Neil Hopcroft

A digital misfit

Turning Japanese


We should know by now not to dare Pete to do anything…the three of us ended up in a sex shop in downtown Shinjuku, these two are a bad influence I swear, but it goes like this:

NH: Pete, look…
PF: Yeah, its a vibrator that lights up, so what?
NH: No, no, read it again
PF: Its got a camera in it?

So, there we are, maybe I’m being naive and prudish, but thats my first ever sighting of a USB sex toy.

Then a sad moment as Pete and Marge head off to return home…the week is over so quick, and its not even my holiday. I couldn’t pursuade them to come along to Tokyo Dark Castle in Shibuya, they’d not have enough time to sleep before catching their flight.

Oh well, I head off to the club anyway. And its a strange one again, quite similar to Cyber Age Voodoo in some ways. There are two floors this time, which are actually two different clubs in the same building, with a handstamp that lets you move between. When I walked in there was a band on stage (Auto-mod & Tamaki, I think) who were classic sci-fi film club scene material, with angle grinders, whips and bloody kisses theatrics. They sounded damned good too, I’ll be seeing them again if I can figure out where they’re playing.

Next, Destruct System, who are noise with little talent. Then a show rather than a band, I think they’re called Mira Kurumi. The show involved three people, two girls and a guy, and was, erm, somewhat more explicit than the shows we get at the kinds of places I hang around at home. It consisted mainly of the younger girl, who was maybe 14[0], being abused (in various ways, including, but not limited to, use of dripping wax and urine) by the other two…

After that there was Despair, a band who apparently don’t know about the limits of the human audible range and have set their drum machine to produce bass kicks at such a frequency they are hardly distinct. A nice noise, but all a bit samey.

Showtime over, so I head downstairs to the dancefloor where there are DJs (they’re just showing a series of NIN videos between acts upstairs) and a whole bunch of Australians keeping up the gaijin reputation. For some reason I don’t remember I speak briefly with the most obviously crossdressed guy among them, who turns out to actually be a girl but she runs away to the convenience store before I manage to say anything profound, lucky for her.

The music this time is a little more varied than at Cyber last month, with quite a lot of noisier guitar stuff going on when I get down there, which is quite nice but I’m not really in the mood for jumping around until Pitchshifter come on. Then, just as I’ve got a taste for it theres a change of DJ and we head off into EBM territory. And suddenly the almost exactly balance guy-girl ratio on the dancefloor flips to girls only (well, apart from the novelty Australians). Odd. But it does explain the Cyber crowd a little more and it officially makes EBM music for girls.

Next, I need to talk to some of them. Anyone out there know the Japanese for “Whats a good chatup line?”.

[0] But I’ve already figured out I can’t tell ages of people over here


9 comments

  1. I’m sure I’ve seen pictures of those USB sex toys from Japan. I always thought they were Photoshopped images though.

    Perhaps I’m wrong… and that’s a scary thought.

    • I’m reasonably sure this wasn’t photoshopped…given the clear plastic box it was in – which also suggested some kind of mass production. Something that didn’t surprise me here, where everything is so repressed on the surface, but below theres rampant sexuality everywhere you look. Or maybe I’m just looking the wrong (right?) places.

      • Oh yes, the Japs seem to be rather filthy underneath all the suits and business cards!

        Hm, perhaps you should buy one of these USB devices and disassemble the drivers! Imagine the QA and code review sessions…

        • “Just one more time, Cindy, theres a little framerate bug I think should be fixed now…”

          tbh the specification sessions would be quite a laugh too…imagine someone living in a Dilbertian world going to their boss “How about this for an idea, its technically feasible and I bet the Japanese would love it!”

  2. Do you think if I bought one I could dispose of my digital camera? Imagine all the comical situations that could arise from asking innocent tourists to take a photo of you and your mates!

    • I fear the optics will be of relatively poor quality, so it would never replace a half decent camera, however it could lead to a certain amount of entertainment asking sensible looking middle age people to help you out with a picture…

      • You could take bets on how many tourists you’d have to ask before someone made a Turning Japanese reference. I’m sure C4 would use it for Banzai!

        • Now, theres an idea for a series, C4 would love it, you take the camera (and perhaps some others in various other shapes and sizes) to a number of destinations in different countries and film peoples reactions to it (them)….

          • I’d like to see the dildo in Vatican Ciy special episode! And maybe a Bush-shaped one in Bagdhad! And I had all sorts of other ideas, but they’re all a bit too politically sensitive for such a public forum . . .

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