most everyone else tends to forget. I'm the kind of guy who tells my friends "Hey, remember when this happened," and then my friends tell me "OMG! How can you still remember that."
I remember you...
There are all kinds of events that just stay with you in one way or another. I'm sure that psychologists have found a way to categorize them all and I'm just reinventing the wheel here.
There are things you remember as visions; something you saw that just always stays in your head. Some people call the ability to recall something you've seen in detail as a "photographic memory."
Sometimes, a memory exists as a taste or smell. When you smell or taste something, you think to yourself "Ah! I remember this. My dad used to make this. My mom used to have a cream that smelled like this. My cousin used to wear this cologne." I've heard that smell is probably the strongest trigger for memories.
Then there are things you remember because of how they felt to your touch. Or just you remember it because your body remembers it.
Finally, there are memories that I'm going to call here "aural memories"; these are memories of sounds that you've heard, be it the cry of an animal, the words somebody said, a noise, such as the crackling of fire or the patter of rain, the sound of an instrument, or the sound of a song, be it being played live or on the radio.
Let me tell you, I can remember things as far back as when I was 2. There are memories that will always just stick with me.
Some memories shape and influence who you are; we are who we are because of our past experience.
How does this connect to a blog about Japan, music and retro-gaming?
The thread that's going to connect this post to this blog is that of my love of music.
I can't speak for everyone, but some of my favorite music is the kind that reminds me of "the good ol' days," the days when I can recall everything was "better." (Although in retrospect, this is probably a naive delusion.)
I say that if there is anything that influences a person's musical tastes as an adult, it's the music one has heard as a child.
Today, I want to talk about a piece of music that has stayed with me since my days of elementary school; a piece of music I've always hummed to myself whenever I want to recall those days when my only worries were having to finish my homework and getting to school on time, when the happiest moments of my life were when the school day was over and I could come home to watch my favorite cartoons and TV shows. Just humming this tune to myself makes me recall those days when school was out and I was free to enjoy those long, hot days of summer.
I want to talk about my recent adventure in revisiting my past, and discovering who the composer to part of the soundtrack of my childhood was
The Curiosity to Scour the Internet for Child Memories Dawns
YouTube is such an ingenious, wonderful invention. The things one can find uploaded to their archives are simply amazing. Every once in a while, somebody will post a link on Facebook to a video of old commercials and/or TV shows to the effect of "Hey! Do you remember back when...?" I love these videos invoking nostalgia. This has caused me to spend countless nights on YouTube searching for old content to regain those childhood memories.
Who remembers "Ice Cream Cones" Cereal? :-P
In its early days, what one could find on YouTube was severely limited. All the nostalgic stuff I craved was very hard to come by. But slowly, little by little, one could see video after video of things like "commercials from the 90s... commercials from the 80s... opening sequences to shows from this or that era." And not just American content, but content from television around the world. It's amazing that you can find nostalgic content from countries around the world. YouTube is beginning to be a sort of repository; a collective memory for the world.
Another thing I'll aways remember; double-mint gum commercials...
How many of you remember that commercial for Zelda: Link's Awakening?
This must have played on Channel 35 countless times.
Or how about Dr. Mario and that long annoying "Daba daba dooba doobi do-boh!!!" song?
Almost any commercial for a Nintendo game; look it up on YouTube, and it's there. (That was it. The only thing on this post having to do with video games. LOL!)
It happened just the other day; I was sitting at my dining room table studying Japanese, when an old familiar tune started playing in my head. As of this moment, there was no real name to it, it was just the music that would play on my favorite TV channel back home on different occasions. In particular, I remember this music playing during my favorite time-slot coming home from school; the time-slot when all my favorite cartoons would play and birthdays of local residents in my city would be announced.
And then, just there and then, I thought "HEY! Why not check if by any chance, somebody has uploaded this to YouTube. You an find almost anything else. Who knows! Maybe somebody out has thought to upload it."
So I go to my computer, go to YouTube and type in "KCBA 35 song."
I wasn't even sure what I was looking for; I just wanted to see if anyone uploaded something from that channel that might have that music on it.
And sure enough, there it was; a video titled: "KCBA Turn to 35 Promo 1987"
I click, and all of a sudden I was a 2nd grader again, waiting for the KCBA Kid's Club to start so I could watch Ducktales, Thundercats, Silverhawks and GIJoe.
The names Wendy and John Van Camp return to memory, as the hosts of the TV broadcast.
In one way or another, this tune was used on Channel 35. This promo clip would play, or an instrumental variation of it would play during a dedicated slot to announce kids' birthdays.
I remember that it was nice to listen to this familiar melody day in and day out, until one day, it was different.
The birthday announcements would come on and I noticed something was wrong.
"They changed the song!" I thought... "What could have happened???"
Incidentally, there are a couple videos of the birthday announcements, only, it's with the new weird, dorky song.
I must have been in the 2nd grade when this happened.
It was rather traumatic and I still remember the change to this day.
Curiouser and Curiouser!
So here I am, 30 years or so later, this melody still in my head.
My curiosity led me to search YouTube, but it didn't end with the discovery of this video.
After that trip down memory lane, I scrolled down to see the comments, as you do after watching a video on YouTube, and I was delightfully amazed to find out that people in my city weren't the only ones who grew up listening to this music.
Apparently this song, or as somebody might say, "jingle," was used in promotional material at TV stations all across the country; other stations across the US incorporated this song in one way or another, modified to fit local life.
In a sense, this was not only the soundtrack to *my* childhood, but the soundtrack to American people's lives throughout the 80's and early 90's.
"Turn to News" Package, by Frank Gari
Having read the comments, I did some more digging. This music had to have had an author, and I was determined to find out who it was. I wanted to find out exactly where this music came from, and more about where it was played. My search did not disappoint!
I now know that that childhood tune was part of a "package" called "Turn to News", composed by one Frank Gari back in 1983.
The first TV station to use it was WXYC-TV in Cleveland. It was called "Turn to 3" back then.
The jingle was so good that another station, WXYZ-TV in Detroit asked Frank Gari to rewrite it for them. It was re-written as "Stand Up and Tell 'Em You're From Detroit."
This promotional campaign became so successful it was used in other stations across the country thereafter.
It was so popular that it was even used in other countries, such as Argentina, Australia, Chile, Denmark, France, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Sweden and Venezuela.
You might say it was an "international success."
I'm just amazed by the age of information we live in. Just a few days ago, this was a nameless melody, and now, I know exactly who wrote it, when it was written and where it was broadcast. In addition, I've become more educated on a little bit of unspoken American pop-culture history.
A Brief History of Frank Gari, the Father of the Image Campaign and News Music Package
It's a little-known fact, but this man, Frank Gari, has been writing the soundtrack to people's lives all around the world. Credit has never been given to him, and it seems he has never really cared to claim it; he just produces music and it's used in media without any mention of him.
Gari began as a pop singer, writing hit songs like "Utopia," "Lullaby of Love" and "Princess" in the 50's and 60's, all of which hit the US Billboard top 40 charts in 1961.
He performed on shows such as The Merv Griffin Show, The Steve Allen Show and American Bandstand. It wasn't until he moved to Cleveland when he began writing jingles for commercials, and music packages for news networks and image campaigns for TV stations.
Some of Gari's early jingles were for Ohio Bell telephone company, Genie garage doors and early commercals for Wendy's. According to interviews with Gari (Links at the end of this post below.), he wrote "With a name like Smuckerss, it has to be good" for Smucker's jams and jellies, and "You deserve a break today" for McDonald's.
It was in Cleveland, Ohio, where, Gari broke into the television
broadcasting business, and he pioneered the idea of the "music package"
and the "image campaign." According to an interview with NewsCast Studio (link below), up until the 1970's. it was common for news broadcasters to use random cuts of music from movies using vinyl records. Broadcasters would actually drop a needle onto a record and that would be the theme. It was Frank Gary who introduced the idea of the "music package," which included a theme and variations of that theme in different styles for different times, news segments etc.
At the time, there were only three television news networks; ABC, NBC and CBS. Having heard Gari's work in commercial jingles, WEWS-TV 5 (ABC) approached him about writing a song to promote their TV station. Thus the "Catch 5" image campaign was born.
According to Gari, this was the very first TV station image campaign of its time. Channel 5 ABC was 3rd in ratings, but it shot up to No. 1 soon after the Catch 5 image campaign. It was such a success that NBC asked him to write a song for them, and then CBS followed suit. So there was a time where he was writing music for all three networks.
In another instance, WABC in New York approached Gari about recording a new, fresh recording of the Eyewitness News theme they were using at the time, which came from an old, worn vinyl record. The original recording was a song from the album for the movie "Cool Hand Luke," which had become scratchy and overall poor quality.
WABC wanted him to record a brand new recording using a full orchestra. This was the time when he put together his first "music package" which consisted of 12 different recordings for say, sports, weather and traffic. According to Gari, it's still the No. 1 news theme in broadcasting and is still being used today at most ABC news station to promote Eyewitness News.
It was from the 1970s onward that news networks would begin to be identified by their own particular theme. Up until that point, they didn't have a unique identity, but the creation of original music began to establish definite images and an identity for each network.
In his interview with NewsCast Studio, Gari says that what sets his music apart was his privilege to record all of his music packages with the best studios with the best orchestras. He laments that nowadays, with budget cuts, the trend of news music has headed in a direction of doing everything electronically, which means no live musicians. In his time, more time was dedicated for opening themes, which could be as long as 20 seconds. In the past, this length of time served to introduce and develop a theme that would serve as a memorable image and identity. However, nowadays, this time has shrunk down to 5 seconds at most, so the importance of a theme which would develop a news network's unique identity has declined.
Other music packages that can be accredited to Gari would be the "Hello" and "This is home" packages, which have also been played across the country. What is very memorable of the music in these packages is that they all had this theme of having a common goal, of working together and being proud to call one's hometown a "home." In some cities, these songs became a sort of "Town Anthem." For this reason, it can be said that Frank Gari is truly the composer for the soundtrack of America.
In his interview, Frank mentioned that one of his favorite packages that he wrote was the "Stand up and tell 'em you're from Detroit" package. This was the package that will have served as a basis for the music package used at my local TV station. Although "Turn to 35" never became our city's "anthem," I can't help but remember my hometown and the memories I had there.
Gari talks about his lament in the decline of the image campaign. Campaigns like "This is home," "Hello" and "Stand up and tell 'em you're from..." really do seem to instill these ideas of a common goal, working together to build a community and being proud of the place you came from. I think I can agree with Gari, that if the image campaign was brought back, it could help Americans today, especially now, more than ever with the current pandemic.
I'm happy and satisfied to have gone down this rabbit hole of a memory. I'm glad to know that the composer to the soundtrack of my childhood, of my hometown, of America, has a name. I'm glad to know the name of a person who not only touched my life, but indirectly touched the lives of others and changed the face of television in America and even the world.
Frank Gari, thank you for the work that you've done.
