Before I start, don't get me wrong, I have a lot of good Japanese friends*, some of whom are a bit quirky at times (I'm talkin' bout you Akira). President Wishnack claims to be part Japanese, and he IS quirky, but I don't think he counts as a friend, especially after he posted this.
I do admire the Japanese for a lot of things, but sometimes they do shit that...well...makes you wonder what fucking planet they are really from. I seriously doubt I will ever eat at this restaurant. The one benefit would be that I could throw up into my chair.
The video below is all in Japanese, including the text on the YouTube page, but the title roughly translates as:
Long Distance Service 1 Terenoido
"Terenoido" is kind of like saying "telephone droid", the idea being that this thing would be live in your home replicating the movements, expressions, and sounds someone else makes from their phone/computer, in order to create a more interactive experience. Here, have a look...
If you are not totally freaked out by this paraplegic, albino slug hanging out in your living room, you have some serious issues. I would probably never sleep again, fearing that I would wake up with this thing already gnawing up to my knee.
Yeah, no thank you Japan.
On the other side of the coin, Japanese engineers have also developed a "supermodel" robot. At least that one has boobs.
*yes, believe it or not, I am friends with Miho and she is one of the top actresses in Japan. She is super awesome! We also have the same birthday. I wish she would move to the US.
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UPDATE: Ok, ok...amidst a veritable uproar, I went looking for a more reliable source of information, and in my defense, many blogs about the restaurant make the Japanese connection. I finally went to an article at Time online and there was no mention of Japan.
But seriously, have you watched animé? I still say the Japanese have some scary shit going on in their heads.
o.m.f.g. what planet indeed.
ReplyDeletein san francisco when i or someone else utters the phrase "only in [san francisco]," it's generally with a tone of amused frustration, appreciation, sometimes anger, some detachment.
and while all these applied to living/hearing/saying "only in [japan]," japan had that extra je naus se qua reserved for twilight zones and other places of panic where one feels eerily far from their cocept of humanity.
i think this video took me back to a place of "are you for real?" shock. on the plus side, all foreigners living over there develop a much stronger bond in the face of unfamiliar absurdity than anything i've felt over here(aside from the "charisma men" who go there to be perpetually drunk and admired by asian girls, and so generally stick up for all things japan and tell those like me and my friends/lovers that we're not "acculturating" enough).
Is that really what they're called, "charisma men"? I've heard the businessmen there are so strict and severe with their work behavior that they have to go nuts after work to compensate. I guess I would too if I had to bow to everyone all day.
ReplyDeleteIn another online article I saw that they have sex stores (dildos, toys, movies) set up like an actual toy store, and they can be like 5 floors! Man I hate to be a confused Christmas shopping parent there.
i want to blame their strangeness on being #1 in the world (in their minds) and then being nuked twice in a row. between the ego blow and the radiation, i'm sure it changed their mindset and society quite a bit.
ReplyDeleteand the whole "hold it in and be polite" part accounts for a lot of it, too. like their odd porn.
p.s. i'm building a robot to type my posts.
ReplyDeleteWill it have boobs?
ReplyDeleteDuring my time there, they were, because of a popular comic someone wrote called "Charisma Man" about a scrawny geeky white Canadian who moved to Japan and instantly became this big alpha muscular dude via perception. Sucks that they used my name, but it was a funny comic. And yeah, I once very nearly stepped on a drunk business man and screamed. He didn't wake up. I turned a corner walking home in the middle of the night to cut through a parking lot and some dude-still in his business-attire was passed out belly up in the dark.
ReplyDeleteI didn't see those type sex stores but there's porn in regular 7-11's (as well as iPods) and there are these sex hotels where all the rooms have different themes that individual couples rent out (remember, they live at home longer...or at least longer than pre-great recession us). The grosest one I heard of had a pool--ew, ew, ewwwwwwwwwwww to what's swimming around in it! Oh yeah, and there's a used undies vending machine somewhere; I doubt they screen them for STDs.
Then again, I've heard of "love motels" in SF, but Americans are just not nearly as creative. Room. Hot tub.
ReplyDeleteoh, also, i'm pretty sure that "only in japan" restaurant is actually in taiwan.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.moderntoilet.com.tw/en/about.asp