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May, 2014

OMGooooaal! Pros nail the incredible “Twin Shoot” move from soccer manga Captain Tsubasa【Videos】

The 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil is almost upon us, folks! And if you’re a manga fan, just pick your poison to get properly revved up: the first volume of the Captain Tsubasa remix has been available since May in convenience stores all over Japan, Volume 1 of the new series Captain Tsubasa: Rising Sun just came out,  and then there is the comic’s upcoming exhibition in Tokyo.

As if that weren’t enough, the Japan Professional Football League (J. League for short) has been collaborating with the über-influential soccer manga on a project called “Dream Shoot”. In it, as the name suggests, J. League players take on the challenge of bringing to life the dynamic and often over-the-top soccer moves featured in the long-running comic.

So today, we bring to you Part Three of the collaboration, in which three athletes from the Cerezo Ōsaka team reenact the “Twin Shoot”. Read on to view all three awesome videos, as well as to learn a little more about the manga series and its exhibition (because let’s face it, Flash Kicker, as it’s known in the U.S., never made it big here unlike the rest of the world). Even for a soccer newb like me, the “Dream Shoots” are a sight to behold!

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Gunpowder factory building damaged by “normal explosion”

A building at a factory in Hunan Province, China that produces gunpowder for use in fireworks was obliterated following an explosion that rocked a neighboring community on the morning of May 28. The plant’s management issued a statement saying, “It was completely destroyed so we don’t know the cause. However, it was a normal explosion.” It’s hard to argue with the managers in a gunpowder factory – certainly that would be the most normal place to have an explosion.

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The Tokyo bar where servers are princes, customers are princesses… and everyone’s a girl

Kyabakura hostess clubs, where men pay to spend time with a girl who will pour their drinks, light their cigarettes, and generally lavish them with attention, are a common sight in Japanese cities. The equivalent for female customers is a host club, where women can be waited on by smartly-dressed male hosts. A newer addition to Japan’s nightlife scene are cross-dressing bars, which fulfil a niche gap in the industry.

At Bar Prince, in Tokyo’s Nakano ward, the boyish-looking staff in ruffle-trimmed “little prince” outfits are all cross-dressers. The bar operates a strict women-only policy which extends to staff as well as patrons. At hostess clubs, the customer is king: but at this club, the stated mission is to treat every customer like a princess.

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Fan makes brutal Attack on Titan cosplay gown of Eren’s mom

While we’ve seen plenty of Attack on Titan cosplay over the past year or so, we’ve certainly never seen anything like this.

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With relatively little farmable land, fruit is on the pricey side in Japan. In keeping with its status as a special treat, it shows up pretty often as a desert topping, but again, prices being what they are, usually not in such large quantities.

Shortcake lovers, for example, have been known to get excited about the one day a month convenience store chain Lawson adds a single slice of strawberry to its cakes. And while we suppose that’s better than nothing, it still can’t hold a candle to one Japanese cafe that tops its parfaits with what looks like an entire strawberry patch.

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One of the very first Japanese words I learned was afuredasu, or “overflow.” This wasn’t because it showed up in a textbook or a teacher taught it to me, but because afuredasu seems to show up in roughly a third of every Japanese pop song ever produced.

It’s not the only phrase that’s a regular in J-pop lyrics though, as shown by this flow-chart that can turn anyone into a Japanese lyricist.

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Roadworks video hints at why everything runs so smoothly in Japan

When people visit Japan, they often marvel at how great the service everywhere is. Trains run on time; a guy pops out of a little hatch like a station ninja when you’re struggling with a ticket vending machine; packages come precisely when they’re supposed to, and even if you miss them you can just call the driver on their mobile phone to arrange a new delivery time.

Day in, day out, stuff just works. And yet, unlike the many foreigners who live here, native Japanese take this all completely in their stride. Take this video, for example, which was taken by a foreigner living and uploaded to YouTube a couple of weeks ago…

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Samsung is working with Oculus on a ‘shockingly good’ virtual reality product for your phone

Samsung and Facebook’s Oculus VR unit are working together to create a virtual reality device powered by Samsung’s Galaxy S5 line of phones, Engadget reports. You literally plug your phone into the headset and you’re inside a “shockingly good” virtual world, the site reports.

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Love sushi? Now you can date it, with this romance simulator available in English!

Since most sushi is served raw, the flavor can vary wildly depending on the freshness of the fish and even the season in which you eat it. Granted, most of what’s available in Japan is reasonably tasty, but when all the factors line up just right, the mix of surprise, joy, and satisfaction that come from popping a really good piece of sushi into your mouth can be a borderline emotional experience, almost like falling in love.

If you’re a sushi-loving lady looking to take your relationship with the dish to an even deeper level, there’s now a dating simulator that lets you romance handsome anthropomorphized pieces of sushi.

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Guy learns powerful lesson: Sending 240 beetles in the mail will kill them all

An insect collector learned the hard way last year that you should never send stag beetles in the mail, because being stuffed in a box and shipped across the country unsurprisingly kills them.

A specialist apparently sent 240 stag beetles to be delivered to the collector’s Okinawa home. When the box – supplied by the Japanese Postal Service’s “Yu-paku” goods shipping service – arrived, the collector opened it to find all 240 of the beetles decidedly un-alive, prompting the man to sue for compensation; because, come on, if you’re shipping beetles, you expect a certain amount of care to be taken.

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We’re going to E3! What do you want to see?

The E3 video games trade event is coming up in less than two weeks and we’re sending a crew out to give you an up-close look! There will be an enormous amount on show this year, but what we really want to know is what YOU want to hear more about. Take our poll and tell us what you’d like to see at this year’s E3!

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We try Denny’s Japan’s Massaman curry: The world’s most delicious food

In Japan, you’re never very far from a plate of tasty curry. You can find the Japanese version of the dish in casual restaurants, convenience stores, and train station lunch counters across the country, and any sizeable city will have at least one good Indian restaurant.

After domestic and Indian, Japan’s favorite type of curry is the Thai style, usually in ultra spicy green or red varieties. Thailand’s got one more variant, though, called Massaman curry, which ranked by CNN as the world’s most delicious food a while back.

With an endorsement like that, we were eager to try it for ourselves. Unfortunately, a trip to Thailand for dinner is a little beyond our budget, no matter how good the food may be. So instead, we hit up our local Denny’s branch, where you can get a plate of Massaman curry right now.

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Vegetables are smarter than fruits: Three high IQ Japanese veggies

I’ve lived among Japanese fruits and vegetables for 17 years and one thing I can say for sure is that vegetables are waaay smarter than fruits.

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8 kinds of photos that Japanese girls always post on Twitter

Whoops, guess I better whip out my smartphone and upload a picture of my Green Tea Frappuccino to Twitter, because I just happen to be writing this post at Starbucks. Apparently, the classic “at Starbucks now” picture is one of the most commonly seen types of photos on social media sites, and I’d hate to be missing out.

In fact, a concise at-a-glance chart of trivial photos that (Japanese) girls frequently upload to their SNS accounts has recently been making the rounds on the Japanese internet. We were familiar with every single one of them–how about you?

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New portable Napkin Table is indispensable for all your picnic needs

We here at RocketNews24 take pride in introducing you to all manner of strange things to come out of Asia, which most definitely includes news about any bizarre inventions we see floating around.

This time, our “Pointless Asian Invention of the Week” is sure to make you chortle. Introducing the Napkin Table, the perfect portable table for whenever you find yourself out in the wilderness with your partner and need a place to picnic!

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Saitama soccer fans employ Art of War strategy to make up for low turnout

It’s well known that a large crowd (or lack thereof) can have a dramatic psychological impact on a team’s performance. Unfortunately for Saitama’s soccer team, Omiya Ardija, it was hard for fans to get out to the ground to cheer during the Wednesday night J-League Cup qualification match against the Tokushima Vortis.

Nevertheless, those who managed to make it to the stadium went the extra mile to get their team pumped for a win, taking along an army of two-dimensional fans to fill seats.

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Hand-drawn Godzilla poster used at tiny Taiwanese movie theatre is beautiful in its own way

Director Gareth Edwards’ new take on Godzilla takes full advantage of the latest advancements in CGI technology to bring the iconic monster back to life, bigger and badder than ever before, and the promotional posters and teaser trailers stirred up plenty of hype before the movie’s release. But would you be rushing into the movie theater if you saw the above poster?

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Tropfest: The world’s largest short-film festival comes to Japan for one day only

Have you heard of Tropfest? For thousands of Australians, the name conjures up images of picnics, green grass and long, warm days that turn into night, bringing out stars like Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett and Geoffrey Rush.

It’s the biggest short-film festival in the world, born in a small café in Sydney in 1993 and growing every year, travelling to places like New York, Abu Dhabi and Cape York. This year the outdoor film festival is making its debut in Japan, bringing with it Aussie food stalls and a great selection of film shorts.

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Isn’t it a little weird that whenever Princess Peach gets kidnapped, and ostensibly needs to be rescued as soon as possible, Mario literally runs off to save her? Why is it that when time is of the essence, Nintendo’s greatest hero insists on doing the job on foot? After all, it’s not like he can’t drive, since there are now eight titles in the Mario Kart racing series.

Really, it’s about time Mario got himself some motorized transportation, and a star of his caliber needs a suitably prestigious ride. Something like a new Mercedes-Benz GLA, perhaps.

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Nomisugi! Japan’s sleeping drunks get turned into living drink-awareness ads

It’s finally Friday here in Tokyo, and hundreds of thousands of people are gearing up for a night on the town. The weather is fine, the pubs plentiful, and with work done for another week it’s time to cut back and relax with a few beers.

Unfortunately, a lot of people in Japan tend to overdo it when it comes to drink. Combined with an alcohol intolerance that is surprisingly common amongst Asian people, this results in a shockingly high number of alcohol-related mishaps, with businessmen, beautifully dressed girls and college kids alike passing out on the street, in stairwells, on trains and station platforms pretty much every weekend.

The Yaocho Bar Group has been out looking for these sleeping drunks, however, and when they find one they swoop in like a band of rogue graffiti artists, using duct tape and pre-printed messages and slogans to construct a billboard around them, clearly labelling the drinker with the word nomisugi, or “drank too much’.

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