Tag Archives: japan

Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[June 30, 1969] Anywhere but here (July 1969 Analog)

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photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

Scenes from abroad

And so, our longest Japan trip to date has wrapped up.  We're still developing the many rolls of film we took, but here are some highlights from our vacation that included the cities Fukuoka, Amagi, Kobe, Osaka, Nagoya, and Tokyo:


Nanami and The Young Traveler zoom down a slide in an eastern suburb of Nagoya


Nanami and her husband perform at a Nagoya jazz club


This is Nanami's baby, Wataru, and her mother-in-law, Haruko!


Lorelei poses in front of Ultraman, one of Japan's newest superheros


Lorelei has become smitten with kimono and yukata.  We had to buy a new suitcase to fit them all (and the model trains Elijah bought)

The trouble back home

On the doorstep to my house was a big pile of mail that my neighbor has kept for me.  In addition to sundry bills, the latest FAPA packet, and a handful of independent 'zines (including the latest from the James Doohan International Fan Club), there was the latest issue of Analog.  Interest piqued by the lovely (as always) Freas cover, I tore into the mag before unpacking.  Sadly, it was all downhill from there…


by Kelly Freas

… And Comfort to the Enemy, by Stanley Schmidt

When an exploration ship lands on a seemingly uninhabited planet, its rapacious, by-the-book commander rubs his hands with glee at the prospect of colonizing plunder.  But it turns out there are intelligent natives—it's just that their "technology" is actually the fine control of all of their fellow creatures creating a sort of artificial Deathworld.  When the invaders refuse to leave, they take a hostage, who they use as a communications go-between.  And then they unleash a deadly plague which ravages first the explorer ship and then their entire race.  How the colonizers get out of the predicament is somewhat clever.


by Kelly Freas

This one starts a bit slowly, and the explorers are all too human, even though they're supposed to be aliens.  However, once it gets moving, it's pretty good, and you can sympathize with both the planet dwellers and the decimated invaders.

Three stars.

The Great Intellect Boom, by Christopher Anvil


by Kelly Freas

A pharmaceutical company stumbles upon a brain-booster pill.  Unfortunately, it promotes eggheaded learning, but not application of this learning.  As a result, the nation's economy stumbles as more and more citizens would rather discuss than do.

This is a pretty thinly veiled attack on academia and the intelligentsia, which surely must have tickled editor Campbell's reactionary heart.

One star.

The Mind-Changer, by Verge Foray


by Kelly Freas

Boy this one was a disappointment.  We last saw Verge Foray in a nice little piece called Ingenuity, which featured a post-atomic world where humanity was divided into psionically adept but primitive and regressing "Novos" and scientific, but conservative, "Olsaperns."  Starn was the hero of that story—a Novo with a rare gift of insight and intuition who managed to get in good with the technical Olsaperns.

This sequel story involves Starn's attempts to develop technology that will augment psionic powers such that they can rival or exceed the technology of the Olsaperns.  Fine and well, but really, this is just one of Campbell's "scientific" articles on psionics with a fictional coating.  I already find psi to be a pseudoscientific bore, but to try to add a veneer of respectability to it by invoking scientific trappings is distasteful in the extreme.

It's also a really boring tale.  One star.

The Choice, by Keith Laumer


by Kelly Freas

A three-astronaut explorer team from Earth is abducted by mysterious aliens who offer each of them a choice of fates—all of them some form of execution.  The two military members of the crew meet their fate boldly; the third is a far out civilian cat who doesn't cotton to his own extinction.  As a result, the story has a happy ending.

There is serious Laumer and there is funny Laumer.  Funny Laumer is usually the more trivial, and this is trivial funny Laumer.

Two stars.

The Man from R.O.B.O.T., by Harry Harrison


by Peter Skirka

A couple of years back, Harrison brought out the droll The Man from P.I.G., about a secret agent who goes undercover as a pig farmer.  The twist was that the pigs weren't his livestock but his accomplices.  In a similar vein, here we have the story of an agent who goes undercover as a robot salesman, but the robots are his accomplices.  Of course, given that the robots are intelligent, and one of them is even designed to look like the agent, one wonders why there needs to be human involvement at all in this case.

Anyway, the agent is dispatched to a rancher planet whose women folk all seem to be locked up, and whose men folk are all paranoid violence freaks.  Is it genetic?  Or is it in the cattle?

I always get "funny" Harrison (frex "The Stainless Steel Rat") and "funny" Laumer (e.g. "Retief") mixed up.  And here they're back to back!  Now I'll never disentangle them.

Two stars.

The Empty Balloon, by Jack Wodhams


by Peter Skirka

Last up, a throwaway story about a diplomat who thwarts a telepathic interrogation machine.  There's no real explanation as to how he does it, really, and most of the story exists to set up the lame ending.

Two stars.

Wow.  What a wretched month for magazine fiction!  With the exception of the atypically superlative New Worlds (3.6 stars), everything else was mediocre at best.  IF managed to break the three star barrier, but just barely (3.1), same as Fantasy and Science Fiction.  Amazing scored 2.6—which is a good month for that mag, while Galaxy got the same score, which constituted a bad month. 

Indeed, all of the better-than-average fiction would fill just one decently sized digest.  Incidentally, we had exactly one (1) short story produced by a woman, and the one woman-penned nonfiction this month was a biography…of a man.

It just goes to show that all the good stuff seems to be happening overseas these days.  I hope the next month of mags reinforces my decision to come home!




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Science Fiction/Fantasy

[June 20, 1969] Where to? (July 1969 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

Nihon, banzai!

In just the last ten years of covering our trips to Japan as part of Galactic Journey, we have watched with amazement as Japan executed nothing short of a miracle.  As of this year, the country is now the third largest economy in the world, and "Made in Japan" is no longer a stamp of poor quality.  Datsuns are rolling off the assembly line by the thousands and ending up in American showrooms.  The sky is dark with industrial smog.  It's almost enough to eclipse the left-wing student protests that keep popping up around the nation.

Of course, Japan still has a ways to go, at least domestically.  Fully a fifth of its population still is minimally housed, squatting in one-room shacks and waiting for the government to make good on its five year plan to give everyone a decent home.

One family that has no such difficult is the Fujiis, our adoptive parents, who we last visited five years ago!  This trip was particularly exciting for reasons I shall detail shortly.

First, a picture of the flower shop on the way to their house.  The town is Amagi, an agricultural town that specializes in grapes and persimmons.

And now the estate.  It's laid out as a square with an internal garden.  What's significant is that it dates back to the 1840s—a time when Japan was still ruled by a Shogun.  The estate is essentially a relic, representative of a style that had not changed since Elizabethan times.  At a time when so many of these historic residences are being torn down or falling apart, this one stands as a living treasure.

Yuko, our adoptive mom, gave Lorelei a set of Japanese watercolors, which she employed to draw the garden as she saw it.

The architecture of the place, alone, is remarkable.  This is construction without nails, all of the timbers custom built and joined together.

What's inside is even more remarkable.  The back house used to house a pawn shop.  Even the boxes are more than a century old.

This dress was made by a princess.

And this kimono was hocked by a penniless samurai for a little cash.  Apparently, this happened a lot.

This is century-old paper, also sold by a samurai.  Among the sheets was a paper mock-up of a hakama, the armor the samurai wore.

This is in the house.  Yukio, Yuko's husband, was a Kyoto cop before he retired.  This relic, however, long pre-dates him—it's the kind of lantern used by police in the 19th Century!

I hope you enjoyed this little excursion into the past.  Now for a trip into the future…and regions fantastic!

Leiber of the party

Every summer, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction dedicates an issue to science fiction luminary.  For the July 1969 edition, that fellow is Fritz Leiber.  His name is rarely mentioned in the same breath as, say, Heinlein or Asimov, though he is their contemporary (more or less), but when he's good he's very good.  Does he make this issue stand out?  Let's see!


by Ed Emshwiller

Ship of Shadows, by Fritz Leiber

First up, a brand new piece by the man, himself.  It stars Spar and his talking cat, Kim.  No, this isn't a fantasy, but a highly personal adventure of an old man living in weightlessness aboard some sort of spaceship.  Most of the folks onboard have forgotten about Earth, and there now appear to be eldritch beings aboard—werewolves and vampires—making prey out of those who remain.

Things I liked: the setup is revealed slowly, and it's the first story I've read from the point of view of someone who desperately needs glasses…but doesn't know it.  And there is that characteristic Leiber poesy to the writing.

Things I didn't like: the story moves glacially, and I didn't feel like it told anything new.  I kept finding myself distracted every two or three pages.

So…three stars, I guess.

Fritz Leiber (profile), by Judith Merril

Famed writer and anthologist (and book reviewer) Judy Merril gushes over her hero, Fritz Leiber.  Half biography, half hagiography, half history of SF, it's a worthy piece, especially if you want to be introduced to his early work (and happen, like me, to own a complete set of Unknown).

Four stars.

Demons of the Upper Air, IIX, by Fritz Leiber

A pretty good poem about our first interstellar astronauts, told from the point of view of someone stuck on the ground.

Three stars.

Fritz Leiber: A Bibliography, by Al Lewis

As it says on the tin—no more, and no less.

(no rating)


by Gahan Wilson

To Aid and Dissent, by Con Pederson

It's easy to get in trouble out Mars or asteroids way.  To that end, a fleet of sherpas has been bred—literally.  These rescue ships, which sacrifice themselves upon landing to deposit air and victuals, comprise a row of linked simian brains inside a spacecraft shell.  Think the ape version of The Ship Who… series.  Sherpa Bravo one day decides he's sick of being aynyone's monkey and launches a one-primate civil rights revolution.

Clunkily written and nothing special.  Two stars.

The Place with No Name, by Harlan Ellison

Norman Mogart was an Entertainment Liaison Agent.  Pfui.  He was a pimp.  When he gets into trouble with the law there's no way out of, he makes a deal with…well…not quite the Devil…and finds himself hip-deep in two of the biggest martyr legends of history.

The first half is excellent and pure Ellison.  The second changes the tone so sharply, beware of whiplash.  It ends poignantly enough, but the two halves don't quite mesh.

As is usually the case—Ellison consistently produces what are, for me, three-and-a-quarter star stories…round to four stars?

Transgressor's Way, by Doris Pitkin Buck

A knight errant proves to be anything but a knight bachelor—his modus operandi is to shamelessly seduce young maids and then bunk them all in separate towers for him to enjoy at his leisure.  But what if they should discover each other?

This story is told in too confusing a shorthand, and it is too frivolous in substance, to earn more than two stars from me.

A Triptych, by Barry N. Malzberg

An interesting, behind-the-scenes look at what goes on in the minds of the three astronauts who get sent in the Apollo.  It's not bad, but Barry isn't very well in touch with the actual space program.  One telltale: he assumes that the spacemen have little to do between TV shots.  In fact, they are kept too busy—indeed, both the Apollo 7 and 10 commanders cut pages out of their assignments because the astronauts were overworked and making mistakes (as anyone who regularly watched coverage of either of these flights should know – Ed).

Three stars.

Two at a Time, by Isaac Asimov

In which the Good Doctor explains how we measure the mass of planets by observing their effect on each other (specifically, the common elliptical focus around which they both orbit).  Several pages that could be reduced to one or two lines of formulae, but he looks to be setting something up.

Three stars.

Litterbug, by Tony Morphett

Finally, a fun piece about a fellow named Rafferty who invents a teleporter.  Problem is, he can't control where things go, and he can't bring them back.  Solution: market the thing as a garbage can.

Problem 2: What happens when aliens at the destination get annoyed at all the litter on their planet?

Three stars.

Lifeless

At least for me, my real life excursion was more interesting than the flights of fancy I took while riding the trains.  With the exception of Merril's piece, the rest is pretty forgettable.  Well, I suppose you won't forget the Emshwiller cover anytime soon.  Anyway, next time I'll be reading F&SF, it'll be in the endotic locale of my home town.  May the contents of the August issue be just as different from July's as the Orient is to Southern California.




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[June 10, 1969] Points West and Above (July 1969 Galaxy)

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photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

The Orient

Thanks to centuries of tradition, we tend to think of the Far East as…well…east!  But for us, going to Japan means a 12-hour flight west—literally into tomorrow, as we cross the International Date Line to do it. 

This week marked the beginning of our fourteenth trip to Japan.  How things have changed since we first went back in 1948, when flying via Northwest Orient meant an entire day of travel with multiple stops.  Travel these days is practically instantaneous by comparison.

We were even able to hop on a same-day domestic flight from Tokyo to Fukuoka, which is where I'm writing this.  I've been able to develop my first roll of color film, the results of which I am happy to share:

The Alient

The latest issue of Galaxy is, like this month's IF, the first under the helm of Ejler Jakobsson, and it's also a month late.  Will it be more interesting than the rather dull IF?  Well, it's certainly different.  After all, the lead piece is one I would have expected to appear in Analog.  Why wouldn't Campbell want the sequel to the incredibly popular and presumably lucrative Dune.  Dunno… but here it is:


by Dan Adkins

Dune Messiah (Part 1 of 5), by Frank Herbert


by Jack Gaughan

And so we return to Arrakis, the Dune planet, the only source of the spice melange, which gives the power of prophecy, allows the navigators of the Guild to ply the hyperspace lanes, and is the only currency of note in the Empire.

Last time, Paul Atreides, son of the murdered Duke of Arrakis, had seized his destiny as the kwizatz haderach, leading his army of desert Fremen against the Padisha Emperor in a coup that placed the young general in charge of a galactic domain.

It is now twelve years later, and disparate factions are plotting to overthrow Paul, who has become a figurehead in an interstellar Jihad.  The plotters include the Bene Geneserit, the sisterhood that manipulated Paul and his sister, Aria's, genetic destiny; the navigators' Guild, and Irulan, wife of Paul, and daughter of the cruel Baron Harkonnen, who wrested Arrakis from Paul's father. 

We know there's a plot because it is the subject of an endless scene at the beginning of the serial installment.  And because Paul then discusses the plot at length with his companins at an endless meeting of state in the latter part of the serial.  The plot involves predestination, an heir for Paul (his true love, the Fremen Chani, is being kept secretly sterile by Irulan, who wants to beat the child), and the reincarnated form of Duncan Idaho, one of Paul's comrades in the last book.

There.  Now you don't actually have to read this chapter, which is all for the best, as it's as deadly dull and motionless as the worst parts of Dune.  At least the viewpoints don't change every five sentences.

Two stars so far.

Full Commitment, by Robert S. Martin

Senator Clint is on an investigative junket to Burma, where America is in an endless war against… the Capitalists?  What happened to the Communists?  And why do all the soldiers parrot the exact same line when explaining why they're there to fight?

Brainwashing, obviously…which is how Clint is ultimately disposed of.

A pointless story, poorly done.  One star.

The City That Was the World, by James Blish


by Dan Adkins

James Blish tells the story of a man who makes Howard Hughes look like a piker.  John Hillary Dane is a man with vision…or perhaps visions is more appropriate.  First, he builds an enormous pair of telescopes four miles high in the Andes.  Then he erects a mile-high skyscraper in Denver, the mile-high city.  While the reason for the former is never really explained (other than the obvious reasons—the seeing is much better above the majority of the atmosphere), the purpose of the immense building is the point of the story.

I don't really want to spoil things, so I'll just say that the tale deals with time travel, Malthusian overpopulation, and the value (or lack thereof) of friendship.  It's a good story, although few of the elements are really plausible.

Four stars (and the best piece in the issue).

For Your Information: Eugen Sanger and the Rocket-Propelled Airplane, by Willy Ley

Willy Ley's article is on Eugen Saenger, the Austrian cum German rocket scientists perhaps best known for his design of the America Bomber—a rocket-plane that would fly high enough to skip on the upper atmosphere until it reached New York.  There's a lot of good information that probably can't easily be found elsewhere, since Ley relies on at least one personal source.  That said, it's kind of a dull piece.

Three stars.

A Brief History of the Revolution, by David Lunde and James Sallis

In a piece that might well have come out in Fantasy and Science Fiction (or maybe the old Galaxy sister mag, Beyond), we have a young couple hounded by their animate furniture until they are effectively evicted.  The cause of all this appears to be the wife's desire to have a child.

Not very good.  Two stars.

The Kinsolving's Planet Irregulars, by A. Bertram Chandler


by Reese

Last up is the latest journey of Commodore John Grimes, the famed skipper of the Galactic Rim.  In a direct sequel to The Rim Gods, Grimes and his First Mate (though likely not his first mate) Sonya head back to Kinsolving’s Planet.  You may recall from the last story (or the review thereof) that the team Grimes escorted tried to exploit some time-space weakness to psionically summon Jehovah.  Instead, they incarnated the Olympian pantheon.

This time, their efforts throw Grimes into a fantasy land populated exclusively by fictional characters, from a certain Baker Street detective to larger-than-life but real people like Oedipus and Achilles.  Things get really weird when Grimes starts to question his own reality…

I always enjoy Chandler's Rim stories, but this one is just a bit too cute.  It also looks like the author is tired of the Grimes series and would love to end it…if only the money weren't good.

Three stars.

Things that came and things to come

And that's that.  Quality-wise, a thoroughly unremarkable issue.  Indeed, the only real bit of note is how many of the stories seem to be in the wrong magazine.  I confess I am kind of looking forward to the post-Pohl era.  I want to see how things change for this venerable magazine.

Of course, I also know to be careful what I wish for…

(and stay tuned for more updates from Japan!)




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Book, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[September 10, 1968] Across time and space… (The Girl Who Leapt Through Time)

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[With Takumi Shibano the first Trans-Pacific guest of honor at a Worldcon (Baycon, this year), it is appropriate that we at long last present our first Japanese correspondent: science fiction fan and jazz enthusiast, Yo Aoyama!]


by Yo Aoyama

Hello!  Yo Aoyama here: 26 and a lifelong resident of Japan.  As a lover of music, novels and movies, I am honored to be able to participate in this journey from the other side of the Pacific Ocean.

When Gideon told me about his fanzine the last time he and his wife were in Japan, I knew I had to join the Journey. Japanese movies and science fiction have already been featured many times, but now you've got a home-grown correspondent to tell you the latest information about Japanese science fiction movies, novels, comics, and more!


The rice field near my home.

It is relatively recently that the genre of science fiction has been recognized in Japan, but it has been booming in recent years. "UchūJin ("Cosmic Dust")" by Takumi Shibano, mentioned in Alison's article last month, was launched in 1957, and "SF Magazine" was launched by Hayakawa Shobo in 1959. At first, "SF Magazine" mainly introduced overseas works, but since 1961, they have held contests for new writers in Japan and have been discovering many talents. In 1963, the Japanese Science Fiction Writers Club was also established, and now science fiction is becoming a major genre in Japan.

For this installment, I want to tell you about The Girl Who Leapt Through Time from the short collection of the same name released in March last year by Yasutaka Tsutsui, who was selected as an honorable mention in the second SF contest and is also active in publishing a fanzine himself.


The cover for The Girl Who Leapt Through Time.

When you think of time travel, what works come to mind? Wells' Time Machine? Or is it the hit movie Planet of the Apes that came out earlier this year? Unlike those workers, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time was initially announced as a children's literature for junior high and high school students, but adults are beginning to realize its charm, and it is a work everyone on the Journey should know about!

The star of this work is Kazuko Yoshiyama, a girl in her third year of junior high school (9th grade). One day, while cleaning the science room with two of her classmates, the scent of lavender drifting from the laboratory test tube causes her to faint. Three days later, Kazuko discovers her ability to jump through time after almost being hit by a truck, finding herself exactly 24 hours before the incident.  How did she gain this power?  How is it related to the scent of lavender?  And if it is all the result of a suspicious experiment, who is responsible?  Moreover, how does it connect to the string of mysterious events happening around her, including a terrific local earthquake.  Initially confused by the ability she has suddenly gained, she is determined to solve the mystery by making full use of it.

"The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" blends many genres beyond science fiction: romance, mystery, children's literature, but the charm of this work is that deep knowledge of (and utilization of the elements in) the science fiction genre.  This is largely conveyed through the character of Fukushima-sensei, Kazuo's science teacher. 

Fukushima-sensei describes himself as "a person who collects and researches mysterious phenomena…not a scientist, but a researcher, just recording what happened as it is."  Interestingly, when describing the phenomenon, he references a David Lang, who suddenly disappeared in front of his wife, two children and two friends, as described in the book, "Mysteries of the Supernatural", by Frank Edwards, published in Japanese by Hayakawa Publishing in 1963.  Clearly Fukushima-sensei (and Leapt author Tsutsui) have a firm grounding in both contemporary science fiction and 'weird' books.


"Mysteries of the Supernatural—BUT THAT HAPPENED!"

In this way, Fukushima-sensei plays a commentary role while also moving the story along by hinting at the true nature of Kazuko's mystery.  He explains the phenomenon using the terms "teleportation" and "timeleap".  I have not seen the word "timeleap" elsewhere, and it is likely a sort of author-coined 'Japanglish'.  Compared to the common term "time travel", it is a perfect expression for the events of this work, which mainly involve travel in short periods of time without using tools such as time machines.

"The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" is published as the 5th book in the ten-volume "Junior SF" series published by the Tsuru Shobo company, many of which I have read.  These 'children's books' have a charm that is anything but childish.  Science fiction is no longer just for adults.  And with books like these, the boys and girls who read them will be inspired to one day create a reality that mirrors the stories they read in their youth.




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Conventions/Performances, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[August 10, 1968] First Trans-Oceanic Fan Fund Brings Fandom Together

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by Alison Scott

One of the most interesting features of Science Fiction fandom is the presence of 'fan funds', which aim to reduce the monumental differences between science fiction fans around the world by raising monies to help a fan from one part of the world to visit another. You may already be familiar with the Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund, known as TAFF. This is by far the biggest of the funds, in that rather than being an individual fund-raising effort, TAFF happens every year. It started off as a one-off fund to send the Northern Irish fan Walt Willis to America in 1952, but the idea seemed a good one, and now TAFF sends fans both ways in alternate years. The artist Steve Stiles came to this year’s Eastercon, British National Convention, as the TAFF delegate.

As well as TAFF, though, there have been occasional one-off funds to help people cross the Atlantic. Before TAFF, Ted Carnell travelled to attend the 1949 World convention, and since then there have been other one off-funds, like the one to take John Berry to the 1959 Worldcon and to take Ella Parker to the 1961 Worldcon. But these trips have all been to take people from Europe to America and vice versa.

TAFF winners, and some other fan fund recipients, often write trip reports about their activities. These can be sold to raise money for the fund, but are also a great source of information about local fan groups and their members, for other people considering travelling or who are just curious. The first of these was Walt Willis's magnificent report The Harp Stateside, but there have been several others. Not all fund recipients have completed their reports, often citing exhaustion or penury following their trip, but nevertheless the reports that have been produced are fascinating.

This year, however, will see the first ever Trans-Oceanic Fan Fund trip. This year’s Worldcon will be Baycon, at the end of this month, in Oakland, California. Baycon won the site selection comfortably at NYCon III last year, against the alternative bid, Pan-Pacificon. Although Pan-Pacificon was unsuccessful, it was an interesting bid. It aimed to hold the World SF convention in three locations at once – Los Angeles, Sydney and Tokyo, with a system of taped speeches and other international exchanges. As part of this, John and Bjo Trimble, who were on the con committee, launched the Trans-Oceanic Fan Fund, or TOFF, with the intention of bringing over the Japanese fan Takumi Shibano, and they started soliciting donations.

TOFF organiser Bjo Trimble speaking on a panel item while wearing a
Bjo Trimble, pictured at NYCon III wearing a Maneki-Neko badge (photo Jay Jay Klein)

The choice of Takumi Shibano has been questioned by some. Why support the travel of a fan that few of us are familiar with? But it turns out that Mr Shibano is by far the most prominent fan in Japan. He has been producing his fanzine, Uchūjin, (“Cosmic Dust”) since 1957. He was instrumental in starting national conventions in Japan; there have been several of these, both in Tokyo and elsewhere. It’s a measure of Shibano’s critical role as the primary mover and shaker in Japanese science fiction fandom that once his trip to the USA was announced, the other Tokyo fans wanted to move the national convention to a time when he would be there to run it.

I am very lucky in that Ella Parker showed me her copy of the first English edition of Uchūjin. I do not know if there have been any more in English. This is from September 1962. It contains a report of the national convention in 1962, and a detailed bibliography of Western SF translated into Japanese. Shibano explains, somewhat apologetically, that he had to put fiction into Japanese fanzines because there was no professional SF magazine in Japan at the time, and several short stories are reprinted here. I understand that since then he has been quite successful in helping Japanese science fiction publishers find and publish Japanese-written stories. Mr Shibano founded the Federation of SF Fan Groups of Japan and is serving as its chair. He is truly Japan’s #1 Fan Face.

So I think it is not too hard to accept that Mr Shibano is a great choice for a fund, though for British fans like myself, there is a question about whether we could reasonably be expected to donate to a fund that takes someone from many thousands of miles away from us, halfway round the world to somewhere else thousands of miles from us. However, it seems that US fans were also only somewhat enthusiastic about donating to the fund. A trip of this kind was inevitably quite expensive and although Mr Shibano was well known and well respected in Japan, SF fans elsewhere in the world didn’t really recognise the name. I am sure this reflects the language barrier, although I understand that Mr Shibano’s English is excellent. John and Bjo made a fanzine to sell, Maneki-neko, as a fund-raiser, but discovered that the amount of money you can raise from fanzine sales is quite limited. Maneki-neko includes detailed articles about the history of Japanese SF fandom; well worth getting your hands on a copy!

A fanzine cover featuring a three colour hecto illustration of a Japanese maneki-neko - good luck cat.

At any rate, although they had raised half their hoped-for funds by the start of NYCon, the Trimbles had decided to additionally extend the invitation to Mr Shibano’s wife, Sachiko, so the amount required had doubled. They had brought material for auction, but the fund-raising auction was scheduled for midnight! However, help was at hand. The Trimbles had become friendly with Gene Roddenberry, the producer of the television show Star Trek. Indeed, part of the funds already raised were from a successful auction and raffle at Westercon. Bjo Trimble had even managed to sell raffle tickets to James Doohan, who only afterwards learnt that the star prize was some of the sweaty Spock ears that were apparently available in quantity on set.

Nevertheless, when Roddenberry learnt that they were still struggling to raise the funds needed for the trip, he sent several large boxes of unique Star Trek artefacts from the show for auction at NYCon, including some of the Tribbles from “A Trouble with Tribbles”, which had not yet aired at the time, a script for that episode, and costumes and props from the show. The material was so exciting that many fans showed up to buy these rarities and all the money needed for Takumi Shibano and his wife Sachiko was raised at the convention. So the Shibanos will be at Baycon!

Did you buy one of Captain Kirk's tribbles at NYCon III? Let us know!

Shibano has also suggested that it might be possible to hold the Worldcon in Japan one day. Wouldn’t that be a marvellous thing! We are of course hoping that the Germans are successful in their bid for a convention in Heidelberg, which would be the first Worldcon in a non-English speaking country and moreover, the first non-UK Worldcon that I have a reasonable chance of attending, as a trip to America is way beyond my limited means at present.

Nevertheless, I know that many of the Journey readers and fellow-travellers will be doing their utmost to make sure they are at Baycon. If you are one of those, do please take the opportunity to meet Mr and Mrs Shibano and learn more about their fascinating parallel lives in science fiction. I understand that they both speak very good English, though are rather bashful about it.

I hope this will be the first of many Trans-Oceanic Fan Funds. Imagine if, one day, the possibility of fan funds from all parts of the world was a normal and routine part of science fiction fandom, so that every year we could meet people from around the globe?



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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[June 26, 1968] To far off lands (July 1968 Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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by Gideon Marcus

Points East

It's been so very long since I could offer a travelogue from my favorite of countries, Japan.  But now, after four years (and a stop at the Fotomat to develop pictures), I finally have a dual treat for you–vacation slides and a review of the latest issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction!

But instead of dumping either of them on you all at once, how about we take a simultaneous trip, both to the Orient and to vistas even further off?


by Jack Gaughan

For this article, I have the invaluable assistance of Mr. Brian Collins, a fellow 'zine editor with a penchant for pain.  To wit, after reading this month's issue, he offered to take a stab at the lead story.  As I have no qualms with anyone stabbing Piers Anthony, here goes…

Sos the Rope (Part 1 of 3), by Piers Anthony


by Brian Collins

Piers Anthony has appeared here and there over the past few years without making much of a fuss, with his first SF novel, Chthon, being decidedly uncontroversial among the Journey people (read: everyone I know hates it). That was last year, and now we already have the beginning of his second SF novel, Sos the Rope, which Ed Ferman introduces as a “successful” contest novel “of superior quality.” I don’t wish to call Ferman a liar, but I shiver to think of what the standard must be for contest-winning SF novels for this to be deemed a success.

The premise is simple—too simple. It’s been a century since a nuclear holocaust apparently sent mankind back to its early hunter-gatherer ways, with “society” being reduced to mostly roaming tribes with little hotspots of civilization maintained by “the crazies,” people who somehow retain the ways from before the holocaust. We start with a duel between two warriors, both named Sol, who fight in a circle to see who gets to keep both the name and the right to use all the standard weapons of combat. The loser is thus named Sos, and he becomes not only weaponless but Sol’s (the winner’s) servant; but it’s not all bad, for Sol is not some wandering rogue but a man with a vision, as he wants to build an empire from scratch. A nameless woman who witnesses the duel joins the two and, in a rather haphazard ceremony, becomes Sol’s wife and takes the name of Sola, as is the custom. Apparently people here can change names the way one changes pairs of shoes.
Thus the story starts as something of a road trip narrative that at first sounds like it may be adventure fantasy a la Conan, but is actually science fiction—although Anthony puts in the minimum effort to justify the setting. We also have a lust triangle (I wouldn’t say love, for any reasonable person can’t suppose that Sos and Sola are in love) as Sos and Sola are clearly attracted to each other, but Sola wants Sol’s title while Sol has no affection for Sola. We find out at one point that indeed Sol can’t satisfy his wife as he’s all but said to be a eunuch. “Sol would never be a father. No wonder he sought success in his own lifetime. There would be no sons to follow him.” This does not stop Sos and Sola from eventually doing the dirty deed and the latter getting very pregnant. I continue to suffer.

My experience with Anthony up to this point was basically nil (though, of course, my friends at the Journey tell me stories), but I can already sense a profound distrust of women running through his writing. The way marriage works in the novel’s world is that women literally do not have names and presumably no property rights unless hitched to a man, whereupon they take their husband’s name with just a letter added to it. There is no signed contract, and marriage can be made and ended upon the exchanging of a bracelet. This notion of wife-as-property went out with the Dark Ages, but Anthony has revived it so as to a) generate conflict, and b) give us an excuse to view female characters through the lens of someone who might as well be picking out clothes in a store. There is much ogling at Sola’s physique, including a couple situations where she shamelessly tries to seduce Sos.

The battle circle scenes are not even strikingly written. By the time we get to the climax, where Sol, in recruiting men for his empire, is about to take on a massive brute named Bog (all the men seem to have monosyllables for names), I struggled not to put down my issue and do something better with my life. However, because I feel Anthony can do (and maybe has done) worse, I’m inclined to give this installment a generous 2 out of 5 stars.


by Gideon Marcus

The above was actually written before we went to Japan.  On the 10th, we took off from Los Angeles, the Boeing 707 we flew in now a nostalgic experience rather than a new one (we're so spoiled!) Because of our speed, we were in daylight the entire time, and yet, when we landed at Haneda Airport in Tokyo, it was already the next day thanks to the international date line.

Just in time for me to read this story about a completely different kind of trip…

The Psychedelic Children, by Dean R. Koontz

The effects of LSD are still relatively unexplored.  Some believe that the psychedelic effects of a "trip" suggest the unlocking of psionic potential.  And what if that psionic potential was inheritable…

It is the near future, and Laurie, Frank's wife, is having an episode.  Her psi powers come in waves; when they peak, they must be channeled outward in a fiery blaze lest they destroy her.  So Frank drives her out to the countryside (furtively, for the psi-capable children of Acid-droppers are all sought by the authorities) so Lauren can vent her energies.

The next day, a patrolman and his robot assistant show up at their door…

Koontz paints a vivid world in a few deft strokes, creating a memorable story with a nice ending.  Koontz is still a bit new, and it shows in some awkward turns of phrase and a less than expertly rendered final act.  Nevertheless, it's a good story, both SFnal and fantastic.

Four stars.

We spent our first week in Tokyo, down by the harbor in the Hamamatsuchou area.  Tokyo is different from other metropolises–from the air, it's an endless cityscape, and on the ground, it seethes with activity.  Commuters rush by in endless streams, on foot and by train.  It should be oppressive, but the fundamental politeness and regimentation of Japanese society, at least in the urban areas, somehow makes it all bearable.  It's much different from, say, the noisy stink of New York City or the sprawling gray of Los Angeles.

Speaking of regimentation and programming…

Key Item, by Isaac Asimov

I was prepared not to like the Asimov story as his best fiction-writing days seem long behind him, and they now tend to be gimmick-ended vignettes.  But this one, in which a scientist figures out why a sentient MULTIVAC computer has stopped answering requests, was pretty gratifying–and most surprising.

Four stars.

Tokyo also distinguishes itself from other cities in its random beauty.  Personal space is at a premium, and so Japanese people decorate everything with thought and an aesthetic eye.  Even storefronts and random streetscapes become scenic.

Ultimate Defense, by Larry Brody

If the last story dealt with a mechanical brain, Ultimate Defense features a bionic wonder, a genetically engineered super human.  Jarvis Raal is under suspicion of murder, and it is up to a harried public defender to get him off.  How he does so involves an interesting twist on the subject of race.

I love the way Brody hints at an integrated future (a necessary underpinning of the story), and the story's conclusion is a lovely jab at centuries of bigotry.  My only complaint is stylistic: Brody ends every other paragraph with a punchy, one-line, standalone.  It lacks effectiveness in the repetition.

Four stars.

After five lonely nights in Tokyo (all of our friends in the capital had moved away or drifted out of sight since our last visit), we made our way on the Shinkansen for the first time in four years.  It's still as thrilling an experience as ever, zooming past the countryside as fast as a Cessna can fly.  Our destination was Nagoya, a rather ugly, industrial city in the country's center.  After Tokyo, it looked curiously American with its Western-style grid of streets designed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.  It was the least we could do after flattening the city during World War 2.

However, the urban sprawl of Nagoya was in some ways lovelier than Tokyo for the people who live in it.  The Chubu/Osaka region is home to the greatest concentration of friends in Japan, both foreign and indigenous.  After meeting up with Jen and Dan, two professors who work at Nagoya University (Dan is half-Japanese, Jen is full Minnesotan), we got a call from Nanami, whom you may remember from our previous Japan-based articles and her appearance on The Journey Show.

Well, not only had she recently gotten married, but her husband and she had formed a jazz duet.  They invited us out to a coffee shop to watch them perform, and they were just terrif.

The ability to go all over Japan at great speed, manifesting almost at will, calls to mind the next story…

Remote Projection, by Guillaume Apollinaire

This ancient, translated piece starts off as one kind of thing and ends up very much another.  A messiah, calling himself Aldavid has appeared simultaneously throughout the globe.  Though he simply prays and gives sermons, his effect is electric.  Jews start emigrating en masse to Palestine, Jewish bankers are incarcerated so that they cannot empty their coffers in the support of Zionist goals, and gentiles grudgingly concede that they might have backed the wrong horse 2000 years before.

So it's a religious fantasy, right?  Then why does the messiah look suspiciously like a no-good-nik con artist, murderer, and crackpot inventor that our narrator character recalls from earlier life?  The end of the tale is all science fiction (well, scientific romance; we didn't have "scientifiction" yet), and pretty prescient.

Three stars; four if the old style tickles your fancy.

It is said that being invited into the home of a Japanese family is quite the honor for a Westerner.  Well, we were more than honored when Nanami and her husband, Tomoki, insisted we join them for a home-cooked meal of okonomiyaki at their lovely little house.  Afterwards, we had an impromptu jam session.  I sang Kyu Sakamoto's Ue wo muiteru arukou, which you know States-side as Sukiyaki (Nanami had ended their jazz concert with the song, too.) It was an absolutely sublime experience.

Speaking of sublime…

The Sublimation World, by John Sladek

John Sladek offers up this pastiche of a certain New Wave pioneer (the story is ostensibly by a J. G. B??????) If you've read any Ballard, and especially if you've read a lot of Ballard, you will see that Sladek skewers him with absolutely convincing parody.  After all, imitation is the sincerest form of mockery.  Yet he also manages to tell his own tale and put his own spin on things.  Brilliant stuff.  I read it aloud to Janice immediately upon finishing it, and it was difficult to avoid breaking up.

Five stars.

Nanami's pad wasn't the only place we ate well.  One morning in Nagoya, I found a little restaurant serving soba.  And not just soba, but cold soba.  And not just cold soba, but cold soba with fried onion on top.  WITH a side of curry rice.  I can tell you, I didn't eat lunch that day!

That was food for my stomach.  Now, how about some food for the mind?

Little Lost Satellite, by Isaac Asimov

Dr. A's first fictional story was Marooned off Vesta, so it is appropriate that he finally do an article about the titular asteroid.  He doesn't have too much to say because there isn't much to be learned from a point of light–the best we can resolve the tiny object with terrestrial telescopes.  He does make some rather half-baked theories as to the origin of Vesta and other asteroids, suggesting they might be former moons of the big planets, their rotation rates indicative relics of the worlds they once orbited.

Mostly, we're left with questions.  Three stars.

Beyond Words, by Hayden Howard

Last up, we have the fellow whose Esk tales in Galaxy started promisingly, meandered terribly, and ended…decently.  The fellow can write, sometimes.  And indeed, he does a decent job with this story, about a fellow who went into the desert to revert to language-less savagery.

But when you can't speak anymore, how can you defend yourself against a murder charge?

Three stars.


by Gahan Wilson

Heading for home

And so, 12 pleasant vacation days and 130 pages of F&SF go by.  Aside from the disappointing beginning, which I thankfully didn't have to read, the magazine definitely compelled me to return to F&SF next month.  Just as we fully intend to return to the lovely land of Japan next year, this time.

Mata ne!  (until next time!)




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Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy

[July 12, 1967] The masks we wear; the masks we must wear (the film: The Face of Another)

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by Jason Sacks

Over the last five years or so, there has been a renaissance of movies which take science fiction concepts and turn them into fine — and often obscure — film art. For instance The brilliant Agnès Varda, perhaps best known for her amazing 1962 film Cléo from 5 to 7, used a kind of Island of Dr. Moreau motif for her film The Creatures (released in 1966). That film starts with a car accident and becomes a meditation on the way reality is changed by  fiction.

Similarly, the equally brilliant Alain Resnais used the idea of limbo to emphasize the strange, surrealistic lives of the characters in his much-loved (and much-despised) philosophic meditation Last Year at Marienbad. 

And anyone who saw Gennadi Kazansky and Vladimir Chebotaryov's charming 1962 film Amphibian Man couldn't prevent themselves from being caught up in the literal fish-out-of-water elements of that most magical and fascinating film.

Teshigahara-san

The Face of the Creator

But the master of this mini movement (if there is such a movement) is Japanese director Hiroshi Teshigahara.

Teshigahara came to many American viewers and critics' attention with 1962's The Pitfall, a strikingly nonlinear semi-noir documentary fantasy (and yes it is all of that); the film shows the director's vast scope of vision and deep curiousity about the complexity of human nature.

Two years later he delivered The Woman in the Dunes, the film which truly won Teshigahara his international reputation. It won the Special Jury Prize at Cannes, and it was nominated for the Best Foreign Film Award by the Academy Awards folks.  It's an astonishing work of film art, one of the finer films of the 1960s thus far. It also is haunting on several different levels.

Both Pitfall and Dunes are adapted by novels by the beloved avant-garde novelist Kobo Abe, winner of the Akutagawa Prize and Yomiuri Prize, among many other awards. Apparently Abe's writing style is often labyrinthine, vivid and sensuous in its original Japanese. That style has to be seductive for an ambitous director, and with his success with these two films, now Teshigahara has taken on another Abe film.

The Face of Another uses the idea of a facial transplant to explore the nature of identity, human connection, and the impact of the atomic bomb. At the same time it possesses a stunning visual style which will likely be studied for decades (and which will only be touched on briefly in this essay).

All of this makes for a heady mix, beautifully delivered on screen. The film is often obscure, looks beautiful and is well worth checking out in your local art cinema.

Let me tell you a little more about it.

The Face of Another

One thing I was struck by in watching this movie was in how much it echoes. There is a lot of Frankenstein in here – both Shelley and Karloff versions. It also echoes The Beast With Five Fingers and last year's Seconds, and definitely a lot of French New Wave cinema and even that episode of The Avengers in which the villains traded minds with Steed and Mrs. Peel. Face is original, sometimes radically original. Yet it stands on the shoulders of giants as well.

The movie follows two parallel plots. In the primary plot, a businessman named Okuyama has had his face damaged in a major industrial accident. Forced to live life with a full-face mask, he is horrified and even sadly bemused by peoples' reactions to him. No matter if it's his wife or a stranger, everyone is cold and unemotional to him. His lack of a face has imposed a deep outsider feeling on him. Okuyama is profoundly alone.

Our businessman is bereft, forgotten even by his own wife. Only a young girl with impaired intellectual abilities actually sees and reacts to Okuyma as his own self. Like the Invisible Man, he's an id in bandages, lost and empty. It's the impact of his injuries that matters rather than the injury itself.

In the second plot, a young (unnamed) woman has scars over half of her face. It's implied she got those burns during the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. Unlike Okuyama, the woman does not bandage herself, simply covering that side of her face with her hair and handling her pain with some grace.

Okuyama persuades his doctor to create a mask which will allow the bandaged man to look human and have some semblance of a normal life. He believes the mask will be seamless. It will allow him to pass himself off as normal person different than the man he was before.

He can become a new version of himself. And the first thing he does with his new freedom is… go to his old office and see if any of his former coworkers recognize him as their old compatriot (they don't). The second thing he does is even more banal. Frustrated beyond reason at his wife's indifference to him when bandaged, Okuyama decides to try to seduce his wife while wearing his new face. Yes, he's trying to make his wife an adulteress by sleeping with her.

Bizarre.

It's all as bizarre as the conversations Okuyama and the doctor have throughout different Osaka settings, including an odd German bar and the magnificent doctor's office.

Meanwhile, the girl is simply still wandering her life, unmoored and unrooted. Though she is spending much of her time with her brother who loves her (he may love her too much), she is alone. As with Okuyama, people recoil upon seeing her. Unlike with Okuyama, her injuries are more than just symbolic of a single man. Her injuries are a symbol of national guilt. And therefore she is simply more repulsive to the ordinary Japanese person.

I don't want to reveal the secret of how either of these powerful plotlines end — and in fact both endings are powerful.

Now that I've hopefully intrigued you with an idea of what makes the plot so great, let me talk about how great this film looks.

Looking at the Face

For all the praise Teshigahara deserves for his film, we all know a film can never be an individual effort (go ahead, Cahiers du Cinéma, prove me wrong!).

So let me first praise the cinematography of Hiroshi Segawa. His work here is simply extraordinary. The scenes at the doctor's office are symbolic and rich in meaning, not so much a setting as the implication of a setting and all the more powerful for that reason. The backgrounds symbolize all that Teshigahara is exploring in this meditative film.

Scenes on the streets or at bars are composed in beautiful framing and look sensational on screen. More importantly, they're composed in ways that allow Teshigahara to create doubling of his images (that is, the chance to use two images to echo each other).

As I've been alluding to, the production design by Masao Yamazaki is simply exquisite, a heady and head-bending approach to design that manages to both deeply root and profoundly confuse a viewer, a balancing act necessary for the film but incredibly hard to manage.

And of course I must praise our lead actors, especially Tatsuya Nakadai as Okayuma and Miki Irie as the man and woman, respectively. It's deeply impressive to see how richly Nakadai draws his character with his eyes while in his bandages, and with a deep, stiff complexity when wearing the mask. His body tells much of the story, and an attentive viewer can notice subtle physical changes which reflect his changing psychological state.

Irie's acting is equally as challenging and equally as rewarding. She's wearing a giant prosthetic and yet we feel we can easily read her emotions, hear her mood through slight voice inflections and body movements. He ultimate fate feels inevitable but not unexpected. That's a great compliment to Irie.

Looking at the Reasons Behind the Face

Teshigahara is clearly exploring many key themes here (isolation, collective guilt, and the intolerance of outsiders to name but three). I think the most intriguing explanation for this movie is to read it as a parable of the atomic bomb and the long recovery from the War.

Injury and disfigurement is common to see in Japan after the War. Even those who didn't directly experience the atomic bomb still felt the impact of the Bomb on their society. Nobody in Japan escaped those emotional scars. Our two lead characters just manifest those scars in their own particular way.

The Bomb also really and truly ended Japan's history as it had happened up to 1945. Its agrarian, peaceful traditions; its samurai code of ethics and its long and proud defiant isolation were all truly dead in their classical sense. Those were nation — and empire-affirming — concepts through the war. But those concepts were antiques, consumed by the never ending westernization of the post-war period.

Modernity was the future, tradition be damned. Ironically in a culture with a long, proud history of mask-wearing, Japanese people would be asked to put away their classic masks and don the western masks of hats and make-up worn in places like New York, London and Paris.

Furthermore, the Bomb and the subsequent westernization of Japanese society has served to isolate people by breaking down traditional societal structures and even the centrality of family. Akira Kurosawa has explored these topics as well, for instance in the sublime High and Low.

Teshigahara here takes a more symbolic approach than Kurosawa, forcing the viewer to contemplate the future that is developing. Teshigahara is unhappy about that future. The nihilistic ending of the film implies Japan is experiencing changes that might tear it apart.

Living with the Memory of the Face

Last year I raved about the John Frankenheimer film Seconds in these pages. As much as any of the other films I've discussed in this article, Seconds seems the best analogue for The Face of Another. It's a symbolic film, telling a despairing story about someone who gains a new face and goes just a bit crazy.

Both films feature brilliant black and white cinematography, fascinating lead performances, and linger long in the mind after they are done on the movie screen. I hope you didn't miss Seconds. And I hope you won't miss The Face of Another.

Four stars.



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Comics

[April 6, 1966] Say Konnichwa to the Newest Comics from Japan!

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[Our comics coverage has spanned much of the globe, but one region has remained unexplored by the Journey…until now.  With this article, we welcome Erica Friedman to the ranks of the Journey's associates!]


by Erica Friedman

If you joined us for the Journey Show last October, you were able to learn about the newest popular TV medium coming from Japan. Japanese cartoons are making their mark with themes of nature versus man's drive to develop technology, frequently exploring what truly makes us human…and some lucky American viewers have already had a chance to see some of these cartoons on television. But what you may not know, is that many of these cartoons were already popular in Japan in the form of comics which are called "manga."

What are Japanese Manga?

"Manga" is a word that means "loose drawing," i.e., a sketched image. The word manga was coined in the late 18th century, but the painter Hokusai made it famous with his sketchbooks, Hokusai Manga, which were first published in 1814.The British Museum goes so far as to ask if maybe Hokusai himself is the father of manga, but I think it is a bit much to assume that no other artists before him ever did a sketch, don't you think?

Katsushika Hokusai Buddhist monks, from Hokusai manga, 1814

Japanese comics really took off after the war. One of the first truly breakout manga was Shin Takarajima (New Treasure Island) by Osamu Tezuka, based on Robert Louis Stevenson's rollicking tale. Published in 1947, this comic launched a new age of comics in Japan. You might also recognize Mr. Tezuka's name from our conversation about Japanese cartoons. Mr. Tezuka is a very busy and successful creator and his name will come up again and again as we talk.

New Treasure Island, by Osamu Tezuka

Magazines Full Of Comics

When we think of comics, probably what comes to mind first is superheroes like Batman and Superman. One of the things that makes Japanese comics unique is – like comics here before the Comics Code – there are manga for all ages and sexes. Not only are there comics for girls and boys, even adults read manga. Whole magazines that are nothing but serialized comics stories are sold in Japan. People can even rent a magazine for a few cents, then return it, just like a library. Imagine a magazine where you could get the latest issue of all your favorite superheroes at once. These manga magazines in Japan are targeted to different ages and sexes, but its pretty easy to tell who reads which magazines.

Shoten Magazine 1966 featuring Shotaro Ishinomori's Cyborg 099.
Nakayoshi, January 1966. Cover by Macoto Takahashi.

Here's an interesting question for you to ponder. Of these two magazines, which one had a comic by Mr. Tezuka running in it? You might be tempted to answer the top one, Shoten Magazine, because Mr. Tezuka's comics seem to be about robot boys and other adventures. You probably can guess where I'm going with this…Mr. Tezuka's comic Princess Knight runs in the girl's magazine, Nakayoshi. And that's just one of the amazing things about these magazines. You might see a comic by our Mr. Tezuka in a magazine for girls or boys or adults. Because he and Mr. Ishinomori are are so prolific, you might see them both in multiple magazines at the same time.

Just as we have comic strips in our newspapers, Japanese newspapers have comic strips, too. They are read from top to bottom, but like Nancy and Blondie in any American paper, the average Japanese mom or pop can read the daily adventures of Mrs. Sazae, an award-winning comic by Miss Michiko Hasegawa. This comic has been one of the most popular series in all of Japan since it was first published in 1946.

Sazae-san, Mrs. Sazae, by Michiko Hasegawa,

I mentioned that Miss Hasegawa received an award for her comic strip. In fact, there are a number of awards given to comic art, where we only have the Alley Awards from the Academy of Comic-Book Fans and Collectors. The Bungeishunjuu Manga Award was given to Miss Hasegawa, but you've already heard some names here of other award winning creators including Mr. Tezuka and Mr. Ishinomori, who is this year's award winner of the Kodansha Children's Manga Award for his story we saw up above, Cyborg 009.

Popular Japanese Comics

Some of the animated series we talked about in our Journey Show, are also popular manga stories.

Jungle Emperor Leo, which has that amazing full-color animation, is another series by Mr Tezuka. Notably, this story is very pro-nature and anti-technological development, a theme you can find in many of his works. Also notable in a story for children, the complexities and harsh realities of adult life aren't hidden away from young eyes. The world Leo exists in is cruel – and the law of man is much crueler than the laws of nature.

Jungle Taitei Leo by Osamu Tezuka, published by Shogakukan

Mr. Tezuka is also writing comics for other series we talked about in the show, like Big X, Wonder 3 and the above-mentioned Princess Knight. These all run in different magazines!

Big X, by Osamu Tezuka
Ribon no Kishi, aka Princess Knight , by Osamu Tezuka

Not everything is so serious in manga, though. Magical girls are a new trend that is very fun. We have Bewitched on our TVs (and you might not be aware of this, but it is a comic book, as well) and Japanese comics fans have The Secrets of Miss Akko. Where Samantha wiggles her nose to make magic, Miss Akko uses a magical mirror. Girls all over Japan love this series and I expect we'll be seeing many more like it.

Himitsu no Akko-chan by Fujio Akatsuka.

In the beginning I mentioned that we probably think of Batman or Superman when we think of comic books today. Well, the Japanese manga fan can also enjoy a Batmanga of their very own. But don't tell DC! I'm not sure they have permission.

The Future of Japanese Comic

Even as TV continues to gain in popularity and more animation appears, I think we won't see a slowdown in manga for a long while. And remember, those children who grew up reading comics are likely to become the manga artists of the future. It will be very interesting to tune back in five years and see what's hip and new in manga in Japan.




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Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[January 20, 1965] The T.A.R.D.I.S. Lands Down Under and Japan Invades Australia (Doctor Who and The Samurai)

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by Kaye Dee

I’ve been reading Jessica Holmes’ insightful articles about the British science fiction television series Doctor Who since she first started commenting on this show (see December 1963 entry) and I’ve been looking forward for some time to actually seeing it air in Australia. At last my wish has been granted! The T.A.R.D.I.S. has finally landed here, with Doctor Who commencing on the Australian Broadcasting Commission (the ABC is the Australian equivalent of the BBC) just in the past week, mesmerising me with those incredible opening credits.


Doctor Who's ethereal and abstract opening credits perfectly suggest travelling along the corridors of time

Not Just Kid Stuff

I heard from a friend who works at the ABC that Australia has been one of the first countries to buy Doctor Who from the BBC. In fact, I was really excited when he told me in March last year that the ABC had purchased the show and intended to debut it last May, but then delays arose due to censorship issues. Yes, although Doctor Who is classed as a family show in Britain, the Australian censors (who view and classify every overseas television show that comes into the country) have deemed the first thirteen episodes to be not suitable for children and classified them as “Adult”! This means that the ABC must schedule these episodes for screening after 7pm and couldn’t show Doctor Who in the Sunday night 6.30pm timeslot it originally planned. But at last Doctor Who has found a home on Friday night at 7.30pm (at least in Sydney). I just hope the censors aren’t going to decide one day that some stories are too scary to be screened at all!

Doing the Rounds

A funny thing about the ABC is that sometimes when it buys a show from overseas it only purchases one film copy of each episode. This film reel then has to be sent around from state to state so that it can be screened by the ABC broadcaster in each capital city. So, the first Australian screening of Doctor Who was actually in Perth on Tuesday, 12 January. Sydney and Canberra (linked by cable) were next on 15 January. Brisbane will get to see Doctor Who next Friday 22 January, but Melbourne will have to wait until Saturday 20 February and Adelaide won’t see the first episode until Monday 15 March! I’m glad I live in Sydney now.


Anthony Coburn (left) and Ron Grainer (right) may be virtually unknown in Australia, but they've had successful careers in Britain and have made important contributions to the creation of Doctor Who

The Australian Connection

It’s great to see that some Australians are involved with the production of Doctor Who. The premiere story, “An Unearthly Child” has been written by Anthony Coburn. I’d never really heard of him before, but according to a few newspaper articles reviewing the first episode he was born in Melbourne and has been working in England for many years as a staff writer for the BBC. Ron Grainer, who composed the wonderfully eerie and evocative theme music, has also spent most of his professional career composing music in Britain, although he grew up in a small mining town in far north Queensland. Vicki Lucas’ fascinating article on the music of Doctor Who (see December 1963 entry) tells me that an obviously talented lady named Delia Derbyshire at the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop created the amazing sound of Grainer’s composition: all I can say is that I’m in awe of her skill at creating electronic music, now that I have actually heard the theme tune for myself.


The mysterious Doctor Who and his granddaughter Susan. I wonder when we'll find out where they really come from and why they are exiles from their home world

A Family Viewing Experience

And that’s what I’ve discovered with the first episode of Doctor Who: it’s one thing to read about the show and look forward to seeing it, but it’s a whole new experience to actually watch it on television. My sister Faye and her kids watched “Unearthly Child” with me and we were all caught up in the mystery of Susan and her grandfather and what's going to happen to the two school teachers now that they've been whisked away somewhere in time and space in the Doctor’s T.A.R.D.I.S. Vickie and David certainly didn’t think that Doctor Who was just for adults, no matter what the censors said! We’re all looking forward to the next episode and enjoying the adventures that those of you in Britain have been watching for over a year.


Promotional image for The Samurai, showing Shintaro wielding a longsword that is the traditional weapon of a samurai warrior. The title character is played by actor Koichi Ose

Japanese Television Arrives in Australia

Doctor Who isn’t the only new television import to catch my attention lately. Despite the animosity that many Australians have felt towards Japan since the War, last year’s Tokyo Olympic Games, where our young swimmer Dawn Fraser did so well, sparked a lot of interest and curiosity about Japan and its culture. So much so, in fact, that TCN-9 in Sydney started showing the first ever Japanese television series on Australian screens at the end of December. It’s an action adventure series called The Samurai, set in feudal Japan three centuries ago. Channel 9 is taking a gamble with this show, which I guess is why they’ve put it on in the doldrums period of the Summer holidays.


Shintaro narrowly avoids a brace of 'star knives' (a weapon used by the ninjas). I've heard that Dads are now making home-made ones for their kids, snipped from used tin lids. It'll be fun to play samurai and ninjas until someone gets hurt with one of these!

A "Western", Japanese Style

The Samurai tells the story of a master swordsman named Shintaro (the “samurai” of the title), a half-brother of Japan’s young ruler, the Shogun, who travels around Japan putting down plots against his brother’s government, usually by the villainous gangs of a semi-magical secret society known as ninjas: you could say that Shintaro is a medieval Japanese cross between James Bond, a Western gunslinger and Robin Hood! Channel 9 has been showing The Samurai five days a week at 3.30pm and with its exotic setting, supernatural action and endearingly bad dubbing with broad American accents, it’s fast becoming very popular – and not just with the kids. Faye’s husband, Bruce, has been absorbed in the show while he’s on holidays and I’ve taken to this fascinating curiosity of a show as well. Mind you, so many ninjas get killed in each episode, I’m surprised the censors haven’t labelled The Samurai as “Adult”, alongside Doctor Who!

Japan Invades the Top 40, Too

Another bit of Japanese culture has also been making its presence felt in the Top 40 charts. In August last year, the lovely Noeleen Batley, Australia’s first female pop singer to have a national hit song, released an English version of a song that was a huge hit in Japan in 1963. “Little Treasure from Japan” charted in Sydney and Brisbane and even made it all the way to #16 in Melbourne last October. It really is a sweet little song, with one of those tunes you can’t get out of your head. My niece Vickie’s dance teacher is already creating a dance routine for her class to perform to the song for their mid-year concert. Now we just have to figure out where we can find a kimono for her costume.


Australia's "Little Miss Sweetheart" Noeleen Batley has had a hit with "Little Treasure from Japan". You can see by the wear on the cover that Faye's copy of the record has already been played quite a bit

Australia International

The fact that Channel 9 took a risk on screening The Samurai is an indication of how much Australians have broadened their worldview since the end of the War. The large influx of European migrants has introduced us to delicious new foods, good coffee (thank you!) and a more cosmopolitan outlook. Our TV might be dominated by British, American and (a long way third) Australian shows now, but hopefully we'll soon see more international programmes. Perhaps someday we'll even see a television channel offering programmes from around the world: I can't wait to see what fun and entertainment we've been missing out on!

[If you have a membership to this year's Worldcon (in New Zealand) or did last year (Dublin), we would very much appreciate your nomination for Best Fanzine! We work for egoboo…]




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Movies

[Aug. 7, 1964] Rematch! (Mothra vs. Godzilla)

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by Lorelei Marcus

In June this year, 1964, my family and I took a three week vacation to the island nation of Japan. Though I have been many times before, this was the first time I felt changed as a person after coming home. Perhaps it was the fact that I was finally old enough to appreciate the world around me; or perhaps it was because we’d chosen to stay in a new place: Hiroshima was still under construction, but I could tell it was going to become a beautiful city, despite the air of tragedy. Regardless, I saw Japan in a new light, and it has brought me to see the world in a new light as well.

I also got to see Mothra vs Godzilla, and it was incredible.


"The Young Traveler at the Movies"

If you’re intrigued about our other experiences in Japan, you can check out my dad’s articles. Alright, now that all the travel gurus and those interested in philosophical debate about the effects of war and nuclear weapons are gone, let’s talk about giant monsters!


"Yess! Yeeeeessss!"

Mothra vs Godzilla is by far my favorite giant monster movie to date. It starts us on a scene of a great typhoon overtaking the Japanese coastline. The waves are crashing, the storm is raging, it is an epic way to open this movie.


"Actually, this is typical June weather in Japan."

In the next scene we meet our protagonists: The jaded, kind of a jerk male reporter, and his (gasp!) competent female journalist trainee that is there to be a character rather than a romantic interest?? Times are changing!

The reporters are at a small island to record the destruction from the typhoon, but surprise: A giant monster egg has washed onto shore due to the typhoon, and some money-grubber wants to buy it and turn it into a theme park attraction… Because that worked out so well with Mothra’s maidens three years prior (and Gorgo, too) [Ed.]).

But wait, Mothra does not attack Japan in retaliation for stealing her egg, because Godzilla beats her to it! Also washed up by the typhoon, Godzilla breaks free from the ground and starts destroying Japan, because why not?


"Phew, what did I have to drink last night?"

At this point my father pointed out that Godzilla doesn’t need to eat, he just destroys Japan because he feels like being a total jerk all the time. True to character, after knocking over Nagoya Tower and a lovely ancient castle, Godzilla decides to go after Mothra’s egg!


"I hope there’s candy inside…"

Will Mothra agree to help save Japan for the sake of its egg? Or will Godzilla get to the egg first and destroy the legacy of Mothra? I urge you to discover yourself, as I hear this film will be hitting American theaters soon! (Though for some reason they’ve changed the title to Godzilla vs The Thing even though American audiences are already familiar with Mothra. I will never understand marketers.)


"Wait, when did Mothra get tentacles??"

I’m not sure if Mothra being kept a secret is good or bad, because Mothra was by far the best part of the movie. Everytime she was on screen I was simultaneously enamored with her adorableness and awed by her formidable power. Immediately after watching the movie I began a search for a Mothra stuffed toy, which has sadly failed to bear fruit for the moment.

The special effects were particularly good this time. Some clever tricks with camera angles and filters conveyed the massive size of the monsters, not to mention the tiny size of the Mothra Maidens (shades of The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad).


"Don’t mind me, just here to destroy things."


"Mosura ya!  Mosura…"

There were also pyrotechnics. The destruction was fun and exactly what I’d paid to see, but there was also a nice extra layer to the movie. This film had a nuance that no other giant monster has: the fights had strategy.

My father and I went into this movie wondering how Mothra would stand a chance against the seemingly invincible and range-weapon-equipped godzilla. Needless to say we were pleasantly surprised with how thought out the fight scenes were. Long gone were the days of Godzilla vs King Kong’s extreme rubber suit flailing. This was calculated, powerful, and epic monster warfare. The writing was so effective in fact, that after the movie my father and I proceeded to have a deep discussion about the monsters and their fighting tactics.


"You’re in timeout, mister!"

But of course, the monsters were only half the movie. The other half had to be carried by human actors furthering the plot. This end of the movie did not disappoint either. The cheesy overacting of Japan is something I’ve become familiar with over the years. It was refreshing to see the acting toned down a bit for this movie, though a little cheese never hurt a giant monster flick. Well, we probably could’ve done without the "natives" again, but other than that, it was perfect.


"You look exactly like the natives from Kong Island!"

All in all, Mothra vs Godzilla is the giant monster genre done right. A classic plot twisted just enough to make it feel reminiscent rather than overdone; a great cast with several strong female characters (especially if you include Mothra herself); equally interesting and memorable monster fights; stunning visuals with beautiful pops of color; and amazing special effects add up to the best monster movie I’ve ever seen. Mothra vs Godzilla does everything it came here to do and executes it beautifully. For that, I give it a legendary 5 out of 5 stars! Now, off to find a Mothra toy so it can fight my Godzilla figure.

This is the Young traveler, signing off.

[Come join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge! Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]




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