Japan’s Coming of Age Day
Sometime in early January, Japan celebrates twenty-year-olds becoming adults. Coming of Age Day is time for them to dress up in kimonos, gather at the local city hall, and listen to bureaucrats tell them how important ‘adults’ are.
The new adults usually get drunk before, after, and sometimes during the ceremony since they’re now legal drinking age. They can also vote at the age of twenty, so in this clip we see some right-wing black busses shouting their opinions to the newly christened voters. The wing-nuts don’t like Communists, kissing in public, or parked cars in their way.
This Coming of Age Day is probably like any other; kimonos, rabbit suits, and big black busses..
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Fuel Cell Vehicles at the Tokyo Motor Show (article)
In a white smock and clutching a stack of notes, Nobutaka Takahashi stares down at the internal skeleton model of Nissan’s X-Trail fuel cell vehicle (FCV) on display at the 2005 Tokyo Motor Show.Since the industrial revolution spawned only the internal combustion engine and not a provision for a $70-a-barrel rate for oil, alternative fuel vehicles are the talk of this year’s show. For Takahashi, a member of Nissan’s research and development team, this is his baby.
Tokyo Motor Show 2001: Mecerdes Benz F400 Carving
My first real clip of effectively mixing sound loops with video. The Mercedes Benz F400 Carving surprised me when I first saw it; it’s a real-life ‘Batmobile’!
About three weeks after I posted the clip, I got an email from Germany. It was one of the engineers who helped design the front-end steering mechanism. He was impressed with the video and wanted to know more about what I saw that day regarding the F400; the crowds, the impressions, the atmosphere, etc..
We exchanged quite a few emails, and I got the first taste of what video could bring to the Internet experience; this was in 2001 and broadband hadn’t yet matured or been utilized properly.. At the time, everyone was ’streaming’ their content. I always thought it was a waste; Downloading small packages of quality video was so much a better ‘browsing’ experience than streaming.. and I always knew what level bit-rate my viewers were watching.
You can find more on the F400 Carving at Edmunds.com: “Incorporating drive-by-wire technology, this ‘Benz controls steering and braking through computer-monitored impulses rather than conventional racks and cables. This allows for quicker responses from the car; after all, these computers are smarter than you. They override human inputs that it deems as incorrect (Hal? Hal?)..”
Tokyo Motor Show 2005: Nissan GTR Proto
Some steamy close-ups of the new Nissan GTR Proto. As you can see, the style has changed a bit; the headlights more sleek. The curves more sensual. Nissan announced the Proto will hit the road in 2007. I guess we’ll see in about a year. Although it still looks a bit heavy to me, it’s quite a car and it drew large crowds of ‘oooh’s and ‘aaah’s.. There aren’t any girls in this clip as there wasn’t enough room on stage.. The car was able to speak for itself.
Tokyo Motor Show 2005: Toyota Fine X
A short, fast-paced video of some attractive new chasis coming out of Japan. There are some booth girls, but I also capture the photographers flashing and gawking.. Oh, and there’s a car as well; the Toyota Fine X concept car. It spins like a festival tea cup ride.. Guess for people who can’t make three-point turns..
Tokyo Motor Show 2003: Motor Queens
I always thought it was strange, in an interesting sort of way, that the events girls at the Tokyo Motor Shows would attempt to give each photographer a few seconds of attention; showing all their ranges of expressions in a short period of time; sultry, innocent, aggressive, and demure all in five seconds. I’m sure in photos it looks fine, but on video and in person, it always looked a little strange; like the girls suffer from mild turrets or multiple personality disorders..
Tokyo Motor Show 2003: Honda Kiwami
A video of the Honda Kiwami concept car at the Tokyo Motor Show in 2003. A simple clip that, quite possibly, only car enthusiasts can appreciate, but has some rave music and Buddhist chanting that non-enthusiasts can chant along with.. Nam yo ho ren gei kyoo.. Nam yo ho ren gei kyoo… Nam…
Tokyo Motor Show 2005: Toyo Tire Girls
I went to the Tokyo Motor Show this year, as usual. Actually, I go every two years; passenger cars are every other year. I saw a lot of cars, but the booth girls always get most of my attention. I think it’s pretty standard for men at the motor show..
Here we have the Toyo Tire Girls snarling for the camera. The rattle snake sound effects are something I added in post.. 
Tokyo Motor Show 2001: Nissan GT-R
At the time, this was the first glimpse of the new Nissan GTR. I believe it was a prototype for what is now set to hit the road in 2007.. The car was a big hit at the show; people shoved to get cell-phone photos of the new design offered by Nissan. A gaijin named Carlos Ghosn invigorated the company, and it started to pull itself from creativity stagnation.
Tokyo Motor Show 2001: Digiko Dunlop Girls
The Digiko Dunlop Girls perform, what I believe to be a popular Puffy song at the time; Can’t recall the title. There were a lot of girls ‘performing’ at the Tokyo Motor Show that day, but I was most impressed with this group; they seemed to capture the pure, innocent, immaturity Japanese men seem so attracted to.. Wait.. Am I turning Japanese?!
