*riya-chan

Even though I really should be packing since I'll be out of the country in 3-4 days, I encountered this new trailer for the upcoming Tom Cruise movie, Valkyrie and couldn't resist blogging. The film's essentially based off of the real-life operation of a number of German army officers, led by Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, to assassinate the Nazi Führer Hitler. Despite Tom Cruise not exactly being one of my favorite people, my interest was piqued since I'd just read a good portion of The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide as a resource for one of my final research papers and so am a bit overly interested in the subject matter of certain Nazis that have perhaps wrongly been demonized. Shortly after starting the trailer, I noticed an odd resemblance between Tom Cruise's character and Roy Mustang from the Full Metal Alchemist movie (I blame the eyepatch completely for leading me to this). Since the FMA movie deviated into Nazi Germany territory, it makes me curious if Roy Mustang had been based off of Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, the leader of the operation, this entire time. It's been a while since I've last seen anything FMA related, but I vaguely recall Mustang attempting to overthrow the Führer (of the FMA world) as well in the anime series. It tempts me to rewatch FMA despite not having the time at all!

Valkyrie trailer for those who are interested: [link]

As a side note, as further proof that Japan is taking over mainstream US culture (beyond the music videos and Gwen Stefani's demeaning use of Japanese girls as pets/accessories and her ridiculous line of clothing, etc), I was flipping through a copy of Vogue at the airport before my flight to Chicago yesterday and noticed the romanji, sugoku ii, bizarrely on the cover. It was translated as "super cool" in describing what I vaguely recall as Watanabe Junya's new protégé. Then, shortly after arriving in Chicago and making a quick pit stop at Bloomingdale's, I realized that I was essentially shopping to a Koda Kumi song playing in the background. Bloomingdale's?! I was then told by a friend that the covers of a couple of Kanye West's singles were illustrated by Murakami Takashi, AKA the man who brought otaku culture to Louis Vuitton. What an odd day, haha.


Since I want to post more pics on my journal...
At the goodbye dinner before my friends and I left for the end of the semester, we ate sushi to celebrate! I ordered tekka don. It turned out being bigger than I'd anticipated, but was really yummy. ^^



-------------------------------------------







-------------------------------------------