UMEZZ CARNIVAL 2010

It's Halloween already, which means our favorite manga event of the year has arrived... and sadly, already passed! That's right, Kazuo Umezu's birthday and accompanying Umezz Festival! Never fear, you manga fans unable to attend due to geographic and temporal restrictions-- as with last year, our buddies over at Tokyo Scum Brigade were there documenting and participating in UMEZZ CARNIVAL 2010!



In a series of posts on their blog, Voidmare & Dr. Senbei covered the actual Umezz Carnival, along with his live rock concert and the accompanying animation festival. Here is the list of must-read posts (The 1st post includes bonus Demerin-as-Hebi Onna cosplay pics!)

+ Umezu Carnival 2010

"This year, the Kichijoji Theater provided the backdrop for a three-tiered event grounded with a talk show delving into the man's obsession with snakes, followed by an appearance by anime diva Horie Mitsuko, then topped off with a performance by his band CAPS!! and the Gwash dancers."

[READ MORE ABOUT UMEZU CARNIVAL!]

+ Umezu Rock Live 2010

"If anything, retiring from manga has given him the time to focus on his second passion: Music. Umezu began writing songs for popular musicians back in the 70's and even recorded two full length CDs, Yami no Album (The Darkness Album) and Gwash!! Makoto-Chan/Umezu Kazuo World. The Umezu Carnival is held both to celebrate his birthday and scratch the rockstar itch that has been driving him batty for the past quarter of a century."

[READ MORE ABOUT UMEZU ROCK LIVE!]

+ Kichijoji Animation Festival

"The 5th annual Kichijoji Film Festival was held yesterday as part of Kichijoji Anime Wonderland. Hometown animation companies Studio 4 C and studio Studio Deen, as well as manga publisher Coamix, were there to represent their turf. They were backed up by academic manga researchers from Kyoto Seika University, Takekuma Kentaro and Tsugata Nobuyuku."

[READ MORE ABOUT KICHIJOJI ANIMATION FEST!]

ALSO FOR ADDED PLEASURE: Your the Man Now, Umezu

Unrelated to Umezu, I'm curious to know if anyone did horror/indie manga cosplay this year? Last year's bunch was fantastic... please email me any photos and I'll post them up! My buddy Moni and her BF dressed up as Maruo characters...

Umezz Carnival 2009 Special Live Event

[This is the fourth in a series of guest posts by the awesome guys from Tokyo Scum Brigade! Dr. Senbei and Voidmare attended the Umezz Carnival 2009 this past weekend and are guest posting here with reports. Please enjoy, and many thanks, guys!! -Ryan]

The word "rock" gets thrown around so liberally in Japan that I have to admit I was skeptical going into Umezz Carnival 2009's grand finale, "Special Rock Live." The ultra-raw and energetic yet somehow highly refined sound (think 1 part Preschool, 1 part Guitar Wolf, 2 parts Umezu) was only my first pleasant surprise of the night. Believe me when I say it's not easy to pogo, take pictures and write a report at the same time!

SET LIST
1st Half
1. Hebi Shojo- Played live, this sounded a lot like The Cure's Killing an Arab. If only you could have been there to witness the dance that went along with this costume!


2. Kimura no Niisan- What a banger! Kazz had a bat wing jacket on for this song, accessorized with his best stuck-out tongue Gene Simmons poses!


3. Super Police- This might have been my favorite song of the night. The chorus was almost as killer as Kazz's Super Police dance moves.


4. Electric Love Song- Originally penned by Kazz for Haruo Chikada (see this post), this was a major hit in the late 70s. They played this so hard and fast that Kazz wound up getting lost in the middle and, after a few failed attempts at jumping back in, cut the band off midway through the song. A sincere apology to the crowd and a few bows to his band mates later, he went completely nuts in round two and took back Electric Love Song all for himself.


5. Papa Mama Rock- Kazz mentioned how much heavier the wireless mic was than a normal one, but he didn't let it stop him from all manners of fist pumping action.


6. Gwash!! Makoto-chan- The final song before the first intermission. Kazz was visibly exhausted at this point, but still gave a great performance. If you didn't know better, the raw power would have tricked you into thinking it was a live cover by Iggy and the Stooges. When the song finished the crowd, comprised mainly of women under 35, was going bonkers.


Intermission
Just in time! I almost broke a thumb feverishly trying to clear space in my memory card while everyone else in the joint dashed for the merch table.

The MC's intro to the second half of the show was cut short by HONEY☆K in an Orochi nurse outfit! She stared at him for a while before pointing to a stain on the wall which she then proceeded to mash her finger, then head against before disappearing into the crowd. This creepy little skit set the stage for one of the night's hightlights!


2nd Half
7. Shinjuku Gurasu- The Makoto-chan Mushis traded in their usual duds to join Kazz in this reenactment of an amazing scene from the movie Orochi. Demerin's deadpan demeanor was a perfect fit for the father, and she kept her cool even while kicking ass on the classical guitar! Her intense finger picking coupled with her moustache stole the show on this one. Not one to be outdone, Kazz picked up on this and started hamming his performance up towards the end.




For those of you who haven't seen the film, check out the song in this rehearsal video:



8. Otogibanashi no Yokohama- Nice tune. Nice new costume.



9. Samba de Makoto-chan- This is where Kazz started to lose steam. He managed to make it through the song without incident, but needed a few hits from the oxygen tank afterwards. While HONEY☆K Orochi attended to a worn-out Kazz, rhythm guitarist Mitsuwa lead a cheeky audience Q&A session on his behalf.





Q. What's your favorite food?
A. Apples.

Q. How do you write your name in kanji?
A. Easy, just four strokes: K A Z Z (in English)

Q: What's your favorite rock group?
A: Umezu Kazuo and the Umevinz. Duh. Next Question.

Q: What kind of babes do you like?
A: Girls in sweats and t-shirts.

Q: What time do you usually wake up and go to bed?
A: That's kind of a silly question; He never sleeps, so he never wakes up.

Q: Are you working on another manga?
A: Yes, but I'll never let you see it.

Q: Beef or chicken curry?
A: Seafood. Next!

Q: Can you introduce the band members?
A: Quit trying to get ahead of the show here! Who are you?

Umevins/Megvins
Drums: Megumi (Art Storm Employee)
Bass: Aki (Goonies, etc.)
Lead Guitar: Baki (Gastunk, Mosquito Spiral)
Rhythm Guitar: Mitsuwa (BLUE MOVEe, Tokyo Bravo)
Keyboard and Backup Vocals: HONEY☆K (PUGS, Pomegranate)

Had I done my homework on the band before the show, I wouldn't have been as surprised by their kiler sound given the talent behind it. Gastunk were a great band!

10. Old Rockin' Band- As the band members were introduced, they were instructed to 'get old' in English, which meant putting on wigs and hunching over like fogies. If these guys had been out to pasture, their gritty and dirty sound would have would have spoiled the earth! In true old rockin' fashion, Kazz took a few more hits from the oxygen tank as the song wound down.



11. Makoto-chan Ondo- What's that? You say you've never heard this one before? Join the club--no one had until this concert! Kazz wrote this song specifically for the event, and to celebrate he called his beautiful Gwash! dancers to the stage. After teaching the audience how to do the dance steps, they led everyone in this matsuri ode to Makoto-chan. A-sore! A-sore! A-sore sore sore!





12. Happy birthday Kazz!- First Orochi did her best Marilyn Monroe erotic birthday song for Kazz, then Baki led the audience in a sing-along. Naturally, "to you" was replaced with "Kazu."





13. Gwash!! Makoto-chan (standard version)- This time around they toned it down a bit and gave a full dance number much like this.





Encore!
You know that Umezu wasn't going to end his first concert in 20 years without an encore!

14. Nekome Kozo Theme- In an effort to buy time for Kazz, who was utterly devastated at this point, Kurobe attempted to kill the audience with obscene amounts of wah-wah on a few solo licks. Kazz came out, kicked out the final jam, and said goodbye with just a hint of tears in his eyes.



Don't be so jealous! The best news is that Kazz enjoyed himself so much that he promised to hold another concert next year! If you can't wait that long, buy his CDs Yami no Album and Gwash!! Makoto-chan: Umezu Kazuo's World on Amazon! I wish I were a pro-wrestler just so I could make Yami no Album's brutally evil うしろを見るな！(Don't look behind you! Track 14) my entrance music. You can hear of 45 second sample of it and all the other songs if you click 試聴する next to the track list.

See you at Umezz Carnival 2010!

	Click here for way more photos from the event!
Umezz Special Rock Live

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UPDATE: FROM DEMERIN'S BLOG
Demerin has posted her own (Japanese) reports from the event, including lots of pics and this video of Umezu in action:

I CAN DIE HAPPY NOW.

Guess who has now most definitely heard of Same Hat? The king, our spiritual uncle and pretty much favorite dude on the planet: Kazuo Umezu!!!



Today on his Twitter and Blog, Umezz (or perhaps simply his webmaster Demerin) name-checked Same Hat and the recent series of guests reports by the TOKYO SCUM BRIGADE boys. I have talked briefly online to Demerin before via YouTube, and passed along the latest posts hoping she'd give them a look. It also sounds like the TSB guys spoke to Umezu's people while at the Rock Event this past weekend!

Regardless of how exactly it came about, getting Same Hat name-checked on Umezz.com is a dream come true. Now to meet the man! You can check out the original post here. Many, many thanks again to Tokyo Scum Brigade for sharing the wealth with all us Umezz fanatics.

For new folks, you can check out all my earlier Kazuo Umezu posts here!

REPORT FROM UMEZZ CARNIVAL 2009: Part 3 of 3!

[This is the third in a series of three guest posts by the awesome guys from Tokyo Scum Brigade! Dr. Senbei and Voidmare attended the Umezz Carnival 2009 this past weekend and are guest posting here with reports. Please enjoy, and many thanks, guys!! -Ryan]

The latter half of the discussion kicked off with a showing of a rare Geki-mation from the mid 70’s. What is "Geki-mation"? Too stilted to be considered animation but still far enough over the poverty line to entertain the kiddies, its Reading Rainbow-esque production is charmingly rudimentary.



Yokai Den: Nekome Kozo (Legends of Japanese Monsters: The Cat Eyed Boy) was one of the rare gems to use this style of animation. Little is known of its twelve episode run from back in 1976, though it still purportedly exists on a Laser Disk in someone’s attic. Thankfully someone had the forethought to archive it on Youtube before disk rot set in. While this isn’t the episode shown at the event, it does a better job of conveying the mix of live action props over painted backgrounds.

NEKOME KOZO MINI CONCERT

Umezu is infamous for his manga, but few fans outside of Japan, or inside for that matter, are familiar with his musical career. He is an active lyricist, having penned the words for the Nekome Kozo theme song seen above, among others. He is also one hell of a showman.

Kurobe, Umezu’s guitarist, sauntered onto the stage, doing his black cat strut while his cherry red Gibson hollow body mewled out a wah-wah intensive version of the Nekome Kozo theme. Mic in hand, Umezu sprung into action, delivering a non-stop flurry of punches, kicks and jumps in time to the music while belting out his lyrics. For a man of seventy-three, Umezu still has the moves and he’s not shy about showing them off.









GHOSTWRITER OF POP

Umezu’s work has brought him into musical circles across all genres. He has written songs for Haruo Chikada, a progressive musician who was always one step ahead of the curve during his prime in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s when he collaborated with major players such as ELO.



The two met thirty years ago when Umezu drew Haruo, along with other famous musicians, as a guest character in his serialized manga Makoto-Chan. When Haruo caught wind of his unlicensed appearance he paid a visit to find out what Umezu was up to. Haruo played right into Umezu’s hand—The manga had been a viral marketing scheme to find musicians to record the Makoto-Chan theme song Umezu had written.

The honor eventually went to folk singer Kanbe Toshie of Iruka fame, but Umezu was taken by Haruo’s rambunctious onstage antics—Jumping off amps is right up Makoto-Chan’s alley. Likewise, Haruo was impressed by Umezu’s dreamy, doleful lyrics. The two teamed up to produce hits like Lady Hurricane and Electric Love Song, and in 1977 went on to destroy Japan’s image of the manga artist as a sullen homebody with their legendary Makoto-Chan live at Kyoto’s Doshisha University.





Of course, a concert poster isn’t going to do us any good by itself! Umezu had one last trick up his striped sleeves for us. The staff lined up on stage while Demerin and another assistant, wearing Mushi costumes, flanked Umezu.

Who's ready to do the Makoto-Chan dance!?

We wish that you, the reader, could have been there to experience it firsthand with all your senses. Umezu used musical notation to instill silent pictures with the tension one would find in the soundscape of cinema. We’re taking that one step further. Load up this YTMND VoidMare lost all of his hair trying to make and dance along at home! Originally we had the entire show as one big animated GIF, but the internet just couldn't handle it. If you scan through the Picasa album fast enough you can get the same effect, but don't cry to us after you have an epileptic fit!


Dance steps courtesy of Demerin









Umezu Kazuo is an artist in the truest sense of the word. His voice, both on paper and in song, is peerless in its strength of expression. His words pull you into a weird world that is not unlike your own, one veiled in the darkness of a child’s innocence warped by the realities of adulthood.

Umezu will be unleashing his voice to the world on the 23rd, where he promises to perform Electric Love Song live with his band. TSB will again be on site to bring the spectacle to you! See you after the break.

Umezz Carnival Music Discussion and Presentations

Umezz Carnival Dance 1

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REPORT FROM UMEZZ CARNIVAL 2009: Part 2 of 3!

[This is the second in a series of three guest posts by the awesome guys from Tokyo Scum Brigade! Dr. Senbei and Voidmare attendws the Umezz Carnival 2009 this past weekend and are guest posting here with reports. Please enjoy, and many thanks, guys!! -Ryan]


Having pushed our way past the merch table and made a general nuisance of ourselves by photographing anyone and everything in the vicinity, it was time for the main event— An extended talk with Umezu Kazuo himself detailing his history as a manga artist and the people he traumatized into collaborating with him, including his aloof fellow panelist and assistant, Demerin Kaneko.

The talk was lead by the face of modern urban ghost stories and V-Cinema director, Hirokatsu Kihara.



SETTING THE INDUSTRY STANDARD

Hirokatsu Kihara (HK): You’ve been writing manga since before many of your fans were born. You debuted in 1955—10 years after the war, or to put it in perspective, right around the time Toei released Godzilla. When did you start drawing?

Umezu Kazuo (UZ): I’ve been at it since elementary school. By the fourth grade, I had my nose so deep into manga that I began to drift away from my family.

I wrote my first real manga, Mori no Kyoudai (The Brother and Sister in a Forest), at the age of fourteen in the eighth grade. I have a deep connection with the number fourteen—hence my other manga, Fourteen.

HK: How did you improve your skills to a professional level at such a young age?

UZ: Nowadays you can learn from professional manga classrooms, but at the time we had to make do with correspondence courses and books detailing what pens and techniques famous authors used. These gave me a base. You have to remember that manga was still a young and flexible medium. Weekly serials were such an insane notion that no one dared consider them. I had room to innovate.

HK: I like the way you use musical notation to supplement your sound effects.

UZ: In a scary scene of a movie, the music will go 'dun-dun-DUN!' You can’t experience the same feeling of mounting dread with just text, so I included notation to give it a soundtrack. Barring that, I attempt to compensate for the silence with blood-curdling art work.

HK: It seems like music was always a part of you.

UZ: In my second year of high school I gave up writing manga. The pay was lousy! Anyway, one of my classmates taught me how to play piano. I would sneak into the school music room through the window, even though I could have just used the door!

Years later I realized that people should stick to what they’re good at, and the only thing I was good at was manga!

HK: I’m not good at anything so I don’t know if I can follow your advice. What brought you back to manga?

UZ: I was inspired by my senior class trip. Or, should I say, by the people who went on it. I get motion sickness riding anything so I opted to stay home. When my classmates came back, they told me that they saw my manga on sale in Atami! That was news to me. I don’t know how it found its way to a hot spring resort town. I made some calls and ended up getting thirty thousand yen for my two books, Kyoudai no Mori and Betsu-Sekai (Another World).

HK: That was serious coin back in the day. Remember that items at the supermarket were priced one, five, or ten yen at the time. What did you do with your newfound fortune?

UZ: I gave it all to my mother. There was nothing a kid could do with money in the mountain town I grew up in. I had no concept of money, especially spending money.



YOU GUYS WANNA SEE A DEAD BODY?

HK: Tell me about your hometown.

UZ: I grew up in a place called Gojo City in the Nara mountainside. It looked like a tiny Edo-era villa—It could have used as the set of a period piece. As kids we were amazed at the only three-story building in town. It was unbelievable! That was a skyscraper to us.

Demerin Kaneko (DK): What did people do for fun in the boonies?

UZ: Well, it wasn’t on purpose, but a lot of us got hit by trains! The train in my village only ran once an hour, but people would still somehow manage to get hit walking along the track on a regular basis. Especially if they were walking across the bridge—no escape.

One such accident occurred by my house. I rushed to the scene to see my first dead body, unaware that the shock of doing so would change my life. The man’s torso was wedged between the tracks, his lower body nowhere to be seen. Yet the real shock was the blood, or rather the lack there of. When people get killed in movies there’s always fountains of blood, but the ground around the body was clean. Traveling down the track, all I could find were the minced remains of the lost lower body, scattered in chunks like human meatballs.

HK: How did you and the village react?

UZ: It shook me to the core. Not because of the shock of seeing a body, but because I knew the face connected to it. His death was a suicide, not an accident, and it bothered me that someone who appeared so happy and active could be hiding such darkness.

HORROR STARTS AT HOME

HK: You were the first to write horror comics for girls. From the outside, Shojo seems like a narrow genre.

UZ: Both Shojo and Shonen manga have their strengths. Shojo draws from everyday experiences and emotions—hate, love, fear. Shonen is more open and allows for dramatic settings and story telling. The scariest things are those closest to us, which makes Shojo the perfect vessel for fear!

HK: The real world settings really get under your skin. Where do you get your ideas from?

UZ: Most of my writing is based on hometown legends. Kitsune Me no Shojo (The Girl With Fox Eyes), for example, was a real local legend warning about a shape-shifting fox that played tricks on people. I grew up listening to these cautionary tales.

My parents used to tell me, "If the village comes under attack by a monster snake, attack its tail, not the head!" Years later I saw a TV special where a team of reporters travel into the depths of Africa to tame an anaconda. The bumbling crew couldn’t get their hands around the giant snake, until one of the natives came up from behind and rubbed the serpent’s tail into submission. I remember thinking, “All that nonsense mom and dad fed me was true!”

HK: I think the tradition of frightening folklore lives on today as urban legends. You’re responsible for your fair share of those, am I right?

UZ: Oh, you mean the Omi-Chan boom. One of my early manga, Omi-Chan ga Konya mo Yattekuru (Omi-Chan Strikes Again Tonight), was about a women named Omizu who drowned in a swamp. Parents warned their children, “Don’t go near the water or Omi-Chan will drag you under with her gnarly hands!” This didn’t stop girls from swimming there, though.

The name became synonymous with “ghost” all throughout Tokyo. Mitsuko, Misaki, Miyu—Any girl with a “Mi” in her name was subject to being teased with the nickname “Omi-Chan.” Kids these day have Hanako-Chan. Back then there was Omi-Chan.


THE BLACK CAT

DK: There’s a certain “I heard this story from my brother’s friend” kind of quality to your stories. Do you have any real life scary stories for us?

UZ: Aside from seeing a train-mangled body as a kid? Well, I saw another one as an adult just a few years back. There was a huge crowd gathered around to get a glimpse of the carnage. But while the men looked on from a distance, high school girls formed a tight circle around the body. It confirmed what I had always known to be true —girls are horror. And no sequel is complete without a trilogy… I wonder when the next one will come out?

I do have a story, and while I wouldn’t call it paranormal, it’s definitely unexplained.

I have one of those black cat clocks hanging from the wall in my house—you know, the ones with the swinging tail and shifting eyes? Anyway, his name is Kurobe. One day I came home and Kurobe had stopped moving. At first I thought the batteries had died while I was out, but the truth was far stranger. Comparing it to the other clocks I had in my house, I could tell that it had stopped at the exact moment that I entered the house.

This odd phenomenon continued. At first it was just when I came home at night. But as time went on it would happen more frequently, triggered at times by a casual glance at the clock. I would look up from eating, or away from the TV, and there would be Kurobe, hanging still under my gaze.

DK: Maybe he’s trying to tell you something. "Play with me…" You have an affinity for cats that tends to spill over into your manga as well.

UZ: Nekome Kozo (The Cay Eyed Boy) started its run in 1960. It was my first serialized manga, meaning it had my first character designed to have mass appeal. The series focused more on the story than the characterization. The cat eyed boy that watches from the shadows…

At the time Shigeru Mizuki was gaining steam as a horror writer for his Yokai stories. I wasn’t going to let him beat me at my own game! Shigeru might write stronger characters, but Nekome Kozo gave you the chills like nothing else.

The chewing gum wrapped in mini-manga was proof of his popularity. Character goods were virtually unheard of at the time. Having a character strong enough to move merchandise was a great honor. Some say a manga has made it big when an anime version is released, but the success of its goods shows you the public’s love for your character.


The man can't GWASH!, hence the big fake hand he's always sporting.

The report will pause here for a short intermission. We’ll be back with the lost Nekome Kozo animation, pop songs penned by Umezu, and the Makoto-chan dance!

Umezz Carnival 2009 Discussion

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