Monday, 26 March 2012

Long Weekend in Tokyo

So, I’ve now finally said bye bye Camden, and hello hello Balham, only to say bye bye Balham straight away, and bye bye London, and indeed Europe for now. With my possessions now divided between Balham and Norfolk, I took the flight to Narita Airport to start a three month misadventure into the partly known and unknown.


After a reasonably successful flight, in that it landed, I made my way to Shinjuku to Hotel Sunroute Higashi with my first instinct being to sleep. But, of course, with my flight landing earlier than check-in time, I was left to bumble about in the rain until 2PM.

That out the way, I then did what I have done a lot over the past few days: sleep during the day. Jetlag has hit me badly this weekend on my arrival and my body loves waking up unnecessarily early, only to start to tire by mid-afternoon, leaving a couple of lost evenings already. Waking, the rain was still heavy, so my first day was a bit of a non-event, kept mainly indoors, mainly in bed.

The rain continued on Saturday, leaving my plans to walk around a bit scuppered, though I did buy a coat, which only cost me my soul, being that it’s a Nike SB. To celebrate, I had a couple of pints, which combined with the jetlag caused a near instant death and once again left me needing an early bed, though not before the sun finally came out.


Sunday was a better day, with the sun out and bringing with it a mild attempt at sunburn, or maybe it was just due to my going for a run that my face was so red. On a whim, I went to watch J-League Division 2 side Tokyo Verdy at the Ajinomoto Stadium in a 2-0 win over Thespa Kusastu. He crowd were lively, as ever in the J-League and a nice view of Fuji-san could be seen as the sun began to set. Jetlag was beaten for that day at least, leaving me able to go out for a meal and everything. That can’t be said of Monday, however, in which I woke early, again, and was Tokyo zombied by the afternoon.


In essence, it’s been a weekend to readjust my body clock. I was able to get quite a bit of exercise done, but jetlag kept my level of activity to a minimum.  Hopefully it will be gone when I move on to Okinawa, where I should be able to enjoy the evenings, as well as the rising sun.  

Sunday, 25 March 2012

The League of Extraordinary Hooligans

Once, when in a Tokyo hotel, I was wearing my Japanese shirt when I went to reception. Without saying a word, the bloke working reception walked round to the other side of the check-in desk to see what name I had on the back. Unless the tag was hanging out the back and I had Redknapp on me, there was no name on my shirt.



Yes, the Japanese football fans love their heroes. When going to a Kyoto Sanga match in 2008, they had a ‘hero of the day’ interview with the keeper and the players do laps of honour to their fans at the end of each game. A far cry from the lazy players of the Barclay’s Premier League (or PL as Sky will insist on calling it), barely able to lift their arms to show support to those that have spent a large proportion of their earnings to see those that are paid more than they can imagine.


The J-League is the fans’ league for me. The games are quite rough and tumble, and to an often inconsistent standard, with token failed Brazilians thrown in for good measure. But I don’t go to watch the football; I go to watch the fans.


As in England, the hardcore fans of each team go behind the opposing goals, complete with as many banners, flags, megaphones and drums as they can carry. Everyone to a man will be decked in the club colours and will be in the stands well before kick-off, performing the countless songs and choreographed routines that are at their disposal. It almost feels like you will need to audition to earn your place in the end stands, how unified they are; God knows what you have to do to be one of the blokes holding a megaphone?! Each have nicknames blazed across their banners in the club colours, such as ‘Sledgehammer Bros’ (Gamba Osaka) and my personal favourite ‘Hardcore Naked’ (Kyoto Sanga).



Today, I went to my third J-League match to see local boys Tokyo Verdy take on Thespa Kusatsu. 3,008 were in attendance at the Ajinomoto Stadium, which holds 50,000. Yes, times are hard for the double champions from the 90s, now languishing in J-League Division 2 in a ground they share with local rivals FC Tokyo who are currently featuring in the Asian Champions’ League. They’re sort of the equivalent of West Ham, except they play in an Olympic-like stadium…wait a minute…


But in a stadium only 6% full, there was a noise constant and loud enough to cause tinnitus. The continuous chanting, banging of the drum and megaphone rousing lasted for the full 90 minutes, rarely letting up. Even the small number of Kusatsu fans, who’d made the relatively short journey, still were able to sound like an opposing army preparing for battle across no mans’ land, despite their side’s 2-0 defeat.





There is little silence, few moans and groans and even the losing team will get a nice send off. Sod the mascot racing, each J-League team should put forward their fans for a battle of the bands style showdown. There’s even a respectful applause from the opposition when a chant draws to a close. That’s what this league’s really about. Fans here support their club; we just watch ours in England (and sometimes Wales).


And what's more, you can take beer in.

Wednesday, 21 March 2012

I've Never Seen The Wire

‘Now, normally when you see a special about jail, it’s on regular TV and there’s a lot of shit they don’t show. Oh, not the HBO jail specials...’ Chris Rock

Let’s say someone tells you they’ve just seen the greatest film of all time, and then that film turns out to be ‘Top Secret’ starring Val Kilmer. Whether or not you actually like the film, you will always walk away disappointed by the fact that you have not seen the greatest film ever made, despite Val Kilmer’s performance.

The audacity of hype often makes seeing something irrelevant, as however good someone says something is, the reality will get nowhere near to touching the excitement that your imagination will create. ‘The Hunger Games’ is not going to be the ‘film event of 2012’; it’s going to be shit.

I often found myself watching HBO’s ‘Oz’ late night on Channel 4 in the late 90s, when the channel was still reasonable. So, when mutterings among friends mentioned ‘The Wire’, a show that features many similar cast members as ‘Oz’, I could see myself believing that it might actually be ‘one of the greatest TV shows ever made.’

But, having never actually seen it for myself, I left it at that; what I can’t see, can’t entertain me. But as the name came up more and more, I decided that it probably would disappoint, never having heard a bad word said against it. I didn’t need to see it. I can sit comfortably knowing that it is one of the greatest television shows ever made without ever having seen it, much like how Christians treat their relationship to ‘Jerry Springer: The Opera.’

But maybe I should.

So, waiting for an adequate moment – say, quitting my job – to sit back to watch 60 episodes worth, I proceeded to borrow the box set and let the inevitable disappointment enrapture me.

I was soon disappointed to discover I had not been disappointed. Probably the first time since I first saw the whole first series of ‘Peep Show’, I actually wanted to watch as much as possible, putting off silly chores such as sleep to get through the first few episodes of the first season. A lot has been said about ‘The Wire’ being more novel than television show, and that is exactly how it works: every second has to be taken into fully understand what is going on and follow the many characters and each of their individual storylines.

With so much detail put into even the smallest regular characters, each is realistic, with charm, flaws, personal problems and an inability to speak clearly. Also, the fact that main characters can go missing for a few episodes if not relevant to the main storyline gives it an edge over many shows which serve more as a vehicle for overpaid celebrity. The cast, as well as the viewers, are in this for the long haul.

The creators/writers and many cast members having actually been part of homicide in Baltimore also adds to the realism, with former child murderer Felicia Pearson playing a hit-woman and Method Man playing a man with an actual Wu-Tang Clan tattoo, as well as Brits playing various degrees of convincing Maryland accents.

Much can be said about the level of depth, the multi-layered storylines, the social comment, the believable characters, the focusing on every aspect of crime, and I’m sure many others can do it better than me. But, with the understated nature of much of what takes place, for once you feel you are watching a television show that is about telling a story.

I easily missed ‘The Wire’; it being shown on random channel FX and at a not-exactly-noticeable-time on BBC Two, but perhaps that’s a good thing. There was not as much publicity that I’m aware of as doled out for other hour-long US drama series; the hype came more from people that had seen it and liked it (and not just on Facebook), with claims of it being ‘the greatest’ coming after people had seen it, rather than before.