Image by Chris Vangompel

UPDATE: It appears I was mistaken, and this was all just a clever ruse. I rescind my offer and reactionary knee jerk reaction.

What? Something wrong happened on the Internet? Well LOOK OUT BLOGOSPHERE BECAUSE I’M A SHARK AND I JUST CAUGHT THE SCENT OF BLOOD.

No, I’m not talking about SOPA or PIPA, which are both very big things too that people should look into (as my being funny depends on stealing the works of others to use on my blog).

According to a post on BleedingCool.com, there’s a comic shop called A Comic Shop in Florida that came up with a clever form of viral marketing — one that is similar to a woman throwing a cat in the litter bin.

I’ll let the ad itself speak for itself.

Courtesy of BleedingCool.com

So I can take my useless mangoes and get myself a travesty of a reboot that turned off an entire generation of female comic fans and perpetuates a male centric view of popular culture? That sounds amazing.

Oh, huh, what do you know. Courtesy of 4chan.org circa November 2008

Though, to be absolutely fair, I am rather perturbed that the ad openly says “Robama,” which I can only assume is a cooler and more robotic version of our President. Is that in reference to Cyborg from Teen Titans on that poster there? Is the ad seriously just coupling a cyborg teen superhero with the President of the United States based on the fact they’re both black? I hope not, but why not just throw him in with some random black dude on a skateboard.

Well, Robama is catchy, so I’ll let that slide (for now).

You know what bothers me though? It’s that this ad is asking me to trade in a volume of manga I own for a copy of American comics in some fit of nationalist pride. It reminds me of anti-Japanese sentiments in the 1980s when the U.S. automotive industry was reeling (due to really badly made cars) and calling out the Japanese automotive industry as some sort of perilous enemy to American industry.

First of all, I buy my fair share of good American comics; stuff by Adrian Tomine and Larry Hama, or even comics by non-Nikkei guys like Andrew Hussie, Zach Weiner and Bill Amend. I like American comics for what they are and I like my Japanese manga for being manga. It’s not like I prefer one over the other. What I see here is like MGM telling me I should trade in my collection of Mission Impossible DVDs for the new Bond films with Daniel Craig; they’re similar but totally different.

This ad is disgusting and an insult to fans of comics, manga or not. The very fact that the ad is venturing to promote itself on the assumption that people will gladly hand over their manga (which costs anywhere from about $7 to $25) for a thin packet of pages that costs about $3 sounds elitist at best. The fact it says “Limit one per American citizen,” makes me wonder if those working at this shop will ask me to produce my birth certificate if I were to take them up for their offer. I can only imagine, as I’m not about to fly to Florida, nor am I about to even spare them of my first volume of Avalon High Coronation (a collector’s item!) from the late TokyoPop.

To be clear, while DC Comics is not directly responsible for the ad, they did approve and pay 75 percent of the costs. It makes one wonder if DC Comics is just that desperate to get rid of their reboot or if they fear the Japanese manga industry enough to start an attack campaign. In any case, I’m not all that interested in purchasing their new line any time soon, this ad not withstanding.

Anyway, I would like to ask that if A Comic Shop is so brash to think that it is okay to be prejudiced against non-American art-forms for the sake of some distorted sense of Nationalistic pride, to kindly remove themselves from the Internet at once. In turn, I’ll buy a copy of The New 52. That sounds like a fair deal. I’m sure they want to get rid of their copies somehow — I’ll help out.

I’m sitting in the frigid cold of an air that has been conditioned to make the arms on your hair stand on end. While awaiting the arrival of my two interviewees, I am in familiar territory. The Peet’s Coffee & Tea location in which I find myself, employed me not but six months ago, and yet I’m able to recognize only one of the staff. I give my former co-worker a pound and order a pot of Genmai-Cha as Michael Sasaki, guitarist of 70’s funk band, Cold Blood, strolls in dressed sharp as a tack. We greet each other warmly and I add a latte to the order, which I pay for with a wink and a few bucks into the tip jar.

George Yoshida (L), Michael Sasaki (C) and Cole Yoshida perform at the 2011 Bay Area Day of Remembrance. photo by Kahn Yamada

He dons a crème colored cap, is dressed in all black and his movements are fluid and syncopated, as he speaks to me. Michael was born in 1951 in Raymond, Wash., and arrived in my hometown of Richmond, Calif. in 1953. His grandparents made roots in Richmond after leaving the Tule Lake Internment Camp where they were incarcerated during World War II. Sasaki shares with me that both of his parents were incarcerated, that his father was drafted into the all-Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team from camp, and that when he would ask his father, “Did you ever shoot anybody?” as a child, he would be met with a matter-of-fact, “A couple.”

Raised in a Richmond household of Issei grandparents, and a Nisei father, aunts and uncles, Sasaki learned to play the guitar. His uncle was legally blind but also a talented enough musician and mentor to become Michael’s instructor. Together, in the days before the “British Invasion,” they would listen to country and western records, playing along to the sounds of Chet Atkins and Wes Montgomery. As he grew older, Sasaki began auditioning and getting gigs as a lead-guitarist in various bands around the Bay Area. In 1971 at the age of 20, Sasaki joined Lydia Pense and Cold Blood Inc., who had recently been moved onto Bill Graham’s Fillmore label. They toured the entire country and Michael recorded four different albums, the last in 1976. Today he performs at local clubs restaurants and festivals, providing beautiful ambiance to a vast array of people with his vast array of sonic wisdom and experience.

As he paints vivid pictures of his memories, I can’t help but feel a kinship as I notice what I perceive to be his Richmond, working-class and Japanese American identities fusing into one. For one, he curses (almost as much as I do) in efforts to emphasize the hopelessness, beauty and/or general enormity of a person, place or thing, and secondly, each time he is about to do so he leans across the small table towards me, peeks around for a nanosecond, lowers his voice, and cracks a smile as he does it.

This occurs when I ask him the undeniably leading question, “What was it like being an Asian American musician in a space predominantly dominated by black and white Americans?” He grins coolly and replies, “S— man… Well, what was interesting is that in the ‘70s we were at the height of the struggle for civil rights and most people viewed this as a black and white issue, so I kind of felt like I was stuck in the crack in between.” He pauses momentarily before shifting gears and recollecting, “I remember feeling like there was a backlash because of the ‘car wars.’ At the time, factories were closing in Detroit and the Japanese auto industry was being blamed for American job-loss. I remember our manager making it pretty clear to me that he’d prefer to have me as hidden as possible in our photo shoots. Then we had another manager, who was also an attorney for ABC, telling me that he wanted me to dress up as a samurai!” Here he bursts into laughter and states, “If they asked me to do that today, I probably would have just for the money! But back then I felt like, if my brothers and sisters were separated out for not being ‘real Americans,’ why should I have to do this?”

While resembling a nodding and grinning bobble-head doll, I notice Nisei educator, writer and spoken word/poetry performer, George Yoshida waltz slowly into the coffee shop. Michael and I stand to greet our elder and the 88-year old Yoshida, an El Cerrito resident informs us he has just arrived from leading an exercise class for senior citizens. Sasaki and Yoshida have known each other for since the late ‘90s when they united to perform poetry and music that spoke to and for the Japanese American experience. In this space I am reminded of the love, pain and growth inherited from the teachings and experiences of my father and jiichan, feeling utterly content as I thank George and Michael (once again) for being here.

(To be continued in Part 2: George Yoshida)

Claudine Naganuma. photo by Matt Haber

I’m sitting with my wife in Laney College’s theater in Oakland, Calif. as the curtains draw for Artistic Director and Choreographer Claudine Naganuma’s 10th anniversary of dNaga danceNAGANUMA, admittedly not sure what to expect. I’ve been graciously comped two tickets by a very thoughtful person who had read my previous post on Yuri Kochiyama and asked through the magic of the interwebs, if I’d like to attend this event. With (what feels like) the weight, not necessarily of the world, but maybe just the city of San Francisco’s Unified School District on my shoulders at work lately, life hasn’t allowed me the time and energy to investigate this event as thoroughly as I would have liked to. No matter now however, the show is beginning. My life-partner-in-crime leans over to me and asks, “what’s this about, babe?” I reply, “Yuri Kochiyama?”

What I find is that the first part of the show, entitled “Peace About Life” is a (both literally and figuratively) moving display that pairs elders who have been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, with tremendously talented pre-teen and teenaged dancers. As each elder steps into the center stage for their collective and individual performances, their music is accompanied by recordings of each of them speaking about what I perceive to be but a sliver of their life’s experience upon being diagnosed with Parkinson’s. What links these elders’ varying stories of grief and undeniable challenge seems to be a connection to family/friends/community that they are able to establish, maintain, and/or even strengthen more than ever, due to a re-evaluation of life that this disease has brought with it as its accomplice. As youthful innocence bridges with weathered wisdom to create an experience of love and education, each piece is personal, honest, heartbreaking, and an excellent reminder. It reminds this undeniably biased, too often naïve writer, that while unjust suffering can come in many forms, growth and development can still take place if and when one is supplied with an equal amount of authentic love, support and material/spiritual resource.

After a brief intermission (and with this in mind), dNaga’s second act begins. “Reveal Freedom,” opens and I hear the familiar voice of Yuri Kochiyama, speaking about her childhood in the same fashion that my Baachan used to speak about my Jiichan: with equal parts scorn and admiration. As she recalls the love of her family, she also speaks to the ways that young Asian American women were discouraged from voicing their opinions, thoughts, desires, or much of anything at all. And as a trio of young women dancers who can’t be older than 12 years old, fly across the stage with ease, I am reminded of both my aging body and the masculinity between my ears that has helped my confidence to border and fall into arrogance more times than I’d care to remember. With my right hand, I massage my aching shoulder and with my left, squeeze the palm of the brilliant, bold, and beautiful woman of color sitting next to me. A gunshot sounds and Claudine Naganuma holds a fallen male dancer close to her, mirroring the image of Yuri cradling Malcolm X’s head as he lay dying. The lights dim while Joel Davel and Richard Howell create a live musical tapestry of solemnity and pensive solitude for a packed theater.

When the curtain call arrives, I hear Seattle emcee, Geologic of Blue Scholars’ voice boom through the speakers, repeating: “when I grow up, I wanna be just like Yuri Kochiyama.” I become awash with a sense of gratitude. I feel grateful for the opportunity to be reminded in a uniquely profound way, that when we feel connected to our his/herstories, to our selves/minds/bodies, and to other people, we may recall our own in/significance in a way that helps to heal our individual and collective traumas. My partner and I drive away from dNaga’s 10th anniversary and Oakland’s Laney College feeling noticeably better than we did when we arrived. We aren’t the only ones.

When I grow up I wanna be just like Yuri Kochiyama,

Senbei

“Miwa: A Japanese Icon” screens tonight, June 20, 2011 at the Castro Theatre, it will be preceded and followed by ASL-assisted introduction and Q&A session with the director. For more information and tickets, click here.

(note: this is essentially taken from an e-mail I wrote to someone around ’07, so that’s the time period all the examples come from)

Water Horse: Legend of the Deep

U.S. (this was probably ripped from Australian TV, but this is the same commercial they showed in the U.S.):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzCdHlZKcJ0

Japan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbAUiAthEc8

Meet the Robinsons

U.S.:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb1mT5eZs1M

Japan:
(embedding doesn’t seem to be working right, but there is a link below)

ルイスと未来泥棒 by ramius13

I seriously have no Vocaloid images on my desktop so I asked my friend Misty Norris, (http://bunnychan.deviantart.com/) to throw me a pic.

There’s something magical about American marketing strategies. It might have something to do with its strong culture that emphasizes might (wealth) makes right, and a general lack of doujinshi culture, but when you see something that’s typically driven by fans for fans in Japan, you can bet it’ll never grow to see the light of day in America.

Yamaha’s Vocaloids weren’t marketed to the U.S., making what culture of fanship that exists here based completely on memes and viral spread. It was, essentially, a phenomenon that lacked financial incentive from a corporate schema in the U.S. In Japan, the movement seemed largely user driven, and any corporate interest was curtailed by what I imagine being: 1). execs not quite understanding this “Internet” stuff, 2). Vocaloids were in Japan, making copyright troublesome to work through, and seriously, 3). anime and manga are for kids, kids can’t drive cars so why market cars to them?

Guys, I'm not feeling it here. The TV ad is just plain, there's no big splash. The guy's voice sounds too Disney movie trailer-ish, and Miku's singing seems screechy in comparison. I mean I actually LIKE "World is Mine" and I am saying this.

Well, it turns out that Toyota decided to prove everyone wrong and use its multinational corporate power to broker a deal that makes Hatsune Miku an official sponsor of the 2011 Toyota Corolla. Kids still can’t drive, though.

What really interests me about all this is that the whole promotion just smashes into the court, like a Hummer driven by the Kool-Aid-Guy. We’ve gone 0-60 with Miku’s commercialization in a matter of minutes.

My question, now is, how are Vocaloids going to change now that we have a corporate logo supporting it? Toyota has a vested interest in Miku now; will we see them attempting to control the portrayal of Hatsune Miku to fit their marketing strategy? It would, after all, be terribly unfortunate if Miku’s image wasn’t that of a bubbly virtual idol that sings of love, electronics and leeks (and even leeks are pushing it there). And with no major creative base for her in the U.S., the first entity to firmly establish its territory on U.S. soil becomes Toyota, not a creative fan culture.

So will Toyota start trying to affect the portrayal of Miku in the United States? Will there be a homogenization or a “mainstreaming” of Hatsune Miku? And how will the Japanese community react to this? Could this essentially have jumped the shark?

The other day I just so happened to be chatting with Ben Hamamoto regarding the popularity of Vocaloids. He asked me if people who write songs for Vocaloids are only her fans. In the sense that Hatsune Miku was not a conduit for commercial promotion, I found that people who made music using her, while they may be fans, are creators at the core.

I now realize that I was being horribly foolish. People who make music using Hatsune Miku are creators; they are composers that use her as a musician plays the piano. My core argument remains the same, but there is the possibility for corporate objectives. In due time, I would guess there will be an ode to Corollas by someone or other, one funded by Toyota. This is not to say it will be bad, it could just as well end up being good and possibly iconic. Let’s hope it’s good if they’re going to do that.

Now THIS is effective marketing. Note how the smart car complements Hello Kitty's cuteness. This is marketing done right. You can't just plaster a pop culture icon on the hood of a car and expect it to sell. Cars are a status symbol that evoke who you are. A Corolla makes me think of my friend's mom. If anything, Toyota should have gone with the Yaris. photo by Tomo Hirai/Nichi Bei Weekly

In any case, I’m not sold. People who go out and buy a car based on sponsorship by a virtual idol seem rather sad (oh, wait). Sure, Corollas are nice cars, but just saying “Miku drives this” isn’t all that convincing. If you want to sell a car, sell a car by showing what it can do and what it represents.

Author’s note: I’m terribly wary of any corporation that earns more than a billion dollars a year. My abhorrence of Toyota and Miku teaming up is mostly from this — that and the fact I hate the Prius.

From the NY Times article (which I found on Boing Boing):

Mr. Ito… is neither a conventional Japanese technologist, nor your average college dropout.

Raised in both Tokyo and Silicon Valley, Mr. Ito was part of the first generation to grow up with the Internet. His career includes serving as a board member of Icann, the Internet’s governance organization; becoming a “guild master” in the World of Warcraft online fantasy game; and more than a dozen investments in start-ups like Flickr, Last.fm and Twitter. In 1994 he helped establish the first commercial Internet service provider in Japan.

He was also an early participant in the open-source software movement and is a board member of the Mozilla Foundation, which oversees the development of the Firefox Web browse, as well as being the co-founder and chairman of Creative Commons, a nonprofit organization that has sought to create a middle ground to promote the sharing of digital information.

“The choice is radical, but brilliant,” said Larry Smarr, director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, a University of California laboratory that pursues a similar research agenda to the Media Laboratory. “He can position the lab at the edge of change and propel it for a decade.”

The banner on the book advertises that Hiroshi Tamaru finds this comic entertaining. You might not know him, but he's the guy that drew the comic version of "Cho Aniki."

猟奇博士と生贄娘ドクター＆ドーター (Bizarre Scientist and Live Experiment Girl) Doctor and Daughter by Youkihi

Now, to be absolutely sure you know, Youkihi isn’t quite child safe. That said, his stories often range from the impossible to phantasmic. Who else can come up with a story about one lone high school boy that one day wakes up to find everyone in the world fast asleep (he alone has the power to wake women up, with sex). This is also the same man that wrote a series of short stories and anthologized them in a series called えっちーず (eʧíːz in English. Yes, he wrote his Romanized title in IPA to ensure that no one mispronounced it), which are about young loser boys getting lucky in love in improbable situations such as, a pair of twins that share their consciousness; their bodies, while separate, share a single consciousness which makes their incestuous relationships become masturbation in their case.

I don't have the first and last volume, which is a total shame.

I really like his work. It’s so weird. Doctor & Daughter is just the same, and this isn’t exactly NC-17 adult material either (I’d give it an R).

What really stood out for me, though, was the main character’s mother. Annie Weaver Shiga is specifically noted as a Sansei Japanese American. What’s perhaps the most intriguing in this series, as with his other works, is Youkihi’s strange attention to random detail. This man is oddly specific on character development, and it intrigues me that he has specifically chosen a Nikkei woman as Ayano’s mother, even if she has been dead for at least a decade.

That’s what really sets Youkihi’s characters apart from others: depth.

Annie Weaver Shiga, whom @youkihi was kind enough to provide me a picture of when I mentioned her on Twitter.

Whereas a normal mixed-race character in Japan is a 50-50 split in blood and has an overtly Westernized appearance to appeal to the “foreign,” Annie’s character plays more on the fact that she just didn’t grow up in Japan before meeting her husband to be. It’s little things like this that really help breathe life into even the most auxiliary of characters without making it overbearing to the story as a whole.

Art: Noodles

Youkihi’s concept of layout in comic art is exceptional. Though somewhat busy at times, he keeps the pages easy to read and clear in flow. While perverted in nature, he isn’t overbearing so as to keep the story going.

What really puts some people off is the anatomy of his characters. Most of his characters are rail-thin. I wouldn’t be as bothered by this, but seeing as his trademark is in erotic situations, his characters have a high likelihood of ending up naked.

Story: Farfetched

The story follows Ayano Shiga, a normal 14-year-old girl, and her not so normal self-proclaimed bio-engineer father. Her mother Annie had passed away in an accident years preciously, leaving the eccentric father to parent Ayano with his strange experiments. The story starts with young Ayano waking up one day to a new physical appendage between her legs…

Her father, knowing how dangerous it is to let his only daughter run loose in a world full of predators, attached an anti-rape ferret-like life form to her groin to ward off any would be sexual predators. His biological apparatus allows him to find gainful employment (because apparently this was seen as a good idea by more than one person).

Meanwhile, Ayano is discovering her romantic side of life, her normally quiet boyfriend is starting to feel lucky, and her cousin and next door neighbor Misaki is looking more and more an object of desire. Ayano finds herself conflicted by her sudden introduction into the terribly awkward life-stage of adolescence.

Corporate conspiracy, sexual tension and adorable ferrets, how can you go wrong?

Freshness: Crisp as lettuce

Youkihi’s art style hasn’t changed considerably since the early 90s, but his style has polished itself to be more in line with modern manga aesthetics. He is fairly tone-heavy though, which is a relic of late-90s and early 2000 style.

Cost: 533 yen

Not going to lie, this book cost me $10, special order, at Kinokuniya. That’s like double the yen price. (I live in the 1990s when $1=100yen). This book isn’t readily available in the States, and so you’ll need a specialty bookstore to order it for you, or spend a little extra an order it on Amazon Japan.

Will it be translated?: Do little kids like brussel sprouts?

The likely translator for this series will fall upon Viz Media, as they have a good relationship with Shougakukan. Chances are, they’ll sooner license a comic series that isn’t bordering soft-core pornography. Then again, Viz Signature features some good works, so there is hope.

If it’s any help, Youkihi’s works have been translated into various East Asian and Pacific Asian languages, so he is viable to be translated for foreign audiences.

Flash Summary: Mad-scientist father knows best.

Courtesy of TokyoPop

I’m not a fan of TokyoPop, and this entry may be read as just one blogger’s loud-mouthed harangues on the grave, but this end is a lesson to be learned and the closing act of a tragedy.

I will not deny where credit is due. TokyoPop is one of the most influential presences in the United States’ J-Pop industry. Without it, there would never have been manga so readily available on bookshelves at your local Borders (which is, btw, also closing down). TokyoPop is also instrumental in launching the careers of a number of great artists. Felipe Smith, Lindsay Cibos, and M. Alice LeGrow are all from the crop of the visionary “Rising Stars of Manga” contest they used to run.

And TokyoPop was instrumental in getting manga started in the U.S. It began as Mixx in 1997 and was the SoCal rival to the San Francisco-based Viz Media. While they were the newcomers on the scene, the company cut corners and proceeded to make bank.

To place into perspective, let’s go back to 1997. Japan was still stereotyped as the Electronic’s Mecca, and a robotic entity where business was in vogue, not fashion. In Japan, Pokemon was becoming a hit and Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball’s anime were ending (the fandom was still growing). The harem genre was just starting, and Gainax had succeeded in making an anime that enjoyed widespread success.

Stu Levy and company came into the industry as fans and wanted to take the cultural landscape of Japan and transfer it to America’s youth. It was ambitious, but the timing couldn’t have been better. Their work to expand in the early new millennium was coupled with the explosion of interest in Japanese culture and in a seemingly positive-feedback loop, they cranked out more and more titles of manga at cheap costs to keep the consumers hungry for more.

With deals with Kodansha and HarperCollins under their belt, TokyoPop seemed like a juggernaut in the industry. So what if “hard-core” fans complained about them? Maybe OEL Manga was at times kitsch in value. Perhaps their legal work was a bit sketchy at times. But at the end of the day, they made money and it would seem like they would be doing so for the foreseeable future.

What they failed to see, however, was that they were saturating the market in an unending race to license everything ever created in Japan’s 60 long years of popular culture history. By no means is TokyoPop the sole culprit — CMX, DMP, Viz, everyone was guilty in over speculating (some more than others) — but TokyoPop was a sign that the industry would implode.

They cut corners by not “flopping” manga and cleverly explained that they were bringing the “real thing” in. They used lower grade paper and cranked out translations at wholesale. This allowed them to sell their comics for $8.99 compared to their competitors who sold for $10.99 (it used to be that a copy of non-chronologically ordered Ranma 1/2 comics sold for $16). TokyoPop was a machine and cranking out about 500 volumes of manga a year at its peak.

Today, lower quality doesn’t cut it. Today the market is saturated by horrible cash crop manga with no value save for it being manga.

You just can’t make it when you’re a company like TokyoPop. A business requires a visionary direction and a controlled plan of growth. When idealism ruled out business sense, the company had sealed its fate. And this isn’t even touching on everything going on with digital vs. paper publishing.

So with all due respect, I bid you adieu. Good luck with the future. I hear TokyoPop’s multimedia branch will continue to work, so perhaps the coffin isn’t nailed shut yet.

A team that slid by under the radar for most of the 2010 season before exploding in the postseason and making a run to the World Series title that was equally improbable as it was unstoppable, the Giants now have a giant Bengie Molina-sized set of crosshairs on their backs. Add in the exponentially increasing amount of Giants-related media coverage (Showtime is currently filming a behind-the-scenes documentary about the team while Sundance Award-winning director Chusy Haney-Jardine is also filming a documentary about Andres Torres’ battle with ADHD), and the 2011 season is clearly going to be very different from the past.

Of course the question on everybody’s mind is whether the Giants can repeat as champions. The answer to that is simple: yes. As they proved last season, given the quality of the Giants pitching, anything is possible. By no stretch of the imagination, though, should anybody expect that it will be an easy or smooth ride.

It’s a bit late for this, but here are a few other questions that will be key in the Giants’ attempt to make another run at the title.

Can the pitchers stay healthy?

As everybody knows, young quality pitching is the Giants backbone. Any kind of long-term injuries to Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Jonathan Sanchez or Madison Bumgarner could be disastrous. With Bumgarner having graduated from the minor league system, there are very few options the Giants could turn to in the case of an emergency. While new signings Jeff Suppan and Brian Lawrence provide some insurance, at this point in their careers, they are both underwhelming at best.

Given that the Giants conjured up the unbelievable luck of not having a single starter miss a single game in 2010, I have the sneaky feeling that injuries might catch up to the team this year. It has been much publicized that the Giants four main starters pitched career high innings last year and had the shortest time to prepare for 2011, which could certainly be a factor. Hopefully any injuries will be short-term and the Giants will be able to avoid any repeats of the Noah Lowry injury disaster (RIP).

Will Buster Posey improve upon his Rookie of the Year winning performance?

Simply put, Posey hit like a madman last season. Only 23 years old and playing a position that traditionally doesn’t come with too much power, Buster showed off the skills that scouts had been raving about ever since he was drafted. After putting up some scary-good numbers in the minor leagues (he hit .333/.427/.542 over two and a half seasons), Posey managed to dominate big league pitching while also handling one of the league’s premier pitching staffs. With barely more than 100 major league games under his belt, Posey has already put together a strong case to be the most valuable catcher in the game. At times it crosses my mind that Buster’s production last season might have been too good to be true, but given the magnitude of his physical talents and his mental poise, I can only see Buster improving upon his stellar rookie season.

Will Brandon Belt be the 2011 edition of Buster Posey?

Given that he made the 25-man roster directly out of spring training without starting the season at Triple-A, it is reasonable infer that the front office saw the Belt as more major league-ready than Posey was a year before. The injury to Cody Ross may have accelerated the Belt timetable a bit, but it seems highly unlikely that Belt will be the one to give up his roster spot when Ross returns.

To say it is early in the season would be a laughable understatement. Still, based on the minute sample size we have seen at the major league level, Belt looks to be a patient and polished hitter. Though Belt hit a homerun in the second game of the season, it was his performance in the series finale that caught my eye. Batting with the bases loaded in the eighth inning while trailing by four runs, many rookies would have been dead-set on swinging away to drive in those runs. Instead, Belt worked his way to a full count while waiting patiently for his pitch and, when it never came, took a walk to force in a run. This was in sharp contrast to 14-year veteran Miguel Tejada who grounded out on the subsequent pitch, an ankle high fastball.

Will Pablo Sandoval rebound from last year?

If you had told me last March that the Giants would go on to win the World Series with Sandoval hitting like a double-play machine with no semblance of strike zone discipline, I would have said you were crazy. So much of the Giants’ offensive fate seemed to rest on the portly shoulders of the Kung Fu Panda that it is still somewhat difficult to understand how the Giants managed to win it all without him playing a key role. Sandoval was so mediocre last season that if he is able to bounce back, his impact on the offense could be as big as a major free agent signing.

Much has been made of the Panda’s weight and it seems that Sandoval has taken some of the criticisms to heart. In a highly publicized press conference during the offseason, the Giants proudly presented a trimmer, rejuvenated Pablo Sandoval 2.0. Having lost close to 40 pounds, the Panda is in visibly better shape than last year. This was most evident in his defense during the opening series. Tracking a fly ball in foul territory behind third base, Sandoval made a catch that would only have been possible last year if a jelly donut had been duct taped to the ball. The Panda lost weight and looks hungry for hits. Watch out for a major rebound from his poor 2010 numbers.