As some may have noticed, I have an “in” at the American version of The Office, so I tend to think about the show a lot. For the last few years, I would often meditate on why the formula would not work in Japan and came to the conclusion that the premise too strongly attacks the sanctity of corporate life.

Sure, there are plenty of office comedies in Japan, and many poke fun at ridiculous bureaucratic conventions. But the UK/US Office centers around the following ideas:

1. Work is an ultimately meaningless set of tasks
2. Your immediate boss is an idiot
3. Your corporate overlords are evil

These concepts are very familiar to anyone who has worked at an office in the United States. “Real life” and individual identity are intentionally kept distant from what happens at work. In the show, the secretary Pam secretly wants to be a graphic designer. Dwight likes his job but wears multiple hats in his afterhours as a beet farmer and a volunteer deputy sheriff. Michael seems to be the only one to unequivocally love his job, and he is basically a walking billboard for the human travesty of “Work.” While not “hippie” or Bohemian in appearance, The Office depends upon a post-’60s, anti-The Organization Man outlook on corporate ennui. Jobs are square, bosses are The Man — no matter how hard they try to be “with it.” Without this anti-corporate framework, The Office cannot create humor.

My guess is that these underlying digs at work life are still too pointed for mainstream Japanese TV. (Imagine Sazae-san incriminating the Japanese government and its corporate allies for presidential assassinations like in The Simpsons.) Just as the SNL parody shows the workers all bowing profusely to the Boss when the Japanese Jim and Dwight argue over the stapler-in-jello, putting the American Office’s attitudes towards working life on Fuji TV or something would force Japanese TV executives to kowtow towards their advertisers. What is good for giant Japanese corporations is still good for Japan. TV stations, ad agencies, third-rate paper companies — these all contribute to the dignity and vitality of the nation. Being a good citizen means being a good worker.

The Office’s horribly-boring, sterile “workplace” set is meant to visually represent the environmental blandness of low-level companies. In Japan, all companies essentially use the exact same desk layout, whether cool TV network or leading ad agency or fashion magazine, and this means an attack on a the physical space of selling paper in Scranton, PA is basically an attack on all Japanese companies.

Yes, the SNL parody is “racist” in the sense that they’d never dare dress up their white cast as The Office (Nairobi edition) and that they simplify Japanese customs to easily recognizable punchlines. But this is the closest we will see the Office in Japan. This country is just not burdened with internal contradictions of corporate life like in the West. Yanks and Brits want to bash their day jobs while still showing up every day or justify their own poor performance by placing “reality” outside of the office walls. The Japanese spend 12 hours a day at work and correctly assess that those tasks and affiliations create their “identity.” Debasing the office is not just heresy, it’s an insult to all those good citizen-workers.

I am amped to announce a number of new eco-friendly paper goods I designed for the Tenth & Grant line of paper goods. A few new greeting cards are out, as well as a Moleskine-esque gridded sketchbook with a pattern inspired by Japanese Modern 50s graphics.

Details on the sketchbook:
A handsome dark green on light green web pattern spans the entire front and back cover of this chipboard notebook. Perfect bound with a handy hinge-score, and 144 interior white pages. 100% recycled paper! Printed with soy inks! Perfect bound with a handy hinge-score, and 144 interior white pages. Forest and Avocado - 5″x6.75″ - gridded interior.

See it here.

On rainy days, the Inokashira train line smells exactly like a 1970s era school bus.

Tonight in Los Angeles: A celebration of ten years of LOST, L.A.’s primero graffiti magazine, celebrating the anniversary and the release of the new LOST book.

The book contains highlights of the past decade editor/designer EyeOne has spent documenting LA writing. Includes imagery by Atlas (if you haven’t caught the documentary on his work, watch it now!), Pale, Cab, Haeler, and more. Screenprinted board covers, numbered limited edition of 2000.

Even if you are not a graffiti fan per se, the LOST book is a must-have for folks interested in Angeleno culture. More about LOST here.

LOST is a picture-perfect example of designer as author. I’m proud to have written the foreword for it.

Denki Groove are back with their first single in eight years, and the accompanying video is so good that it makes me want to throw a temper tantrum. An homage to the Japanese 1980s pop moment, directors Prince Tongha (DG’s Pierre Taki and Super Lovers/Super Milk Chan art director Tanaka Hideyuki) collected a large and diverse group of intentionally-unremarkable girls to act out Matsuda Seiko, Pink Lady, Pro Golfer Reiko, Sukeban Deka, and other iconic aesthetic moments of the “idol” era. The song’s not bad either.

Now this is the J-Pop I remember! The video shows Sony Music Japan at its best: slightly alternative production and catchy melodies mixed with high-level art-driven visuals. Imagine the entire label filled with acts like this (Judy and Mary, Supercar, Sunahara Yoshinori, Puffy, the Chappie album etc.) and you’ll realize why the mid-to-late 1990s showed such creative energy in the mainstream arena.

The more this decade progresses, the more I realize that the quality decline of Japanese music in the last 7-8 years has been essentially a generational problem. We tend to discount bands once the members start hitting their late 30s, but Denki Groove, Scha Dara Parr, Cornelius, and other core members of Gen X keep providing a level of pop music and visual that strives towards artistry and critical irony. Maybe the latest Cornelius stuff is less essential, but he’s still schooling everyone else.

This ragtag mopey Generation Y has basically rejected any sort of artistic pretension on the grounds that it gets in the way of fraternal compassion. Everything’s gotta be “real” — like Let it Be over Sgt. Peppers. You can’t be earnest and ironic at the same time, and they’ve chosen the former.

Although I have blamed Gen Y’s cultural malaise on their navel-gazing insularity, Denki Groove shows that you can create gold out of exclusively domestic source material. The problem again is Generation Y’s failure to know how to remix, sample, and recontextualize their own Japanese pop heritage. When you think the entire exercise of “contemporary art” is pretentious fakery, you limit your creativity to a small scale that will not impress anyone outside of your peer group. Denki Groove are a band that contributed to the idea of “Japan Cool,” and they seem to be the only ones these days performing up to the promise.

I normally am not a big toy fan, but I do approve of old school-style kaiju. And as far as kaiju go, these Portland/Tokyo guys make some of the most tripped-out, interesting kaiju out there today. I will fully be attending this opening and insist that you do the same!

Tentacles, Horns, and Scales
April 19th Thrash Out in Koenji, Tokyo.
Artshow, toy release, sneak attack.
Featuring all new works by Koji Harmon, Bwana Spoons, and Martin Ontiveros.
Sponsored by Dekline footwear.

Come join us for good times, art, toys, prizes, and a few big suprises.
Thrash Out is the Flagship store and gallery of mind bending vinyl pioneers Gargamel.

Gargamel makes toys that look like Jolly Rancher coated diamonds.
Koji, Bwana, and Martin make art and toys that explode with color, depth, and endless imagination.
Collector and fan Takaomi Fujiki put it best when he said “Happy Beam Discharge!”
For more info as it becomes available, interviews and photos please contact Grass Hut in the U.S. at 503 445 9924 or grasshut.corp@gmail.com

Martin Ontiveros
Martin Ontiveros grew up in San Diego, California. Graduated CalArts in 1996 with a Bachelor’s degree in Experimental Animation. Then he moved here to Portland. He isn’t rich… yet. But he is getting paid to do what he enjoys, and he’s been doing it for years now. He lives in an awesome basement apartment that he shares with his cool son named Felix and two cats not named Felix. His many many years of pop culture emersion and empirical knowledge of useless trivial information have somehow paid off in spades. Call it luck. His work has appeared in publications like Craphound, Juxtapoz, Pencil Fight, The Stranger, Portland Mercury, and Nickolodeon Magazine, as well as awesome books like BEASTS!, The Darkening Garden, Neither Here Nor There (Melvins), Qeedrophonic, Dot Dot Dash and others.

Koji Harmon
Koji Harmon is a zine maker, photographer, and collector. Koji has worked on several projects with Gargamel, and is fast on his way to master sofubi painter. This is koji’s first venture in to toy design.

Bwana Spoons
Bwana Spoons was raised in the woods. He likes moss and Lego and monsters. When he was a little one he would draw detailed crayon renderings of all his favorite Star Wars figures. When he was older he lost them all in a battle with a mildew giant. He likes making zines and comics and paintings and silk-screened prints and designing toys and making things with rainbows and animals. Recently Bwana was bitten by the textile bug. He has designed shoes for Converse, and Dekline, tees for Giant Robot, and MonsieurT., and baby strollers for Bumbleride. Over the years he has worked on and/or created several zines and comics. “Ain’t Nothin’ Like Fuckin’ Moonshine” was the first and longest running; his most recent projects include Pencil Fight, and Soft Smooth Brain, and the upcoming Welcome to Forest Island book designed by Ian Lynam on Top Shelf Books.

Info and directions to Gargamel here.

Tentacles,Horns,and Scales
開催期間：4/19〜4/28(13:00〜20:00)入場無料
＊19日は14:00オープンとなります。
会場：Gargamel Flag Store THRASH OUT

See you there!

I am searching for a b-boy and a b-girl for a short film I am working on. If any MnoT readers know of anyone with talent in this vein, I am all ears!

After the 101 Tokyo opening last night (and before the 102 Tokyo Art opening), Jean Snow, Brad D., and I stopped into a Suehirocho Mickey Ds to eat some eco-unfriendly and inexpensive food-units. (Have you tried this “Big” Mac thing they have? It’s huge!)

We were seated next to a conspiciously-filthy group of vagrant-looking older Japanese men and women, who were drifting in and out of sleep and looked to have been camping out in those seats for the entire Fukuda prime minister-ship. Suddenly, the younger woman of this collective pulls out an enormous needle, and as we were fleeing, administered the older guy of the group an insulin shot as he laid down.

Needles and vagrants at a McDonalds? What is this — New York? I am not going to extrapolate this one anecdote into proof of Japanese economic collapse, but I almost feel like Tokyo’s less pleasant underbelly is starting to stick out a bit more, especially in downtown areas. The clerks are still perky young nationals, but the Japanese fast food environment may possibly be on its way to becoming as unpredictable as in other countries.

My new book, Parallel Strokes, will be available at the 101 Tokyo Art Fair, along with many fine publications from the good folks at Chin Music Press. I wrote a related essay in their imminent book, Art Space Tokyo, as well.
Parallel Strokes is now available at Book 246 and On Sundays, the Watari-um bookshop.

Néojaponisme contributor Dwayne Dixon and amazing vegan chefs Yoyo and Yuka offer up the tastiest vegan lunch in Tokyo on Wednesdays at Vegie Shokudou, a renegade restaurant inside of a bar in Koenji. Note that the restaurant operates ONLY ON WEDNESDAYS. There is a break period from 3pm-5pm, and the restaurant will be closed. Eats start at 1PM.

Directions here.

While in Los Angeles, I visited a typical American office, since I had forgotten about the normal corporate environment back home. Although this was in Southern California, it might as well have been in northeastern Pennsylvania. That’s how generic it was.

Here are some pictures I took.

I am actually not at LeBaron. I don’t go to LeBaron. Please stop asking me to attend events there. That club blows megadicks.

I am going to say it now, again, loud and clear for you:

Fuck ¥1000 for shitty beer on tap. The only time I am going to pay that is when it comes with some fancy fucking food. And they don’t have that at LeBaron. Just dudes with asymmetrical haircuts who can’t dj for shit.

Oh, and retards.

Two Paris Hilton sightings in two days = Los Angeles.

Forget “Engrish.” We get it already: sometimes Japanese copywriters are not very good at writing within the English language. You’ve just repeated the same joke 10,000 times.

Let’s try something new: Engrich. Instead of showing the mistakes of Japanese working within English, let’s hunt for examples of brilliant cross-linguistic creation.

The first example: “Frank Zakka.” This Shibuya arty-accessories store’s name is a pun on the musician Frank Zappa and zakka (雑貨) — the Japanese word for accessories. But you already knew that.

Style Map: Hip Nippon

Here’s how most style and trend journalism works. Writer or editor hears that “(place) is up-and-coming, cool” or “(person) is hot” or “everyone is in (fashion item).” In the case of an urban neighborhood, the writer then backs up this rumor-based narrative by profiling all the neat stores located in the area. Voila: check out the hippest neighborhood in all of Nippon, Nakameguro.

But think about this New York Times Magazine piece in reverse: are you impressed with the neighborhood by judging it solely on this store listing? (Forget for a minute that Claska has as much to do with Nakameguro as Carrot Tower does.) Although lackluster, these stores are probably the best examples of hipster-chic retail locations still standing since Organic Cafe closed down, super-secret Club New Bach disappeared, Dyezu Gallery closed, the Groovisions store shuttered, the Gas Gallery/Store evaporated, that good Thai place was demolished, and APC Surplus moved up to Daikanyama.

I think everyone likes the laid-back, river feel of Nakameguro, and there is nowhere better to view the cherry blossoms in the peak of sakura season. Cow Books is worth a trip, and sure, I bought my Peugot at that bike shop. And there’s that good Mexican place that foreigners like to go to. And maybe the John Lawrence Sullivan store will be a good addition. However, the bigger question is: after at least eight or nine years of Nakameguro being on the brink of becoming the “Next Big Thing,” when can we admit that it never really reached any sort of peak? And although I don’t dare to use the word “decline,” the stores that forged the neighborhood’s reputation no longer exist. We tend to judge Ginza, Aoyama, and Harajuku by the strength of the retail/gallery environment, and yet, Nakameguro gets by just on its own myth. Rather than new stores, Nakame tends to attract foreigner residents and tourist-reporters.

Apparently, the most important thing for Western conceptions of Tokyo is that someone comes up with a narrative and everyone sticks to it. Don’t worry about the fact that almost none of the major retailers in Japan have decided to put a store there, nor that most indie brands can’t exist there for any extended period of time. (General Research and its literary wing Cow Books moved into Nakameguro so much earlier than anyone else that I think they have some special deal on the rent.) So maybe “Nakame” will now blow us all away by turning into the next Daikanayama (which is also less energetic lately), but at what point do we say, okay, they tried that and it didn’t work. Is the consumer sluggishness making us rehash the old trend narratives until the economy can finally concoct new ones?