Tao Okamoto from Cover Star to Hollywood Marvel
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tokyo MAY 2013 weekenderJapan’s number one English language magazine OPINION A PRINCESS IN DISTRESS JAPAN IN AFRICA TICAD RETURNS TO YOKOHAMA SOUNDS OF THE SUMMER A GUIDE TO 2013’S TOP MUSIC FESTIVALS INTERVIEW TAO OKAMOTO FROM COVER STAR TO HOLLYWOOD MARVEL ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: Top news from Asia Daily Wire, business news, Okinawa Movie Festival, upcoming events and more... Your Move. Our World. C M Y CM MY CY Full Relocation CMY K Services anywhere in the world. Asian Tigers Mobility provides a comprehensive end-to-end mobility service tailored to your needs. Move Management – office, households, Tenancy Management pets, vehicles Family programs Orientation and Cross-cultural programs Departure services Visa and Immigration Storage services Temporary accommodation Home and School search Asian Tigers goes to great lengths to ensure the highest quality service. To us, every move is unique. Please visit www.asiantigers-japan.com or contact us at [email protected] Customer Hotline: 03-6402-2371 Your Move. Our World. MAY 2013 CONTENTS 14 C TAO OKAMOTO M We met the Japanese cover girl who has Y landed a major Hollywood role. CM MY CY Full Relocation 12 18 34 CMY K Services anywhere in the world. Asian Tigers Mobility provides a comprehensive end-to-end mobility service tailored to your needs. Move Management – office, households, Tenancy Management SUMMER SOUNDS AFRICA IN JAPAN OKINAWAN CreativITy Thinking of hitting any music festivals this Business, trade and entertainment events The islands’ latest gift to the world is an pets, vehicles Family programs year? We took a look at some of the best. showcasing Japan/Africa links. International Movie Festival. Orientation and Cross-cultural programs Departure services Visa and Immigration Storage services Temporary accommodation 7 Asia Daily Wire 28 A Culinary Tour 42 Movies Home and School search A roundup of all the top APAC news of the The home of world-famous beef and some If you like Ryan Gosling, you’re in for past month. Michelin star rejections. quite a month. Asian Tigers goes to great lengths to ensure the highest quality service. 8 Business News 30 Motoring 44 Agenda A hole in one for Uniqlo and other links Buying and owning a car in Japan may be Top shows and events around Tokyo as To us, every move is unique. between business and sport this month. easier than you think... we head into spring. 10 Opinion 36 People, Parties, Places 46 Back in the Day Please visit www.asiantigers-japan.com or Examining the depression that makes life Bill Hersey thanks the Brits who sent him Why would anyone wear a T-shirt with such so uncomfortable for one public figure. a welcome invite. a crazy slogan on it? contact us at [email protected] Customer Hotline: 03-6402-2371 FROM THE EDITOR pring is finally here, but we’re already looking forward with some dread to the sweaty summer months and wondering what we’ll fill our weekends with/how we’ll MAy 2013 get out of town. Music festivals can be the highlight of the year for many of us, and seem like a pretty good Sstarting point... We’ve picked out a few of our favourites and some Publisher Bulbous Cell Media Group of the reasons you might want to start thinking about buying your Chairman Ray Pedersen tickets and booking some Monday mornings off – hopefully there’s something for almost everyone in there. Executive Producer Asi Rinestine On the cover is a face you’ll get used to seeing even more over Editor Matthew Holmes the next few months. Readers who buy Vogue or other such mags Art Director Liam Ramshaw may know Tao Okamoto, but it may well be film fans who’ll be Designer Ayako Fujiwara getting to know her from now on – she’s about to play a big role in Illustrator Liam Akin the latest Marvel movie, The Wolverine, alongside Hugh Jackman. The film is largely set in Japan so there’s sure to be plenty of hype Media Director Kotaro Toda Account Executives Nobu (Nick) Nakazawa over here – an impressive looking fight scene atop a speeding bullet Ohad Elbaz train perked our interest when we watched the trailer... We met Tao Masaya Okamoto this month to find out more about the transition from modeling, her life as a young Japanese girl growing up and working in Europe and Media Consultants Mary Rudow the US and what her future holds. Marketing Ingrid Dubreuil Lastly, we’d like to thank and send best wishes to the students Society Bill Hersey of Takata Senior High School, in Rikuzentakata, who came to Tokyo during their spring break a few weeks ago. The Canadian Chamber Film Christopher O’Keeffe of Commerce here, along with various companies and friends in Tokyo, invited the group to spend a week interning and generally Editorial Associates Vivian Morelli getting a bit of experience while homestaying with families who had Matthew Hernon offered up their spare rooms. That they will each have spent time Henry Watts in quite an international environment will, we hope, have made for Asia Daily Wire Mace Bertumen an even more interesting and inspiring experience and one that will give them added confidence going in to the second new school year IT Manager Nick Adams since many of their friends were so tragically taken away by the Development Manager Stephane Boudoux tsunami in 2011. Cheese Expert Paul Romelot We were really happy to have one young man working in our Finance & Admin Maki Kiriishi office for a few days, and to hear of the rich and varied experiences DBA Iryna Sundutova other companies were able to offer. Hopefully, the students will have both learned from and enjoyed their time here, and the project will continue – we’d love to welcome them back. EST. Corky Alexander, 1970 Published by Bulbous Cell Media Group www.bulbouscell.com Published monthly at the Regency Shinsaka Building, 5th floor 8-5-8 Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-0052 (03) 6846-5615 / (03) 6846-5616 (fax) [email protected] To subscribe to the Tokyo Weekender, please call (03) 6846-5615 or email: [email protected] For ad sales inquiries, please call (03) 6846-5615 or email: [email protected] www.tokyoweekender.com Opinions expressed by Weekender contributors are not necessarily those of the publisher tokyo MAY 2013 weekenderJapan’s number one English language magazine Cover Photo by Koichiro Doi OPINION A PRINCESS IN DISTRESS Follow Tokyo Weekender on Twitter: JAPAN IN AFRICA TICAD RETURNS @weekenderjapan TO YOKOHAMA SOUNDS OF THE SUMMER A GUIDE TO 2013’S TOP MUSIC FESTIVALS Like us on Facebook: INTERVIEW TAO OKAMOTO www.facebook.com/tokyo.weekender Fried Sushi by Liam Akin. To see more of Liam’s work check out www.friedsushi.net FROM COVER STAR TO HOLLYWOOD MARVEL ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: Top news from Asia Daily Wire, business news, Okinawa Movie Festival, upcoming events and more... w APRIL 2013 www.tokyoweekender.com ASIA DAILY WIRE | NEWS | 7 sia Daily Wire is your go-to place for all the latest news from across the Asia Pacific region. Covering business, culture, entertainment, Japan court sentences man to sports and breaking news, Asia Daily Wire is updated round the 11 years for piracy clock in real time and picks and chooses the best headlines from A man has been Asources across Asia—doing all the hard work for you. Here is a roundup of jailed for the some of the ADW Editor’s picks from the past month... attempted hijack of a Japanese tanker near Oman in 2011. A Indian man Japan jets Tokyo court convicted the 21-year-old Somali arrested for scrambled 306 national to 11 years for piracy. He was one of selling grandson times to meet four men who tried to seize the Japan-operated on Facebook Chinese aircraft Mitsui OSK Lines tanker but was a juvenile under Japanese law at the time of the incident. Police in India Japan scrambled its arrested a man for air forces a record Bird flu hits kidnapping and selling his newborn grandson number of times to intercept Chinese aircraft Chinese KFC on Facebook. With the help of a nurse and a intruding its airspace in 2012. According to the sales lab assistant, Feroz Khan, 47, took his chance Defense Ministry, the Air Self-Defense Force KFC parent company while his daughter was sleeping and told her dashed jets 567 times in fiscal 2012, with 306 Yum Brands Inc. has the child had died. He then sold the baby to a missions alone intended to intercept Chinese said that publicity local businessman after a deal was struck on aircraft, surpassing the number of times it had to surrounding a new bird flu outbreak in China Facebook, police said. deal with Russian aircraft, 248. outbreak has had “a significant, negative Radioactive US confident it impact” on sales, which saw a 16% drop in traces from N. can intercept N. March. The impact would be reflected in Korean nuke test Korean missile April’s sales results, which will be reported May 10. Yum, which operates about 5,300 found in Japan A top US military stores in China, said it plans to educate Radioactive gases commander consumers. that may have come said the US was from North Korea’s nuclear test in February confident it could intercept a North Korean China basketball have been detected 1,000 kilometers away in missile but said it would only do so to defend player called Japan, a global monitoring body says. While itself and its allies. Admiral Samuel Locklear “scum” for moving it was unusual to detect radioactive gases said the US was “ready” if North Korea to Japan more than seven weeks after a test, the traces attempted a strike and that it had the capability A young athlete who were “consistent with a nuclear fission event”, to thwart a ballistic missile from Pyongyang.