Tokyo Girl's Collection is the anti-fashion show

Tokyo Girl's Collection is the anti-fashion show More than 30,000 fashionistas flocked to Japan's largest fashion event, the Tokyo Girl's Collection -- or TGC this weekend -- a bi-annual show that combines the country's top fashion brands with popular music acts. Now in its sixth year, the six hour show has established itself as the epicenter of Japan's "kawaii," or cute culture, a culture that has gained a global following in recent years. On Saturday, the Saitama Super Arena, just outside of Tokyo, looked more like a cross between a concert and circus than a fashion show. Popular models strutted their looks down the runway, as adoring fans screamed their names, while other show-goers crowded booths featuring everything from makeup to a foot massage. In between, the TGC stage featured a mini ballet performance, and an appearance by Cirque de Soleil.
6 Sep In mid-August, Tsuneko Iwakura was finally moved into temporary housing, after five moves in as many months since evacuating her home near a damaged nuclear plant. 'We hear we can stay here for at least two years, so we are now relieved,' said Iwakura, 78. She and her husband left their home in north-eastern Japan when the Fukushima Daichi Nuclear Power Station started leaking radioactive material, only 5 kilometres away. When the magnitude-9 earthquake struck the area on March 11, Iwakura watched as the walls of her house cracked and tiles fell from the roof. (monstersandcritics.com)
6 Sep More than 30,000 fashionistas flocked to Japan's largest fashion event, the Tokyo Girl's Collection -- or TGC this weekend -- a bi-annual show that combines the country's top fashion brands with popular music acts. Now in its sixth year, the six hour show has established itself as the epicenter of Japan's "kawaii," or cute culture, a culture that has gained a global following in recent years. On Saturday, the Saitama Super Arena, just outside of Tokyo, looked more like a cross between a concert and circus than a fashion show. Popular models strutted their looks down the runway, as adoring fans screamed their names, while other show-goers crowded booths featuring everything from makeup to a foot massage. In between, the TGC stage featured a mini ballet performance, and an appearance by Cirque de Soleil. (ABC News)
6 Sep In its cover story last month, The Economist newsmagazine looked at the issue of "Asia's lonely hearts: Why Asian women are rejecting marriage and what that means." It offered many reasons - including economics, education level, changes in family structures and gender roles, divorce difficulties, and demographics - for why many Asian women (and of course, by extension, Asian men) are marrying later or not at all. I commend The Economist's well-intentioned attempt at dealing with an important social issue. But its discussion left one major stone unturned: sex. At the risk of turning this month's scribbling into a Hugh Hefner column, I think it incumbent upon those of us planning a life in Japan to consider a fundamentally unhealthy social phenomenon: how sexuality in Japan is downplayed, if not encouraged to be omitted completely, from many married lives. (Japan Times)
6 Sep The Cup Noodles Museum in Yokohama, southwest of Tokyo, will open next week offering lovers of the instant snack a trip through noodle history. The iconic food creation, consisting of a precooked block of noodles requiring only hot water, a packet of flavouring and three minutes preparation time, has been a popular Japanese snack for decades. (Telegraph)
5 Sep Prosecutors face criticism for concealing evidence after revealing over the weekend that they have DNA evidence that further casts doubt over the guilt of Govinda Prasad Mainali, a Nepalese man convicted for a March 1997 murder. Mainali was found guilty of killing a 39-year-old Tokyo woman who led a double life as an elite employee of Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) by day and a prostitute by night. Mainali's lawyers have appealed for a review of his life sentence confirmed by the Supreme Court after DNA found at the scene of the woman's murder and used as evidence to convict him was found recently to have belonged to another person. (majirox news)

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