Introducing Tadahiko Hayashi!!

© Tadahiko Hayashi courtesy of Studio Equis

From his birth Tadahiko was destined it would seem to be a photographer. Born in Yamaguchi in Japan to Ishi Hayashi who also was already a famous photographer, and she even taught Shin'ichi, Tadahiko's father. After Shin'ichi and Ishi's divorce, Tadahiko stayed with his mother, and he grew up learning from his mother the art. One of the factors that led to his being famous is his candid pictures of Jun'ichirou Tanizaki. His pictures depicting the city life are also another popular set. This set even being in an anthropology book in the 1980's. After his starting candid photos became the norm, he then started to tweak his style to be flawless. This led to some staging of the photos at times. In the 1950's he also worked in America with the Miss Universe contest. In the 1980's Tadahiko started traveling around Japan preparing a few photography books. At the same time he also was working as the principal of a photography school. 1985 is the year that Tadahiko announced he had liver cancer, and released one more photography book, Toukaidou. This book was published just two months before his death. He passed away in 1990. His works can now be seen in the Shunan City Museum of Art and History.

Photo taken from: http://www.helsinkitimes.fi/htimes/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4636:light-and-shade-images-of-post-war-japan-&catid=21:culture&Itemid=165
Photo by: Tadahiko Hayashi
Title: Boys from 1946

Spare Time in Japan

Being in Japan, and experiencing their ways of entertainments, for me, has been surprising. Being on the train on my weekly train ride, or on the overnight bus to Tokyo, there's always about 50% of the people within eyesight reading a manga, playing their Nintendo DS, or even listening to their constantly changing popular songs on an I Pod. Another popular item are their rhythm games, Taiko no Tatsujin, Pop'n Music, Dance Dance Revolution, or even Ouendan. Ouendan is even on the Nintendo DS. Ouendan has been released in America under the name of Elite Beat Agents. Manga has been very popular here for quite a while, the more popular they are here the more likely they will be released in America. One of the biggest mangas being Dragonball, which started in 1984. This manga is still being sold here in brand new editions. Then listening to new music in America, it's played for about 2 months and your sick of hearing it. Here in Japan, their popular music changes roughly on a bi-weekly basis, but there are also artists who have been in the music business for some time also. For example: Utada Hikaru, Ayumi Hamasaki, Greeeen. Greeeen hasn't actually been around for long, but they did a song kiseki that stayed on the Japanese charts for quite a few weeks. Utada Hikaru is famous even in America because of the Kingdom Hearts games as she has done the opening themes to both of the Playstation games.

A few band's fansites:
http://ayumi.primenova.com/
http://islandrecords.com/site/promo/splash/utada/

Greeeen's music video for kiseki.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogEKEAGcCBg