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マリオ (Mario Menti)
@mario@neko.cat
mastodon 4.7.3₍^. ‸ .^₎⟆
Swiss-Brit 🇨🇭 🇬🇧 🇯🇵 🇹🇼
I love cats, japan, taiwan, books, running, drums, cooking, tinkering with technology, and am obsessed with (mostly weird, experimental, or noisy) music.
日本語を勉強しています。
Profile pic in 横浜, banner pic taken at 有楽町
Currently listening to / 現在聴いている曲：@mariolistens@neko.cat
590 Followers
415 Following
45 Posts
Joined November 14, 2022
Social links:
LINE:
mariomenti
Languages:
en/de (fluent) jp (learning)
Pronouns:
He/him
Potted cat is coming along nicely.
#CatsOfMastodon #FediCats #BlackCats
Murakami and cats 📖 🐈⬛ #Caturday #CatsOfMastodon #FediCats #BlackCats #Murakami #MurakamiHaruki
Dude, you've got something on your nose 😹
#Caturday #CatsOfMastodon #FediCats #BlackCats
The voids are waiting for food.
#CatsOfMastodon #FediCats #BlackCats
A lovely colleague visiting from our Tokyo office brought me some Doraemon dorayaki. 😻
#ドラえもん #どらやき #Doraemon #Dorayaki #CatsOfMastodon #FediCats #BlackCats
Today (6 June) is カエルの日 (frog day) in Japan.
Frogs (カエル、kaeru) are honoured at shrines and temples across Japan. Because "kaeru" sounds the same as the verb 帰る,"to return", frogs are a symbol of safe return.
I took this picture of a small frog shrine in Todoroki Ravine Park in Setagaya, Tokyo, a couple of years ago.
I always have to put out a couple of extra chairs when sitting outside 😹
#CatsOfMastodon #FediCats #BlackCats
Hello Jiji 😸
#CatsOfMastodon #FediCats #BlackCats
大濛 (A Foggy Tale) is brilliant, highly recommend.
Set in Taiwan in the 50s during the Kuomintang's White Terror, it follows a young girl travelling to Taipei to collect the body of her executed older brother.
Despite the heavy subject matter, it's often humorous, which is quite an achievement, and both very beautiful and heartbreaking (you'll cry at the end, no question).
Replying to on mastodon.social
@Annacats@mastodon.social my two black cats (one 14 year old, and the other 7 months) 😻
I've always loved zines (or fanzines as we used to call them), and was involved in a few back in the early 80s as a punk-loving teenager.
What's interesting is that they're increasingly a response to the relentless enshittification of the web, which has been rapidly accelerated by Gen AI.
What's a bit sad is that for me - and I don't think I was alone in this - the early internet was actually almost zine-like in that it enabled anyone to easily publish their own content and reach like-minded people. Of course this is all long gone now, so we go back to paper.
Japan’s Zine Boom: Self-Made Magazines Take Off in the AI Era
https://unseen-japan.com/japan-zine-boom/
I went to see the most-hyped band of the year last night, but despite the hype, it was still a lot of fun, and a surprisingly good audience 😅
A little WaniKani in-joke 😁
#LearningJapanese #日本語を勉強する
#WaniKani
Replying to
And I can't post this without a link to this 😊
https://youtu.be/qTakOs-pkv4?si=1paOSv-mtfZgI4Ts
envy playing my favourite song of theirs, with a sakura flower installation... I can't not love this
Botanical installation "Sakura x envy"
https://youtube.com/watch?v=dFm_Rx-16ws&si=zduM4JKKsH_oXd4-
I don't know why the author didn't even mention the original 'nekonomics', I'm not sure 'catnomics' really makes sense otherwise... never waste a pun, even if it may need explaining to some. 😅
‘Catnomics’: how Japan’s feline fixation has become an industry worth billions | Japan | The Guardian
I'm finally going to see the cabs tonight! 楽しみ！！
Evidence that Nagoya is not boring.
Nagoya’s Electronic Scene Is Hiding in Plain Sight | Bandcamp Daily
https://daily.bandcamp.com/scene-report/nagoya-electronic-scene-report
Personally I would reformat the hard-drive and install a different operating system from scratch, but rebooting is a start...
Campaign to deliver ‘biggest complaint Fifa has ever received’ launches before World Cup
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jun/03/campaign-to-deliver-biggest-complaint-fifa-has-ever-received-launches-before-world-cup?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
It's going to be over 30C this weekend, so this is my annual post of one of my favourite live sessions, playing one of my favourite summery songs.
And that's despite not actually liking Melon Soda very much at all (too sweet for me) 😅
#tricot - Melon Soda | Audiotree Live - YouTube
This should be interesting.
Booker Prize-winning 'Taiwan Travelogue' set for Taiwan-Japan TV adaptation
https://focustaiwan.tw/culture/202605220011
chsh -s /bin/zsh
This new #踊ってばかりの国 track is wild 🔥
踊ってばかりの国『PSYCHE STAR』Music Video(2026) https://youtube.com/watch?v=m_I23ozOZSk&si=GeudYWxE8BPZMX4t
Our kitten/teenager Jiji was playing with something and when I looked, it was a beetle that looked dead, which he must have caught in the garden. But when I picked it up, it came back to life and seemed fine - clever beetle. 😊
It's a lovely looking rose chafer, now put back outside where Jiji can't get it.
Replying to
@shiawase@mastodon.social yes, and we all know that older conservative people are far more likely to vote than the young...
Replying to
@shiawase@mastodon.social good points, I don't have the answers either.. I do believe right now, the electorate is split roughly 50/50 though.
Japan sees largest protest in support of pacifist constitution as PM Takaichi pushes revisions
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/04/japan-sees-largest-protest-in-support-of-pacifist-constitution-as-pm-takaichi-pushes-revisions?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
Replying to
@blabberlicious@toot.community @davidbcohen@twit.social @Nickiquote@mstdn.social @TheBreadmonkey@beige.party lol I know that one, I live in Tooting too 😊
"We are witnessing the death of the “Mass Audience” and the birth of the “Micro-Community.”
The music industry has spent a decade obsessing over how to get a million people to listen to a song once. The next decade will be defined by artists figuring out how to get 1,000 people to care forever."
The death of Spotify won't be quick, but I do so very much hope this is true.
The Death of Spotify: Why Streaming is Minutes Away From Being Obsolete
https://joelgouveia.substack.com/p/the-death-of-spotify-why-streaming
Replying to on neko.cat
That was also one of the loudest gigs I've ever been to (definitely by far the loudest in Japan), so much so that some people walked out... But yes, amazing.
I never really "got" the previous Trooper Salute releases, but the two songs from their upcoming album are both fantastic.
A big step forward IMO, or maybe a step sideways into more interesting and slightly weirder territory, but without losing their pop sensibilities completely.
#TrooperSalute
Trooper Salute "埒" Music Video
https://youtube.com/watch?v=NNLAY3y-tPo&si=Y05yNnuh5Kvyzkvh
Randomly came across this tonight, really enjoying it. Very jazz, but in a good way 😁
By 1969 student protests were raging across Japan, as anti-university, anti-war and anti-government movements mingled in strikes and classroom blockades. “Students were getting really violent,” Makoto Kubota recalls of Kyoto’s Doshisha University, leaving his studies in shambles. But when his quiet, magnetic fellow student Takashi Mizutani invited Kubota to the first gig by his band les Rallizes Dénudés, their deafening psych-rock became his calling. “I’d never experienced that amount of volume. My body ached.”
This band is so tight now... And I can't believe the sound quality on their recent live videos, their sound person must be doing some magic.
#HammerHeadShark
Hammer Head Shark - 魚座の痣/レイクサイドグッドバイ(live) https://youtube.com/watch?v=lpzuq_ScECE&si=KxMXcJ683SIvxpIs
I've been a bit obsessed with the recent カブトムシ album, Panorama Pig.
This is probably the catchiest and most straightforward song on a quite weird and wonderful album, and the video is absolutely glorious.
#カブトムシ
The thing I don't get is why we would use these technologies in potentially life or death situations, and yet we're not using them in much more mundane, and almost certainly far more efficiency-enhancing solutions like supermarket checkouts.
Even the dumbest AI would easily recognise the more than 90% of people buying alcohol who are clearly over 18 (or think 21). If we don't trust AI to be able to handle this, do we really think it should make decisions on asylum?
kurayamisaka - seasons (live)
https://youtube.com/watch?v=s3jKVxM5gOE&si=LLWDbjvBtlMI6ONq
I love this band ❤️
"I am watching. Leading to the smoke of the mutton hot pot shop. Leading to the people lining up at the doorway. Leading to the white light of the stir-fry shop. Leading to the first burst of Feedback from the top of the stage."