RANmagazine Issue 3 December ‘09 / January ‘10

CognitiveDissonance

Are You Crazy

?

Culture Shock Takes Its Toll

Sex With A Stranger

Probing A Sex Worker

Shooting Blanka

Nagoya’s Dance Machine

Down And Logged Out

The Economic Crisis In Japan

Japanese Cops

Let’s Be Careful Out There..

PLUS

:

Greenspot FashionDeadly’s Tipsand RANZOO!

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RANMAGAZINE.COM

December ‘09 / January ‘10| ISSUE 3 |

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Forward

初めに

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Three issues in, and the seams arestarting to show. People are gettingornery and deadlines are being missed,ignored, or openly ridiculed. Likeany romantic relationship, ours hasreached the critical six month mark, thatmoment where you’ve tried every sexualposition there is more than a few times,talked until dawn about your dreamsand your childhood and your dashedhopes and plans, you’ve even takenshowers together and sadly it seems theinfatuation is starting to wear off, andyou’re realizing the other person isn’tsome Gift from God with superpowers,he/she is just another awed human withissues and baggage and emphaticallyNO, they’re not going to save you fromyourself, that monumental task is still inyour own hands.Which is a good thing.Who knows you better than you knowyourself? That’s why I gave the forewordthe title “Romance and Diplomacy”, andyes it does have the slightest allusion toPrez Obama cruising through these partsrecently to make sure the Japanese andChinese still believe in The AmericanDream, even if no one in Americabelieves in it anymore. Point being,you’ve got to sell yourself on somedream, romance, wealth, fame, beauty,importance, invention, immortality, anice bowl of soup, Viagra, somethinghas to get you out of your bed in themorning, and then it’s up to you to makeit happen.I’ve had this idea for a lm inmy head since I arrived here. It goessomething like this; A frazzled and more-than-slightly bereft dude from Brooklynwith a shady background arrives in amedium-sized city in present-day Japan.He immediately falls in love with abeautiful and traditional Japanese girlwhose family, naturally, doesn’t approveof the young couple’s budding ForbiddenRomance. This is in no small part dueto the Brooklyn dude’s non-Japanese-ness, as well as the pervading sense of conservative-ness and overall closed-mindedness of the local city they live in.They go underground.Their passion stirs up trouble in thecommunity where they live, and an allout race war bubbles to the surface,throwing age-old prejudices out into theopen. The young couple is torn apartin the ensuing chaos, and the Brooklyndude spends lots of time in this old ramenrestaurant wondering how to get, keep,and maintain The Woman He Loves.Her friends and family, meanwhile,employ every tactic and means at theirdisposal to destroy and otherwise createmayhem for her, all the while trying toconvince her that they are acting in herbest interest. Yeah, right, so why doesn’tit feel that way? Innocence is lost.Exactly like our fair city of Nagoya,the location of the lm’s setting has aninternational cast of characters, Russians,Americans, Aussies, Brits, Brazilians,Africans, Persians, Filipinos, etc. Thegang’s all here..At lm’s end, everyone learns somekind of vague lesson about toleranceand acceptance and the importance of community and creativity and there’seven some silly “love conquers all”theme running throughout the story. J7 calls it “Romeo and Juliet meetsCrash”, I can buy that, throw in a little“Lost In Translation” and maybe “TheWanderers” and that’s the ick. (I also callit “What if Beat Takeshi was American,But Still Made Yakuza Movies.”--Ed.)Can’t divulge the ending but I swear, it’scoming soon to a theater near you, killersoundtrack and all. Submit songs if youhave any.Know any producers? Directors?Anyone with a camera? Let’s make thismovie and we can all become famousmillionaires and then we can buy abig house with a two-car garage out inOwariasahi and live happily ever after..Yo-- Did you also notice, its 20- TEN?No more sayin’ “it’s the year 2K__”or “two-thousand___ “ for the year...Wow... Twenty-Ten... So where the hellare the ying cars, why can’t I vacationon the moon, why isn’t my best friendan alien from Jupiter... When can I hopaboard the Discovery and argue withHAL about opening the damn pod-baydoors, and when can I jump on a speederbike on the third moon of Endor andparty with those fuzzy, lovable Ewoks?Hell this is Japan, so I’d guess we’re onestep closer than the rest of the worldin doing any of that... After all, they’regoin’ ahead with plans to build the Su-per-Shinkansen-- Nagoya to Tokyo in 1hour at. Coming in Twenty Twenty-Fiveor so...Hell, ain’t we supposed to be therealready though? Where’s the money forthat supposed to come from, and wait...Can’t we already get to Tokyo pretty faston the regular Shink? What do we needto get to TOKYO that quick for anyway?I’d rather have Meitetsu build somethingwhere I can get to Utsumi in 15 minutesfrom Mei-eki during summertime...You would too if you saw some of theGoodness that is summer at Utsumibeach. What are they gonna do withthe Tokaido Shinkansen when the ChuoSuper-MagLev-Fast-O-Matic Shinkansenopens? Replace it with a movingsidewalk?This is Japan... It’s gonna get replacedwith the transporter off the Enterprisefrom Star Trek.Beam me the F up, Scottie, there’sno sign of intelligent life ‘round theseparts...In this issue, we’ve got JapaneseCops, sex workers, insane people, adude who lives in a Denny’s, RAN ZOOand Blanka (no-- not from StreetFighter). What more do you want really?Romance? Diplomacy? (No! I want adamn speeder-bike!)Welcome to Issue Number 3 of RanMagazine. Peace and Blessings.tdh & jlg

Romanceand DiplomacyFuture Trippin’

Publisher:

TD Houchen

Chief Editor:

Jason L. Gatewood

Photography Editor:

Achim Runnebaum

Design team:

Adrien SanbornAdam PasionSend story ideas to:

editor@ranmagazine.com

Send photography and illustrationto:

asanborn@ranmagazine.com