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Fantastic Okinawa
Futenma move
Godzilla and friends celebrate at Tomarin exhibitionBy Bill Charles
Virtually everyone hasencountered Godzilla,Ultraman, Evangelion orHokuto-no-Ken, and now
the company that created them isshowing off their works at anOkinawa exhibition.
The Kaiyodo Figure Exhibitionis being staged through September9th at the Tomarin Building, adjacentto Tomari Port in Naha, showing offthe Kaiyodo company’s oldest andhighest quality figures. It’s all a partof Kaiyodo’s 50th anniversary cele-bration, running 10 a.m. ~ 6 p.m.daily. Advance adult tickets are¥700, or ¥800 at the door. Kids 6-15pay ¥300 for an advance ticket, orshell out ¥400 at the Tomarine door.
Kaiyodo Co. is the most famousfigurine production company inJapan, turning out the highest qualityJapanese animation and movie fig-ures in the world. Japanese animationor figure skills are considered thebest in the world, and lots of fun tosee and appreciate.
Kaiyodo skills and craftsman-ship are really beyond the imagina-tion, and being able to see the createdfigures not only from Japanese ani-mation companies, but also fromBritish museums and really bignames in the world of animation, arereasons to take a few hours to perusethe Kaiyodo creations.
This is a very rare opportunity tosee Kaiyodo’s work in Okinawa,right before the visitor’ s eyes.Everyone interested in figurinesshould visit before the event endsSeptember 7th
Fearful of increased local opposi-tion to the relocation of FutenmaMarine Corps Air Station, aU.S. congressional think tank is
speaking out to both Japanese andAmerican government officials warningthem to be careful how they deal withthe project.
The Congressional ResearchService has been observing reports ofincreased opposition to the Futenmarelocation from Ginowan City to north-ern Okinawa, and is expressing con-cerns those protests could increase inthe future. Accordingly, the Service istelling officials of both nations “Anyheavy-handed actions by Tokyo orWashington could lead to stridentlyanti-base politicians making gains inOkinawa, particularly in the gubernato-rial election scheduled for November.”
The upcoming election findsGovernor Hirokazu Nakaima, who latelast year approved the land reclamationprocess necessary to create the new air-field in Oura Bay adjacent to Camp
Schwab, announcing plans to run for athird term. Political observers sayNakaima’s taking the unprecedentedelection move at age 74 to preserve thebase relocation project. His principalopponent is Naha City Mayor TakeshiOnaga, who is firmly opposed to anynew bases being built or relocated onOkinawa. Also in the running is inde-pendent politician and lawmaker MikioShimoji, who seeks to have the baserelocation issue be settled by a referen-dum.
Nakaima’s decision to grant thelandfill permits for the base relocationalso brought comments from theCongressional Research Service, whichsaid “The United States and Japancleared an important political hurdle intheir long-delayed plan to relocate theFutenma base, but despite this progress,many challenges remain to implementa-tion.” The think tank researchers note“most Okinawans oppose the construc-tion of a new U.S. base for a mix ofpolitical, environmental and quality-of-
life reasons.”The Congressional Research
Service concedes that “ Now thatNakaima has approved the landfill per-mit, it is unclear what authority anyfuture governor would have to overturnthis decision,” adding, though, that“some observers suggest that a futuregovernor could reject the approval ongrounds the environmental impactassessment of the base site was incor-rect.”
A big issue looming before theJapanese government is Nakaima’sdemand that Futenma cease operationswithin five years, and that the Status ofForces Agreement between the UnitedStates and Japan be modified to permiton-base environmental investigations byprefectural officials. The CongressionalResearch Service believes “the extent towhich the Japanese government canmeet Nakaima’s demands will likelyinfluence how Okinawans ultimatelywill judge his approval of the landfillpermit.”
Okinawa City plans Eisa Hallto Goya Intersection area
The Okinawa City Basic Plan for TownDevelopment includes a plan to build an Eisa hall,tentatively named “Young Eisa Hall,” at the areaaround Goya intersection.
The plan envisions a place for visitors to enjoyEisa shows and also join the dance experience. Thecity plans to make the hall a major tourist spotthroughout the year. Okinawa City declared itselfthe ‘Eisa Town’ in 2007, and also created officialmascots ‘Ei-bo’ and ‘Sa-chan’, and have placed stat-
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Godzilla and other famous Japanese manga and animation characters are on exhibition at Tomarin through Sep. 7th.
Japan hears U.S. cautions over handling Futenma
How to enjoy yourself at Orion Beer Festival
By David Higgins
One of the greatest things you canenjoy in your life is beer. It is myopinion that beer should be a sta-ple in everyone’s diet, like bread.
Every year on Okinawa one of my favoritefestivals of all time arrives; the All-Okinawa Eisa Festival and Koza OrionBeer Fest. The Orion Beer Fest’s motto is“For your happy time!” and is a time wherepeople can enjoy and celebrate beer. Thisarticle is for all the people under drinkingrestrictions that could not go and see whatthis festival was all about.
As the Orion Beer Fest is a 2-dayevent, I decided to celebrate the beer festi-val on Saturday. I walked to the event as Iam an avid yearly participant in this beerfestival, and I was very aware of the trickyparking and taxi situation after the eventends. It took me 30 minutes of walkinguphill to the stadium located in OkinawaCity and I was very thirsty when I finally
arrived. Once I got about a half a mile fromthe arena I could hear the drums of the EisaDancers and singing – lyrics that I sworewere “the beer is here“.
Once you get to the gates they checkyour identification to ensure no minors aregetting their sneaky lips anywhere nearbeer. Admission is free and after youreceive your wristband you are let loose inan arena of beer addicts. The arena is circleshaped and is actually a sand baseball fieldwith tables upon tables of beer drinkerssurrounded by Orion beer vendors sloshingdraft into cups. The price of beer was ¥300a cup which is about $3 USD. It was veryreasonably priced for the value, which inturn probably caused excess consumption!
I arrived at about 7 pm so I missed thelive music performances, but every yearlocal Okinawan groups gather to performmusic and dance for interested spectatorsand enhance the beer-drinking experience.
Okinawa is such a small island that I
pretty much saw everyone I knew or hadn’tseen in a while, and got to catch up with allthat is happening in their lives. As theevening drew to a close, which is 8:45 pmin Okinawa, fireworks lit up the sky. Thetune of “Auld Lang Syne” accompaniedlast call at 9 pm. North Americans associ-ate Auld Lang Syne with New Year’s Eve;however, in Okinawa and various othercountries this song is actually a traditionaltune to bid farewell and end occasions.
Feeling nostalgic, either from the songor the beer, I immediately called my wifeand she picked me up at our meeting spot,away from the rush of people that floodedthe streets looking for taxis or trying des-perately to get out of their parking spots.
Overall, the Orion Beer Festival was agreat success, but for those who didn’thave a chance to participate due to thedrinking restrictions, it is hoped that youwill be able to attend next year’s festival.
There’s a once-in-alifetime chancecoming to tattoo
lovers, especially for thosedesiring a traditionalJapanese tattoo.
Monster Ink, locatedat between Gate 2 andChuo Park Avenue inOkinawa City, is havingtattoo artist ‘Musashi’from Osaka as a guest,Sept. 2-15.
Musashi is arenowned hand poked tat-too artist who has activelyengaged in traditional
Japanese tattooing fornearly 30 years. It’s hardto find an artist like himnowadays. All tattoo fansare excited about thisfamous and rare guestcoming.
Monster Ink is anAmerican owned, and allof its artists, employeesand staff are OSHA com-pliant and have bloodborne pathogens training,working in extremelyclean and sanitary envi-ronment. And, now theshop accepts reservations.
Those who are interestedin the artisanal Japanesetattoo should call 098-939-0995 for reservations.
Traditional Japanese hand pokedtattoo master to visit Okinawa
Musashi's art work
Orion Beer Festival is an excellent chance to meet everyone and catch up on the latest.The festival ended with a bang as usual.
