Raw Japan

from Photographers Blog:

Dark side of Japan’s pet boom

Approximately one and a half million unwanted dogs have been put to death in public animal management centers across Japan in the last ten years.

It was a very surprising figure for me as I had only been covering Japan’s colorful and luxurious pet boom, so I decided to shed some light on the dark side of the industry.

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After more than a year of seeking permission, I was finally given the go-ahead to shoot an animal management center in Tokushima and I went on a 745 mile (1,200 km) long journey from Tokyo with my DSRL camera for shooting still and video.

After 8 hours of traveling by car and train, I arrived at the town where I would have two opportunities to witness the euthanasia treatment for unwanted dogs. It became one of the saddest assignments of my life.

There are seven cells in the center, one for each day of the week. When a dog enters the center, it is placed in the cell of the corresponding day, meaning that each dog has only seven days left to survive if it cannot find a new home.

Clubs defy credit crunch

If Japan is struggling to shake off a recession, then clearly nobody has told Tokyo’s party people as dance floors heave and thud to techno-house raves at the city’s clubs.

With summer gone and the nights drawing in, DJ events continue to pack in club-goers, like those of events organiser Phonika, which hosts outdoor parties around a rooftop pool in Tokyo.

Tokyo models, fashion designers, cash-flashing expats and well-connected OLs (office ladies) sip champagne and cocktails overlooking the city, blissfully unaffected by the credit crunch, or simply intoxicated by the brief sense of escapism.

The events have taken off over the past year despite the economic gloom. Restaurants are closing, but queues outside club events snake around corners.

“We haven’t felt the economic pinch,” said Phonika Tokyo’s co-organiser Mark Oxley. “In fact, over the past 12 months numbers through doors have steadily increased.

“In a downturn it’s about catering to demographics. The events are solid, and promotional and VIP offers have proved a good draw, bringing in repeat customers.”

Denim deflation

James Dean smouldered in his, the Marlboro men looked rugged in theirs, and now me and hordes of other Japanese people can feel frugal in ours. Jeans — practical, durable and with just a hint of  rebelliousness — are at the centre of a price war in Japan, as struggling retailers look to lure cash-strapped customers back through their doors.

With the country slipping deeper into deflation and its jobless rate rising, shops have for some time been marking down almost everything from bags of cereal,  to laundry detergent and bicycles.

But curiously it is jeans that have emerged as a symbol of this deflationary race as major retailers roll out dirt-cheap denim in bids to undercut each other.

Fast Retailing, which operates the Uniqlo casual fashion chain, started the phenomenon in March when it said it it would start flogging jeans for 990 yen (about $11) a pair at its g.u. stores.

Back then, this was widely seen as an astoundingly cheap offer — the price was around a quarter of  some jeans sold at Uniqlo, a chain known for its competitive pricing. The 990-yen jeans drove up sales at g.u., which had suffered from little consumer recognition until that point.

And the move sparked a round of tit-for-tat discounting, that this week continued with supermarket operator Seiyu, a Japanese unit of Wal-Mart, starting to sell jeans for 850 yen. “We would like to keep our price leadership,” a Seiyu spokeswoman said.

The trend could also indicate that deflation in Japan is worse than government statistics show as this kind of price competition is not fully reflected in official figures.

Torture on tap in Tokyo

I am ordering vodka and Red Bull at $10 a pop at the bar of a posh Ginza club and a woman dressed as a nurse carrying a silver tray full of syringes taps me on the shoulder.

“Open your mouth!” she says with a wink.

“OK then.” And she squirts some strawberry-flavoured cocktail down my throat.

Moments later another pretty girl dressed in a skin-tight pink rubber “Cat Woman” suit introduces herself as Azusa. “I work at the Torture Dungeon.”

“Of course you do, sweetheart,” I reply, becoming increasingly confused at how this exclusive “Night of the Body” theme party was being passed off as a “fashion event” with so many people having squeezed themselves into rubber, leather and barbed wire. Whatever cracks your whip, I guess.

Naked robot no fashion threat

She appeared naked on the runway with a body that will never succumb to age, but a new robot model’s first fashion outing at the Tokyo Fashion Week posed no threat to supermodel Naomi Campbell.

Monday’s appearance of the HRP-4C humanoid robot at a fashion show illustrated not only how far robots have come, but also how far they still have to go.

She shuffled forward a little, looking a little unsteady on her feet, introduced the fashion show and bowed. Then she shuffled back again. And that was it.

“We believe this is Japan’s and perhaps the world’s first humanoid robot to walk on two feet and resemble the average body type of a young Japanese woman,” says Shuji Kajita, director of humanoid robot engineering at National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) in Japan, where HRP-4C was made.

But the 95 pound, 5-ft 2-inch tall robot with a face based on Japan’s anime cartoons is no supermodel, despite multiple motors in her body and face to help her show the expressions, gait and poses of one.

She wore no clothes on her silver and black frame that had more of a stormtrooper finish than a fashion model look. But the $2 million machine may yet be a step forward for robot-kind.

Barbies strut their stuff

The Barbie event wasn’t like the typical press conferences I cover. The gathering to fete the iconic doll’s 50th birthday was full of women decked out in micro minis and spiked heels, with pink the dominant color – and Tokyo’s ubiquitous dark-suited salarymen nowhere in sight.

I felt a bit out of place in my navy business suit among all the fashonista public-relations reps and their “cho kawaii” (“super cute”) outfits designed for the Barbie clothing line for adults.

Barbie maker Mattel, having a hard time winning the hearts of Japanese children, is trying to charm adult women instead, launching golf, lingerie and home collections.

It will also roll out this year a Barbie Bridal line, bolstering the brand in a country where the doll market is ruled by local rival Licca-chan.

Mattel vice president John Cullen told me the company was trying to initially target grown-ups, as Japan is a strong adult-apparel market, before focusing on their core and original target — kids.

Mattel’s strategy seems to make sense for Japan, where single women aged 20-34 spent around $940 each on clothing in January to June last year — 70 percent more than men spent during the same period, according to private research firm Media Shakers.

Colour me hopeful

The world’s No.2 economy, mired in what may be its longest and ugliest recession, is not wearing its misfortunes on its sleeve — at least not literally.

Yutaka Sato, a spokesman for Millennium Retailing, which runs the Seibu and Sogo department chains, said Japanese consumers are going green in more ways than one.

“With this year’s spring season offerings, bright colour items are popular, such as yellow and green,” he told me this week.

“We had been seeing a strong trend for black and grey, as it’s been said that during economic hardship people choose dark colours. But this year people are buying bright colour items… we’re seeing strong sales of green spring coats.”

The Japanese, known for jumping on the latest trends, spend billions on themselves in good times and bad, but retailers saw a 10 percent sales slide in January. Some firms like Takashimaya are trying to frontload winter stock and perhaps nothing would say “Spring has come” more than bright colours.

PHOTO CREDIT: Reuters/Yuriko Nakao