Results tagged “japan”

From April 19 to June 28, the Toronto Reference Library (789 Yonge Street) hosts From Hanga to Manga: The Graphic Art of Japanese Storytelling—hanga being the Japanese art of woodblock printing, and manga being your otaku nephew's reason for living, that is. The exhibition features a collection of rare illustrated books, woodblock prints, and comics from the libraries of the TPL Special Collections, the ROM, and Japan Foundation Toronto.

Photo by roboppy from Flickr.

Today’s release on Xbox Live Arcade is Trigger Heart Exelica, an originally Japan-only Dreamcast "bullet hell" vertically scrolling shooter, and if that sentence doesn’t make any sense to you whatsoever, that’s totally fine.

">believe that, as dance music artists, "there's much better places for us to be," (this is said right at the 4:16 mark, of all times) Toronto's other homegrown house producers have taken the entire electro world by storm in the last few months. One needs only to point one's browser to the website Beatport, which has quickly become the DJ world's number one website for downloading high-bitrate dance music, and look on the "Top Downloads" panel on the lower right. In that period of time, there has been at least one track by a Toronto-based artist on the Top 10, and in the last five months, at least one Ontarian (if you include Windsor-raised Richie Hawtin, a.k.a. Plastikman.) Here is a brief look at three Toronto artists who have been conquering dancefloors around the world with their popular tracks on Beatport:

A Milton woman went on a rampage with a samurai sword on Sunday, injuring her boyfriend and an off-duty firefighter, smashing windows at a gas station and hacking at a parked car. While Torontoist doesn't condone senseless irrational violence, you've got to give her points for style.

For decades, Toronto has been one of Hollywood's most versatile back lots. Along the way, every specialized branch of the multi-headed film and television biz has sprouted up in the city. Camera, electrical, post production, locations and ... plane crash and natural disaster recreations?

Eat Me is a regular feature about the nooks and crannies of Toronto's restaurant scene, about the amazing restaurants that are––for some reason––criminally underpatronized. It's pretty easy to find sushi places in this city. From the Bloor Street strip to North York, sushi places range from suspiciously cheap to ridiculously expensive, from having incredibly creative culinary creations to the same old rolls. Quietly tucked on the east edge of Little Italy is Jun Jun Sushi...

November 14 to 18 marks the return of the Reel Asian International Film Festival. Last night, the Japan Foundation played host as filmmakers and media types gathered at a press conference to kick off the 11th annual incarnation of the fest. And with more than 70 independent works from all over the world, this year’s Reel Asian Festival will be worth cracking open that golden piggy bank for.

This weekend, Toronto will be a rockin' city, as the 2007 World Rock Paper Scissors Championships cut into town.

The Ontario government will spend around $27 billion on nuclear power between now and 2025 in a bid to keep the lights on in the province. If history is any indicator, the nuke plans will be characterized by inefficiencies, unanticipated delays,and massive cost overruns, but will at least ensure that future generations have access to a secure supply of radioactive waste.

“That’s something you won’t find at Loblaws,” said Frank Yip, as he gestured toward the delectable-looking barbecued meats hanging behind glass at the deli. He’s right; though a staple in Chinatown, it’s a tantalizing display that might be unfamiliar to Toronto citizens used to a more typical grocery shopping experience. It’s also the perfect welcome to T&T Supermarket—the new best friend of Portlands-area foodies.

I love the smell of police raid in the morning. Toronto Vice arrested 60 people in the Jane and Finch area this morning in a raid called Project Kryptic. They seized "30 kilos of cocaine, hash oil and marijuana with an estimated street value of $1 million" from the Driftwood Crips. That's actually pretty badass.

"What's The Frequency, Campus?" highlights some of the intriguing shows and special programming happening on Toronto's campus and community radio stations.

For the entire month of May, the Deep Wireless festival will be taking place at various venues, from the west end to your very own living room. Presented by New Adventures in Sound Art, this is the sixth edition of the annual festival that explores the medium of experimental sound and radio art.

Sprockets begins this weekend! Yay! Despite not being aimed at us, Sprockets is one of our favourite film festivals in town for what it represents, which is getting kids out to see, discuss and think about world cinema. It’s pretty important if you have kids to make sure they don’t grow up into adults who say “if I wanted to read, I’d get a book” when faced with a subtitled film.

Thanks to Shanghaist Editor Dan Washburn for calling our attention to the latest Cost of Living Survey from the Economist Intelligence Unit, which rates 132 cities worldwide by how much it costs to live there.

Celia Franca, Photo: Janine; Karen Kain, Celia Franca and Veronica Tennant, Photo: Bruce Zinger; Celia Franca in Lilac Garden, Photo: Ken Bell

It's tough to get excited about Kikkoman soy sauce bottles. They've been around since 1961, and you find them at every sushi dive in the city. But, at one time, they were the height of tableware innovation, and for that reason, they're included in a new show at the Design Exchange: Japanese Design Today 100.

By now most of you are probably familiar with Toronto's homespun Pillow Fight League and its roster of lovely looking and colorfully named pillow pugilists. Its campy girl-on-girl smackdowns have earned it a good deal of attention in the media and a loyal following of fans. The PFL isn't the only pseudo-sport in town worthy of attention, though. Toronto is also home to two rival leagues that are both redefining pro-wrestling in their own unique and interesting ways. One is BSE, or "Blood Sweat and Ears," and combines traditional pro-wrestling with a live rock show (hence the "ears"). The other is "UWA Hardcore," which is staging a show tonight at St. John's Hall in Mississauga at 7:00 sharp.

as part of their spring 2007 lecture series.

Think the World's Biggest Bookstore. Scratch that - think of a bookstore of free books that is as big as the world.

In a bizarre and tragic scene yesterday, former Toronto Blue Jay (and current New York Yankee) pitcher Cory Lidle perished after flying his plane into an apartment building in New York.

And so yet another day passes without incident, because we didn’t go to any parties or anything! We think, um, there was a Latin America party (or something) but we didn’t go. There was also, apparently, the OMDC Sales Cocktail Party, presented by the Ontario Media Development Corporation. We had to miss that, though, as we’d booked some time in the video library. Ah well! Not much in the way of star spotting today then, though we did bump into the lovely director of Sur La Trace d’Igor Rizzi, Noël Mitrani. Apparently the film had some real buzz about it at Venice, which is fantastic, as we really liked it.

It started like most conflicts on Stillepost, Toronto’s message board for the more melodramatic members of its indie music scene. On July 7, “torontoindie.com” posted: “Who wants an interview? Please respond with an email: lidia@torontoindie.com. Subject title: (band name) interview”. A mere fifteen minutes later, torontoindie.com (born Lidia) seems to have planted the seed for conflict herself with a reply to her own post: “First I get blasted for not enough interviews. Now nothing? Unreal.” The self-propelling argument was initially met with confusion. Wrote jeff, “It’s more that you seem to have some sort of hostility towards people for not giving your site enough attention. I don't get it.” True enough, a visit to Torontoindie.com reveals a link to itself (a recurring theme, apparently) and a sparsely used messageboard. With that said, it wasn’t long before Stillepost rolled up its sleeves and got to work.

Hot Docs, North America’s largest documentary film festival begins tonight and there is a lot on offer with 99 films this year, so you’ll forgive us if we only cover this weekend’s picks today. After all, we haven’t even picked up our pass yet!

members of this city's Cuban or Dominican population will be congregating anywhere in the event of a victory?

The CN Tower is the world's tallest free-standing structure, it's a mantra that almost all Torontonians can recite, and it's been that way for around three decades. Well, it seems like the CN tower's record holding status is being challenged by not one or two but by at least three challengers. The latest is in Tokyo, where NHK, Japan's national broadcaster is planning a tower that'll dwarf good old CN.

Observant readers of the Urban Toronto forum pointed out this Aussie ad campaign that asks tourists "Where the bloody hell are you?" We're not sure how the "strong language" will translate in China, Japan, India and Europe where these ads will be translated but in the English speaking world the reception seem to be quite positive.

Well, we’ve already mentioned the Australian Film Festival today, but, of course, there’s still space for our little round up of cinema’s new releases and indie and rep film for the week.