NIPPON-ICHIGO

Today, the King of Pop died.

Michael Jackson, at a mere 50 years of age, died of cardiac arrest. I had been expecting to see his pale old bones moonwalk to the age of 70, relating stories of his glory days to my children in the year-and-yet-still-distant future… So this has hit me and my family with shock.

Who knew what he would become?

MJ is one of the most popular men in the world. He’s one of the few public figures I actually kind of cared about throughout the whole of my lifetime. You never really expect them to die while you’re still young.

You can see why even the Japanese love him

In honor of his memory, here’s a video of a Japanese MJ impersonator (JACK from MJ-Performance Group [DICSYU]).

And here’s Thriller, which will always and forever be the greatest.

Rest in peace, King of Pop.

I’m going to play the “ABC” stage of Elite Beat Agents in your honor.

At least, realer now than it was before.

oh my god

Now that we’ve realized the dream, we can relish in what is a statue of Pure Awesome smack in the middle of Odaiba, Tokyo’s Shiokaze Park. It was built to scale in honor of Mobile Suit Gundam‘s 30th anniversary.

In a matter of time they’ll have made the thing fully functional – THEN we’ll be seeing a new era of… actually, that would be slightly terrifying. (I’ve never particularly been a fan of Gundam – I think the robots could be more sleek – but I know awesome when I see it.)

You can see more awe-inspiring pics here.

Brent Mendenhall, a premier George W. Bush impersonator, has been in some Japanese commercials recently. This is my favorite of them. It’s just so silly.

To quote Japan Probe,

Each scene of the Bush lookalike acting goofy/stupid is followed by a message letting you know that Herbal Clear is supposed to help wash away bad things.