Japan link roundup Aug 07

ToykoMango: Superflat Panda Swallows Cell Phone, Then Girl, a great little animated short mostly made up of Takashi Murakami’s graphic work for Louis Vuitton. It’s like the crazy, postmodern, luxury, Japanese version of Alice in Wonderland.

Jean Snow: How to Wrap with a Furoshiki, a Japanese traditional wrapping cloth which is used repeatedly in a stylish way. links to a graphic from the (Japanese) Ministry of the Environment that shows how to wrap something with a traditional furoshiki cloth. The “Mottainai Furoshiki” as a symbol of Japanese culture to reduce waste.

ToykoMango: “Earthquake Sets Japan Back to 2147” links to piece from the Onion :

“Teleportation of food and water remains at a standstill as technicians in Kobe continue to fix the extensive damage to the eight-million-yottabyte mainframe computer, a four-by-three-inch quantum femtoprocessor responsible for accessing and fulfilling the thoughts and desires of all Japanese.”

Jean Snow: My Private Tokyo: Pocket Parks of Higashi-Ikebukuro. Canadian Jean Snow and his “genki” demeanor.

Boing Boing: Japanese Schoolgirl Inferno: illustrated history of Tokyo’s lightspeed subculture: a riotously illustrated history of schoolgirl fashion in Japan, starting with the thousand-strong, razor-wielding biker gangs, all the way up to the cuddly, explosion -in- a- crafter- factory world of decora girls, who cover their fuzzy one-piece character pyjamas with stuffed animals and cute crafted whatsises.

Jean Snow: Kanye West Is Akira, This video for Kanye West’s new single, “Stronger” — the one that samples Daft Punk quite liberally — takes inspiration from Katsuhiro Otomo’s classic AKIRA film.

Kiiiiiii a 2 girl band from Tokyo formed Kiiiiiii in 2002 by Utako and Reiko. They’ve yet to tour Japan but they sure have made the rounds in the States.

Boing Boing: Yo Yo Girl Cop, Dasepo Naughty girls, NY Asian Film Fest, the june NY Asian Film Fest had links to trailers for most of their films.

Wired: Tokyo, Living Lab of Possible Futures : coming to Tokyo, to work, to live and to catch glimpses of the future

Update ToykoMango: Kanye West’s new album, Graduation, cover features a Takashi Murakami flying teddy bear spewing out of a giant mouth. People are psyched because the teddy bear is wearing those patented Nike’s worn by Marty McFly in Back to the Future II.

pop culture has become so multidirectional that you can now combine American hip hop with Japanese retro cute art with kicks from an 80s movie.