TresSugar

Stranger Than Fiction! Man Marries Video Game Character

TresSugar — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:00:55 -0800

This past Sunday a man known as "Sal9000" and his fiancé Nene Anegasaki vowed to stay together until death, or a power outage, do them part. You see Sal9000's new wife Nene happens to be a video game character in the addictive Nintendo DS game Love Plus. A priest, live audience, MC, and friends of the happy couple were also present at the event, and the bride's virtual maid of honor even gave a speech. A slideshow recounted how the couple met and teased Sal for being quite the player before he met Nene - he had lots of other video game girlfriends. The whole event was livecasted, and Boing Boing put together the video below so we could all witness this unique wedding.

This story might be the first time I've heard of someone marrying an anime character, but I have read about those who "marry" other inanimate objects. The term "objectum sexuals" describes people who feel attraction, arousal, love, and commitment for objects. One woman even held a ceremony in Paris and married the Eiffel Tower. Talk about nontraditional weddings.

Oh Snap! Not Your Typical Wine Snobs

TresSugar — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:00:12 -0800

A sommelier pours a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau at an open air wine spa in Japan. The crowd, which may or may not be of drinking age, looks like it's having a fabulous time. I think I know where I'm going on my next vacation!

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The Dark Side of Cute

TresSugar — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:00:00 -0800

Kittens in casts. Babies nudged to laugh every five seconds. Stuffed teddy bears left at killing-spree sites. We are so surrounded by the tyranny of cute that even multibillion-dollar corporations have cute names like "Google" and "Twitter," and the uncute business of insurance is represented in ads by a cute lizard with an English accent. (And yes, I too am guilty of spreading cuteness.)

What's up with the cute? Writer Jim Windolf has had enough and decided to try to get to the bottom of what he calls the "self-infantalization" of Americans. His conclusion? There's a dark, manipulative side to cute. If you want to know what it is, read more.

In Daniel Harris's book Cute, Quaint, Hungry, and Romantic, he says that there's a hidden sadism to our love of cute, citing the barrage of images of cats falling, puppies slamming into mirrors, and even babies trapped in high chairs being prodded to laugh.

"The process of conveying cuteness to the viewer disempowers its objects," he writes, "forcing them into ridiculous situations and making them appear more ignorant and vulnerable than they really are. Adorable things are often most adorable in the middle of a pratfall or a blunder." In other words, they are cute insofar as they are helpless, and we, conferrers of cute, are all-powerful.

Becoming cute, conversely, is one way of disarming opponents or critics. It's not incidental, argues Windolf, that the cult of cute in the US emerged during the Bush years, when "the American image went from that of protector to invader, from defender of human rights to aggressor on the lookout for loopholes in the Geneva Conventions." Cuteness then, according to this theory, "came about as some sort of correction, as a way for us to convince ourselves and our friends that we're not as bad as our recent national actions have made us seem." (It reminds me of smiley emoticons at the end of passive-aggressive email messages and instant messages. In this case, American cute is like a ginormous cultural smiley face emoticon tacked on the end of dubious actions telling our allies we're not all that bad.)

Windolf traces American cute back to Japan's kawaii culture, which got huge 10 years ago but actually emerged at the end of WWII after it was "humiliated and emasculated." If you're interested in political and cultural psychoanalysis, I suggest reading this long essay. But whatever you do, remember - ~~sometimes a cigar is just a cigar~~ sometimes a cute kitten isn't just a cute kitten.

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Rent-a-Friend Business Booming in Japan

TresSugar — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 01:00:00 -0700

One of my favorite episodes of How I Met Your Mother involves Barney and his hired "family." The eternal playboy (played by Neil Patrick Harris) wants his mother to think he has settled down, so he pays actors to play his wife and son, concocts an elaborate backstory with details including his son's "catch phrase," and plays along for years every time he visits his mother with his fake family in tow.

Well apparently, Japan has turned this sitcom plot into a reality. Japanese rent-a-friend companies allow people to pay for pretend friends, relatives, work colleagues, or even best men! Sometimes single mothers hire fake husbands so kids stop bullying their children at school for having absent fathers!

Just like Barney's family, the "agents" are trained to know an extensive backstory. If rentees give any hint that they're aren't really the people they're pretending to be, it could mess up the clients' lives. Creepy! Apparently the need to look like everything is perfect in your life is so important in Japan that some people are willing to rent these actor-CIA-agent hybrids for about $250 per appearance.

While it might be tempting to hire a stand-in boyfriend for awkward situations, like when you're the only single girl invited to a dinner party filled with couples, this still seems strange to me. What do you think?

Photo courtesy of CBS

Japan's New First Lady Has Been Abducted by Aliens

TresSugar — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 10:00:00 -0700

Japan mixed things up this week by electing the opposition party for the first time in 50 years. Along with Prime Minister-elect Yukio Hatoyama, the country will welcome his eccentric wife Miyuki Hatoyama as their first lady. Here are some key facts to help you get to know more about the newest addition to the First Spouses Club.

Miyuki is a lifestyle guru, macrobiotics enthusiast, retired actress, and designer of such garments as a skirt she made from coffee sacks.
She says she was abducted by aliens 20 years ago and traveled to the planet Venus.
Miyuki also says she knew Tom Cruise in a previous life, when he was Japanese. She'd like to make a Hollywood movie with her old friend.
Then-married Miyuki met her husband in San Francisco, when he was studying at Stanford and she was working at a restaurant. Yukio said: "The average man chooses his mate from among unmarried women. I chose mine from among all women."

I don't know about you, but I can't wait to follow Mr. and Mrs. Hatoyama as they make their way on the international stage!

Word du Jour: Herbivore

TresSugar — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 06:00:00 -0700

"Herbivore" is a term used in Japan to describe a man who rejects traditional masculinity when it comes to careers, romance, and material possessions.

The term, which typically means an animal who feeds on plants alone, is meant to indicate a man's disinterest in "flesh" - in other words, they're not into chasing women or accumulating material goods. Almost half of the men surveyed by a Japanese research firm described themselves as "herbivores."

Traditionally, Japanese men spend most of their days at work or socializing with colleagues, and little time with their families. The media is pointing to disillusionment with the troubled economy as the cause for a growing rejection of this typical workaholic role for men. Instead herbivores typically work part-time and spend their free time alone or on the Internet.

I have to say that finding a new way to define what it means to be a man is much more refreshing than the other Japanese trend the media has latched on to - falling in love with body pillows.

Très Bizarre: Bagel Face Body Modification

TresSugar — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 11:15:00 -0700

Would you like a lox schmear with that bagel in your forehead?

Club kids in Japan are kicking extreme body modification up a notch by having lumps and bumps injected into their foreheads (and other body parts) via saline inflations or injections of saline into bags that are inserted under the skin. These self-inflicted deformations (like the bagel face saline implantations above) look insane, but they can be deflated by the next day. Want to find out about other body modifications? read more.

Extreme body modification isn't new. A search led me to an illuminating list of body modifications, illuminating because they range from the mainstream and mundane to the culturally specific to the OMG they do not do that! You might be surprised, for example, that getting your ears pierced or practicing body building is considered body modification, but technically, that's what those are.

Culturally specific practices of body mods include the old Chinese practice of foot binding or Kayan women with stacked neck rings. And then there are modern body modifications I'd rather not think too much about: scrotal implants, eyeball tattooing, tongue-splitting, and the baffling practice of trepanation, or drilling a hole into the skull.

We live in a world where people have plastic surgery to conform to certain ideals of beauty, so even though I would never have a saline inflation put in my forehead to look like I have a bagel in it (and I would probably gasp if I saw someone who did), I think there's something interesting about body modifications to debeautify or to look nonhuman (like the horns or wings you can get through plastic surgery to look like devils or angels).

Is all this too freaky for you, or do you think it's cool?

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Très Bizarre: Japanese Company Cares About Global Warming

TresSugar — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 01:00:00 -0700

How do they express this? By featuring a young girl shaving a hot bear in the forest in places he can't reach. If you shave a bear in the forest and no one's around. . .oh, nevermind.

Shotgun Weddings on the Rise in Japan

TresSugar — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 14:00:50 -0700

Almost one third of brides in Japan are what the Japanese call "double happy." In other words, they have two things to celebrate: an impending marriage and a baby already on the way!

Japanese society used to frown on shotgun weddings, but recently more and more women are walking down the aisle visibly pregnant. Who do experts thank? Celebrities of course! Over the last decade, the country's well-known pop stars and actresses have demonstrated that it's perfectly fine to be pregnant on your wedding day.

Back in America, traditional attitudes about what comes first - the marriage or the baby carriage?- have been changing, too. "Wholesome" actresses like Jennifer Garner and Reese Witherspoon were pregnant brides. And along the same lines, we've previously debated whether celebrities are turning pregnancy and motherhood before marriage into a trend.

Do you think it's still taboo to get married while obviously pregnant?

Oh Snap! Japan Hasn't Forgotten About the Swine Flu Thing

TresSugar — Thu, 21 May 2009 08:45:00 -0700

Japanese students on a field trip at the House of Councilors are given facemasks and hand disinfectant before they enter. With the hope of stopping the spread of swine flu, the government office has prepared facemasks for every one of the 3,000 people who visit each day. Meanwhile in the US, fear of contracting the illness is at an all-time low.

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