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David Kracker
For David Kracker's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 12, 2017
'Garage Rockin' Craze': 'It's not about fame, they want 15 minutes of fun'
Mario Cuzic used a video camera to face the question that keeps many expat English teachers up at night: What am I going to do before I head back home? His answer, "Garage Rockin' Craze," is a documentary on the history of Japan's underground garage rock scene that has nurtured internationally renowned bands including The 5.6.7.8's, Guitar Wolf and Teengenerate.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 29, 2015
The gorgeous world of Japanese gore
Zerai Naoi makes his living by keeping gore hounds fed on a shoestring budget. If you want to sample his work, it helps to have a strong stomach.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 24, 2015
Hiroji Kubota's lens is a witness to history
Photographer Hiroji Kubota believes that "everyone has a great drama to tell." With the release of his retrospective photo book, simply titled "Hiroji Kubota Photographer," now it's his turn to tell his.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 15, 2015
Kawasaki gets ready to do the 'Time Warp' again
Moviegoers in Japan are generally expected to take a vow of silence at the cinema — unless the film happens to be "The Rocky Horror Picture Show."
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Sep 16, 2015
Play it again: One fan's quest to save old video games
We now recognize the late Yasujiro Ozu as one of Japan's finest film directors, but his early works are lost to history, victims of a time when cinema was seen as disposable entertainment and not an art form worth saving. Joseph Redon doesn't want the same thing to happen to video games.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 5, 2015
Cartoon worlds collide as 'The Simpsons' meet 'Akira' in 'Barkira'
Last year, animated TV show "The Simpsons" spoofed the films of director Hayao Miyazaki. This spring, bootleg Bart Simpson T-shirts line the boutiques of Harajuku.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Feb 19, 2015
Student wrestlers learn the ropes ahead of university 'battle royale'
Want to be a lawyer? Go to law school. A doctor? Med school. But where do you enroll if you want to learn how to fly off the top rope to deliver a brutal body slam?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 28, 2014
Idol-pop act Necronomidol is taken to the dark side
It's a week until Necronomidol's big show and, practicing at a dance studio in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward, the four members make a decision to change one line from "We've come to bring about the Apocalypse" to "We've come to enact Armageddon." Manager Ricky Wilson agrees; another problem solved.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 27, 2013
Sincerity is the new ecstasy in Funkot's 'Summer of Love'
At the end of the 1980s, British DJs imported a potent new style of house music from the Spanish party island Ibiza in what came to be known as the ecstasy-fueled "Second Summer of Love." Inspired by this trade route two decades later, Katsumi Takano, aka Mandokoro or DJ Jet Baron, hopes to launch a "Third Summer of Love" with an aggressive brand of dance music smuggled in from Indonesia.

Longform

A statue of "Dragon Ball" character Goku stands outside the offices of Bandai Namco in Tokyo. The figure is now as recognizable as such characters as Mickey Mouse and Spider-Man.
Akira Toriyama's gift to the world