Hey - this is mainly directed to anyone living in Tokyo;

What's the deal with the big military-style vehicles going around in Tokyo (saw them in Shibuya today)? I mean the green trucks with a big megaphone and guys in military helmets. They were shouting something, thru very loud megaphones, but my nihongo is way too bad to understand it all. It just made out words like 'America', 'Nippon' etcetera.

Anyways, please enlighten me.

PS. Oh so nice with some rain today!

Those are either right-wing or left-wing people. You will encounter the right-wing guys much more often, though, as the left-wingers often couldn't afford large vehicles with the loudspeakers. The right-wingers will almost always have a large Japanese flag, the old Japanese military flag, or the Imperial chrysanthemum crest painted on the vehicle.

Noisy but harmless (besides the noise). One guy got out of the truck to deliver a speech about how gaijin were the devil to a crowd of one (me). An "only in Japan" moment.

Yeah I get that they're harmless, but really, they sure know how to crank up the volume on those things... is that really allowed?

Anyways seems it was rightwingers then, because it was a caravan with several vehicles etc.

These kinds of flags:

Probably right-wingers...and noise pollution is a law that isn't nearly as controlled as it should be. Go within 10 feet of a pachinko parlor when the door is opened. It's like being at a rock concert.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Japan.

Welcome to Tokyo, you have now seen one of Japan's proverbial speaker trucks. The last bunch I saw were being operated by anti-China demonstrators prior to the Olympics. Not only where there the speaker trucks, but many marchers as well.

Just wait until election season comes, speaker trucks are the main form of political advertising.

Hey, I saw some loudspeaker trucks last I was here, too. Just hadn't seen these propaganda-trucks before:)

A pachinko parlor has nothing on these guys regarding noise ^^

Anyhow it just seemed kinda funny, I wasn't bothered by it. Most people I saw didn't seem to get too excited by it, either. But then again who likes it when people scream in your ear?:>

Toyota City in da house
 

Hi,

I'm Marc. Here for a few months at least doing "training" for my U.S. based job. Would like to get out and learn more both about the immediate area and places like Nagoya, Osaka and of course, Tokyo. Web sites only offer so much info. I'm particularly interested in finding decent places to shop, clubs to dance in, etc. Looking for the "art" districts and alternative sorts of hangouts - assuming those terms have any meaning here. For clubs I'm looking for (Have found some) goth/industrial/punk ish sorta places. Something similar is acceptable. I go mad if I don't dance a couple times a month.

Thanks for listening... PM with ideas.

@marc
what i've heard and seen there's alot of shops and stuff in tokyo, don't know about concerts. from my experience in osaka there sort of is a scene here... there are some hardcore/punk bars and concerts/festivals know and then, mostly with japanese people. lot of small underground artists, you really need to get to know some japanese people who are into the stuff.

In Nagoya, the fringes of Osu and the backstreets around Sakae have quite a bit. I am not too up to date these days as I`m not really involved in going out all that much - having a kid does that to you - but I doubt things have changed too drastically.