speaking of fiction, noticed how the new relax is handling issues one would think only debbidou aridou or marxy would have the guts to bring up. (I did say here earlier that the fashionshoots in the NEW relax are getting more complex and sophisticated - hello fashion muslims :-)

oh, so that's who the fuglee guy is. nagase not good enough?

For the curious, an interview with said beau, 20(?) years young:

http://www.thebrilliance.com/thebrilliance/interviews/13th/interview.asp

wow, that there is one fugly site!

http://www.livejournal.com/users/imomus/157776.html

Well hold on Momus. I don't find this fantastical for any of the reasons you list. I find it fantastical because the Queen of Mainstream Jpop is dating the Prince of Street Culture.

One day I will be removed from perennial bad guy status in your essays.

You should have written something about Tsuchiya Anna's wedding and her (hopefully) subsequent divorce. Who cares about Ayumi!

I'm interested in the one case of a young Japaense star getting married for reasons other than their unexpected pregnancy.

Speaking of unexpected pregnancy, I never did get scoop on Mrs. Takako Cornelius. Wasn't he dating Kahimi right before that? …Hmm, if only there were some frequent visitor to this site that knew all the parties involved.

Gossip, gossip, gossip.

I'm disappointed that Marxy simply dropped the hot potato of race here and ducked back under the parapet, because it's a very interesting question. I suspect it's not so much that my analysis contains "high levels of ridiculousness" as that Marxy feels any statements he makes on the relationship between blacks and Japan will open him up to high levels of ridicule himself. Unfortunately, that means a significant Japanese trend will go largely unremarked in these pages.

And he completely avoided my bait. Oh well, I shall continue to live with the mystery.

There was a gap of several years between Mari and Keigo splitting up (circa 1995) and Keigo and Takako producing baby Milo. Happy?

Hey now, don't make Moms the representative of this fair city!

Look, I don't doubt that Futura's son has some old-fashioned Brooklyn ethnicity to him, but to write a whole essay about him being "black" seems ridculous to me. I very much doubt he is dealt with as "black" by the Japanese, nor do I believe that all the subcultures you list, especially Egg or Avex pop have any direct interest in Black culture on a normal basis. There is a "Black music" subculture who love the hip hop and R&B, but they are segregated in a way, and while their relative stature has grown, I don't get the sense that all Japanese youth now are into hip hop the way you are describing. Hip hop is certainly the most innovative pop music in the States right now, but I'm not sure that is why it's being appreciated here. And in some ways, it is the #1 pop music in the world, which is why Japanese kids being into it is ultimately boring - they aren't curating their own separate style, but just buying in to the easiest global trend.

Next, I'm going to write an essay about Momus being left-handed and what that means for his music and writing, only to be told later that he's right-handed and then I'll yell at all of you, THAT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE UNWILLING TO DEAL WITH LEFT-HANDEDNESS!

just think of hamazaki's amazing power to influence the tenns and 20somethings here. i want my nails just like her. i want my hair just like her. i want my hubby just like her. things could get real interesting real fast.

this has turned out highly amusing indeed. you and momus could expand parameters and try outdo each in other fields too, guitar solos, break-dancing etc

power to influence

i think japan is on a kind of comfy, got-it-together plateau (which is i'd say one of the main reasons that make it a subject for such heated, and ridiculous discussions/projections here) so you're hardly gonna see the kind of chain/domino reactions you had with say yamada eimi.

I am sad to see Momus deny his left-handedness as a reason for his guitar soloing prowess.

i think i was reading somewhere (CO?) that the momus/guitar solo thing has something to do with the i-ching's influence on south african sushi.

yeah, but then again you cant really overlook the entirely racialized overtones of her new single either. when i saw her perform Pride for the first time i was shocked because there were actually black back-up singers in her chorus, of course they were far back and always positioned off center and for the most part kept out of the camera shot, which is only funny because the rest of the backup are all japanese women styled after african american women. in fact looking at them, i at first mistook them for black. the method of presentation, the arrangment of the chorus, the gestures and choreographed movements of the backup singers, even hamasaki's vocal stylings are lifted from black american culture and specifically gospel, and while this itself is not uncommon in america (for the vocal stylings alone, look at say christine aguilera) but then gospel is much more a part of the american identity than it is part of the japanese.

Next, I'm going to write an essay about Momus being left-handed and what that means for his music and writing, only to be told later that he's right-handed and then I'll yell at all of you, THAT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE UNWILLING TO DEAL WITH LEFT-HANDEDNESS!

Come now, to be relevant to this situation I'd have to turn out to be ambidextrous rather than right-handed in your metaphor, since we're all agreed that Timothy is of mixed race.

Amuro Namie was into this style well before Hamasaki Ayumi, and (arguably) better at it -- but maybe the hubby news item shows a deeper (ahem) committment to foreign influences?

I hope the lovebirds are happy in their nest high above Shibuya or wherever they end up.

I'd also have to identify culturally with left-handedness, to the extent of posing in photos with left-handed people, making left-handed "in-the-know" gestures with them, displaying left-handed trinkets on my shelves, and stocking my library exclusively with books by left-handed people. In these circumstances, to make no comment on handedness would be a clear omission.

Yeah, but I find it hilarious that you lump in very standard Brooklyn Puerto Rican behavior with "blackness" as if every time someone likes Notorious BIG, they're being exclusively black. And even though this person is most likely a quarter Puerto Rican or at most, one half, he's "mulatto" to you, like those of 1/16 jewish descent were "Jews" to the National Socialists.

Even in America, ein Half Puerto Rikaner would be "Hispanic" first, maybe "white" sometimes, and almost never "African-American." You clearly haven't met enough people in New York to realize that this whole subculture seperated from a pure African-American source a LONG time ago, and seeing that Futura is one of the original graffiti guys, can you really say that this whole "thing" is black to start with?

If Aron was marrying Hamasaki Ayumi, would you say that she was marrying an "African-American"?

And even though this person is most likely a quarter Puerto Rican or at most, one half, he's "mulatto" to you, like those of 1/16 jewish descent were "Jews" to the National Socialists.

I'm sorry, Marxy, but by dragging the Nazis into this I'm afraid, under the terms of Godwin's Law, you've lost the debate. It's a shame, because your argument was looking fairly strong.

Yeah, I knew about Godwin's Law, and that's why I used the term "National Socialists" to see if I could get around it with a loophole.

I'm not trying to say you're Hitler, of course, but I am questioning the % of African blood you require in someone's veins to be "African-American."

yo, can't everybody just get along?

http://mixi.jp/view_community.pl?id=400802

Yes Momus, I'm quite happy. I was so far from the Shibuya-kei info loop as a South Carolina high schooler that I was never made aware of the Mari-Keigo break up until Takako's marriage in spite of the long temporal distance between the events. That I even learned that much is all thanks to dorky geocities fansites and whatnot.