Otaki

Judo Formal Techniques is "The most detailed explanation of Judo that has ever been published" (The Japan Times). A comprehensive training manual to the basic "free practice" forms of Kodokan Judo (the Randori no Kata), the book provides essential instruction in the throwing and grappling kata (Nage no Kata and Katame no Kata) that every Judo practitioner needs to master.

This is another triangle! A pilgrimage that illuminates the connection between the three and their roots from one corner. This disc, A LONG SOUL VACATION, was spawned in homage to 1981's A LONG VACATION and 1983's SOUL VACATION, and the subtitle was chosen as a stepping stone to the other lead album track, "Wings of the Night". Starting with M1, the song that led to the formation of Chanels, Disc-1 analyzes M8, which shows the influence of Eiichi Otaki's classic "Yume de Aitara," also covered by Razz & Star, M9, which is reminiscent of the intro to "T-shirt and Lipstick," and even a song covered under the name Udo Ryugasaki before his debut. The magic of these songs is illuminated by the interplay between Otaki and Tatsuro Yamashita. Disc-2 features a full selection of songs, including M1, which symbolizes a chance encounter between Yamashita and Masayuki Suzuki, who sought each other out at a record fair, M3-10, which were featured in his "ON THE STREET CORNER" series, and M11, which was homaged in "Goodnight Rosie".

Reissue of what is often considered one of the heaviest hard rock albums from early 70s Japan. Looking for Sabbath influenced heavyweight guitars? Do you like T2, Leafhound, Cactus? This is your stop. Kazuo Takeda was laying waste to his guitar strings here.
(Rockadrome)

Jean Renoir and Akira Kurosawa, two of cinema’s greatest directors, transform Maxim Gorky’s classic proletariat play The Lower Depths in their own ways for their own times. Renoir, working amidst the rise of Hitler and the Popular Front in France, had need to take license with the dark nature of Gorky’s source material, softening its bleak outlook. Kurosawa, firmly situated in the postwar world, found little reason for hope. He remained faithful to the original with its focus on the conflict between illusion and reality—a theme he would return to over and over again. Working with their most celebrated actors (Gabin with Renoir; Mifune with Kurosawa), each film offers a unique look at cinematic adaptation—where social conditions and filmmaking styles converge to create unique masterpieces.

The story develops in the Tokugawa era of the 18th century, in a poor district of Tokyo, where impoverished samurai live from hand to mouth among equally poor people of lower social classes. One such ronin (masterless samurai) Matajuro, spends his day looking for work whilst his wife, Otaki, makes cheap paper balloons at home. One rainy night, Shinza, a barber, and equally penniless, impulsively abducts the daughter of a wealthy merchant, hiding her at Matajuro’s home. Their desperate plan has grave consequences when a ransom attempt backfires. The film, which starts and ends with suicide, is deeply pessimistic, insisting that life in feudal Japan was hellish and short for those at the foot of the social ladder.

Throughout the 60s, New Zealand had always been three to six months behind overseas music and fashion. By 1970 we were virtually on a par with the overseas scene. There was now a wider musical gap as the rock became heavier and the pop became poppier. The teens that had grown up and lived through the sixties were now young adults and were generally looking for something else, there was a lot to pick from as Rock fused itself with everything from Country to Jazz. Meanwhile the next generation, that had grown up in the shadows of their older brothers and sisters hadn't finished with Pop music just yet while Mums and Dads were were still lapping up anything that could be sung along to.

Over the course of his varied career, Koreyoshi Kurahara made meticulous noirs, jazzy juvenile-delinquency pictures, and even nature films. His free-form approach to moviemaking was perfectly suited to the radical spirit of the 1960s, when he was one of the biggest hit makers working at the razzle-dazzle, youth-oriented Nikkatsu studios. The five films collected here hail from that era of the Japanese New Wave, and encompass breathless teen escapades, cruel crime stories, a Yukio Mishima adaptation, and even a Hollywood-inspired romantic comedy.