Rolf Hawkins comments

Women are equal to men, right? So why on earth would you torture your viewing audience with REMAKES of films that no is asking for simply because they originally starred men? If women are equal to men, then be as original as those...original...films were, and create something new. When I was in theaters around the country (I travel a lot for work and frequent theaters in my down time), and the all-female Ghostbusters trailer was playing, women and girls---the target audience, right?---were booing and giving it thumbs down. Literally. Because it was every bit as nausea-inducing as the male lead-dominated Fast and Furious films. Crap is crap, regardless of the gender of the actors.

They ought to just buy the same coastal defense system Viet Nam bought from Israel.

The bit about Toyota amuses me, because on my very first trip to Japan as a product planner for Pioneer's North American market, the son of the elderly Japanese couple next to me on the flight from the US was also a Pioneer employee. At a club in Roppongi Hills a few nights later, the young Japanese lady who ended up buying me drinks was the daughter of the then president of Pioneer Japan. Out of 30M people in the Tokyo area, and that's who I wind up running into! So, I might as well have emulated your Toyota tourist by saying "Pioneer!" to everyone I met!

29 years since Laputa??? Wow, that makes me feel old. I will NEVER forget the first time I saw that, as a VHS import from Japan right after its release. I then had to have it on LaserDisc, and just about wore that disc out! What a fantastic film!

"drunken cyclists leaving their bikes all over the place" Is that really a problem? When I was last in Kyoto, about ten years ago, I watched police scrupulously examined bicycles parked in front of various businesses. Lots of bicycle theft or expired bicycle registrations, maybe?

Ask for sunglasses... If it's sunny, I'm wearing them. The locals will have to deal with it.