Chan-Oka Honda Meet Japan 2022 Coverage… Part 2…

Chan-Oka Honda Meet Japan 2022 Coverage… Part 2…

There’s a lot of things I could elaborate on when it comes to this meet. I could really do a deep-dive into each build, pointing out all the fine details that make it great, or all the minor miscues where they may have missed the mark. But, a simple statement is really all that needs to be said; The Chan-Oka Honda Meet is a love letter to the West Coast Honda community of the 2000s. It is everything this generation of Honda enthusiasts in Japan appreciate about what they saw in all those magazines, all the images on the NWP4Life forums, the Google image searches and now social media. This is them paying homage to us and completing that circle of inspiration because we were the ones originally inspired by the Japanese Honda enthusiasts that came before both them and us. It’s kind of amazing…
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Chan-Oka Honda Meet Japan 2022 Coverage… Part 1…

Chan-Oka Honda Meet Japan 2022 Coverage… Part 1…

If I recall, I was perusing Twitter one night a few months ago when I stumbled upon a post with an image I found interesting. I don’t know if you guys are aware, but if you enjoy Japanese tuning, Twitter is actually a great resource for Japanese car content. My friends and I actually refer to it as “Japanese car Twitter”. Instagram is popular worldwide but Twitter is actually VERY popular in Japan. It was likely the first social media outlet other than Facebook that enthusiasts over there used to post car content. If you don’t have Twitter, you should really think about getting on it just for car stuff. Anyways, before I go too far off on a tangent, I was on the Tweeting app one night when I saw a photo of a group of Honda enthusiasts gathered around a box of old magazines. I zoomed in on the image to see what these guys were looking at and it was actually a
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Stancenation Japan G Edition Aichi 2022 Coverage… Part 3…

Stancenation Japan G Edition Aichi 2022 Coverage… Part 3…

Well, here we go! Time to wrap-up this coverage on the Stancenation Japan G Edition Aichi event. In the coming days, I’ll have some more event coverage for you guys from Japan as well as the photos that I shot from my shop visits out there. Some of the photos you’ve probably seen already but I actually shot a lot more photos at each different stop. It’s easy to forget about the photos since I will often post up the Vlog episodes first but my bread and butter has always been photos. As such, I would like to have them hosted here on the site for people to see and for enthusiasts to enjoy later down the line when they are searching for content on the web. The last event I have to host here is the Chan-Oka Honda Meet. That one is a multi-part set of photos too and I would really like to get those up before I fly out to Seattle this weekend for the first big U.S. Wekfest event of 2022. Everything is done, I just have to put it all together. Those photos consist of all Honda builds, unlike this last set from Stancenation Aichi. I think there might be only two Hondas in this batch. Everything else is Nissans, Toyotas, and some other unique builds. There was just so much variety at this event that it was hard to just focus on one brand or genre of car. I have no idea when I’ll be able to attend another one of these but I’d definitely love to go back again to enjoy it. It’s legitimately a great automotive event in Japan. Thanks to the people from Stance Magazine for extending the invite…
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Stancenation Japan G Edition Aichi 2022 Coverage… Part 2…

Stancenation Japan G Edition Aichi 2022 Coverage… Part 2…

Looking back on everything now, I’m so glad that I extended my stay in Japan this time around. I was able to see and collect so much content that it has kept me pretty busy. It’s almost been a month since I got back and I’m still trying to get all this Japan content up. The last few months have home has been pretty stagnant in terms of doing car stuff. We have our usual meets and gatherings but nothing major is happening just yet. Summer is starting and that means that the car show season will kick-off shortly so that’s nice. If I hadn’t gone to Japan or just stayed for a week, I think my content flow would be pretty dry. I’m also glad that I decided to create and upload all the Vlog episodes while I was in Japan. Not only did it provide my viewers with an experience as if they were there alongside me, it also helped to build a consistent flow of content throughout. I imagine that if I had waited until I got home to edit all the video, we’d be log-jammed with not enough time to push everything out without it feeling forced. The way things are progressing now with almost daily uploads, it should lead us right into the Wekfest Seattle event, which promises to be a good one…
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Stancenation Japan G Edition Aichi 2022 Coverage… Part 1…

Stancenation Japan G Edition Aichi 2022 Coverage… Part 1…

This event was another one that came completely unplanned until I was already in Osaka. Not only did I not plan to attend, I actually didn’t even know about it. Yasu and I were walking around Wekfest Japan when we ran into our friend Akio Hirano. He’s a pretty well-known photographer in Japan and shoots for publications like Option and Stance Magazine. We call him “sandal guy” because he seems to always have sandals on no matter where he is, whether it be an event in Japan or shooting cars in California. The guy just doesn’t like shoes, lol. Anyways, he mentioned that the Stancenation G Edition event was happening the following week and was also in Nagoya. It isn’t too far away from Osaka, just a couple of hours, so Yasu asked if I wanted to check it out. I’m not going to say no of course because I’m in Japan to see as much car-related stuff as possible. And the Stancenation event is right up my alley because it’s a HUGE car show. I’ve never been. From the photos online that I’ve seen, it always looks like they have a very diverse selection of quality car builds so I’ve always wanted to see it for myself. Obviously, the car builds are catered more towards the “stance” side of car-styling and modification but I think people are misconstrued when they think that it ONLY has stance-y cars. At least the Japan version anyways. There’s just so much more to this show, especially considering the sheer number of custom car builds that it hosts…
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Car Make Across & JJ Cup Rd. 5 At Central Circuit Japan 2022…

Car Make Across & JJ Cup Rd. 5 At Central Circuit Japan 2022…

I typically go into most of my Japan trips without a schedule. It just works out easier that way. Things never go as planned so I’d rather just wing it most of the time and see what happens. Of course, there are specific things that I do want to do and see so I will make time for them. But, I was going to be there for an entire month and there was really no point in planning every single day out. The way Yasu works, my schedule was gonna get screwed-up anyway because he operates a lot like me. We would wake-up, get coffee and then decide what to do. These photos from the JJ Cup circuit event came to fruition randomly out of the blue. Neither I or Yasu knew that there was a track event that week. We were visiting a shop nearby and had some extra time to kill after, so Yasu asked if I wanted to make a stop at ACROSS to say hi to Joe. Typically I don’t think he is there during the day time but Yasu called and he just so happened to be there…
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A Modern Day Look At The Legendary Top Fuel Japan…

A Modern Day Look At The Legendary Top Fuel Japan…

I should preface this story with a warning that whatever you’re reading is based on my own memories and my own research. They say that “everything on the internet stays forever” but that is certainly not the case for so much of the early 2000s car content. A lot of it is missing now, websites have disappeared, assets from servers are gone, and we are left with whatever we can find, which is scarce. Especially when you consider how much Japanese car content wasn’t on the internet back then so it’s even harder to dig-up information now…

As the title states, this is a look at Top Fuel in Matsuzaka, Mie, Japan in 2022. If anyone has visited them recently and done a story about them, I don’t know about it. It’s actually quite hard to find information on Top Fuel because the term “Top Fuel” is terrible for SEO. Like, you search it and all kinds of shit comes up, just nothing about Top Fuel, the tuning shop in Japan. For the younger viewers, this shop is iconic. Top Fuel shaped so many of my generation’s ideas on what a Honda should look like and how it should be built. It defined an ideal for us. I don’t think anyone has gone there lately to do much of a deep dive on their shop, considering the pandemic and all, but had they, it wouldn’t matter to me. This is my story on Top Fuel, what it looks like now, and how its history was the foundation for my love of Hondas. I don’t think I would be a Honda enthusiast today had it not been for Top Fuel. And had I not been a Honda guy, there would definitely not be “The Chronicles”…
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Wekfest Japan 2022 Coverage… Part 3…

Wekfest Japan 2022 Coverage… Part 3…

As I found myself going over the photos I shot from my visit to Top Fuel late last night, I decided that I would wake-up, eat lunch, and head to the office to get the final portion of this Wekfest Japan coverage up. I know for many of the Japanese, this coverage comes a little later than expected but hey, let’s just say we are saving the best for last, okay? Lol. As if these photos would be the finishing touches on yet another great year of this event. It’s a shame that I missed last year’s show, since it was the only one that I’ve missed since we started doing this back in 2014, but I’m glad a lot of the spectacular car builds returned from the 2021 event so I could see them…
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Wekfest Japan 2022 Coverage… Part 2…

Wekfest Japan 2022 Coverage… Part 2…

Welcome back everyone! It looks like there has been an influx of new viewers and visitors coming in from who knows where. For all the new people, thanks for visiting and I hope you stay awhile. I think this most recent Japan trip has brought a completely new audience to the site and to my socials, which is always cool to see. I never expect it, but I think people just like seeing car content from Japan. And being that I was probably one of the first foreigners to make my way back there since the world shut down, it makes perfect sense. Today, we’re going to be taking a look at some pretty impressive builds from the inside of the Port Messe venue in Nagoya. In year’s past, I think I didn’t shoot as much as I would inside due to the low-light but it’s one of the best-looking natural-light venues I’ve ever seen. I just had more fun shooting outside when a lot of the cars were in motion or not arranged so strategically. But this year, I made more of an effort to collect photos from inside because this is the final year Wekfest will be held here…
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Wekfest Japan 2022 Coverage… Part 1…

Wekfest Japan 2022 Coverage… Part 1…

Now that all the videos are done and 14 different episodes are up on YouTube, I can FINALLY get to the photos I shot while I was in Japan for a month! I love making videos but there’s nothing I enjoy more than shooting photos. I mean, photo content is a mainstay here on The Chronicles but I opted to release Vlog episodes first because I just don’t enjoy editing photos on my laptop. The colors are just so different than what I’m used to here at home on my desktop and I’m also spoiled with this giant monitor I have in my office. It just wouldn’t be doing my photography work justice if I did everything off of my laptop. Not many will notice but even the Vlogs are slightly different compared to the ones I create at home…
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