A toy robot that lay in a Scots loft for decades and was destined for a charity shop has been sold for £8,400 at auction after being identified as a sought-after Japanese rarity.
20.03.2023 - 22:25 / nme.com
The Japanese House has returned today (March 20) with a new single – listen to ‘BOYHOOD’ below.The singer-songwriter, real name Amber Bain, initially teased her return last month, posting a photo of herself on Instagram with the caption ‘News coming soon’ and directing fans to sign up to her mailing list.The Japanese House last released new music in 2020 in the form of the EP ‘Chewing Cotton Wool’. Her only studio album so far, ‘Good At Falling’, came out the year prior.New single ‘BOYHOOD’ is an ode to the complexities of gender and sexuality, with gentle electronic beats and guitar plucks providing a backdrop for Bain’s soft and harmonious vocals.The accompanying video shows Bain watching a projection of herself from a bed, as one of a pair horseback riding through lush green fields.Speaking of the visuals, she said: “When Katie and I were young and in love, we fantasised about riding off into the distance on her horse Bam Bam, away from all the problems that came from being gay and in love back then.“This song talks about how sometimes, however hard you try, you can’t help but be a product of the things that happened to you or held you back earlier on in life.
But also, and more importantly, it’s about hope for overcoming those things. Look at us now: not riding away, but towards… something.”She continued: “This horse was very lovely to us, but I think deep down Bam Bam was the horse we were riding all along, and wherever I’m recklessly galloping off to in my life, Katie will be riding bareback behind me like a lunatic, arms around me, like we’d always planned.
A toy robot that lay in a Scots loft for decades and was destined for a charity shop has been sold for £8,400 at auction after being identified as a sought-after Japanese rarity.
Indigo De Souza has released new single ‘You Can Be Mean’ ahead of the release of her third album ‘All Of This Will End’ later this month.“I wrote ‘You Can Be Mean’ about a brief toxic experience I had with a manipulative and abusive LA model fuckboy”, she says. “However brief, it had a life-long impact on my understanding of self”.“Leading up to that experience, I had a history of putting myself in toxic situations and pining for validation from people who treated me poorly.
Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Cinedigm has acquired all North American rights to the Japanese sci-fi horror film “New Religion.” “New Religion” is a surrealist body horror film written, directed and produced by first-time feature filmmaker Kondo Keishi. It stars Seto Kaho, Nunami Daiki, Oka Satoshi and Ryuseigun Saionji. After her daughter’s death, divorced Miyabi begins working as a call girl. One day, she meets an unsettling customer who wants to take pictures of her body parts. Soon, she realizes that every time she allows her body to be photographed her daughter’s spirit gets closer. She must decide how far she is willing to go to connect with her daughter once again.
Emily Ratajkowski and Harry Styleslocking lips in Tokyo, Japan, on March 25, the 31-year-old model hinted at a romance before the moment went viral.While on the podcast , which was released on March 9 and taped on Feb. 6, Ratajkowski shared, «I just started dating someone that I kind of like, so that feels different.»Ratajkowski noted at the time that she'd previously been happy being single, saying, «If you'd talked to me four weeks ago, absolutely,» but added of her unnamed new man, «He's kind of great.»Ratajkowski did not name Styles at the time, and it is unknown if that was the new relationship she was referencing.
The internet went into meltdown after Harry Styles and Emily Ratajkowski were caught smooching in Tokyo recently – and of all the Harry fans left in a spin, a source tells heat that Olivia Wilde was reeling more than most.Last week, the As It Was singer – who was playing a gig in the Japanese capital – was spotted passionately locking lips with model Emily, 31, against a car, before dancing with her in the rain. And while Harry and Olivia were said to have ended their romance on good terms last November after two years together, that might not be the case for much longer, as our source reveals the director has been left feeling angry and upset.We’re told, “Olivia can’t get past the fact that Harry’s making her look pretty stupid.
Anne Hathaway is repping two iconic fashion brands!
Ryuichi Sakamoto has sadly passed away.
Aristomenis Tsirbas’s ‘Timescape’ Sells WorldwideBudapest-based sales outfit Luminescence has unveiled a slew of deals for Canadian director Aristomenis Tsirbas’s adventure film Timescape. Newcomers Sofian Oleniuk and Lola Rossignol-Arts star as two youngsters who travel back in time to prehistoric times, where they encounter dinosaurs while trying to escape from an approaching asteroid. Luminescence took the film to the EFM where it secured deals to Australia (Eagle), France (Factoris), Hungary (ADS), Italy (Plaion), Japan (Nikkatsu), Korea (Yejilim), Latin America (Leda Films), CIS (,Nashe Kino), Middle East (Front Row), South Africa (Filmfinity) in Taiwan (Cola Films) and the UK (Dazzler). The film was released theatrically in Canada via TVA Films in late 2022. XYZ Films acquired all U.S. rights earlier this year. The film was produced by David-Alexandre Coiteux at Fullum Films and Faisal Toor at Empress Road Pictures.
HYBE Labels subsidiary ADOR, home to K-pop girl group NewJeans, have opened online auditions for a potential new boyband.Today (March 28), ADOR unveiled several posters and videos on social media and YouTube announcing its ‘The Real Hype Boys’ audition. The label will be accepting online auditions on ador.world from now until 1pm KST on April 14.An unnamed male trainee as well as the members of NewJeans feature in the promotional video for the auditions, which details the online application period and host countries where in-person auditions will take place.Per ADOR’s guidelines, the auditions are open to boys born between 2004-2012.
Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Japanese animation film “Suzume” made just shy of $50 million on its opening weekend in mainland Chinese theaters. Data from consultancy Artisan Gateway, shows “Suzume” grabbing the top spot at the box office with $49.6 million (RMB342 million) between Friday and Sunday. That is the biggest opening score by any film this year outside of the Chinese New Year holiday week in late January. The next best is “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” which opened with $19.4 million in mid-February. Directed by Shinkai Makoto, “Suzume” was a hit in Japan where it was released late last year and has remained on screens for a $105 million total. It played in February at the Berlin Film Festival, where it came away largely empty-handed, but has subsequently performed strongly in the Asian territories where it has released. (In South Korea, where it is now the second highest grossing film released in 2023, its third weekend is its strongest to date.)
Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Hit Japanese animation “Suzume” improved its box office performance in its third week of release in South Korea and remained far ahead of all competing titles. “Suzume” earned $6.06 million over the weekend between Friday and Sunday, a 7% increase on its previous weekend, itself a strong hold that almost equalled its opening session. Data is sourced from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (Kofic). The film, which has been a huge hit in Japan and some other Asian territories, enjoyed a 66% share of the entire Korean cinema box office over the most recent weekend and expanded its cumulative haul to $23.9 million after 19 days on release.
Peter Andre has opened up about living in Japan, recalling a time when a Japanese mafia boss started yelling aggressively at him and tensions started to rise. Singer Peter, 50, said the experience left him "petrified" as hee described the “dangerous” situation as “a little too close for comfort”. He told The Sunday Times: "On this particular night, this man just started yelling at me really aggressively and it turned out he was a member of the Japanese mafia, the Yakuza.
had Keanu Reeves gallop on a horse through Brooklyn? Four tremendous films and nine years into the adrenaline-fueled, Reeves-led action series, director Chad Stahelski has yet to let his franchise noticeably dip in quality. “Wick” wields an assured identity and fireworks style with the same confidence of its main character carrying a deadly pistol.
TWICE have announced six new shows in North America and Australia for their upcoming ‘Ready To Be’ world tour.Today (March 23), the popular K-pop girl group announced on Twitter that they are adding two new shows to the Australian legs of their ‘Ready To Be’ tour. They include a second Sydney show on May 2, as well as a follow-up Melbourne concert on May 7.As for the North American leg of TWICE’s upcoming world tour, it will see the addition of four new stops – three in the US and one in Canada.
Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Leading Japanese publisher, Kodansha is to launch an online comic book distribution service from May. Titled K Manga, the operation will go live in May and be exclusive to readers in the U.S. The company is publisher of many of the best-known manga titles in history including “Attack on Titan” and “Ghost in the Shell.” These and some 400 others will be available at the launch of the serialization platform.
Japanese Breakfast‘s Michelle Zauner has announced that the film adaptation of her memoir, Crying In H Mart, will be directed by Will Sharpe.The book, which arrived in 2021, explores how the death of Zauner’s mother forced a reckoning with the musician’s Korean-American identity.Zauner dealt with her grief by writing music, and explained in a press release that being creative while “embracing of Korean food and culture” made her feel closer to her late mother.The musician previously confirmed in 2021 that there would be a film adaptation of her book. Now, she has revealed that Will Sharpe, who plays Ethan Spiller in The White Lotus, will be on hand to direct.Speaking about Zauner’s memoir, Sharpe told PEOPLE: “There were lots of things that resonated with me as somebody who is half-Japanese, half-British, spent my childhood in Tokyo.
Django Django have shared a new single titled ‘Don’t Touch That Dial’ alongside the release of the second part of their new album ‘Off Planet’.‘Off Planet’ is the band’s fifth album, and is set to be released in four parts – each representing a separate “planet”. The full 21-song album will arrive on June 16 via Because Music – you can pre-order/pre-save it here.Last month, the band shared the first part of the album (comprising of five tracks) and shared its lead single ‘Complete Me’, featuring Self Esteem.Now, part two of the album (another five songs) has arrived, along with ‘Don’t Touch That Dial’, a new single that features Japanese rapper Yuuko.Of the new single, the band’s Dave Maclean said: “This was a weird instrumental track that came out of looping some little chopped up bits of a studio jam.“I liked the odd groove of the track and I wanted a vocalist on there but I wanted something quite different, so I reached out to Yuuko and she totally got it, and delivered this outstanding top line.”Listen to the new track below.‘Off Planet’ also features guest spots from Jack Peñate, Stealing Sheep, Toya Delazy and more.
article by Times staff writer Teresa Watanabe described the distinction between internment and incarceration and the historical context the terms have in connection to the result of Japan’s 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. “Instead, The Times will generally use ‘incarceration,’ ‘imprisonment,’ ‘detention’ or their derivatives to describe this government action that shattered so many innocent lives,” wrote Watanabe, whose parents and grandfather were detained in the days after Pearl Harbor.“My parents, Shigeo and Joanne Watanabe, were U.S. citizens born and raised in Seattle — she a student at Seattle University who loved parties and red painted fingernails, he an aspiring accountant with a golden glove and killer smile,” wrote Teresa Watanbe. Watanbe continued: “In the aftermath of Japan’s 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, they were imprisoned in an incarceration camp — not an internment camp.”Just two months after Pearl Harbor was attacked, President Franklin D.
Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief U.S.- and Japan-based screen writer and producer Aoyagi Yumiko has signed with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) for talent representation. Born in Yokohama, Japan, but having grown up in Los Angeles and graduated from Sophia University in Tokyo, Aoyagi now works across both the Japanese and U.S. film and TV industries. She debuted as a screenwriter in 1995, writing the fourth episode of the Fuji TV series “Seiga wa Tatsu” before winning Galaxy Award prizes for telefilm “Saigo no Kazoku Ryoky: Family Affair.” In 2003, she wrote the show “Kokoro,” becoming the youngest person ever to write for the coveted morning slot on Japan’s national public broadcaster, NHK. The slot about a young woman’s development in a traditional neighborhood in Tokyo, has a continuous history of over 60 years and is known as “the face of Japan.”