You know what you should eat if you go to Japan? Ramen, especially if you go in the Spring or Autumn (the best seasons to visit Japan, perhaps because they’re well suited to ramen). So what is it? A giant bowl of thick broth with noodles, sliced meat and other goodness. This article from the Guardian is a good introduction to Ramen, linking in particular to Ramen Tokyo, which seems a good place for English speaking seekers of the perfect Ramen restaurant to start. Ramen Tokyo links to Supleks, which is the Ramen database (in food, above all things, the Japanese are obsessives). Yes, it’s all in Japanese, but you can a) Use Google Chrome which will translate for you and b) learn a bit of Japanese. Ramen is worth it.

A couple of my favourite places for Ramen in Tokyo are the Ippudo chain, and Dokutsuya in Kichijoji.

It’s always interesting to look at the choices a successful business makes, particularly, choices that are conscious limitations. So-and-so inc expanding into a new area or launching a new copycat product is fairly dull. Looking for new markets, consumers and money is a given in a modern economy. In contrast, a company opting to depart from received wisdom by not doing certain things, skipping certain processes, provided it’s not doing it for cost-cutting measures, is fascinating.

I’ve found myself reading a couple of articles about clothes retailers in the last 24 hours. One is about a place where I buy 90% of the stuff I wear, the other is a shop I can’t stand. Respectively, these shops are Uniqlo and Abercrombie & Fitch. Both are the centre of articles that have much to say about branding, management and choices.

A cursory sweep through the two pieces reveals both Unqilo and A&F have a founder/CEO who exerts strong control over the company:

“Tadashi Yanai, the founder and owner of Uniqlo, is the richest man in Japan, worth over $9 billion… [he is] clearly obsessed with control, [but] is also a deeply pragmatic manager, and fascinated by failure. In 2005, he announced a reversal of strategy for international expansion… Uniqlo works quickly, and the transformation was surprisingly fast. Uniqlo designed and built the Soho store in about eight months, with 150 workers working twelve-hour shifts, seven days a week.”

“Mike Jeffries, the 61-year-old CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, says “dude” a lot… I got a firsthand look at his perfectionism in action when he invited me along for the final walk-through for the Christmas setup of his stores… Jeffries paused in front of two mannequins and shook his head… He stared at the jeans on the female mannequin. “The jeans are too high. I think she has to be lower.” A guy named Josh got down on his knees and started fidgeting with the jeans, trying to pull them down so they hung to the ground.”

However, differences in their approaches are soon apparent. A&F is a typical fashion retailer; it sells a very specific look, and builds up the emotional pull of that look via heavy, distinctive branding that appropriates a series of familiar ideas, images and style cues from the past. Uniqlo is quite unusual; unlike other fast fashion stores, customers expect to wear the clothes until they’re worn out and instead of building stores that are like sets for the movie of the brand, they focus on the way the clothes should be folded and the customer’s credit card is handed back to them. While both A&F and Uniqlo strictly enforce a personality, A&F seeks to sell a certain, specific fashion and style, whereas Uniqlo sells… well, it seems glib to say ‘clothes’, but that doesn’t seem far off:

“To Jeffries, the “A&F guy” is the best of what America has to offer: He’s cool, he’s beautiful, he’s funny, he’s masculine, he’s optimistic, and he’s certainly not “cynical” or “moody,” two traits he finds wholly unattractive… Much more than just a brand, Abercrombie & Fitch successfully resuscitated a 1990s version of a 1950s ideal, the white, masculine “beefcake”… A&F aged the masculine ideal downward, celebrating young men in their teens and early 20s with smooth, gym-toned bodies and perfectly coifed hair. While feigning casualness (many of its clothes look like they’ve spent years in washing machine, then a hamper), Abercrombie actually celebrates the vain, highly constructed male.”

“Like the mass-fashion brands, [Uniqlo] delivers a low-cost product that shares qualities of high-end retail. “Uniqlo is a bit of a different animal,” says Luca Solca, who covers retail for Bernstein Research. “And what’s different about Uniqlo is that they have chosen fabric, rather than fashion, as the area where they want to excel. Uniqlo has sixteen takumi, or textile “masters,” on staff, none with less than twenty years’ experience. They specialize in areas like dyeing or sewing, and work with more than 70 factories, mostly in China. A typical order will be around a million units of denim, fleece, or cashmere… [and it] further increases its buying power by offering a smaller selection of fabrics, across a more limited selection of clothes styles, than most other retailers. Uniqlo disguises the limited variety of products it makes by offering them in almost every color imaginable.”

In the shadow of this conversation, anyone with an interest in technology will surely by now be itching to put their hand up and say “oooh! Apple!” Because of course, the Jobs-mob famously don’t bother with focus groups and they love to design products that lack the tick-box or expected features such as memory card readers, USB ports and support for Flash.

I suspect reading these two articles, Apple detractors would say the company is closer to A&F – nut-job CEO, obsessed with style who wants to impose an embarrassing and deeply inauthentic fashion lead orthodoxy – whereas those more favorably disposed towards Apple will surely see something of Cupertino’s approach (and aesthetic) in the Uniqlo way of doing things. This is true for both the positive and negative aspects of Uniqlo, from its commitment to quality (selling jeans that use selvage denim) to the slightly creepy way the employees are indoctrinated (they have six stock phrases to speak, for instance).

What I like about Uniqlo’s approach is that while it’s clearly a fashion retailer, it’s not fixated on selling a certain style, but focusses instead on what lies beneath that: fabric, quality, fit and use, attaining excellence in these areas by intentionally selling fewer items, something which runs contrary to the success of fast fashion chains such as TopShop. This puts me in mind of the (internet) truism that states newspapers made the mistake of thinking they were in the business of printing on paper, when really, they were in the business of providing people with information, perspective and entertainment.

Via App.itize.us, a new iPhone apps blog, comes 51 Japanese Characters. Simple but fun, it features 51 Japanese “characters” – otaku, samurai, gyaru etc; give it a shake and it’ll mix and match their body parts.

Secondly, from the Japan Graphic Designers Association (JAGDA) and Heidelberg Japan K. K.,  “(^_^)365(O_O)” (Hello 365) tear-off calendar for 2010. 365 varying images from a variety of designers which the app makes it easy to export, so they’re ideal for use as iPhone wallpaper. The image above is from the 2nd of Feb, and it’s the one I’m currently using.

“In 1799 the young Dutch clerk of the title finds himself one of the few westerners to visit Japan, a closed society that keeps its foreigners confined to a walled island.”

Amazon doesn’t yet have the cover of the book, but preview copies have been doing the rounds, and you can see it here, along with a positive early review from Seth Marko:

“I don’t want to post a full-on review, filled with information that will ruin things for anyone interested, but I did finish reading The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet last night. Holy shit, what a book. All I will say at this point is this: it does not have the complex, head-exploding machinations of some of Mitchell’s past work (Ghostwritten, Cloud Atlas esp.) but it does prove that Mitchell has been no fluke – his burgeoning talent has hit full stride at this point and Autumns showcases his immense ability to write in any genre he chooses and blow your socks off in the process… There are multiple narrators throughout, as is Mitchell’s wont, but it is structurally done in such a subtle way that you hardly notice – you are just swept along in the flow, wondering, as a foreigner like Jacob, how much of the lush, inner world of Japan you will be allowed to glimpse. My god, if this book isn’t the one that earns him that elusive Booker prize…”

Listed in a pretty good 2010 books preview from the Guardian, which also mentions The Cello Suites.

Available at Tokyo Art Beat.

(via Jean Snow)

i. The Far East, specifically Japan. Having visited the Far East specifically, and having a Japanese fiancee, it’s no surprise that I’m fascinated by Japan, and I think there’s also a sense of me trying to understand it – culture, people, places, feelings – through images.
ii. Fast lenses. Quite a few of my favourite Flickr images rely on fast lenses (f1.8 and below).
iii. Simple, strong, compositions. If you look in the group devoted to these lists of 12, a lot of the photographers suggested are ‘high concept’. Lots of PhotoShop, and self-consciously arty compositions. Not for me – as with film, music (where I’m a big fan of 80s and early 90s alternative US groups such as The Replacements, Pixies, Nirvana), I tend towards images which are more strongly rooted in reality.

My favourite 12 are after the jump.

1. The first of several photographers on this list based in Japan, I wouldn’t say I ‘like’ .:*ghost*:.’s photos – rather, I’m drawn to them. There’s a sense of darkness in many of his photos that goes beyond spooky or creepy, but the subject matter is never, ever explicit. If anything, it’s the slightness, even vagueness of the subjects – little chunks of light, cats, sunglasses, empty parks – that gives the images their unsettling feeling. It’s the sense you might have when you’re in a strange place, in a strange mood, and the day is changing to night, making shadows and shapes out of normal objects. .:*ghost*:.’s ‘burari’ set is well worth exploring.

2. dannybird is the main photographer at the publisher where I work, and when it comes to still life product photography, he is simply one of the best photographers I’ve ever seen. A genius when it comes to using flash lighting to make even the dullest objects appear interesting, as you can see from this shot.

3. davemason is based near me in South-East London, and his subtle compositions slice up mundane scenes and render them surreal and intriguing.

4. A journalist in real life, there’s a strong narrative to many of greenwood 100’s photos, linked to a great visual instinct. Well worth adding as a contact, as the updates vary between the topical and the personal, proof positive that far from coolly observing the world, the best photographers are in the thick of the action.

5. Yes, yes, I’m a sucker for the Far East and from the moment I saw this terrific shot I’ve been a fan of Gori-JP’s photos. His shots are frequently bright, colourful and best of all are shot from a vantage point that’s completely immersed in the scene.

6. Tim Rudder is another photographer based in Japan, Tim’s portraits are fantastic – there’s a directness to them which I often find lacking photos you see online. He has a way of shooting that renders the glass of the monitor between you and the subject invisible. He’s also never content with the obvious shots either, which in a world when it seems everything has already been photographed, is a real talent.

7. Not only a fantastic photographer, Alieh is also based in fascinating place that is often represented in the media in a very one-sided manner: Iran, specifically, the historic city of Isfahan.

(This is my fave shot of hers, but she’s disabled off-site images.)

8. Navid J. There’s a real sense of poetry to his shots, and his sense of composition is very strong – frequently managing a fine balance of simplicity, abstraction and intrigue.

(This is my fave shot of his, but he’s disabled off-site images.)

9. Horses and Tigers provides subtle travel photography from places such as China and Iran; it gives the viewer a sense that there’s another world out there, and that strange as it seems, it’s not as radically separate from your one as you might think.

10. I’m a big fan of fast lenses, and re.mo always inspires me with the way he uses his Nikkor f1.4 turning simple objects into scenes filled with wonderful blobs of bokeh.

(This is my fave shot of his, but he’s disabled off-site images.)

11. Jonas Peterson is a pro and you can see why. Unlike many photographers on Flickr he’s not drawn to maximum contrast and whacked up colours – instead, what you find are a sensitivity to muted tones and the power of soft light.

12. There’s nothing showy about Kimicon’s photos – if anything, at first glance, they’re homey snapshots, almost to the point of being dowdy, but spend some time really looking at them and they’re have an undeniable charm which really communicates a strong feeling and humanity. You’re never in any doubt of the warmth of the heart and hands that held the camera and framed each shot.

(This is my fave shot of hers, but he’s disabled off-site images.)

“A sureness and certainty and a sense of organisation to things.”  

But ‘rules are made to be broken’ says the Western saying; they’re perecieved as bad, as limiting. Not always: the Jesteress has borrowed her brother’s keitai, but forgotten the charger and now it has run out of battery. Her mum asked me this morning if it was on the NTT DoCoMo network, like her phone.

“Yes,” I replied. She then got her phone’s charger and – even though it’s a completely different model - plugged it in to bro’s phone.

“All NTT phones have the same charger socket?” I asked, surprised. “Yes,” she replied. “Of course.”

A good example of how rigidity can create convenience. Fat chance of Orange enforcing this in the UK though.

It’s often said Japanese society is very ritualised and subject to many rules. This extends to the seasons and the observation of the seasons. Whereas in the UK you might say ‘oh, it feels very autumnal today’, or talk about an ‘indian summer’, in Japan, the date says it is autumn, so it is autumn. Although this is rigid, from such rigidty comes a sureness and certainty and a sense of organisation to things.   

Speaking of scenic autumn locations, we’re currently in Gunma where the Jesteress’ mother lives, and along with some friends we went to Lake Haruna this afternoon. I joined in with a horde of photographers comitting the fabulous foliage to memory.    

Delicious suggests the tags other users have used for any item you save; normally, it’s a very handy time saver, but as you can, its suggestion for this particularl video was…. “todo”.

Blimey. I know it’s something of a passe meme to browse the web and conclude some people have somer strange hobbies, but… human tetris? Really?

Everyone knows Ninjas are awesome – indeed, after Godzilla, they’re Japan’s number #2 cause of unexpected, unexplained death – but they take skill to deploy. You can’t just plonk them down anywhere, so all the more kudos to Microsoft and its well written ad campaign for Forefont (click the image to see it full size). The supporting website doesn’t nail the joke quite as well, but it’s still better than many promo-sites.

(Ad seen in the latest issue of PC Pro.)