ABOUT ME

Hi, my name is Junko. Thank you for visiting my site and being nice enough to read such a page. I'm a Mansun fan and a collector as you can see from other pages on this site.
I've been a keen listener of British pop music for so many  years but never been a collector until I came to know Mansun in 1996. And when I heard their debut album and saw them play live in 1997, I decided to devote the rest of my life and most of my salary to them.

Here's FAQ about me.

Frequently Asked Questions about me

Are you a guy or a girl?
I'm a grown up woman. I'm single and free by the way.

But how old are you?
Oh, shut up. It's none of your business.

How should I pronounce you name?
My name Junko is pronounced as June-co, not Junk-o.

Where do you live?
I live in Tokyo, Japan.

What do you do as a job?
It's another secret. But I'm a highly qualified professional.

Where did you learn your English?
I've never lived or studied abroad. So I should say my English is self-taught through imported books, records and films (oh, and the Internet these days), because English education in Japan is useless.

Why Mansun?
Because they are the best band I've met in my whole life. This means that they are the best band in the history of rock. This is true! Believe your elder.

And here are a few of my favourite things.

My Other Favourite Bands - Major Artists

60s : The Doors (the first and the last American band I loved), The Yardbirds, Buffalo Springfield (sorry, they were Americans too), Traffic

70s : Pink Floyd / Syd Barrett, Yes, King Crimson, David Bowie, Roxy Music, T-Rex, The Clash, The Stranglers, 10CC / Godley & Creme, Queen

80s : Japan, Ultravox, Duran Duran, Heaven 17, Echo & The Bunnymen, Joy Division / New Order / Electronic, Tears For Fears, Scritti Politti, Depeche Mode, The Smiths, Aztec Camera, Simple Minds, Bauhaus, The Jesus And Mary Chain, The The, The Cure, Pet Shop Boys, Prefab Sprout, Psychedelic Furs, UB40 (early days only)

90s : Happy Mondays, Stone Roses, The Charlatans, The Farm, Ride, EMF, Jesus Jones, Manic Street Preachers (until Richey left...but I can't hate them still), Suede, Pulp, Gene, Shed Seven, The Bluetones, Stereo MC's, Massive Attack, UNKLE

2000s : My Vitriol

My Other Favourite Bands - (comparatively) Unsung Heroes I cherish and love always

80s : The Lotus Eaters, The Pale Fountains, Associates / Billy Mackenzie, Eyeless In Gaza / Martyn Bates, The Specials / Fun Boy Three / The Colourfield / Terry Hall, And Also The Trees, Seona Dancing, The Pop Group

90s : It's Immaterial, Blue Nile, Railway Children, Beats International (Norman Cook's previous band), Frazier Chorus, Microdisney / Fatima Mansions, Flowered Up, New Fast Automatic Daffodils, No-Man, Puressence, Trashcan Sinatras, Strangelove, Spearmint

2000s : The Animalhouse

My Other Favourite Things

Sci-Fi Novels

Douglas Adams, J G Ballard (my all-time best writer), Iain Banks, Stephen Baxter, Barrington Bayley, Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, Alfred Bester, Chris Boyce, Arthur C Clarke, Samuel R Delany, Philip K Dick, Thomas M Disch (here! One thing I have common with Paul! He's the author of the Prisoner), Philip Jose Farmer, James Alan Gardener, James P Hogan, K W Jeter, R A Lafferty, Stanislaw Lem, Larry Niven, Jeff Noon, Charles Platt, Rudy Rucker, Robert Sawyer, Charles Sheffield, Dan Simmons, John Sladek, Cordwainer Smith, James Tiptree Jr, A E Van Vogt, John Varley, Ian Watson, Gene Wolfe

Horror / Fantasy Novels

David Ambrose, Clive Barker, Jonathan Carroll, Mark Frost, Tanith Lee, C S Lewis,  H P Lovecraft, George McDonald, Ian McDonald, George R R Martin, Mervyn Peake, Michael Slade, Peter Straub, J R R Tolkien, F Paul Wilson,

Mystery

Brigitte Aubert, Conan Doyle, Robert Goddard, Ruth Rendell

Literature

Peter Ackroyd, Martin Amis, Julian Barnes, William Blake, Jorge Luis Borges, Anthony Burgess, William S Burroughs, Lewis Carroll, Angela Carter, Jean Cocteau, Steve Erickson, John Fowles, Joseph Heller, Hermann Hesse, Aldous Huxley, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jean Genet, Gunter Grass, Franz Kafka, Ian McEwan, Iris Murdoch, Vladimir Nabokov, George Orwell, Thomas Pynchon, Arthur Rimbaud, Philip Ridley, Salman Rushdie, George Bernard Shaw, Gore Vidal

British Graphic Artists

Neville Brody, Vaughan Oliver, Peter Saville, Russell Mills

Rock Photographers

Anton Corbijn, Steve Double, Mitch Ikeda, Pennie Smith, Kevin Westenberg

Artists / Photographers

Aubrey Beardsley, Arnold Bocklin, Salvador Dali, Jean Delville, William Degouve de Nuncques, Gerald Di-Maccio, M C Escher, Casper David Friedrich, H R Giger, Pierre Et Gilles, David Hockney, Fernand Khnopff, Robert Mapplethorpe, Alain Margotton, Gustave Moreau, William Morris, Maxfield Parrish, Odilon Redon, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Paul Wunderlich, John William Waterhouse, Andrew Wyeth

Japanese Comic Book Artists

Otomo Katsuhiro, Azuma Hideo, Morohoshi Daijiro, Fujiwara Kamui, Itahashi Shufo, Karasawa Nawoki, Takahashi Yosuke, Yamada Akihiro, Maruo Suehiro, Tori Miki, Shiriagari Kotobuki, Tony Takezaki, Furuya Usamaru, Mizuno Junko

Film Directors

Robert Altman, Lindsay Anderson, Bernardo Bertolucci, Luis Bunuel, Tim Burton, Jane Campion, Joel Coen, Francis Coppola, Alex Cox, David Cronenberg, Federico Fellini, David Fincher, Stephen Frears, Terry Gilliam, Stuart Gordon, Peter Greenaway, Jim Henson, Alfred Hitchcock, Peter Jackson, Derek Jarman, Jeunet et Caro, Alexandro Jodorowsky, Terry Jones, Neil Jordan, Stanley Kubrick, Emir Kusturica, Michael Lehmann, Baz Luhrmann, David Lynch, Alan Parker, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Sam Peckinpah, Roman Polanski, Philip Ridley, Nicolas Roeg, George A Romero, Richard Rush, Ken Russell, Paul Schrader, Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott, Oliver Stone, Quentin Tarantino, Gus Van Sant, Paul Verhoeven, John Waters

The Films That Made Me

Apocalypse Now by Francis Coppola (my all time best)
If... by Lindsay Anderson
Satyricon by Federico Fellini
Zabriskie Point by Michelangelo Antonioni
2001 A Space Odyssey by Stanly Kubrick
A Clockwork Orange by Stanly Kubrick
Taxi Driver by Martin Scorsese
Catch 22 by Mike Nichols
The Man Who Fell To Earth by Nicolas Roeg
Novecento by Bernardo Bertolucci
The Night Porter by Liliana Cavani
The Wall by Alan Parker
Die Blechtrommel by Volker Schlondorff
A Zed & Two Noughts by Peter Greenaway
Alien Chronicles
Videodrome by David Cronenberg
Eraserhead by David Lynch
Sid And Nancy by Alex Cox
Another Country by Marek Kanievska
The Exocist by William Friedkin
The Thing by John Carpenter
The Living Dead Trilogy by George A Romero
Brazil by Terry Gilliam
Caravaggio by Derek Jarman
La Cite Des Enfants Perdu by Jeunet et Caro
Santa Sangre by Alexandro Jodorowsky
Natural Born Killers by Oliver Stone
Underground by Emir Kusturica

I'm also into...

United Kingdom

Yeah, I'm a big Anglophile and love almost anything British. Why Britain? Mainly for its music and language. I also love their humour, eccentricity, tea, landscapes and cloudy London sky in the twilight. I even love its food and weather!

Collecting things

I'm a natural born collector. Most of my collection are related to pop music. Apart from more than 2,000 records, I collect music books, videos, T-shirts, tour programmes, posters, photographs and various merchandises. And I've got tons of cuttings from UK and Japanese magazines.
Other things I'm collecting are books, comic books, movie videos, cinema programmes, postcards, anything with horse-related design...Oh I must stop this, or my house will be like a warehouse.

Writing things

Writing is a part of my job but I like writing not for money. So I'm writing this. I also write volumes of diary (it's more like an essay) part of which are uploaded on this site. But it is in Japanese. Sorry.

Horses

I'm a horse-lover and a poor rider and used to be a horseracing fan, though I gave up gambling now.

Cats

Paul always reminds me of a Siamese cat. Anyway I love all the furry animals including beautiful young boys.

Dinosaurs

I love scaled, gigantic animals too. I used to love Godzilla when I was a kid, but am into paleontology instead now. My favourite dinosaur is deinonychus and I'm a fan of Robert Bakker.

Computers

No, I'm not in love with my computer and my knowledge of computers are very limited. Still somehow I can't live without it for a day now. Weird.

Science

I don't have a degree in science. I'm just a fan of science and love to read science books. My main interest is in maths, physics, astronomy, biology, ethology and  paleontology. But took interest in neurology due to books by Oliver Sacks. Another thing I have in common with Mansun! (and er...Travis)  But Richard Dawkins is my star.

My Least Favourite Things

Oh, there are too many to name. As a matter of fact, I hate almost everything (sounds very Mansun) except mentioned above as I'm very choosy. Anyway, it's a law of nature that 99% of everything is crap.
Here are a few examples of things that I hate.

Almost everything Japanese except for Japanese bath, futon, tea and electronic products. Especially food, weather and music.
Organized religion
Television
Telephone
Professional sports
Creatures that have 6 legs or more
Stephen King  (though I love some of his short stories)
Steven Spielberg (though I love his dinosaurs)
Walt Disney
MacDonald's
Most bands in the charts
Microsoft products