Ken Ishii has been one of my fave techno and electronic musos since 1995, when I first stumbled across a little record titled ‘Extra’ released through R&S Records.
While a superb track unto itself, ‘Extra’ offered not only three of the coolest remixes of 1995 (by Luke Slater, Dave Angel, and Luke Vibert in Wagon Christ mode) but also one of the most insanely brilliant video clips ever made – an anime outing conjured up by none other than Koji Morimoto at Studio 4ºC.
Over the intervening 15 years Ishii has released innumerable EPs, albums and remixes (most recently one for my Sydney mate DJ Hi-Shock) through esteemed labels Sublime, Studio !K7, and more recently his own label 70Drums – through which, at the beginning of this year, he released the brilliant KI15 – The Episodesdouble-CD.
On top of his personal production work (as Rising Sun, UTU and Flare along with his own moniker) Ishii worked as a sound recordist in 1998 Darren Aronofsky’s movie Pi, and he’s been Japan’s #1 techno DJ/ambassador for years.
I’ve been lucky enough to interviewed him a few times since ‘98 on a variety of subjects, from music itself through to Star Trek and Akira Kurosawa, and he’s given us some honest feedback and invaluable suggestions with regard to our label IF?.
Anyway, a few months back I was preparing a book on Tokyo/Japanese culture from a more offbeat perspective, and in the process interviewed several talking heads I both respected and admired; unfortunately the publishing company, after initially green-lighting the project, killed it and several others when the financial downturn kicked into gear.
So, rather than bury an entertaining chat from a less-tread angle, I decided to run with the interview here.
What do you think is the coolest place in Tokyo, and why would you take foreigners there when they visit?
“Tsukiji, where the big fish market is. There are hundreds of traditional food stores and sushi restaurants in one small area as well. There’s almost no influence from Western culture that you can see around this area – that's why.”
What do you think is the most off-beat place in Tokyo?
“Akihabara. It’s originally an area for you to buy home electronics, but it has turned into a Mecca for otaku people over the past 10 to 15 years. I can’t even keep up with the changes. You can discover lots weird people/scenes you can’t see in Shibuya or Aoyama.”
What are both the good and bad points of Tokyo for you personally?
“Tokyo is handy, you can get whatever you want any time: the modern, the traditional, the Asian and the Western. However it’s far from anywhere else – from Europe, North and South America, and even from most of the other Asian countries. And it’s hectic and there are too many people everywhere.”
Do you like sake?
“I drink sake only when I have good traditional Japanese food, so I don’t have much knowledge about it.”
What’s the best Japanese beer?
“Premium Malts from Suntory is definitely the best beer from our country.”
What has been you favorite anime in your lifetime?
“Akira, since it led the existence of anime into another level with its more futuristic and spiritual vision. It also widened the anime market – it created a more adult and serious fanbase in the scene.”
Who do you think has been the most important Japanese electronic artist to date, including people like YMO and Isao Tomita?
“You already have my answer - YMO and Isao Tomita. If I add one more, Plastics.”
Do you like matsuri [summer festivals]?
“I used to go to a village dance festival – we call it bon odori – every summer when I was a child. No reason; everybody loves bon odori in this country!”
What do you think of girls who wear traditional Japanese garb like kimono, obi and geta?
“I find them nice, as it’s simply beautiful. However it’s not easy to wear kimono properly and therefore rare to see young women who wear this in real life, actually.”
By the way, as a closer, here's that acclaimed video for 'Extra':
It’s official: Midway through 2009, one in seven citizens of Japan had heard of Star Trek.
I know this, because I finished personally quizzing 60-odd people round then for an article that popped up in the late lamented Geek Monthly to coincide with the late May release of J.J. Abrams' Star Trek reboot here in Japan; these are the stats I conjured up from those loose discussions.
The margin of error was open to contention, since I interviewed people only in Tokyo, my test subjects were limited to students of English, techno DJs and musicians, or creative anime types, and the age group stretched from 18 to 72.
The one-in-seven figure is itself a stretch, since two inclusions in the ‘yes’ category confused Star Trek for Star Wars. One time when I asked the ongoing question - “Have you heard of Star Trek?” - my tipping-the-scales 72-year-old English student declared “Of course!" ...thence proceeded to enact a rather sprite air-lightsabre cut-and-thrust routine.
It isn’t as if Japanese television consumption has been limited to only jidaigeki samurai dramas, or home-grown animated sci-fi romps like Mobile Suit Gundam.
Most of the 35 to 45 age-bracket grew up on Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s British-made futurist marionette romp, Thunderbirds, in the 1970s.
Even when I arrived in this country eight years ago, Thunderbirds was still playing on NHK at primetime Sunday evenings. The week I sneaked through Customs, it was the turn of the episode ‘Cry Wolf’, set in Australia; for about an hour after, I had to explain to my Japanese hosts precisely why someone fresh off the boat from Melbourne didn’t sound like the outback butchers of pronunciation Thunderbirds had portrayed.
Then there’s the George Lucas factor.
Given that it’s based in large part on a classic Japanese movie (Kurosawa's Kakushi-toride no san-akunin, aka The Hidden Fortress) that starred the late, great Toshiro Mifune at his formidable best, it should be no wonder that the Japanese fell in love with Star Wars when it was (finally) released in Japan, midway through 1978.
But they seem to have completely missed the boat when it comes to the various TV series of Star Trek stretching from 1966 to 2005, and don’t even tarry with the 10 cinematic offerings before this year's reboot.
We’re not talking just your Joe Average salaryman or office lady here. I also interviewed techno luminary Ken Ishii, and he was a member of the Thank-God-There’s-At-Least-One-In-Seven Party.
Even so, Ishii echoed an ongoing issue for most Japanese.
“Of course I’ve seen Star Trek, but I never was careful with the different titles and series - so I don’t know which is which,” he admits.
“As you know if you live in Japan for a while, they tend to put a Japanese title on major Hollywood films, so we can hardly remember the original English titles, especially for the ones I watched when I was a child.”
Fellow Tokyo musician Toshiyuki Yasuda put it more frankly - “Sorry, I don't know much about Star Trek. All I can remember is a bald head” - while Tatsuya Oe, who produces under the alias of Captain Funk and is considered one of the city’s top DJs, found himself apologizing.
“Actually, I don’t have much knowledge about Star Trek, though I do like it,” he explains.
“Here in Japan, we could say that Star Trek got the short end of the stick because they lost the chance for focused TV broadcasting in the 1960s and ‘70s. Moreover, people got more familiar with the series after Star Wars fever hit Japan, so they were even misunderstood as a kind of pale imitation, at least around the time of my childhood. According to Japanese Wiki, video games of Star Trek seem to have been more popular.”
In terms of his own experience, Oe referred back to Jean-Luc Picard and crew, instead of my own favourite - James T. Kirk.
“I sometimes watched Next Generation on TV, and Geordi La Forge was very impressive and cool when I saw him first - he reminds me of ‘80s future electro-funk, like Midnight Star,” he reports.
Even so, Oe did manage to cite the influence of Classic Trek, albeit from unusual quarters: “Leonard Nimoy appeared on a certain TV commercial here in Japan.”
That was for Teijin - a textile and pharmaceutical company (teijin.co.jp).
Think the artistic types at Production I.G, the animation studio behind Ghost in the Shell, should be more in the know when it comes to matters Trek? Well, I’ll confess to that kind of inkling having crossed my own mind, but you can hit delete right about now.
“Star Trek doesn’t sound too popular here,” says Francesco Prandoni, our man at I.G, when I bounce the subject off him. “They’re all Kamen Rider freaks around me.”
Our contact at fellow anime studio, Gonzo (Afro Samurai), proved far more fruitful in this instance.
“Star Trek?” laughs Kaz Haruna, at the production company’s International Division in Tokyo. “How did you know I was such a huge Trek geek? Of course I know the movie is coming out; it may be the most anticipated one for me this year!”
30-year-old Haruna quickly shapes up as the jewel in the Trek Japan crown; the fount of Starfleet know-how that could reboot my own otherwise listless task.
“I remember watching reruns of the original series when I was a kid, but what really got me interested in the whole franchise was Next Generation, which I watched in real time,” he gushes, and it’s not long before I idolize every single word.
Thank god someone in this city knows Trek, and doesn’t believe that Kirk likes to bulls-eye womp rats.
“Although it had its moments, the start of the show was not that great,” Haruna continues with great gusto. Now I know for sure he’s seen the Next Gen series.
“I think I even stopped watching around the second season. But from the third season, it really became a high-quality show, and I was hooked. The ships and gadgetry were always something to drool over, but what really grabbed me was the balance of sci-fi, action, and drama, not to mention all the moral and human problems the crew faced. It gave a kid a lot to think about.”
When it came to favorite characters, Haruna is also quick on the uptake, like Captain Kirk with his trusty flip-communicator.
“I’d have to say Jean-Luc Picard. He’s supposed to have a French background, but Patrick Stewart is so English. So many breaks in his office with a cup of Earl Grey! Really, though, his balance of wit and bravery always got me excited. Sometimes as gung-ho and daring as Kirk, but always with an air of intelligence and class.”
Then the truth seeped out: Haruna had spent 19 of his 30 years living in America, and suddenly there’s just so much less wonder as to why he knows his Star Trek from his Star Wars.
While that piece of news may have shaded the gloss of my personal revelation just a tad, it did effectively introduce a new angle, one that I’d like to believe dawned on me in that split second, but more likely bludgeoned me about the head later on.
The angle? That Haruna has the unique cross-cultural insight a Johnny-come-lately expat like me could never hope to grasp, even after 96 months in the country.
“Having lived in both Japan and the United States,” our Gonzo rep muses, seemingly reveling in his new role, “it’s evident that Star Trek has had a much bigger cultural impact in the States. One of Star Trek’s biggest philosophical views was that there was no racism in the future. The crew of the Enterprise consisted of officers from all races, some not even human. In these terms, the way the show influenced Japan - which is not as culturally diverse as the US - was completely different, and somewhat minimal.”
Then comes the twist.
“What I think it did do is get into the minds of the sci-fi and electronics people, because you can see facets of Trek designs everywhere, from cell phones to monitor screens. Almost every bridge design for any kind of spaceship seen in Japanese anime - and that American kids are watching right now on Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, and crunchyroll.com - looks very, very familiar...”
“For me, namazake is the best kind to drink, and I’m so into Kikusui.”
So declares apprentice manga artist Eiko Magami as she refers to Funaguchi Kikusui Ichibanshibori, a canned, non-pasteurized and undiluted nihonshu.
Turns out that 99% of sake on the market has been pasteurized twice - once straight after brewing, and another time after a decent maturation period or just prior to shipping.
Namazake, like a fine wine, has not; it continues to age in the can.
“Kikusui was released in 1972, and it was the first attempt at this kind of sake at the time,” advises Ryoko Takano at Kikusui Sake Co., Ltd., which takes its name from a Noh song concerning a 700-year-old mountain hermit, and is based in Shibata in Niigata. “This is our long-time best seller because of its fresh fragrance derived from a first-pressed and non-pasteurized method, and its full-body taste derived from the undiluted process.”
The rest of this rather wayward (and much longer) homage to one of my favourite Japanese brews is going to be published through Geek Monthly in its November issue, with feedback from DJ/producer Ken Ishii, anime writer/director Satoshi Kon, and Death Note director Shusuke Kaneko - plus an extended mix of the story will be published in book-form next year. I kid you not.
