Little doll I can’t forget.Bring happiness and everything.
Imagine life without the Spice Girls. You’re enjoying it, aren’t you?
Welcome to the world of the Japanese idol, for the large part still blissfully untouched by the ersatz feminism and sublime marketing strategy that was Girl Power.
Whatever you think of the 90’s girl group phenomenon, it produced alumni with strong enough personalities and the independence to graduate to a wide variety of roles, away from their teen sensation roots and rapacious managers. For example: rich, famous footballer’s wife; rich, has-been rocker’s wife; rich, former-cutting-edge-comedian-turned-children’s-entertainer’s paternity suit.
Not some English seaside resort variety act from the early fifties,but my dinner.
I sit at a table in the George & Dragon, a splendid English country pub, opposite my friend Cthulhu. We drink Weston’s cider. It’s scrumptious, redolent of umeshu & soda.The floor is covered with pale, undulating stone. Dark, gnarled beams span the ceiling.
Aspergillus Oryzae: the Mifune Toshiro of microbes.The quintessential Japanese mould.
This prince amongst microbes is also the star of Ishikawa Masayuki’s (石川雅之) manga and anime Moyashimon: Tales of Agriculture (making my Toshiro Mifune analogy a little less tenuous).
Seikō
