tokyo weekenderJapan’s premier English language magazine MARCH 2013 CHIBA is The GreAT outdoors riGht neXT door? J-POP THE CURSE OF IDOL CULTURE TRAVEL & ART NAoshiMA And the inlAnd ISLANDS + setouchi triennAle RETURNS ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: Top news from Asia Daily Wire, “Rami-chan” looks forward to the new baseball season, movies, events and more... Tokyo weekender- subat ilan.pdf 1 24.01.2013 10:39 C M Y CM MY CY CMY K Tokyo weekender- subat ilan.pdf 1 24.01.2013 10:39 C M Y CM MY CY CMY K Away on business or leisure, find comfort in a familiar environment — luxurious in Oakwood Premier, elegant in Oakwood Residence or stylish in Oakwood Apartments. Come home to the ease of Oakwood living in Asia. Oakwood offers a choice of 7 hot spot locations in Asia's most cosmopolitan city, Tokyo — Aoyama, Akasaka, Azabujyuban, Midtown, Roppongi and Shirokane. For further details, please visit our website or call (81-3) 5412 3131 or email us [email protected]. March 2013 CONTENTS 18 NOKOGIRI-YAMA Hiking up the saw tooth mountain, just over the Aqua-Line into Chiba. 14 33 35 CHIBA’S SURPRISES SETOUCHI TRIENNALE AGENDA Festivals, surfing spots, sake, peanuts and A world class art festival on Naoshima The best goings on this month, including more than we ever thought there was. and surrounding islands. an intimate gig from Grimes (above). 9 Asia Daily Wire 22 Kamogawa Style 38 Baseball A roundup of all the top APAC news of the This was the first place in Japan to see Ahead of the 2013 season we met with past month. surfers hit the beaches. “Rami-chan” of the DeNA Baystars. 10 The Curse of the Japanese Idol 26 Chikura 46 Movies Strong words for the music industry and A town of discovery on the tropical Top movies finally hitting the screens in all who pander to its pushiness. southern tip of the Boso Peninsula. Tokyo this month. 17 Nuts about Chiba 31 Benesse meets Art 50 Back in the Day Meeting the peanut farmers of Chiba who The story of Naoshima and the education A kidnapping, some transvestites and an AA meet the needs of “heavy users”. company that brought art to the island. meeting made our pages in 1988. FROM THE EDITOR March 2013 tokyo he shaved her Publisher Bulbous Cell Media Group head because she Chairman Ray Pedersen weekenderJapan’s premier English language magazine MARCH 2013 has a boyfriend? Executive Producer Asi Rinestine The latest goings on in ‘idol’ world Editor Matthew Holmes Sconfused and shocked many Art Director Liam Ramshaw of us who live here and Designer Ayako Fujiwara often feel we are looking Media Director Kotaro Toda in on certain aspects of Account Executives Nobu (Nick) Nakazawa CHIBA Japanese culture from the Ohad Elbaz IS THE GREAT OUTDOORS Masaya Okamoto RIGHT NEXT DOOR? outside. Love them or hate J-POP them, AKB and the like THE CURSE OF IDOL CULTURE Media Consultants Mary Rudow invade our consciousness Marketing Ingrid Dubreuil TRAVEL & ART NAOSHIMA AND THE INLAND ISLANDS every day, from our TV + SETOUCHI TRIENNALE RETURNS screens, from supermarket Society Bill Hersey ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: Top news from Asia Daily Wire, “Rami-chan” looks forward to the new baseball season, movies, events and more... stereos and from billboards Film Christopher O’Keeffe on the Metro but there is, Henry Watts writes on page 10, a darker side to the industry we Editorial Associates Vivian Morelli may not have spotted. As the dust settled – as it seems to have done Matthew Hernon – on an incident that brought discussion of a wider problem back Adam Miller Henry Watts to the mass media agenda, everyone continued to have an opinion. The point that resonated for me was that this was essentially a girl Asia Daily Wire Mace Bertumen being forced to do in her life what she had ‘promised’ when she was just 13 for her career and that this was seen as an OK thing. There IT Manager Nick Adams Development Manager Stephane Boudoux are some strong words for the industry in the piece, which I’d urge Finance & Admin Takako Nakahara you to read. We love to hear your thoughts on articles like this: be it DBA Iryna Sundutova through our Facebook page, Twitter or of course tokyoweekender. com, do get in touch. We travel far and wide across Japan seeking interesting spots to tell you about and often hear from friends and readers who have tips EST. Corky Alexander, 1970 to get us on the road. We rarely hear about Chiba, though, despite it being right there on our doorstep. I’d actually be surprised if there Published by Bulbous Cell Media Group weren’t quite a few of you who are reading this from the prefecture www.bulbouscell.com itself – or who long ago discovered all it has to offer – but I was Published monthly at the Regency Shinsaka Building, 5th floor certainly surprised with what we found, particularly towards the 8-5-8 Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-0052 south of the Boso Peninsula. Even visiting in February was quite an (03) 6846-5615 / (03) 6846-5616 (fax) eye opener – flowers seem to be in bloom already and slightly crazy [email protected] surfers (who to be honest probably never stopped) dotted the white water that, you know, actually looked pretty inviting. To subscribe to the Tokyo Weekender, please call (03) 6846-5615 or email: There was a spot of family-friendly ‘mountaineering’ at [email protected] Nokogiriyama, just over the other side of what was, for me, the inordinately exciting Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line (the surely bubble- era inspired feat of engineering that is the tunnel then bridge For ad sales inquiries, please call (03) 6846-5615 or email: with a view spanning 14km across the water to Chiba – there’s a [email protected] convenience store in the middle if you get too excited…) and plenty more to bust a few myths. As seems to have become a bit of a habit of www.tokyoweekender.com ours on our travels recently, we also found quite a bit of local booze that helped us ‘soak up the culture’ a little and we hope you’ll do the Opinions expressed by Weekender contributors are not necessarily those of the publisher same this spring – what better way to explore a ‘new’ region? That it comes from generations-old companies sticking to their traditions and doing it right makes it taste all the sweeter. Follow Tokyo Weekender on Twitter: @weekenderjapan Like us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/tokyo.weekender *Correction: In our February issue we wrote that Gilt, the online flash fashion site, had sales every Tuesday. They are actually daily. 8 | WEEKENDER | EXPAT LIFE MARCH 2013 www.tokyoweekender.com ASIA DAILY WIRE | NEWS | 9 sia Daily Wire is your go-to place for all the latest news from across the Asia Pacific region. Covering business, culture, entertainment, North Korea defiantly stages sports and breaking news, Asia Daily Wire is updated round the third nuclear test clock in real time and picks and chooses the best headlines from North Korea said Asources across Asia—doing all the hard work for you. Here is a roundup of it successfully some of the ADW Editor’s picks from the past month... detonated a “miniaturized” nuclear device, defying the Police charge Man arrested UN Security Council and global powers in an two with Papua after stabbing apparent threat to the US. The North said it New Guinea Japanese used a “lighter, miniaturized atomic bomb” ‘witch’ killing tourists in Guam in its most powerful nuclear test yet, moving a step closer to its goal: building a nuclear Police in Papua Police arrested a weapon that is small enough to fit on a long- New Guinea have man accused of range missile. charged two people with the murder of a stabbing spree at a major tourist district in a woman they had accused of witchcraft Guam which left at least three people dead – Exiled Tibetan and then burned alive. Kepari Leniata, a including an 8-month-old baby – and 11 others in 100th self- 20-year-old mother, was stripped, tortured injured. Chad Ryan DeSoto, 21, reportedly immolation and doused in gasoline in front of a mob crashed his car onto a sidewalk before striking A Tibetan exile including children and eventually died in and slashing at tourists at a shopping area at set himself on fire flames on a pile of car tires. the Outrigger Guam Resort. in the Nepalese S. Korean Japan blames capital Wednesday, officials said. About 100 lawmaker Chinese smog Tibetans are believed to have set themselves loses seat for sudden rise on fire since 2009 in protest over religious over Samsung in air pollution persecution by the Chinese government. The Tibetan government-in-exile has urged wiretaps Japanese an end to the protests, which Beijing accuses A South Korean authorities the Dalai Lama of inciting. lawmaker who exposed corruption within issued health warnings as suffocating smog Samsung Electronics Co. has forfeited that had engulfed China apparently blew his seat in parliament. The country’s top over the ocean towards Japan, sending air China bans radio court ruled Roh Hoe-chan had violated pollution to hazardous levels in some places. and TV ads for communications law when he published Air quality in western Japan plummeted luxury items incriminating wiretaps of conversations recently, exceeding government standards China has between officials of the conglomerate. He by up to 42%. announced a received a suspended prison sentence.