Masaaki Yuasa's The Night is Short, Walk On Girl (夜は短し歩けよ乙女) in Pittsburgh, August 21 and 22.

Tickets recently went on sale for Masaaki Yuasa's The Night is Short, Walk On Girl (夜は短し歩けよ乙女) in the Pittsburgh area on August 21 and 22. A summary from the distributor:

Acclaimed anime director Masaaki Yuasa, took a decade off directing feature animation only to return with two remarkable features in the same year – both selections in the festival, alongside his midnight classic Mind Game.

Night is Short, Walk on Girl takes place over the course of one strange night as a nameless young woman, known only as “the girl with black hair,” walks the streets of Kyoto and experiences a series of surreal encounters and odd characters, drinking middle-aged salarymen under the table, exploring an all-night used bookstore with a bird goblin, helping a guerilla theater company express their feelings… all the while unaware of the romantic longings of Senpai, a fellow student who has been creating increasingly fantastic and contrived reasons to run into her, in an effort to win her heart. The perfect “I guess it’s romantic?” comedy for the modern age, Night is Short is a celebration of the unconventional, confusing routes that love and life can take.

The movie will play at the Cinemark theaters in Monroeville and Pittsburgh Mills, and tickets are now available online. The movie will play in Japanese with English subtitles.

Another local Asian buffet closes: "Sushi Bomb" to replace York Buffet / Sushi Cho in Robinson.

A number of Asian buffets in the Pittsburgh region have closed recently, among them Old Town Buffet (formerly Misaki) on Route 51 and TJ Buffet (formerly Tokyo Sushi Buffet) on McKnight Road. A permit recently went up at 6302 Robinson Centre Drive (map) for "Sushi Bomb," to replace what was formerly (and briefly) Cho Buffet and, before that, York Buffet.

HCL America has new job openings for bilingual Thai-English, Vietnamese-English, and Japanese-English positions onsite at Google.

HCL America has posted three new openings for Bilingual Thai Product Classification Analyst, Bilingual Vietnamese Product Classification Analyst, and Bilingual Japanese Product Analyst positions onsite at Google in Larimer. A summary of the Bilingual Product Classification Analyst positions:

This position enhances users’ online shopping experience by performing in-depth research, determining product taxonomy expansion, and improving machine learning classification using highly technical internal tools and processes. It is part of a fast-paced environment, partnering closely with operations and engineering teams.

And a summary of the Bilingual Japanese Product Analyst:

This position requires entrepreneurial drive to contribute to the long-term growth of online shopping by performing in-depth research, analyzing product specification data, using highly technical internal tools and processes to manage and enhance a large repository of knowledge about products. It is part of a fast-paced environment, partnering closely with operations and engineering teams.

Japanese-American film Oh Lucy! in Pittsburgh for one more week.

The 2017 Japanese-American film Oh Lucy!, which opened here on June 15, will will play in Pittsburgh for one more week through July 5. A Variety review summarizes the film, starring Shinobu Terajima and Josh Hartnett.

Set in some of the least picturesque corners of Tokyo, “Oh Lucy!” is a character study about a character rarely seen on film: a quietly miserable, single, middle-aged Japanese wage-slave. Setsuko (Shinobu Terajima) is a woman with few obvious qualities, and even fewer opportunities, friends, lovers, or interests. A withdrawn, chain-smoking loner in an office culture built on forced displays of camaraderie, her workday begins when she witnesses a suicide on the subway, and continues as she watches an aging employee on the verge of retirement soak up the condescending affection of her coworkers, all of whom are quick to make fun of her once she leaves the room. The subway jumper, the lonely old pensioner – it’s clear that Setsuko sees these as her two most likely options.

Tanabata (Japanese star festival) at Carnegie Museum of Art, July 7.

"Sendai Tanabata," by Vanessa Smith (Creative Commons).

The Carnegie Museum of Art will host a Tanabata on July 7.

Celebrate the ones you love! Tanabata is a traditional Japanese day of celebration based on folklore surrounding the meeting of two lovers kept apart all but once per year. The day is a colorful and festive affair with fun for all!

The entire family can visit our Japanese print exhibition Hiroshige’s Tōkaidō Road, make a print to take home, add wishes to the Wish Trees, participate in a decoration contest, enjoy traditional music, create origami cranes, and sample Japanese cuisine in our courtyard.

It runs concurrent to the Hiroshige’s Tōkaidō Road exhibit, on display through July 22. The event is free with admission ($19.95 for adults, $11.95 for students with valid ID and children 3 to 18). The museum is located at 4400 Forbes Ave. in Oakland (map), accessible by buses 28X, 58, 61A, 61B, 61C, 61D, 67, 69, 71B, 71D, 75, and P3.

2015's Tokyo Tribe (トウキョウ トライブ トゥー) at Row House Cinema, August 11, for midnight screening.

The 2015 film Tokyo Tribe (トウキョウ トライブ トゥー) will play at the Row House Cinema at midnight on August 11, the theater announced today. An A.V. Club review of the "demented rap musical" offers a final take:

With its over-the-top violence, cast of bizarre bit characters (a beat-boxing henchwoman, a DJ granny, etc.), and a compulsion to interject phallic imagery that borders on coprographia, Tokyo Tribe throws so much at the viewer that it’s easy to get swept up in its deranged energy and overlook the fact that the movie doesn’t have a flicker of a brain cell, being not much more than a celebration of aggressive stupidity. Sometimes, that’s fine.

Tickets for this 11:59 pm "Midnight Edition" showing are coming soon. The single-screen theater is located at 4115 Butler Street in Lawrenceville (map).

BTS's "DNA" at this week's K-pop Class, June 30.

The weekly K-pop Class at Yanlai Dance Academy will do BTS's "DNA" on June 30th. The class is held each Saturday from 4:00 to 5:00 pm, and the cost is $18 for a drop-in session. Yanlai Dance Academy is located at 2260 Babcock Blvd. in the North Hills (map).

Korean cyclists raising awareness of "comfort women" in US bike tour will be in Pittsburgh on August 14 and 15.

The 2018 iteration of the 3A Project will hit Pittsburgh on August 15, according to the itinerary posted online. The 3A Project is an annual nationwide tour by two Korean university students to raise awareness of "comfort women" and the contentious politics surrounding their legacy. The group will leave Chicago on August 9, arrive in Pittsburgh on August 14, and leave on the 15th on their way to Washington D.C.

Lisa Ko's The Leavers at Smithfield Critics Book Discussion Group, July 18 downtown.

Lisa Ko's The Leavers will be the topic of discussion with the Smithfield Critics Book Discussion Group at the downtown branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.

One morning, Deming’s mother, Polly, an undocumented Chinese immigrant, goes to her job at a nail salon and never comes home. With his mother gone, eleven-year-old Deming is left mystified and bereft. Eventually adopted by a pair of well-meaning white professors, Deming is moved from the Bronx to a small town upstate and renamed Daniel Wilkinson. Far from all he’s ever known, Daniel struggles to reconcile his adoptive parents’ desire that he assimilate with his memories of his mother and the community he left behind.

The group meets from 12:00 to 1:00 pm, and the library is located at 612 Smithfield St. (map).

Shutaro Noguchi playing at Howlers, July 12.

Japanese musician Shutaro Noguchi (currently based in Louisville, Kentucky) will play at Howlers on July 12. A Forced Exposure review describes his forthcoming LP thus:

[T]he sound is wonderfully hybridized. At times its merger of prog, pop, fusionism and complexity make me think of a collision between the Glenn Phillips Band and Todd Rundgren's Utopia with Terje Rypdal sittin' in. I know I'm making it sound like a crazy quilt, and I suppose if sort of is, but only in the sense that it avoids the monochromaticism of so much contemporary music. Shutaro does not grab a single schtick and just shake it until his arm is tired. He mixes up of ballads and thunder (sometimes in a single song) in a way that strikes me as somehow very Japanese. But mostly it just strikes me about the head. In the most pleasant of ways. Take off your helmet and give it a try. You'll never know what hit you.

Howlers is located at 4509 Liberty Ave. in Bloomfield (map).