Molo: Writing On Japan

No one in their right mind enjoys going under the knife, and would prefer to avoid surgery at all costs. In the same way, many would love being debt free, with no worries about credit, loans, and the resultant issues. Therefore, combining unnecessary surgery and high-interest loans would seem like a known-known in terms of disaster.

With a rise in calls and complaints about credit contracts entered into before “medical beauty treatments”, the Daini Tokyo Bar Association set up a hotline this year just for these issues. The problems seem to either stem from a. patients/customers being coerced into expensive credit contracts to pay for the surgery; and b. being on the receiving end of “defective” surgery, and being unable to end payment on the contracts.

It is something to note, here, on the type of surgery they are dealing with. From the article:

• foreskin contraction
• double-folded eyelid surgery
• hair removal
• breast enhancement

Near as one can tell, these are not life-and-death situations, but rather very personal, cosmetic changes. That’s the sticking point, though; the laws which protect consumers from having to pay for defective merchandise and services specifically does not apply to these operations. One wonders if these same people expect fraud and dissatisfaction protect in their love life.

Another article from AERA magazine about the “kobaburu” women (little bubble), and the power they still weild. The Little Bubble was a period in the 90s, after the Japanese Economic Miracle and the bursting of the Bubble economy in the late 80s, during which fashion (and most other trends) were driven by the tastes of junior-high and high-school girls. It was the height of kawaii culture.

The most interesting part comes at the end, quoted here:

Tomoki Shimano, chief editor of phenomenally successful fashion magazine AneCan, which targets the kobaburu women in their late 20s, is convinced this group is “a special generation.”

“This is the same generation that made incredible hits out of the Tamagotchi, purikura and (AneCan predecessor and sister publication) CanCam,” he tells AERA. “But the schoolgirl boom of the ’90s didn’t come about because there was a power about the schoolgirls of the time. It came about because there was a tremendous power in the generation of women who happened to be schoolgirls at the time.”

An interesting observation; did the kobaburu essence precede existence? For a little more background on the Little Bubble girls, I’ll leave you with this section by Alex Kerr, from Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan.

In any case, the youth fashion does underscore the extreme groupism of the young in Japan. Seventeen-year-old girls set the trend. “It’s not how much they spend,” says Oginio Yoshiyuki, editor of a teen magazine, “it’s that they all buy the same things. So if someone has a $10 product, they can sell lots of them. ” Tim Larimer writes: “If an item is hot, like pagers, a manufacturer can get almost 100% market penetration and fast…once 5% of the teen girl population takes a liking to something, 60% will join the bandwagon within a month. A few weeks later, everybody will be on board. The hard part is predicting what the famously fickle teenage girls will next anoint as kawaii.“

Well, from quickly cycling jobs to achieve the “dream career” to being masters of social networking, it might not be far-fetched to think the kobaburu-girls deeming power as kawaii.

-MJ

CNN.com has a nice little article up about Senichi Hoshino, who is managing the Japanese national team for the Beijing Olympics in baseball. Hoshino’s an interesting character, being known as the “Giant Killer” during his pitching career for being able to pick apart the Yomiuri Giants line-up. Having such a hatred for the Giants, it was natural that after pitching and managing the Chunichi Dragons, he’d end up managing the Hanshin Tigers, the sworn rivals of the Giants. It was during Hoshino’s two seasons with the Tigers that the losing streak was snapped, with the Tigers winning the Central League Championship in 2003.

So, for me at least, it’s good to see Hoshino in better health and back doing what he loves. Couple of highlights from the article:

In his 1991 book “Slugging It Out in Japan,” Warren Cromartie, a player from another team who played against Hoshino called him “a cocky little ass… and made ‘fighting baseball’ his motto.”

While fans of the teams that he’s managed love him for his aggression, players who have been on the wrong end of his temper, and on the same team, have not always been so positive about their manager.

Numerous former players who have been coached by Hoshino have said that black-eyes, cut lips and bruises all sustained by their coach were a common sight. Hoshino admits to it, too.

-MJ