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September, 2015 (Page 17)

Has it come to this? Japanese company produces plastic cover to keep kitty off your keyboard

If you have a cat at home, there’s a good chance you’re well aware of the frustrations felines can introduce to owners, like walking all over keyboards or stealing your seat the second you get up. Sure, we forgive them, and we might even find it kind of cute, but eventually the “pranks” get old and we just want to be able to sit down and write the next great novel without having to delete our cats’ helpful additions of  “jmmmmmmmmmm;;;;;;;acccccieiei1” every few minutes.

But what’s to be done against the wiles of a determined cat?! Well, you could lock your cat out of the room, but that would just be depressing. Or you could turn to Bessed, a design and manufacturing company that provides consumers with some…unique products. The company recently announced the release of their Neko Pochi Keyboard Cover, which is a keyboard cover designed to hold the weight of a cat over your keyboard so you can type. Now you know what to get all the cat-owners on your holiday gift list!

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Camera crew visits the abandoned town that inspired Japanese survival horror game “Siren”【Video】

Back in 2003, the world was introduced to the first Siren, a survival horror video game which told the story of a mysterious secluded village caught between time and space. Like the best games of its genre, the setting played a pivotal role in captivating the player, sucking them into an eerie atmosphere made all the more scary by the tremendously creepy town.

It turns out that the fictional town of Hanuda is based on an actual town in Saitama Prefecture, just north of Tokyo. Life imitates game as a camera crew heads to the abandoned town, just like how a crew did in the third Siren game. Take a look at the footage they captured after the break. If you aren’t too afraid…

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Couple weds in a dreamy, Final Fantasy-themed wedding ceremony【Video】

Ever wondered what a wedding planned around your favorite video game franchise would look like? Newly married couple Grace and Chris have an answer to that question in the form of the following video taken at their stunning Final Fantasy-themed wedding ceremony filmed in Hawaii! 

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Super Mario Bros. creator explains how and why he designed World 1-1 of the 8-bit classic 【Video】

Ahead of the launch of Mario-themed level-building game Super Mario Maker, video game industry legend Shigeru Miyamoto sat down with veteran game designer Takashi Tezuka to take questions from journalists and show off its features.

Before leaping into the level creation proper, however, Miyamoto took a few minutes to talk about the creative process that is involved in building a Super Mario level, talking his audience through the steps he and his team took when creating the original Super Mario Bros., and explaining why World 1-1 of the game—for many their first ever brush with Mario on Nintendo’s 8-bit system—was built the way it is.

You’ve no doubt cleared this level countless times by now, but you may not have realised the hidden genius and careful planning that went into the positioning of every block, pipe, and pit of doom.

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TIL: Table tennis tables are blue because of a Japanese comedian’s random comment

There is no one “official” color that a table tennis table absolutely must be, according to the International Table Tennis Federation handbook. Nevertheless, there was apparently a time, not too long ago —let’s say, at least around the time Rocky was taking on Ivan Dragon—when more or less every table tennis table was an ugly, some might even say “gloomy” or “sinister,” dark green.

Well, that’s how one random Japanese comedian described the green tables in a throwaway comment he made in the late ’80s, which, rumor has it, is the reason most tables you see nowadays are a slightly more cheery blue.

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Google Street View now lets you tour the glowing samurai, dragons of the Nebuta Matsuri festival

Just about every community in Japan puts on a local festival in the summer, but few are as spectacular as Aomori City’s Nebuta Matsuri. For almost a solid week, gigantic floats topped by lanterns shaped like samurai and dragons are paraded through the streets, accompanied by dancers and musicians.

But while Aomori is one of the largest cities in the largely rural Tohoku region of Japan, its relatively remote location in the northeastern corner of the country’s main island of Honshu means not everyone can make it out to see the festivities in-person. As long as you’ve got an Internet connection, though, you can get a taste of the fun with Google’s awesome Nebuta Matsuri Street View that lets you see the amazing floats even closer-up than spectators standing on the sidewalks the towering works of art are carried by.

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Canadian airport staff interrogate Japanese tourist over strange ‘martial arts weapon’ in his bag

Japan is a land with many strange and oddly-shaped everyday items that can be a little hard to identify for Western visitors. But what happens when a travelling Japanese tourist takes along one of these curiosities in their luggage when they embark upon a little trip to Canada?

Well, according to one Twitter user’s ordeal, they might end up getting hauled out of the line at airport security into a side room to “explain” the nature of what Canadian officials took to be… a martial arts weapon?

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It’s a boogie wonderland as Japanese cell phone provider desperately advertises iPhone 6

With the iPhone 6s set to launch on September 9, the current model of iPhone will soon become old news. But if you’re one of those who doesn’t mind not having the newest, shiniest version on the market, you’re sure to be able to find a great deal, as stores try hard to get rid of back stock before herds of Appleheads flock to get their shiny new toy.

Take this au store in Japan, for instance, whose workers were out shaking things up with a special dance in an attempt to advertise their awesome iPhone 6 deals.

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Whether nature or nurture, this cat definitely takes after its elders!

One of the great debates about child development is over nature versus nurture—are we the product of our DNA or our environment in which we grow? Most scientists seem to come down somewhere in the middle, suggesting that both play an integral role in who we become.

We’re not about to start arguing with folks who have PhDs, but we have discovered one of the most adorable examples of how nurture plays a role in the wild—or, at least, out in someone’s home. This cute cat has mimicked its way into Twitter’s collective heart and elicited far more than its fair share of “D’awwwwwww!”

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Even more Sailor Moon goods arrive to part fans from their hard-earned cash

Sailor Moon fans might find their wallets rather empty after the recent onslaught of products cashing in on fans’ nostalgia for the 20th anniversary of the series, but if you still have a few pennies left you might want to head back to ITS’DEMO for their latest collaboration release.

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Talk about slowpokes…New Pokemon, Yadon’s official debut song finally released in English

What’s better than Pokémon? Music videos about Pokémon! Last year, the Pokémon higher-ups in Japan released an official theme song and video for Yadon (Slowpoke, in English), the lethargic, sleepy, pink Pokémon. The Japanese song, Donaiyanen Yadon, was made to celebrate the Pokémon Center’s Facebook page and is charming, if not hypnotic.

Apparently, though, Yadon’s sluggishness is contagious and spread to the Pokémon Center’s translation team, because the translation of the psychedelic-reggae song was not released until a solid year after people started grooving to the original. But we’re happy to say: The English version is finally here in all of its bizarre glory.

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Takara Tomy’s new “Color Catch Pen” is amazing, but also looks kind of like a vibrator

…There. We said it.

As technologically cool and fun-sounding as the “Mitsukete-miyou! Iro Kyachi Pen” (lit. “Let’s Find it! Color Catch Pen”) appears to be, it also has the unfortunate appearance of a “massager,” which in Japan, is code for…Well, look, it’s code for a vibrator. Literally no one uses a “massager” for their back or any other non-genital area (and anyone who says otherwise is a dirty, filthy liar and probably also says they never pee in the shower, which we all know is a lie, too), so parents be warned: You and your child may have lots of fun playing with this fantastic, educational toy, but you will also never, ever, ever be able to shake the image of your nine-year-old holding something they might as well have found in your secret fun-time drawer out of your head for as long as you live.

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Tokyo schoolgirls invent eco and cost-friendly portable toilet for disaster relief【Video】

Although we explored public restrooms the world over in a previous article, we left out the fact that many refugees, natural disaster survivors, and other displaced people have no access to the modern plumbing many of us take for granted. For those living in areas where public toilets are unavailable, a trip to the bathroom is at best a chore, and at worst a major sanitary concern.

Luckily technological advances are being made in order to help remedy these problems, and so far 2015 has been a promising year in that regard. UK researchers and volunteers were able to successfully create an urine-powered outhouse, while over in Japan a high school girls’ volunteer club recently came up with a new economic and hygienic portable toilet option.

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Ice cream for breakfast? Japanese ice cream company makes sure everyone gets their just desserts

Takeshita Seika, an ice cream and confectioner based in Kyushu, Japan, has been around for more than a century. They make all sorts of delectable edibles, from ice cream to cake, but are most famous for their “black mon blanc” ice cream bar. Now, the company is taking the most important meal of the day and turning it into the most delicious meal of the day too, with their new granola “breakfast ice cream” bar!

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7-Eleven sells grapes with skins you can actually eat! We kid you not

Back where I come from, it wasn’t uncommon to pick a grape off its stem and pop it right into your mouth without a second’s thought. The very idea of peeling a grape was something along the lines of a diva demanding a bottled-milk bath while dining on a bowl of only red-colored Skittles.

However, in Japan, where many varieties of grape have thick or rubbery skins, peeling them is pretty much standard. In fact, whenever I eat a grape with its skin intact, I’m stared at as if I had just plucked a live spider off the wall and ate it.

That’s probably why 7-Eleven can get away with marketing their frozen bags of grapes as having “edible skins” here.

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Service area in Shizuoka goes all out for the biggest and baddest Evangelion collaboration ever

Many Japanese service areas along major highways are well-stocked with (surprisingly) decent food courts and souvenir stands chock-full of local specialties. Some of them even take it to the next level and incorporate themes into their layouts, such as the Edo Period townscape service area in Saitama Prefecture.

One such stop, the EXPASA Ashigara Service Area located in Shizuoka Prefecture, is currently in the midst of a collaboration with the Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise—and according to travelers who have already stopped by, they’ve spared no expense for this mind-blowing project.  
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Castle in the Sky becomes a Ghibli decoration in your home with cool Laputa hanging planter

So a friend and I have a debate about what happens at the end of the Studio Ghibli anime movie Castle in the Sky Laputa. As the credits roll, the floating island is seen drifting into space, which I, as is my simple-minded nature, take literally. On the other hand, my friend argues that the visuals are at least partly metaphoric, and that the mysterious landmass didn’t really escape Earth’s orbit (he also contends that my proposed Laputa/Space Dandy crossover/sequel is too silly to ever get made).

But while it’s likely Laputa director and creator Hayao Miyazai purposely chose to craft an ambiguous ending to the film, we do now know what happened to the island: it became this awesome hanging planter from anime retailer Benelic.

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Runny curry, no pudding spoons among complaints of Japanese prison inmates

From how often we talk about food and hot springs here on RocketNews24, you’ve probably surmised that, as a nation, Japan is pretty into bathing and dining. Those passions aren’t exclusive to law-abiding members of Japanese society, either, as a recent survey of inmate complaints at prisons in Japan found several focused on meals and baths, with requests for better curry and longer soaks in the tub.

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The new Wagakki Band album is out! Let’s find out what the fans think!

It’s no secret that we’re fans of Wagakki Band here at RocketNews24. We’ve been sharing their music with you since 2013, and you can bet we’ll keep sharing their music until they get old and retire! So, as you can imagine, we were eager to get our hands on their new album Yasouemaki. And, now that everyone has had a few days to enjoy all the new tracks, let’s find out what Japanese fans are saying about the album!

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