Hamish Downie’s News Sushi #111: Morsels of News from Japan and Beyond

Hamish keeps serving the best News Sushi!
Hooray! More News Sushi for you to enjoy!
Editor Note:It is Friday and that means it is time for the World Famous, soon to be Intergalactic Famous, News Sushi from our very own, Hamish Downie. Hamish brings us a decidedly different slant on Pop Culture as viewed through the lens of a non-native living in Japan.



Thank you (ありがとうございました) Hamish, for your insights.

 
こんにちは！Which means “Hello”!

How was everyone’s week? Are you well?

Some exciting news happened in my world. I was officially promoted at my day job. And my short film, “Silence” received some lovely reviews.
First was from “The Pink Lens”:

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View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Pink Lens
(@thepinklens)

And the second was from a user on IMDB, who wrote that it was a “quietly powerful tale”. Amazing.

Full review here: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5844048/?ref_=nm_knf_i4

We also got some notice for “Matcha & Vanilla” from LesFlicks, which called it one of the films to watch out for in 2021.

I just saw
this! @Lesflicks
named “Matcha & Vanilla“ staring @QyokoKudo
and featuring @AJYeend,
@niji_limbo
as a film to look out for in 2021 https://t.co/Goflf1upPT

thank
you so much! Our short film, “Silence” is on Lesflicks VOD
now

— Hamish Downie (@hamishdownie) February
5, 2021

Felicity’s film, “Impossible to Imagine” was also given some media attention, and I’ll talk about that a little later. I’m so grateful to
the media outlets large and small who support indie creators, not least of which is the Two Gay Geeks!

via
GIPHY

I’m sure you’ve seen cold Bernie sitting alone everywhere by now, but I wanted to share just one more… by Chris Rodrigez (who I
interviewed a while back):

data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/CKo6nFhFpZW/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="13" style=" background:#FFF; border:0; border-radius:3px; box-shadow:0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width:540px; min-width:326px; padding:0; width:99.375%; width:-webkit-calc(100% - 2px); width:calc(100% - 2px);">

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Chris
Rodriguez (@oddbear_art)

Speaking of people I’ve spoken a lot about here, we have Michael Chan (of the Pun-isher series), who has joined Tik and/or Tok and making
dad jokes a-plenty. Here’s his audition for CSI: Toronto!

Book me on a
#CSI
show NOW! 🤣 pic.twitter.com/Qc9j82sYLv

—
Michael Chan (@michaelcwchan) February
4, 2021

A little more serious now. But, here’s an interesting article I found discussing whether BL will help change minds in Asia about LGBT
people. It certainly poses an interesting argument.

Read more here:
https://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/d00607/the-evolution-of-boys%E2%80%99-love-culture-can-bl-spark-social-change.html?fbclid=IwAR2h90qzl5bstfcaBIJp3pIXy-FWvjrN_lSWgeLqCMgRKyTakm1gT1eN8iM

Some more good news out of Japan:

“For six years, LGBT groups in Japan have pressed the government to pass legislation to protect their rights, and their progress is seen
in sharply improved public attitudes. A recent survey showed that 88 percent of the population agrees the country needs a law to protect
LGBT people.

As promised, Felicity was in the media a few times recently. First, she was interviewed by “Japan Story” about her film:

Japan Story: Romance in
Kyoto from Duncan
Bartlett on Vimeo.

And next, our film (I was producer) was given a lovely three star review on Film Carnage:

✯✯✯
Impossible to Imagine #Review

"A
sweet, humble and earnest exploration of multi-culturalism and
heritage"#IndieFilm
#SupportIndieFilm
#PrimeVideo
#Kyotohttps://t.co/pcCXVbr1SC

—
Film Carnage (@Film_Carnage) February
2, 2021

Go Felicity go!

Since her interview, I’ve discovered “Japan Story” posts some wonderful videos, and this week was no exception, featuring a video on
“Clever Cats”:

https://japanstory.co.uk/

Keeping with the Cat theme, here’s a couple of videos that are very gentle (although the cameraman doesn’t really pat these cats very
gently – but they do seem to enjoy the attention):

This is all filmed in a place locally known as “cat island” in Japan:

Continuing the series from last week, here’s more adventures of the “Hiroki & Jason” comic strip –

data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/CK9_8Iwpz5-/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="13" style=" background:#FFF; border:0; border-radius:3px; box-shadow:0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width:540px; min-width:326px; padding:0; width:99.375%; width:-webkit-calc(100% - 2px); width:calc(100% - 2px);">

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A post shared by Hiroki and
Jason (@hirokiandjason)

HOT LINK OF THE WEEK

data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/CLBBG3ynjiy/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="13" style=" background:#FFF; border:0; border-radius:3px; box-shadow:0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width:540px; min-width:326px; padding:0; width:99.375%; width:-webkit-calc(100% - 2px); width:calc(100% - 2px);">

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A post shared by SHOGO
(@mrgayjapanshogo)

That’s all for this week. Thank you for stopping by!

If you’d like to support my artistic endeavors, please check out the links over here: https://linktr.ee/hamishdownie

「またきんようびね！」

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