Please view the main text area of the page by skipping the main menu. The page may not be displayed properly if the JavaScript is deactivated on your browser Japanese version The International Korfball Federation has learnt of the passing of Professor Shinshiro Ebashi Professor Ebashi is the Founder of the Japan Korfball Association at the time when he served on the leadership of the National Recreation Association of Japan Professor Ebashi had learnt about korfball in Chinese Taipei Founder of the Chinese Taipei Korfball Association Professor Ebashi is recognized as the First President of the National Institute of Sports Science in Kanoya The IKF remembers Professor Ebashi with the greatest respect and appreciate him for laying the foundation of korfball in Japan Subscribe! Honolulu Magazine | Honolulu Family Chihiro and Sean Shinshiro at Sean’s Kitchen you’ve already seen shots of my trip to Tokyo My classmate, Deb Aoki always takes fantastic trips and finds the quirkiest things along the way I follow her on instagram and shake my fist at my phone I’m going with you!” She let me know that she was headed to Tokyo in November for an anime conference I arrived a few days ahead of her to visit with other Hawaii people who live here now I learned a lot about Japanese culture and mindset The first person I visited was classmate Sean Shinshiro (right), who has lived in Japan for 10 years and has owned a restaurant in Urayasu (near Chiba) for about four. Sean’s Kitchen is known for its Hawaiian style food with all the local favorites and live music to boot If you’re in Tokyo and feeling homesick this is a great place to get a taste of Hawaii and talk about all kine local stuffs as Urayasu is about an hour or so out of the city The first thing a tourist does upon arrival in Shibuya: Take a photo with Hachiko jQuery(function($) { new NggPaginatedGallery('6b4ff99799d941fcd0763475a998efbb' These were just the highlights.  To see all photos from the trip, click here.  Up next: more Hawaii peeps in the Big Mikan Today's print edition Home Delivery the Takeda family was one of the strongest clans in Japan known in particular for its successful cavalry charges it found itself up against something that rendered it powerless — the new western technology of firearms allies of Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu attacked and defeated Takeda Katsuyori's forces became recognized as a turning point for Japanese warfare because of Oda's effective use of guns It was the first battle for which firearms played a major role in victory.googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1499653692894-0'); }); locals of Shinshiro in Aichi Prefecture commemorate this famous event with the Shitaragahara Battlefield Festival after a memorial service dedicated to those who died in battle including a drumming show and a children's samurai-costume parade The highlight of the festival is a demonstration by men just as Oda's forces did more than 400 years ago Other attractions include stalls selling special foods and locally made miscellaneous goods The Shitaragahara Battlefield Festival takes place near Shitaragahara Historical Museum at Takehiroaza, Shinshiro in Aichi Prefecture on July 6th from 9 a.m. If there is heavy rain, only the memorial service and a part of shooting demonstration will take place. For more information call 0536-22-0673 or visit sitarahara.p1.bindsite.jp/stay.html (Japanese) In a time of both misinformation and too much information quality journalism is more crucial than ever.By subscribing Your subscription plan doesn't allow commenting. To learn more see our FAQ Sponsored contents planned and edited by JT Media Enterprise Division Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker Who would have thought we would be seeing a sequel to 47 Ronin among all of the Halloween goodies a modern-day sequel to the Keanu Reeves samurai epic And they said there’s no such thing as The Great Pumpkin Somewhere in Budapest Yurei (Dan Southworth, The Doorman, Battle Drone) kills Arai (Chris Pang Tomorrow When the War Began) thought to be the last in the bloodline of those who wielded the Blade of the 47 Ronin he once served Shinshiro but is now a ronin He finds out the sword is in the hands of Luna (Anna Akana Big City Greens) a young American woman with a shady past and a very uncertain future Blade of the 47 Ronin was directed by Ron Yuan (Ron Yuan, Unspoken: Diary of an Assassin, Step Up China) a veteran actor with over a hundred and seventy credits to his name ranging from Ring of Fire to Mulan and Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind he paid attention and learned how to shoot an action scene Breaking Through) gives him plenty of chances to stage them while giving the cast lines like “You’re just going to leave a beheaded dude on the ground?” But apart from that it’s a fairly typical East meets West action film with some fantasy elements thrown in involving the fusing of the Blade of 47 Ronin with the Witch Blade to create a Tengu Blade What this all means is that Luna has five days to become a master swordswoman and kill Yurei who is the last descendent of the witch who crafted the Witch Blade It’s actually closer to John Frankenheimer’s The Challenge than the film it’s supposed to be a sequel to Being from Universal’s low-budget department means that Dacascos makes his exit about halfway through the film Although with it running an hour and forty-five minutes it also means we get an extended training session taking up much of the film’s midsection The last act makes up for it though with a couple of twists and double-crosses as well as a lot of sword fighting and bloodshed While it is a cheap cash-in and sequel in name only Blade of the 47 Ronin is a perfectly acceptable action film in its own right and Dacascos gets to join in a few of them before taking his leave but Universal has made a ten-minute preview available Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email Copyright © 2017-2024 Voices From The Balcony | Powered by Astra Scroll to TopDiscover more from Voices From The BalconySubscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive Watch Teams Matches Tickets & Membership Shop St. James' Park Young men and women studying more than 5,700 miles away from St. James’ Park in Japan were first introduced to the Foundation last year when Community Project Co-ordinator Melissa Scott visited their hometown of Shinshiro – Japan’s ‘Newcastle’. The Shinshiro students were keen to see where their heroes played the beautiful game and through Newcastles of the World and Newcastle United Foundation, arranged a visit to St. James’ Park. The group of around 20 were thrilled to reunite with Melissa and enjoyed an exclusive stadium tour before being surprised by a very special visitor – Japanese international Muto, who hails from the outskirts of Tokyo, 150 miles north-east of Shinshiro. Muto – who began his career with FC Tokyo before joining German side Mainz 05 ahead of his move to the Magpies in July 2018 – was met with impromptu applause from the students, before posing for photographs and signing autographs for the students. Melissa said: “It was fantastic for those who I met in Japan to do a return visit where they came along to the stadium to meet Muto. “He’s a big link between myself and the young people from Shinshiro and you could see that it meant a lot to them to have time to talk and interact with him. Muto was very generous with his time and it was a pleasure to welcome the students to St. James’ Park.” A friendship spanning thousands of miles developed through the unique Newcastles of the World organisation which connects communities across the globe to those with different cultures and backgrounds living in cities named Newcastle in their native language. In Shinshiro, Melissa worked with dozens of sporty schoolchildren and left a lasting legacy with the gift of a Newcastle United shirt, signed by first team players. She said: “I was there alongside young people from Switzerland, Australia, Latvia, Denmark, America and, of course, Japan. We all participated in a sports day competing in mixed teams with the Japanese community and got to play some local Japanese games which was great.” The Newcastles of the World network will next meet in Switzerland in April 2020 in a summit organised by David Faulkner, former Newcastle City Council leader turned Newcastles of the World co-ordinator. David said: “Our guests from Japan were absolutely thrilled to meet Yoshinori Muto and despite us taking them up to the top of Castle Keep, to see the Angel of the North, Alnwick Castle and Holy Island, I think the visit to St. James’ Park and the meeting with one of their heroes was the highlight of their visit to the North East. “We would like to thank the Newcastle United Foundation for arranging this very special visit and for taking the time out of their busy schedule to make us all feel so welcome. We would also like to thank Muto for his time and patience. We all look forward to him knocking in some more goals for Newcastle!” Map TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team has all three of its cars inside the top five after a typically demanding first full day of Rally Japan as it keeps up the chase for the manufacturers’ championship Friday was the longest day of the rally with 126 competitive kilometres and proved to be challenging from the beginning Elfyn Evans made a clean start to the day there and in the following Inabu/Shitara stage closed to within 2.5 seconds of the rally lead which he then claimed with a stage win the morning’s final test While some time was lost in the first two stages of the afternoon Evans replied with another fastest time in fading light in the second pass through Shinshiro After also setting the equal best time on the second of two runs through a super special in Okazaki Sébastien Ogier and Takamoto Katsuta encountered trouble in the morning’s pass of Isegami’s Tunnel with Ogier having to stop and change a punctured tyre and conceding around two minutes while Katsuta ended the stage around one minute down with a tyre off its rim Both drivers would recover well with good stage times Katsuta climbed as high as third overall after SS5 and after setting the quickest times in both passes of the Okazaki super special ended the day just 0.1s from a podium place in fourth Ogier responded immediately to his early setback with a stage win in SS3 and climbed from 18th to fifth across the day to sit just 21.7s from the podium positions TOYOTA GAZOO Racing WRC 2024 Official Partners Japanese version The Aichi Prefectural Government is using GPS to track wild deer and research new ways to keep them from damaging crops in mountainous areas the Aichi Prefectural Forestry Technology Center in the city of Shinshiro attached a collar with a tracking device to a doe estimated to be around 1 year old They nicknamed her Shikami.googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1499653692894-0'); }); A similar device was placed on a buck named Shikao in February gave up his racing career after incurring a spinal cord injury in a 1999 race and he hopes to revive the popularity of the vehicles Sawada runs Motocyclette Sawada with his younger brother Most were produced between the 1970s and 1990s.googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1499653692894-0'); }); inspired him to enter a racing school at the Suzuka Circuit in Suzuka production capacity for 18-inch and larger high-performance tyres will increase by about 20 per cent at Yokohama rubber’s Shinshiro plant in Japan in order to meet growing demand for these highly profitable products Work on a new plant production line will begin this May This will go on stream in June 2017 and reach full capacity by the following April Yokohama Rubber is investing approximately 3.7 billion yen (£22.7 million) in this project has the largest passenger car tyre production capacity of any Yokohama group facility The factory and the nearby Shinshiro-Minami plant can produce a combined total of 16.9 million tyres a year (as of December 2015) According to Yokohama Rubber’s 2015 Annual Report the company’s global production capacity (consumer and commercial) stood at 68 million tyres at the end of 2014; projected global capacity is expected to rise to 74 million units by the end of 2017 If you would like the latest news from the Chinese tyre industry in Chinese, visit our partner site TyrepressChina.com Japanese version “Blade of the 47 Ronin” is supposed to be a sequel to 2013’s “47 Ronin” the film is far from doing justice to its prequel It tries to connect to its predecessor using the motif of descendants but is unable to establish the flavor that “47 Ronin” provided us with “47 Ronin” had a certain authenticity in its atmosphere and narrative that was based on the Samurai But all that “Blade of the 47 Ronin” has are sword fights for the sake of a plot that let’s delve into what happens in “Blade of the 47 Ronin” Lord Arai of the House of Arai seeks help from Hirano the witch who served as Lord Kira’s aide one of the original 47 Ronin.) The only way to stop him is the Tengu sword So it is imperative that they stop him from getting his hands on it namely the Warrior sword and the Witch Blade they will be able to kill Yurei and fulfill the prophecy that says that “the Blade of the 47 Ronin will be yielded by a true descendant to defeat an evil born from the past.” So only Arai can kill Yurei him being the last descendant of the 47 Ronin (he is the descendant of Chikara Oishi of the original 47 Ronin who fought the forces of the evil Lord Kira and received an honorable death) their house is attacked by Yurei’s men realizes that Arai wasn’t the last descendant meet in Budapest to decide what to do next Shinshiro (Mark Dacascos) says that the Record Keeper has had a vision of a young American woman who had the Warrior Blade in her hands believe that the American woman needs to be found and told about her true Ronin past Onami (Teresa Ting) (Shinshiro found her as a baby and raised her as his own; her ancestry is not known) and after saving her from a bunch of Yurei’s men tells her of her significance in the present scheme of things While Luna isn’t at all interested in the samurai story she just heard she decides to listen to them just for the sake of it Dash (Nino Furuhata) that on the next blood moon which will unleash the full power of his dark magic Thus begins Luna’s training under Onami so that she can defeat Yurei by using the Tengu sword then realizes that she has powers like Yurei but denies the thought that she is indeed a witch Having already stolen the witch’s sword Yurei then manages to get hold of the warrior sword by tracking Luna who had received the location of the sword from Dash before he was killed by Yurei’s men he only has to wait for the blood moon night Yurei kills Lord Shinshiro while his wards kill Dash and Aya Yurei unites the two swords into the Tengu sword Luna even manages to stab Yurei with the Tengu sword This proves that what Yurei had told her was right When Luna throws the Tengu sword towards Onami to keep it away from Yurei’s hands This reveals that Onami is the last descendant of the 47 Ronin thereby bringing an end to his evil forces Onami is then declared the new Lord of the House of Arai was the last descendant of the original 47 Ronin Shinshiro found her as a baby and raised her and trained her as a samurai without knowing her ancestry the most significant character is an adopted child This is something that “47 Ronin” also portrayed Kai (Keanu Reeves) was adopted as a young boy by Lord Asano And  Kai is the most significant character in the film whose descendant is “Blade of the 47 Ronin”  ‘s Yurei Kai did have a relationship with Lord Asano’s daughter Mika as its father was a half-breed and was also unaccepted by many (but we must remember that he was declared a samurai by Oishi Yoshio) gave it away to someone else for safekeeping and the baby eventually landed in Lord Shinshiro’s arms the Tengu Sword is formed out of the fusion of the Witch Sword and the Warrior Sword But in “47 Ronin,” Tengu was the name of a forest where Kai and Oishi went to get new magical swords to fight Lord Kira and his men The Tengu Forest is where Kai was raised by demons before he escaped and was found by Lord Asano So the Tengu Sword has two interpretations of its name It is called Tengu due to its far-fetched yet clear connection with demonic powers (witchcraft) since demons lived in the Tengu Forest Or it could be that both the Witch Sword and the Warrior Sword were built by the demons in the Tengu forest knew the risks of the Witch Sword and made the Warrior Sword counteract the Witch Sword’s effects The Warrior Sword can also be Kai’s sword This justifies Onami wielding the Tengu Sword It is up to us to choose the way we want to interpret it we see Lord Niko introduce Lord Onami to Lord Okoro and Lord Maeda at the Order meeting; the others are dead The film ends with Onami mentioning the first order of business This might mean that the third potential part of the 47 Ronin franchise will explore the Tengu Sword and its past and how it came into being in the first place We shall also learn more about the demonic inhabitants of the Tengu Forest “Blade of the 47 Ronin” is a 2022 action thriller film directed by Rou Yuan Flickering Myth October 22, 2022 by Amie Cranswick Ahead of its home entertainment release this Tuesday Universal has shared a trailer for Blade of the 47 Ronin the upcoming straight-to-video sequel to the 2013 Keanu Reeves-headlined action fantasy 47 Ronin ronin Reo and apprentice Onami summon their skills to train a prophesied hero – a streetwise New Yorker names Luna – when an evil witch previously slain by one the 47 Ronin whose ancestor was slain by one of the 47 Ronin has surfaced in modern day Budapest determined to have his revenge Yurei seeks to completely destroy all samurai by uniting both halves of the powerful Tengu Sword A prophecy claims only a descendant of the original 47 Ronin can wield the blade and defeat this great evil The samurai are shocked when Lord Shinshiro identifies a streetwise New Yorker named Luna as the one who was prophesied He charges ronin Reo and apprentice Onami with training Luna to be the hero they desperately need With most of the samurai lords dead or missing the remaining warriors must summon all of their skills as martial arts masters to combat Yurei’s mystic magic and fulfill their destiny Blade of the 47 Ronin stars Anna Akana SEE ALSO: R.I.P.D. 2: Rise of the Damned gets a trailer and images Blade of the 47 Ronin arrives on digital and Blu-ray on October 25th Amie Cranswick has been part of Flickering Myth’s editorial and management team for over a decade She has a background in publishing and copyediting and has served as Editor-in-Chief of FlickeringMyth.com since 2023.