Chris At Home

I've been out of the loop for a couple of weeks on Japanese culture, which means I am as up to date as my grandmother is about American culture.

You know about gyaru? The overly tanned and buffed Japanese girls who were so stylish a few years ago? The gyaru virus has found its way to Korea.


The guys behind South Park are doing another movie: Giant Monsters Attack Japan! Think guys in rubber suits and more satire. Check out the toast vending machine, too.

And the flinch story of the week:

Japan is smitten, Cyzo (September) says, by the story of a man who underwent the samurai chop, so to speak, just because his girlfriend started to swing in the opposite direction.

"Harukarin Blog," the hot bestseller, tells the supposedly true story of Harukarin Nakagawa, a 23-year-old who claims to have undergone a sex change operation that made him a woman because his girlfriend of several years decided she was a lesbian and would prefer he was female.

Ouch.