With Japan being one of the cleanest, safest, crime-free countries around, you might be surprised to learn about the thriving sex industry here. Or perhaps you may not be surprised, since there is a thriving sex industry in almost any other part of the world as well. But now is neither the time nor the place for that particular discussion.

It’s well known that Japan is the capital of ‘cute’, and many products and services will have cartoon characters as an important part of their branding on public image. This is true with the sex industry, or mizu-shobai (lit. ‘water business’), as well. These businesses really can’t be expected to show the upmost respect to basic laws when they are surviving on the borders of what is and what isn’t morally, socially, and legally acceptable, commonly resulting in copy-right infringement.

The other day on the ground at school, I found a little hand-out for one such borderline not quite sex-industry but not exactly a legitimate bar, best described as mizu-shobai.

With the images of a fake Chinese Government run Disney Land fresh in my mind, the obvious ‘Disney Influenced’ images scattered throughout the small piece of paper caught my attention.

First we have the a version of what would seem to be the pub’s logo.

Clearly this graphic is comprised of Disney’s font

Placed in front of Big Ben with a fairy to remind of us Tinker-bell from the Disney rendition of Peter Pan.

There are also various cartoon characters scattered throughout that are clearly copies of Disney characters.

Just some random duck, or is it the Donald Duck?

Just your average happy bear, or is it Winnie the Pooh?

A dirty rat, or Mickey Mouse?

Lastly, another logo-esc image can be found on the pamphlet.

The silhouette of a castle is unmistakably intended to make those who see it think of the Princesses Castle from Snow White, which is also part of the logo for Disney Land. And then there’s also the name Neverland in itself.

So is this a problem? Most certainly it is. All these characters are either original Disney characters or Disney renditions of characters in children’s stories. Even if Tokyo Disney Land had not come to Japan, there isn’t a single Japanese person who doesn’t know Disney nor it’s characters, so there is no chance that this could just be some coincidence, nor is there any chance that this is not only intentional, but a direct attempt to capitalize on the works of others by presenting the image of association with Disney. This is something that Disney takes very seriously, and has worked hard to prevent from happening in Japan in the past. When Tokyo Disney Land was built, Japan Rail had intended to name the train station nearest to it “Tokyo Disney Land Station”, however this was met with complaints from Disney. Naming the station Tokyo Disney Land Station would allow for other business to use the name of the station as part of their location, and in turn business name. Imagine “Tokyo Disney Land (Station) Red-Light District Information Center”.

How big of a problem is this? Should all American business pull out of Japan and be on the lookout for a second coming of post WW2 Japanese mass plagiarism? For that, I’d like to compare it to the fake Chinese Disneyland. First, what makes this worse than what was/is going on in China is what characters are being used. In the fake Chinese Disney Land, some of the more obvious copies were not of Mickey Mouse, but of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. This is important because these characters are not original Disney characters, just Disney renditions of a long told story in western cultures. There are many people unhappy with what they see as Disney’s attempts (and success) at copyrighting western culture and capitalizing on it. This example of plagiarism in Japan contains more elements of copying original Disney characters, and there is no one who can logically form an argument to say that is not a problem.

But in reality, this is nothing close to as big of a problem as the fake Disneyland in China. We’re talking about some little private own bar where you pay for the company of women, tucked away on some corner street, lost in the urban sprawl of Tokyo. Although this is clearly an attempt to capitalize off of Disney, no one in their right mind would think ‘Sweet Pub Neverland’ is actually associated with Disney, and with something as small scale as this their is virtually no way this could be costing Disney profits. But more importantly, the fake Chinese Disneyland was government run, government sponsored mass plagiarism, theft, and thievery. Disney would certainly be within their rights to crush this business into nothing with a lawsuit, but it would probably cost them more to make the phone call to the legal department than they could ever get from the whole ordeal.

From the perspective of someone studying to become a designer, this is pretty disgusting. What especially gets me is the obvious fact that someone who knew what they were doing to at least some extent worked on this pamphlet as a designer, re-creating the images based on the Disney works. If a license was required to work as a designer, it would be suitable for this person to have theirs revoked.

But really, I’m not too worried about something like this, and I don’t think anyone looking to invest in or work with Japan should have anything to fear. If we’re going to look to Japan’s sex industry for our basis of forming views of morals, we (American and other western societies) had better look at our own involvement in the sex industries in our own countries and throughout the world. Many such industries depend on our sex tourist dollars.

A few years ago I started to get some wisdom teeth in, and last year I actually got my upper left one pulled. At the time, they told me that I had to go to a legit hospital to get the bottom left one pulled and told me that I should go right away. Here we are a year later, and I still haven’t gotten around it to it.

But that’s not really the problem, now I’m getting my top right wisdom tooth in too. It started coming in maybe 2 days ago, and it does hurt a bit. I think it’s all my friends fault. She’s going to school for dentistry and was asking me about dental stuff in America. I commented on how in America we drill out cavities and then fill them in, where as here in Japan they have a tendency to just encase the whole tooth in gold. Well she wanted to take a look at my single filling, and in the process she determined that my upper right wisdom tooth was coming in. Now when I was in high school got x-rayed in America and they told me I wasn’t ever going to get wisdom teeth, but then eventually I got some. Now she’s telling me I’m getting more in too — I told her she’s crazy, all you dentists are. Well sure enough the next day I notice the skin there is getting loose, and before long it became apparent a tooth was coming in.

I think she put some kind of voodoo dentist curse on me. They’re all in on it together, in some kind of international dental conspiracy just to make me have to go and deal with the dentist. I just know she’s getting some kind of kick back for it. ehhe

また電車での話です。

西武新宿を出る直前に、外人連中七人がかきこんで電車に乗った。もう座るところがないからみんなが座席の前に立っててすりをつかむ。

七人が並んでるけど、一番外にいるやつがみんなを頭越して話す。もちろん大声で。

年齢は２０代からオヤジまで揃ってる。２０代の男はある女子高生のことが気に入ったみたいで声をかける。でも彼はあんまり日本語が話せなくて、結局女子高生がwhere are you fromと聞いたところで終わった。ちなみにみんなハングリー出身だそうです。

しばらく自分の連中の人と話すと、また勇気がついたみたいで再びナンパに挑戦。「ブリュートゥスありますか。ブリュートゥスありますか。」と何回も繰り返して聞く。当然ながら通じなくて彼が困ったように見えた。

そこであるおじいちゃんが、「たぶんブルートゥースのことを言ってるだろう。ほら、あるんじゃないですか、そういう通信方式。でもその携帯にはできない」ってかなりな笑顔で説明した。そこは訳さなくていいだろう、おじいたゃん。

まぁ、彼らは小平で降りて、ホームの反対側で電車を待った。たぶん拝島の方へ行こうとしてるだろう。

僕が困るのは、同じ車両に乗ってる周りのみんなは「静かにするようになんか言ってやれよ、同じ白人なんだから」みたいな顔で僕を見ることだ。

今度「世間様みてるぞ」と書いてあるポスターを作ってやる。