16.08.2006 or "MMI Drift"

Today in the wee small hours of the morning, I was up on a stage in the middle of a tiered courtyard playing my guitar with one missing string and urging my kids to sing infront of the school. It was their first time taking part in this weekly activity and they did extremely well. The rest of the day went off without a hitch. When I got home there was pizza and coke, so I ate and drank. Later on we headed out to Tiger City to catch a movie. In the arcade I bumped into my Taiko no Tatsujin sensei, ripping it up on number 6. 7 and 8 are more expenisve respectively. I played 8 attempted Glamourous Sky on Oni difficulty and got thrashed, but in a good "Theres hope for you yet" kind of way. After all, it is Oni mode.

The movie we ended up seeing was Fast and the Furious. Try to ignore your recoil from the screen at that revelation but it was actually quite good. I too thought it was going to be the worst movie ever but it was really entertaining and well paced throughout and I dont even like cars. I think the camera work was what sold it, really slick solid effects and incredibly intricate action sequences which make really good use of the scenery. The final race in the mountains was great and there is one camera shot, if you ever dare to see this movie, which sweeps over the edge of a cliff and back round to a lower road which blew me away. Another reason I thought I was going to hate it was the setting. I thought, oh god its a hip hop movie set in tokyo, and if anyone has been to Tokyo you will know how hideous the hip hop culture is. But no, its really lightly dealt with and it's tongue in cheek enough to get away with most of it's excesses.

Its just my oppion, I was pleasantly surprised is all, and it shows how quick I am to judge something based on it's peers. Its like when we were in the high of the Japanese horror fad and every country started making 50 knock offs a week, i.e girls in white dresses walking backwards, little boys in pants with panda eyes, hair in the kettle that kind of thing. Back then, I, like most people with half a brain sell started to get incredibly sick of it. But then one day I watched "phone", expecting the worst, but the fact that it used all of the cliches in such a perfectly crafted way and was so slickly produced made it the perfect bookend to what had been a pretty rubbish fad of a genre. I not saying Phone was a great film, but the fact that I expected so little and got something quite palpable made me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

There was a trailer in the cinema before the film for a movie called One Missed Call final, I believe the third in the series. It stars amogst other people the girl who played Densha Otoko's sister in the TV series, as aposed to the rather inferior movie. Anyway that is besides the point. The film was represented in the wierdest sence in a theme park in Odaiba in Japan. Me and two buddies had paid for all access tickets to the Sega Joyopolis at the Odaiba decks which meant we needed to go on everything to get our moneys worth, which was no task because everything was great and to go into detail about how much fun I had that day would take far too long. If you ever get chance to go there in your lifetime then please experience it for yourself. Im rambling again, anyway, this particular ride was a walk in ride, I will try to break it down as best I can remember it because it was one of the best and wierdest experiences I have ever had.

Ok, so we walk up to the counter swipe out tickets and wait outside. A cheerful looking lady explains the intructions to me, she is dressed in a flatcap and overcoat, like a kind of tiny Japanese columbo, but a girl. The she hands me a mobile phone? I ponder this for a second but we we enter the door way. We find ourselves in a room (If it seems a bit like Knightmare then I apologise. The room is pretty sparse and we are just three guys looking a little confused holding a mobile phone. The phone rings with a wierd sinsiter tone. At this point I was jovial about the whole thing, not aware of how dark a turn this ride/walk wa going to take. "Moshi Moshi" I said, picking up the phone. "Click" nothing. I check the missed call number but its in Kanji so Im not really sure. I notice there is a computer in the corner of the room. The screen is fluctuating wierdly, I lean over to use the mouse. Something grabs hold of my hand for a second and I screech like a girl. The other two didnt see it, they just laugh at me. Suddenly a long haired, twisted figure slams against the door frame. My friends are standing right next to it, they think its animatronic. We hurry away, but again, being the only one who sees, the thing is jauntly walking behind us. And all I have is a phone. We run round to the next room, Im really disorientated at this point and I know the thing is still after us. The phone rings again, I pick up, some horrible noise comes through. The next room a class photo of some school children, I move closer to it, It changes into a horrible twisted face, the thing is getting closer, I had had enough, I ran, in fact we all ran right out of the ride and almost run into Columbo who is laughing at us sadistically.

So no, maybe the Japanese horror things is not really dead, you just have to have it actually happen to you in real life to feel why the ring scared you in the first place. Not bad for a glorified Trailer anyway.

Tell next time,