For all the Miyazaki dads out there!
Happy Father's Day!
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Blazing Saddles and Transatlantic Postmodernism
[Note to my regular readers who come here for women's golf coverage: I'm airing Mel Brooks's 1974 film Blazing Saddles tonight as part of SUNY Fredonia's American Studies film series "Myths of the American West," so decided to share a draft of my opening comments here at Mostly Harmless (which is, after all, "for fun"). I'm aware of the 5-car collision that has lead to my favorite golfer Ai Miyazato withdrawing from this week's LPGA event (and onechan's favorite Paula Creamer being a likely WD candidate) and obviously wish them and everyone else involved in it a full and speedy recovery.]
[Note to my non-regular readers who are coming here after watching Blazing Saddles (or missing it): Hope you enjoy this post and are curious enough after reading it to browse around for other posts here that you may find interesting!]
I was four years old when Blazing Saddles was first released in American theaters and until Shannon McRae--the director of American Studies at SUNY Fredonia and organizer of the program's film series "Myths of the American West"--took seriously my half-joking suggestion to include it in the series and invited me to introduce it, I had never seen it in its entirety until this month. In a semester when I'm teaching American Identities, Introduction to African American Literature and Culture, and Critical Reading, I'm particularly pleased to take Shannon up on her kind offer, and offer a few comments as a new viewer of a movie that's been well-known (even to me) for decades, comments that will hopefully be as useful to students in my classes this semester as everyone else who braved the rains to make it out here tonight.
Growing up, I put Blazing Saddles in the mental category of comedies too raw for me to watch, a remarkably capacious category that in the '70s and too far into the '80s included everything from Monty Python to Mad magazine to Saturday Night Live to just about every famous stand-up comedian of the time. If this reference helps people place where I was at, probably Benny Hill was the rawest thing I got access to before graduate school. Yes, I grew up in a small town in central NY and failed to take advantage of 2nd grade in Palo Alto and 7th grade in Chapel Hill. Nevertheless, I was obsessed with everything comical and comics-al. In high school I started a cartoon series called The Gray Area that, despite its being far too derivative of The Far Side, was seen, nay loved, by regular readers of the Pennysaver and other fine local publications for far too many weeks. Me, I loved everything from Gilligan's Island to Scooby Doo, from Diff'rent Strokes to The Facts of Life, from Benson to Newhart, from Doctor Who to The Greatest American Hero, from Airplane! to Ghostbusters, from The Muppet Show to The Tracey Ullman Show, from Tom and Jerry to Rocky and Bullwinkle (in reruns, duh) to Calvin and Hobbes to Mork and Mindy, from any DC comic Ambush Bug appeared in (even though I was almost exclusively a Marvel fan) to the animated version of The Tick. Sure, I hated the Smurfs and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but otherwise I was pretty easy to please. And I was a fan of The Simpsons before The Simpsons was The Simpsons, man! (It goes without saying from the title of this blog what my favorite was, though!)
All of which is to say that when I go to grad school in the early 1990s I was perfectly primed to understand and appreciate what many still misunderstand and denigrate even today as a French theoretical import: postmodernism. As someone who saw The Simpsons parody of the end of The Graduate long before I ever saw The Graduate, who loved it when Beavis and Butt-head were watching a Johnny Cash video and decided it was gangsta rap, and who came of age in a hip hop culture rife with allusion and remixing and pastiche, I didn't have to think twice about Jean-Francois Lyotard's notion of "incredulity toward metanarratives" as a core characteristic of postmodernism.
So it's all too easy and obvious now for me to look back at Blazing Saddles and see it as yet another exemplar of American postmodernism. It's certainly not an original point to make, as a quick google search will show you (I recommend posts by Mark Bourne and Mike Sutton on this aspect of the movie). But what is originality, anyway? Just another stinkin' metanarrative--right, JFL? Perhaps it's slightly more original to claim that Mel Brooks and Monty Python were engaged in a transatlantic comedic one-ups-man-ship that was perfectly postmodern. In the same way that Brooks and his co-writers, including Richard Pryor, were playing with myths of the American west and poking fun at founding narratives of the modern United States, Monty Python was taking on English legends of the Holy Grail and western icons of Christianity--and at roughly the same time. Check me on this. And, as you watch Blazing Saddles tonight, consider some of the debates over postmodernism that occupied so many western intellectuals in the last third of the 20th century: is postmodernism all sound and fury, signifying nothing? is it, in the final analysis, the laugh track of late capitalism? are its politics of race and gender and sexuality and [fill in the blank] reactionary, liberatory, laughable, nostalgic, or what? is postmodernism a thing of the past, and if so, how do we react to it today (and what comes after that post-?) if not, if we are still living in and with postmodernism, what does Blazing Saddles compare to in contemporary and recent culture?
There's so much more to be said--about what light Blazing Saddles may shed on black-Jewish relations in the late civil rights era, for instance--but I think it ought to wait until after the movie. Don't you?
[Note to my non-regular readers who are coming here after watching Blazing Saddles (or missing it): Hope you enjoy this post and are curious enough after reading it to browse around for other posts here that you may find interesting!]
I was four years old when Blazing Saddles was first released in American theaters and until Shannon McRae--the director of American Studies at SUNY Fredonia and organizer of the program's film series "Myths of the American West"--took seriously my half-joking suggestion to include it in the series and invited me to introduce it, I had never seen it in its entirety until this month. In a semester when I'm teaching American Identities, Introduction to African American Literature and Culture, and Critical Reading, I'm particularly pleased to take Shannon up on her kind offer, and offer a few comments as a new viewer of a movie that's been well-known (even to me) for decades, comments that will hopefully be as useful to students in my classes this semester as everyone else who braved the rains to make it out here tonight.
Growing up, I put Blazing Saddles in the mental category of comedies too raw for me to watch, a remarkably capacious category that in the '70s and too far into the '80s included everything from Monty Python to Mad magazine to Saturday Night Live to just about every famous stand-up comedian of the time. If this reference helps people place where I was at, probably Benny Hill was the rawest thing I got access to before graduate school. Yes, I grew up in a small town in central NY and failed to take advantage of 2nd grade in Palo Alto and 7th grade in Chapel Hill. Nevertheless, I was obsessed with everything comical and comics-al. In high school I started a cartoon series called The Gray Area that, despite its being far too derivative of The Far Side, was seen, nay loved, by regular readers of the Pennysaver and other fine local publications for far too many weeks. Me, I loved everything from Gilligan's Island to Scooby Doo, from Diff'rent Strokes to The Facts of Life, from Benson to Newhart, from Doctor Who to The Greatest American Hero, from Airplane! to Ghostbusters, from The Muppet Show to The Tracey Ullman Show, from Tom and Jerry to Rocky and Bullwinkle (in reruns, duh) to Calvin and Hobbes to Mork and Mindy, from any DC comic Ambush Bug appeared in (even though I was almost exclusively a Marvel fan) to the animated version of The Tick. Sure, I hated the Smurfs and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but otherwise I was pretty easy to please. And I was a fan of The Simpsons before The Simpsons was The Simpsons, man! (It goes without saying from the title of this blog what my favorite was, though!)
All of which is to say that when I go to grad school in the early 1990s I was perfectly primed to understand and appreciate what many still misunderstand and denigrate even today as a French theoretical import: postmodernism. As someone who saw The Simpsons parody of the end of The Graduate long before I ever saw The Graduate, who loved it when Beavis and Butt-head were watching a Johnny Cash video and decided it was gangsta rap, and who came of age in a hip hop culture rife with allusion and remixing and pastiche, I didn't have to think twice about Jean-Francois Lyotard's notion of "incredulity toward metanarratives" as a core characteristic of postmodernism.
So it's all too easy and obvious now for me to look back at Blazing Saddles and see it as yet another exemplar of American postmodernism. It's certainly not an original point to make, as a quick google search will show you (I recommend posts by Mark Bourne and Mike Sutton on this aspect of the movie). But what is originality, anyway? Just another stinkin' metanarrative--right, JFL? Perhaps it's slightly more original to claim that Mel Brooks and Monty Python were engaged in a transatlantic comedic one-ups-man-ship that was perfectly postmodern. In the same way that Brooks and his co-writers, including Richard Pryor, were playing with myths of the American west and poking fun at founding narratives of the modern United States, Monty Python was taking on English legends of the Holy Grail and western icons of Christianity--and at roughly the same time. Check me on this. And, as you watch Blazing Saddles tonight, consider some of the debates over postmodernism that occupied so many western intellectuals in the last third of the 20th century: is postmodernism all sound and fury, signifying nothing? is it, in the final analysis, the laugh track of late capitalism? are its politics of race and gender and sexuality and [fill in the blank] reactionary, liberatory, laughable, nostalgic, or what? is postmodernism a thing of the past, and if so, how do we react to it today (and what comes after that post-?) if not, if we are still living in and with postmodernism, what does Blazing Saddles compare to in contemporary and recent culture?
There's so much more to be said--about what light Blazing Saddles may shed on black-Jewish relations in the late civil rights era, for instance--but I think it ought to wait until after the movie. Don't you?
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Salonpas Cup Sunday: Sun-Ju Ahn Beats Morgan Pressel and Inbee Park in Playoff
For 43 holes, Morgan Pressel was making the Salonpas Cup look as easy as she did when she won the JLPGA's 1st major of 2010. Standing on the 8th tee, she was -12 and bogey-free in the weather-shortened event and things were looking up for her, as her playing partners were running into trouble on the front. The golfer-formerly-known-as-The Final Round Queen, Ji-Yai Shin, had gifted her with a 2-shot swing, thanks to a double bogey on the 392-yard par-4 7th, to fall 4 shots behind Pressel, while 17-time JLPGA winner Mi-Jeong Jeon was +1 over her 1st 7 holes to also fall 4 back. Sure, fellow LPGAer Inbee Park put together a sizzling bogey-free 32 from several groups ahead of them to join them at -8 and defending champion Sun-Ju Ahn had gotten within 2 shots of Pressel from the group ahead of theirs with a birdie on the 8th. But it seemed like Pressel was cruising.
Then, much like the SHIELD flying fortress as the mind-controlled Hawkeye's strike force started its attack in the Avengers movie, Pressel started losing altitude fast. She bogeyed the 173-yard par-3 8th. She bogeyed the 391-yard par-4 11th. She bogeyed the 512-yard par-5 12th. She bogeyed the 401-yard par-4 14th. Meanwhile, Ahn, the JLPGA's money-list leader for the past 2 seasons, was going through some turbulence of her own, with bogeys on the long par 4s 9 and 14. Pressel and Ahn left the door wide open for Park, and for a while it looked like she was going to bust through it and never look back. The 3-time JLPGA winner looking for her 2nd major on tour birdied the 188-yard par-3 13th and the 163-yard par-3 15th to get to -6 on the day and -10 for the week. But then she, too, stumbled badly down the stretch, with back-to-back bogeys on the 16th and 17th. When she parred the 408-yard 18th to become leader in the clubhouse at -8, it looked like anything could happen. Pressel and Ahn were starting to make pars again, Ahn's playing partner Shanshan Feng had climbed to -8 after making 4 birdies and 3 bogeys in her 1st 10 holes and was hanging steady in a tie for the lead, and even Pressel's playing partner Shin wasn't out of it at -6, despite her bogeys on 11 and 14. Heck, until Park stumbled through the finish line with a surprisingly disappointing 68, it looked as if Mika Miyazato's early-morning 69 that brought her to -5 for the week might be good enough to put her into the mix!
To make a long story short, Feng bogeyed 16 and Ahn bogeyed 17 to fall to -7. Pressel and Shin kept making pars on their heels. When Ahn made an amazing walkoff birdie on 18 to join Park at -8, it was up to Pressel to beat them, join them, or leave the playoff to them. She closed with her 4th straight par, but Ahn made quick work of both LPGA major winners with a 6-foot birdie putt on the 1st playoff hole. With her 2nd Salonpas Cup title in a row, Ahn now has 9 JLPGA career victories and is back on top the 2012 money list. Funny how 1 win, the result of back-to-back birdies, can erase what had been a lackluster start to the season for a player of Ahn's caliber.
As for the other big names in the field, this was a very disappointing weekend. KLPGA star Bo-Mee Lee, who's focusing her efforts on the JLPGA this year, went 72-73 to finish 4 out of the playoff, Ai Miyazato went 73-73 to miss the playoff by 5 shots, displaced money-list leader Ritsuko Ryu went 71-76 to finish 8 back, Sakura Yokomine went 72-75 to fall 9 behind, last week's winner Chie Arimura went 74-79 to end up 11 off the pace, and KLPGAer Ha-Neul Kim went 75-79 to finish next-to-last among those who made the cut (just ahead of the #2 player on the JLPGA career money list, Akiko Fukushima). Even amateur sensation Moriya Jutanugarn had trouble on Sunday, barely hanging onto a tie for low amateur despite finishing with a 74. At least they made it to the weekend: Michelle Wie, Momoko Ueda, Teresa Lu, Harukyo Nomura, Bo-Bae Song, and Nikki Campbell all missed the cut, while Soo-Yun Kang had to withdraw, even though she opened with a solid 70.
So here's how the money list looks after the end of the JLPGA's 1st major:
1. Sun-Ju Ahn ￥33.60M
2. Mi-Jeong Jeon ￥27.93M
3. Ritsuko Ryu ￥24.99M
4. Bo-Mee Lee ￥22.60M
5. Hiromi Mogi ￥21.29M
6. Ji-Hee Lee ￥20.75M
7. Sakura Yokomine ￥20.39M
8. Kaori Ohe ￥18.82M
9. Mayu Hattori ￥17.70M
10. Chie Arimura ￥17.61M
11. Miki Saiki ￥17.31M
12. Maiko Wakabayashi ￥17.29M
13. Airi Saitoh ￥15.02M
14. Ji-Yai Shin ￥13.88M
15. Inbee Park ￥13.87M
16. Soo-Yun Kang ￥13.54M
17. Akane Iijima ￥13.45M
18. Ayako Uehara ￥12.10M
19. Rikako Morita ￥10.53M
20. Yuki Ichinose ￥9.02M
21. Rikako Morita ￥8.40M
22. Kumiko Kaneda ￥8.37M
23. Esther Lee ￥8.06M
24. Shinobu Moromizato ￥7.95M
25. Erika Kikuchi ￥7.91M
26. Yuko Fukuda ￥7.80M
27. Miki Sakai ￥7.71M
28. Teresa Lu ￥7.65M
29. Na-Ri Lee￥7.02M
30. Shanshan Feng ￥6.44M
31. Yuko Mitsuka ￥6.32M
32. Li-Ying Ye ￥6.32M
33. Erina Hara ￥6.31M
34. So-Hee Kim ￥6.18M
35. Yuri Fudoh ￥6.07M
36. Rui Kitada ￥5.72M
37. Young Kim￥5.64M
38. Eun-Bi Jang￥5.42M
39. Da-Ye Na ￥5.16M
40. Yumiko Yoshida ￥5.06M
41. Yukari Baba ￥4.75M
42. Harukyo Nomura ￥4.70M
43. Na-Ri Kim ￥4.69M
44. Saiki Fujita ￥4.10M
45. Nikki Campbell ￥3.95M
Shiho Oyama rejoins the tour next week at the Fundokin Ladies. The only dual LPGA-JLPGA members to stay in Japan will be Shanshan Feng and Momoko Ueda (#89 on the money list).
Then, much like the SHIELD flying fortress as the mind-controlled Hawkeye's strike force started its attack in the Avengers movie, Pressel started losing altitude fast. She bogeyed the 173-yard par-3 8th. She bogeyed the 391-yard par-4 11th. She bogeyed the 512-yard par-5 12th. She bogeyed the 401-yard par-4 14th. Meanwhile, Ahn, the JLPGA's money-list leader for the past 2 seasons, was going through some turbulence of her own, with bogeys on the long par 4s 9 and 14. Pressel and Ahn left the door wide open for Park, and for a while it looked like she was going to bust through it and never look back. The 3-time JLPGA winner looking for her 2nd major on tour birdied the 188-yard par-3 13th and the 163-yard par-3 15th to get to -6 on the day and -10 for the week. But then she, too, stumbled badly down the stretch, with back-to-back bogeys on the 16th and 17th. When she parred the 408-yard 18th to become leader in the clubhouse at -8, it looked like anything could happen. Pressel and Ahn were starting to make pars again, Ahn's playing partner Shanshan Feng had climbed to -8 after making 4 birdies and 3 bogeys in her 1st 10 holes and was hanging steady in a tie for the lead, and even Pressel's playing partner Shin wasn't out of it at -6, despite her bogeys on 11 and 14. Heck, until Park stumbled through the finish line with a surprisingly disappointing 68, it looked as if Mika Miyazato's early-morning 69 that brought her to -5 for the week might be good enough to put her into the mix!
To make a long story short, Feng bogeyed 16 and Ahn bogeyed 17 to fall to -7. Pressel and Shin kept making pars on their heels. When Ahn made an amazing walkoff birdie on 18 to join Park at -8, it was up to Pressel to beat them, join them, or leave the playoff to them. She closed with her 4th straight par, but Ahn made quick work of both LPGA major winners with a 6-foot birdie putt on the 1st playoff hole. With her 2nd Salonpas Cup title in a row, Ahn now has 9 JLPGA career victories and is back on top the 2012 money list. Funny how 1 win, the result of back-to-back birdies, can erase what had been a lackluster start to the season for a player of Ahn's caliber.
As for the other big names in the field, this was a very disappointing weekend. KLPGA star Bo-Mee Lee, who's focusing her efforts on the JLPGA this year, went 72-73 to finish 4 out of the playoff, Ai Miyazato went 73-73 to miss the playoff by 5 shots, displaced money-list leader Ritsuko Ryu went 71-76 to finish 8 back, Sakura Yokomine went 72-75 to fall 9 behind, last week's winner Chie Arimura went 74-79 to end up 11 off the pace, and KLPGAer Ha-Neul Kim went 75-79 to finish next-to-last among those who made the cut (just ahead of the #2 player on the JLPGA career money list, Akiko Fukushima). Even amateur sensation Moriya Jutanugarn had trouble on Sunday, barely hanging onto a tie for low amateur despite finishing with a 74. At least they made it to the weekend: Michelle Wie, Momoko Ueda, Teresa Lu, Harukyo Nomura, Bo-Bae Song, and Nikki Campbell all missed the cut, while Soo-Yun Kang had to withdraw, even though she opened with a solid 70.
So here's how the money list looks after the end of the JLPGA's 1st major:
1. Sun-Ju Ahn ￥33.60M
2. Mi-Jeong Jeon ￥27.93M
3. Ritsuko Ryu ￥24.99M
4. Bo-Mee Lee ￥22.60M
5. Hiromi Mogi ￥21.29M
6. Ji-Hee Lee ￥20.75M
7. Sakura Yokomine ￥20.39M
8. Kaori Ohe ￥18.82M
9. Mayu Hattori ￥17.70M
10. Chie Arimura ￥17.61M
11. Miki Saiki ￥17.31M
12. Maiko Wakabayashi ￥17.29M
13. Airi Saitoh ￥15.02M
14. Ji-Yai Shin ￥13.88M
15. Inbee Park ￥13.87M
16. Soo-Yun Kang ￥13.54M
17. Akane Iijima ￥13.45M
18. Ayako Uehara ￥12.10M
19. Rikako Morita ￥10.53M
20. Yuki Ichinose ￥9.02M
21. Rikako Morita ￥8.40M
22. Kumiko Kaneda ￥8.37M
23. Esther Lee ￥8.06M
24. Shinobu Moromizato ￥7.95M
25. Erika Kikuchi ￥7.91M
26. Yuko Fukuda ￥7.80M
27. Miki Sakai ￥7.71M
28. Teresa Lu ￥7.65M
29. Na-Ri Lee￥7.02M
30. Shanshan Feng ￥6.44M
31. Yuko Mitsuka ￥6.32M
32. Li-Ying Ye ￥6.32M
33. Erina Hara ￥6.31M
34. So-Hee Kim ￥6.18M
35. Yuri Fudoh ￥6.07M
36. Rui Kitada ￥5.72M
37. Young Kim￥5.64M
38. Eun-Bi Jang￥5.42M
39. Da-Ye Na ￥5.16M
40. Yumiko Yoshida ￥5.06M
41. Yukari Baba ￥4.75M
42. Harukyo Nomura ￥4.70M
43. Na-Ri Kim ￥4.69M
44. Saiki Fujita ￥4.10M
45. Nikki Campbell ￥3.95M
Shiho Oyama rejoins the tour next week at the Fundokin Ladies. The only dual LPGA-JLPGA members to stay in Japan will be Shanshan Feng and Momoko Ueda (#89 on the money list).
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Way to Go, Tiffany Joh!
It must have been the interview, that's all I can say. Yup, I'm taking credit for Tiffany Joh's big win on the Futures Tour today. Couldn't have been that she played her last 12 holes bogey-free and -3 to vault past Mallory Blackwelder, Jane Rah, and Tiffany Tavee by 2 shots. [Correction: Apparently she started hot on the back, struggled a bit on the front, but finished strong!] Nope, I'm sure it was the 5-plus minutes she spent talking with me after shooting a 74 playing alongside Amy Yang in the final round of the Wegmans LPGA Championship, which was good enough for a top-25 finish. T-Joh's now 3rd on the FT money list and on a roll heading into the FT's northeastern swing. Looking forward to saying "you're welcome" to her at Syracuse at the end of the month!
Now in honor of her win I think I'll go transcribe our interview. Been having way too much summer fun with the family to be as diligent as I should be about my Wegmans blogging! Quite a night: finally get to see Cars 2 with the girls and find out one of my favorite golfers won right afterwards. Sweet!
[Update 1 (10:56 pm): Joh must be extra happy that Brianna Do from her alma mater UCLA won the WAPL on the same day! Now B-Do's only 1 WAPL behind T-Joh!]
[Update 2 (7/3/11, 3:00 am): Man, it takes a long time to transcribe interviews! But it's done!]
[Update 3 (3:36 am): The FT's news and notes gives a good sense of how Joh's win came about.]
[Update 4 (9:24 am): Nice story in a big-time Chicago paper!]
Now in honor of her win I think I'll go transcribe our interview. Been having way too much summer fun with the family to be as diligent as I should be about my Wegmans blogging! Quite a night: finally get to see Cars 2 with the girls and find out one of my favorite golfers won right afterwards. Sweet!
[Update 1 (10:56 pm): Joh must be extra happy that Brianna Do from her alma mater UCLA won the WAPL on the same day! Now B-Do's only 1 WAPL behind T-Joh!]
[Update 2 (7/3/11, 3:00 am): Man, it takes a long time to transcribe interviews! But it's done!]
[Update 3 (3:36 am): The FT's news and notes gives a good sense of how Joh's win came about.]
[Update 4 (9:24 am): Nice story in a big-time Chicago paper!]
Monday, January 3, 2011
Happy Birthday, J.R.R. Tolkien!
Just noticed that J.R.R. Tolkien would have turned eleventy-nine today. In honor of his birthday, I'll pass along a link to a song one of my students composed and performed based on lyrics from The Hobbit and remind everyone that there's plenty of interesting Tolkien-related blogging from my students up at sf@SF!
Too bad The Hobbit movie didn't get finished or released in time for us to discuss it in class, but here's a trailer:
Too bad The Hobbit movie didn't get finished or released in time for us to discuss it in class, but here's a trailer:
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Japan 2011 Stylewatch: Soshoku Kei, Otomen, Gyaru-o, Chara-o, Sholita
Continuing a Mostly Harmless tradition of Japanese stylewatching for the New Year (Gackt, ikemen, and Jero in 2008, Hikaru Utada in 2009, Star Blazers in 2010), for 2011 I asked the Full Metal Archivist what Japanese trends might go viral this year. Her first idea was changing styles of masculinity, a kind of turn toward the feminine among younger Japanese men, which is interesting in itself but also in the reactions it has sparked at home and abroad. Not that this is all that new for 2011--from the moment I first set foot on a plane to Japan, I realized that my usual cues for reading male sexuality were not all that useful among Japanese men--but what is different is the media attention in the past couple of years devoted to tracking what is being framed as a generational shift in Japanese masculinity.
First, some quick definitions:
Soshoku Kei: This is the now-classic "herbivore/vegetarian" generational tag that started making the rounds in 2009. It resulted in a Japanese movie last year, which was part of a larger dialogue that even Newsweek picked up on, portraying soshoku-kei danshi (which they translated literally as "grass-eating men") as a symptom of Japan's economic malaise: "Toyota's fall from grace caps a 20-year economic malaise that is infecting the popular culture, manifesting itself in a preference for staying home, avoiding risk, and removing oneself from the hierarchical system." Heck, even a Carnegie Council writer put his 2 cents in!
To see for yourself what everyone's talking about, check out this clip from Cool Japan:
Compare CNN International's brief overview from mid-2009:
Otomen: OK, to understand what an otomen is, you 1st need to review the definition of an ikemen. So if an ikemen is a teen idol or male hottie, then an otomen is one with a hidden girlish side. For a drama that has about the same relationship to this social category as Douglas Coupland's Generation X has to the eponymous American generation, head on over to dramacrazy.net and watch the 12-episode J-drama Otomen. Me, I'm wondering if the 1st big musical number from Tangled (you know, the one set in the Snuggly Bunny), which imoto and onechan were brave enough to see in the theater last week (1st time evah in the U.S. for both!), is a parody of this Japanese phenomenon.
Gyaru-o, Chara-o, Sholita: I may be wrong, but I think of these as different styles of being an otomen, with the first being a kind of a male bimbo, the second more of a bad boy type, and the third projecting a kind of boyish "moe" vibe. Let's start with the last, for the super-cute character "Honey" from the anime Ouran High School Host Club is the perfect example. Skipping to the first, Patrick Macias provides two recent examples of how big an influence Ernest Hemingway's posthumous The Garden of Eden has had on female and male hostess/host culture in Japan. It's a little harder to find good examples of the sexier, wilder chara-o look, and Daisuke Takahashi doesn't usually sport it, but this image is what the Full Metal Archivist settled on after a while.
So there you have it. Maybe now you can understand what the Full Metal Archivist means when she sums me up as a "soshoku-kei shoujo manga otomen with no domestic skill." Yay! Happy New year, everyone!
First, some quick definitions:
Soshoku Kei: This is the now-classic "herbivore/vegetarian" generational tag that started making the rounds in 2009. It resulted in a Japanese movie last year, which was part of a larger dialogue that even Newsweek picked up on, portraying soshoku-kei danshi (which they translated literally as "grass-eating men") as a symptom of Japan's economic malaise: "Toyota's fall from grace caps a 20-year economic malaise that is infecting the popular culture, manifesting itself in a preference for staying home, avoiding risk, and removing oneself from the hierarchical system." Heck, even a Carnegie Council writer put his 2 cents in!
To see for yourself what everyone's talking about, check out this clip from Cool Japan:
Compare CNN International's brief overview from mid-2009:
Otomen: OK, to understand what an otomen is, you 1st need to review the definition of an ikemen. So if an ikemen is a teen idol or male hottie, then an otomen is one with a hidden girlish side. For a drama that has about the same relationship to this social category as Douglas Coupland's Generation X has to the eponymous American generation, head on over to dramacrazy.net and watch the 12-episode J-drama Otomen. Me, I'm wondering if the 1st big musical number from Tangled (you know, the one set in the Snuggly Bunny), which imoto and onechan were brave enough to see in the theater last week (1st time evah in the U.S. for both!), is a parody of this Japanese phenomenon.
Gyaru-o, Chara-o, Sholita: I may be wrong, but I think of these as different styles of being an otomen, with the first being a kind of a male bimbo, the second more of a bad boy type, and the third projecting a kind of boyish "moe" vibe. Let's start with the last, for the super-cute character "Honey" from the anime Ouran High School Host Club is the perfect example. Skipping to the first, Patrick Macias provides two recent examples of how big an influence Ernest Hemingway's posthumous The Garden of Eden has had on female and male hostess/host culture in Japan. It's a little harder to find good examples of the sexier, wilder chara-o look, and Daisuke Takahashi doesn't usually sport it, but this image is what the Full Metal Archivist settled on after a while.
So there you have it. Maybe now you can understand what the Full Metal Archivist means when she sums me up as a "soshoku-kei shoujo manga otomen with no domestic skill." Yay! Happy New year, everyone!
Thursday, October 28, 2010
This Makes Me Proud
Onechan, a 1st-grader, is trying to read a 50-page "Step 3" illustrated story based on The Incredibles--which we've been watching every other day for the last few weeks (not to mention watching the awesome short "Jack-Jack Attack" much more often!). Guess which words and phrases she's been having no problem reading on her own....
"bad guy"
"attacked"
"ran for our lives"
"his own robot"
"after us"
"Syndrome's guards"
"in trouble"
"powers"
"pretend to be normal"
"not a real Super"
"slipped into her force field"
"super speed"
"she set us free too"
"with his remote control"
"We got there just in time"
"turned into a fireball"
"Super-strong little monster"
"We have the best family!"
"save the day"
Oh, and guess who's going trick-or-treating as Violet?
All I can say is, there's hope for that girl yet!
"bad guy"
"attacked"
"ran for our lives"
"his own robot"
"after us"
"Syndrome's guards"
"in trouble"
"powers"
"pretend to be normal"
"not a real Super"
"slipped into her force field"
"super speed"
"she set us free too"
"with his remote control"
"We got there just in time"
"turned into a fireball"
"Super-strong little monster"
"We have the best family!"
"save the day"
Oh, and guess who's going trick-or-treating as Violet?
All I can say is, there's hope for that girl yet!
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
RIP Satoshi Kon
Just heard the news of Satoshi Kon's passing. After Hayao Miyazaki, he was probably my favorite anime director. From his contribution to the animated sf anthology Memories (1995) to his first feature film Perfect Blue (1997), to his 2 best movies, Millennium Actress (2001) and Tokyo Godfathers (2003), to the tv series Paranoia Agent (2004) and his last film Paprika (2006), he was nearly always pitch-perfect, mystifying, engrossing. He will be missed.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Make It Star Blazers in 2010!
Check it out: there's a new animated Star Blazers movie that's been out in Japan for almost a month!
It goes by Star Blazers: Rebirth in English and Space Battleship Yamato in Japanese.
I encourage you to check out parts 2 and 3 of this promo. Go for the clips from the new movie and original show, stay for the evolving conversation between the cartoony comic relief dad and son--no Japanese needed. Now all I need is the movie to come to the States--with subtitles!
Oh, and there's also a live-action movie starring SMAP's Kimutaku coming out late this year:
The last 5 minutes of that teaser put me in the mood for the theme song of the show my brother, father, and I used to get up at 6 am to watch when I was a kid!
Here it is in Japanese:
Here's are 2 earlier Japanese versions:
Once more, with subs:
There's even a "nose flute" version out on teh intertubes. Now if only I could find a veggie instrument version!
It goes by Star Blazers: Rebirth in English and Space Battleship Yamato in Japanese.
I encourage you to check out parts 2 and 3 of this promo. Go for the clips from the new movie and original show, stay for the evolving conversation between the cartoony comic relief dad and son--no Japanese needed. Now all I need is the movie to come to the States--with subtitles!
Oh, and there's also a live-action movie starring SMAP's Kimutaku coming out late this year:
The last 5 minutes of that teaser put me in the mood for the theme song of the show my brother, father, and I used to get up at 6 am to watch when I was a kid!
Here it is in Japanese:
Here's are 2 earlier Japanese versions:
Once more, with subs:
There's even a "nose flute" version out on teh intertubes. Now if only I could find a veggie instrument version!
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
sf@SF Is Back!
Just a little public service announcement for those who come to Mostly Harmless looking for stuff on sf, anime, and other aspects of American and transnational popular culture: I've got students in both my undergraduate classes this semester signing up as co-authors on the sf@SF blog, which is now on "science fiction--and more--at SUNY Fredonia." I've just posted a brief observation on the odd choice of commercials that run during Onegai My Melody on veoh.com and Ouran High School Host Club on youtube.com. We should have several posts per week up from a variety of writers this semester. Check it out when you get a chance!
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Ponyo's Out This Friday!!
Here's a little exercise in comparative trailer study. First, a Japanese trailer for Hayao Miyazaki's Ponyo:
Now, an American one:
Observations? Conclusions? Daniel Thomas has the link to finding show times and places!
Now, an American one:
Observations? Conclusions? Daniel Thomas has the link to finding show times and places!
Monday, August 3, 2009
Nice Sunday
I don't say this often enough: thanks, mom and dad. My mom virtually ran a mini-day care yesterday, as onechan's best friend in Clinton, who lives next door to my parents, came over to play all of a rainy morning and most of a sometimes-only-cloudy afternoon with imoto and her, while my dad and I got 13 holes in at a course I used to practice on in my college golf days before we were rained out. And my dad solved my problems with my short irons and wedges with a single phrase. Yeah, I still made a few bad swings, had accuracy and distance control issues on my approach shots, and except for two circus putts couldn't get anything to drop, but I was hitting the vast majority of my shots pure, hitting a million fairways and more greens than usual, and keeping it together with only 4 bogeys and a birdie on a course that was playing long and in a light rain for half the holes we played. Heck, I even played a stretch of 5 holes in 1-under and our last 7 in E (after screwing up the easier opening holes), so who knows what I could have done over the last 5? My dad's game has changed remarkably little, even after 2 rounds of prostate cancer treatment almost a decade apart. He still obsesses over equipment, hits fairways like clockwork no matter which driver he's using that day, has the meanest wedge game in the family, and may even be capable of benefitting from the putting lesson I gave him (after the round, of course!).
As it turned out, we were forced off the course in plenty of time to get ready to watch the Women's British Open coverage on ABC. Sure, imoto and then onechan saved her meltdown for my return, but they got back to having a blast with their friend relatively quickly, and even paid some attention to what was happening at Royal Lytham. Onechan and I both had to deal with some pretty big disappointments--her players Karrie Webb and Paula Creamer and mine Ai Miyazato simply couldn't match Catriona Matthew's magical putter down the stretch and, except for Karrie, suffered through late links golf implosions. But nobody can take being in contention in a major away from them and they're going to learn a lot from the experience. Until Matthew made those 3 birdies in a row from all over the course, it really was anyone's tournament. Getting to watch this with my parents and girls was truly special. Yeah, I didn't get to keep the Futures Tour ladies company in the rain at Syracuse, but it was pretty cool to complain with my mom about how long it took before ABC showed us a leaderboard at the start of their coverage (8 minutes!!) and to see how excited she was for Paula, Ai-sama, and the two Solheim Cup US picks, Juli Inkster and Michelle Wie. And it was fun trying to wake my dad up for the key shots down the stretch.
Plus we got to see Tiger get win #69, take a walk down to the college to see how much had changed since the last time I had been there (a lot!), and almost have a movie night (until Night at the Museum freaked onechan out too much; imoto, of course, was unfazed, but found the Clifford episodes my mom had taped an acceptable substitute). All in all, a nice Sunday. Thanks, mom and dad!
(Next on the Onechan & Imoto Upstate NY Tour: hanging with their best friend in Rochester, Alter Ego's 3-year-old, and catching up with the Full Metal Archivist when she gets off work in Buffalo!)
As it turned out, we were forced off the course in plenty of time to get ready to watch the Women's British Open coverage on ABC. Sure, imoto and then onechan saved her meltdown for my return, but they got back to having a blast with their friend relatively quickly, and even paid some attention to what was happening at Royal Lytham. Onechan and I both had to deal with some pretty big disappointments--her players Karrie Webb and Paula Creamer and mine Ai Miyazato simply couldn't match Catriona Matthew's magical putter down the stretch and, except for Karrie, suffered through late links golf implosions. But nobody can take being in contention in a major away from them and they're going to learn a lot from the experience. Until Matthew made those 3 birdies in a row from all over the course, it really was anyone's tournament. Getting to watch this with my parents and girls was truly special. Yeah, I didn't get to keep the Futures Tour ladies company in the rain at Syracuse, but it was pretty cool to complain with my mom about how long it took before ABC showed us a leaderboard at the start of their coverage (8 minutes!!) and to see how excited she was for Paula, Ai-sama, and the two Solheim Cup US picks, Juli Inkster and Michelle Wie. And it was fun trying to wake my dad up for the key shots down the stretch.
Plus we got to see Tiger get win #69, take a walk down to the college to see how much had changed since the last time I had been there (a lot!), and almost have a movie night (until Night at the Museum freaked onechan out too much; imoto, of course, was unfazed, but found the Clifford episodes my mom had taped an acceptable substitute). All in all, a nice Sunday. Thanks, mom and dad!
(Next on the Onechan & Imoto Upstate NY Tour: hanging with their best friend in Rochester, Alter Ego's 3-year-old, and catching up with the Full Metal Archivist when she gets off work in Buffalo!)
Friday, June 26, 2009
Wegmans Thursday: It Was a Hot and Stormy Day...
Sorry about the title, I just pictured Snoopy up there on his dog house typing the lead story on the Wegmans' incomplete 1st round yesterday. Take it as an example of what jet lag can do to you (in addition to my enjoying far too much the Speed Racer movie I watched and the putt-putt computer game I played while the girls were sleeping for most of the flight from Narita to Chicago). Anyway, there are tons of post-round interviews out there for what seems like half the players who completed their rounds--30 are going out in less than 3 and a half hours to do so. Me, I need to convince the girls to finally stay in bed and then get some sleep. You need to check out Brent Kelley's take on Cheyenne Woods's 1st LPGA round and Hound Dog's reminder about what's at stake this week for those pros whose seasons haven't been going quite as planned as yet.
[Update 1 (12:03 pm): Hound Dog gives you the overnight results. Among those playing well yesterday who finished this morning, Becky Lucidi stayed at -6 for the lowest round of her LPGA career, Sarah Kemp moved to -3, and Sarah Lee stayed at E.]
[Update 2 (2:42 pm): Funny piece by Jay Busbee on Cheyenne Woods's 1st round.]
[Update 1 (12:03 pm): Hound Dog gives you the overnight results. Among those playing well yesterday who finished this morning, Becky Lucidi stayed at -6 for the lowest round of her LPGA career, Sarah Kemp moved to -3, and Sarah Lee stayed at E.]
[Update 2 (2:42 pm): Funny piece by Jay Busbee on Cheyenne Woods's 1st round.]
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Japanese Star Wars v. Japanese Spider-Man
I would be remiss in my ongoing attempt to unite animation, sf, music, and golf otaku of all genders, ages, and nationalities were I not to pass along these gems from the 1970s:
Which is better at blowing your mind? Note how both the giant robot and Kamen Rider traditions are invoked in the latter. But the former's lyrics must not be underestimated.
Can you top these?
[Update 1 (9:57 am): I vote for the latter, on the grounds that its opening probably influenced The Tick's theme song:
But I'm willing to be persuaded.]
Which is better at blowing your mind? Note how both the giant robot and Kamen Rider traditions are invoked in the latter. But the former's lyrics must not be underestimated.
Can you top these?
[Update 1 (9:57 am): I vote for the latter, on the grounds that its opening probably influenced The Tick's theme song:
But I'm willing to be persuaded.]
Thursday, January 8, 2009
The Day the Earth Stood in the Balance
Liked the title of my critique of the 2008 version of The Day the Earth Stood Still that I recently posted over at sf@SF so much I thought I'd link to it here. As you can see from the tags, it may be of interest to those who come to Mostly Harmless for something--anything!--besides women's golf.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
QSMS Has Come Early in Japan...
...at least for fans of the Pretty Cure franchise. Behold the trailer for the March 20, 2009, release of Precure All Stars DX, a movie that brings together the casts of every season of onechan's formerly favorite anime...if you dare!
Hat tip: moetron, which is breaking teh intertubes today, apparently.
Oh, and onechan can't take the fighting in Pretty Cure any more--runs out of the room screaming, usually. It seems the magical girl genre has become a lot more Dragonball in recent years. Speaking of which:
Why even try turning anime into live action? Meh.
Hat tip: moetron, which is breaking teh intertubes today, apparently.
Oh, and onechan can't take the fighting in Pretty Cure any more--runs out of the room screaming, usually. It seems the magical girl genre has become a lot more Dragonball in recent years. Speaking of which:
Why even try turning anime into live action? Meh.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
The Aussie Invasion
Thanks to Aussie Golfer for an overview of how the LPGA's Australian contingent is doing this season. (And let's not forget Koreans who have made Australia their home for a time like Amy Yang and Haeji Kang who will be going to Q-School with Aussies Sarah Oh, Anna Rawson, Michelle Ellis, Sarah Kemp, and Kristie Smith!)
Wonder if the New York Times will do an article investigating their adjustment to life on tour? How about calling it "From Down Under to Top of the World"? And including plenty of references to Crocodile Dundee, Men at Work, kangaroos, koalas, and vegimite sandwiches? Because that would be teh awesome! Thanks so much!
Wonder if the New York Times will do an article investigating their adjustment to life on tour? How about calling it "From Down Under to Top of the World"? And including plenty of references to Crocodile Dundee, Men at Work, kangaroos, koalas, and vegimite sandwiches? Because that would be teh awesome! Thanks so much!
Monday, November 3, 2008
The Politics of Miyazaki
Daniel Thomas MacInnes of Conversations on Ghibli has done the animation world a great service in posting and commenting on a Japanese documentary on Hayao Miyazaki's North American promotion tour for Princess Mononoke at the end of the last millennium. But as good as his focus on the business marketing context of the Ghibli-Disney relationship's beginning is, it's his penultimate paragraph that's the most significant part of his piece, for it touches on something the Full Metal Archivist was picking up on throughout the documentary:
In fact, Thomas shouldn't have backed off on his self-described "rant" or chalked it up to his health or mood in his final paragraph. Pay attention to Miyazaki's emotional response to the questions asked by most American film critics: he's angry and tense, not just nervous or anxious. The assumptions behind the questions are pissing him off, and because of that, his answers are quite revealing. But the conception of politics Miyazaki is drawing on is much broader than only electioneering and lowest-common denominator media culture, ranging from the interaction between creative artists, their works, and their audiences (particularly children) to the politics and pedagogies of form. No time to elaborate on this now, but will be happy to in comments.
BTW, the FMA fears Ponyo will be his last film. Here's the theme song:
For more on the characters and themes (in Japanese), head over here. MacInnes is the source for those of us limited to English.
Still, as an artist and dedicated Ghibl Freak, I am endlessly annoyed by all these stupid questions from the suits, the expectation that Miyazaki dumb his work down to the level of...I dunno, the average George W. Bush voter. Why does everything in this country be dumbed down to the lowest common denominator? Why does everybody have to be so mindless, so sloven, so stupid? Thank God there will be no President Sarah Palin in 2009. But in this swamp, that possibility is always lurking nearby, just like November snow in Minnesota.
In fact, Thomas shouldn't have backed off on his self-described "rant" or chalked it up to his health or mood in his final paragraph. Pay attention to Miyazaki's emotional response to the questions asked by most American film critics: he's angry and tense, not just nervous or anxious. The assumptions behind the questions are pissing him off, and because of that, his answers are quite revealing. But the conception of politics Miyazaki is drawing on is much broader than only electioneering and lowest-common denominator media culture, ranging from the interaction between creative artists, their works, and their audiences (particularly children) to the politics and pedagogies of form. No time to elaborate on this now, but will be happy to in comments.
BTW, the FMA fears Ponyo will be his last film. Here's the theme song:
For more on the characters and themes (in Japanese), head over here. MacInnes is the source for those of us limited to English.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Yokohoma PRGR Ladies Cup Sunday: It's Yokomine and Shin Down the Stretch
Yeah, yeah, Michelle Wie WDed from the Safeway International because she sprained her wrist practicing out of heavy rough. I say, more power to her for avoiding last year's mistakes. Turning to real women's golf news, the top JLPGA and the top KLPGA golfer are neck-and-neck at -6 with the final six holes being played right now at the Yokohama PRGR Ladies Cup. Sakura Yokomine birdied 2 of her first 5 holes to extend her lead to 2 over Ji-Yai Shin, but bogeyed the 8th and 12th to fall back into a tie with her. Shin has responded with a birdie on the first and 11 straight pars. Even though the leaders are struggling by their standards, there is only one other person under par in the entire field, and time is running out on Kaori Higo, who is 4 back with 5 left to play.
While we wait for the JLPGA site to update, here are highlights of Yokomine's first and second rounds. Along with Shin's first two. Sorry for the dripping rather than streaming video from TV Tokyo--I've found it's better to let it drag on for awhile then go back a bit to make it run more smoothly. No such fix for their taste in highlight reel music, though, unless you just mute it.
Gotta love Yokomine sporting the dark knee-high socks. Combined with the intensity of her expression, I'm reminded of the killer schoolgirl from Kill Bill. Her finish in the first round was even better than I previously noted: not only did it include great birdies on 16 and 18 but a fantastic up-and-down from the back left of the par-3 17th green. She finished strong again on Saturday, as she lagged what looks like an 80-footer to 3 inches on the 17th, keeping her bogey-free round going, and nailed a sliding, slicing 14-foot birdie putt on the 18th for her 5th birdie of the day.
Shin, meanwhile, is swinging great. If she had putted better down the stretch on Friday, she'd be running away with this thing. Although she made what looks like a 6-footer to end her day with a birdie, she missed a tap-in on the 16th for par after sticking a wedge and squandered a great approach shot on the 17th by failing to convert a 10-footer. A missed 7-foot par save on the 17th was the only blemish on her 4-birdie round Saturday, but it allowed Yokomine to take the lead heading into the final round.
Although Shin has only bogeyed 4 of her first 47 holes, two of them have come on the 16th and 17th, so she'd better build a lead before she gets to the final 3 holes...although 17 hasn't been kind to Yokomine either, with two pulls off the tee. I'd say Yokomine has the slight edge coming down the stretch--she's been playing the final holes great, has been putting well all tournament, and has the home-field advantage over Shin. But Shin's swing is more compact and more likely to hold up under pressure than Yokomine's, so could easily match Bo-Bae Song's feat in denying her another victory. We'll have to just wait and (eventually) see what happens!
[Update 1 (4:19 am): It's playoff time! Yokomine birdied 13 to take a 1-shot lead over Shin, but then gave it back on the 14th with a bogey. It looked to be Yokomine's tournament when Shin doubled the 16th, but Yokomine responded with a double of her own on the final hole.]
[Update 2 (4:27 am): It's Shin for the win!]
[Update 3 (4:32 am): Just for Hound Dog, who's promised a JLPGA ranking if he can get the right stats, here's the top of the leaderboard:
T1/-4 Ji-Yai Shin (70-69-73) [won in playoff], Sakura Yokomine (71-67-74)
#3/-1 Kaori Higo (73-70-72)
T4/+1 Miho Koga (73-73-71), Ji-Hee Lee (71-69-77)
T6/+2 Hiromi Mogi (71-76-71), Hiroko Yamaguchi (74-69-75), Yukari Baba (73-70-75)
T9/+3 Shinobu Moromizato (74-74-71), Akiko Fukushima (68-77-74), So-Hee Kim (70-73-76)]
[Update 4 (4:44 am): And for the JLPGA otaku in the house, other notables' finishes:
T15/+5 Bo-Bae Song, Akane Iijima, Yuri Fudoh
T21/+6 Erina Hara, Na Zhang
T33/+8 Hyun-Ju Shin, Shiho Ohyama
T49/+12 Chie Arimura]
[Update 5 (1:34 pm): Amaebirah comes through again with loads of final round video, including clips for each of the 4 playoff holes!]
[Update 6 (3:47 pm): Yokomine missed a short birdie putt on 6 to go 3 up and the air slowly fwooshed out of her game over the next 11 holes, but things went from bad to worse when she missed a tap-in for the win on the 18th--she followed up with a missed 4-footer for birdie to win on the first playoff hole (the 18th), a slightly longer miss on the second (again, on the 18th), and a bit longer one on the third (yup, the 18th again). After lagging her putt on (yes) the 18th 10 feet short, she looked relieved when Shin smashed in a 15-footer for the birdie to win. They played in the rain from the 15th or 16th on, which definitely affected both players' putting. As onechan put it to me, "It's hard to putt in the rain!" True of Yokomine and Shin as well as Tiger....]
While we wait for the JLPGA site to update, here are highlights of Yokomine's first and second rounds. Along with Shin's first two. Sorry for the dripping rather than streaming video from TV Tokyo--I've found it's better to let it drag on for awhile then go back a bit to make it run more smoothly. No such fix for their taste in highlight reel music, though, unless you just mute it.
Gotta love Yokomine sporting the dark knee-high socks. Combined with the intensity of her expression, I'm reminded of the killer schoolgirl from Kill Bill. Her finish in the first round was even better than I previously noted: not only did it include great birdies on 16 and 18 but a fantastic up-and-down from the back left of the par-3 17th green. She finished strong again on Saturday, as she lagged what looks like an 80-footer to 3 inches on the 17th, keeping her bogey-free round going, and nailed a sliding, slicing 14-foot birdie putt on the 18th for her 5th birdie of the day.
Shin, meanwhile, is swinging great. If she had putted better down the stretch on Friday, she'd be running away with this thing. Although she made what looks like a 6-footer to end her day with a birdie, she missed a tap-in on the 16th for par after sticking a wedge and squandered a great approach shot on the 17th by failing to convert a 10-footer. A missed 7-foot par save on the 17th was the only blemish on her 4-birdie round Saturday, but it allowed Yokomine to take the lead heading into the final round.
Although Shin has only bogeyed 4 of her first 47 holes, two of them have come on the 16th and 17th, so she'd better build a lead before she gets to the final 3 holes...although 17 hasn't been kind to Yokomine either, with two pulls off the tee. I'd say Yokomine has the slight edge coming down the stretch--she's been playing the final holes great, has been putting well all tournament, and has the home-field advantage over Shin. But Shin's swing is more compact and more likely to hold up under pressure than Yokomine's, so could easily match Bo-Bae Song's feat in denying her another victory. We'll have to just wait and (eventually) see what happens!
[Update 1 (4:19 am): It's playoff time! Yokomine birdied 13 to take a 1-shot lead over Shin, but then gave it back on the 14th with a bogey. It looked to be Yokomine's tournament when Shin doubled the 16th, but Yokomine responded with a double of her own on the final hole.]
[Update 2 (4:27 am): It's Shin for the win!]
[Update 3 (4:32 am): Just for Hound Dog, who's promised a JLPGA ranking if he can get the right stats, here's the top of the leaderboard:
T1/-4 Ji-Yai Shin (70-69-73) [won in playoff], Sakura Yokomine (71-67-74)
#3/-1 Kaori Higo (73-70-72)
T4/+1 Miho Koga (73-73-71), Ji-Hee Lee (71-69-77)
T6/+2 Hiromi Mogi (71-76-71), Hiroko Yamaguchi (74-69-75), Yukari Baba (73-70-75)
T9/+3 Shinobu Moromizato (74-74-71), Akiko Fukushima (68-77-74), So-Hee Kim (70-73-76)]
[Update 4 (4:44 am): And for the JLPGA otaku in the house, other notables' finishes:
T15/+5 Bo-Bae Song, Akane Iijima, Yuri Fudoh
T21/+6 Erina Hara, Na Zhang
T33/+8 Hyun-Ju Shin, Shiho Ohyama
T49/+12 Chie Arimura]
[Update 5 (1:34 pm): Amaebirah comes through again with loads of final round video, including clips for each of the 4 playoff holes!]
[Update 6 (3:47 pm): Yokomine missed a short birdie putt on 6 to go 3 up and the air slowly fwooshed out of her game over the next 11 holes, but things went from bad to worse when she missed a tap-in for the win on the 18th--she followed up with a missed 4-footer for birdie to win on the first playoff hole (the 18th), a slightly longer miss on the second (again, on the 18th), and a bit longer one on the third (yup, the 18th again). After lagging her putt on (yes) the 18th 10 feet short, she looked relieved when Shin smashed in a 15-footer for the birdie to win. They played in the rain from the 15th or 16th on, which definitely affected both players' putting. As onechan put it to me, "It's hard to putt in the rain!" True of Yokomine and Shin as well as Tiger....]
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