Casey Baseel

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Casey Baseel spent his formative years staring in frustration at un-subtitled Japanese TV programming shown on Southern California’s international channel. Taking matters into his own hands, he moved to Tokyo to study the language, then found work in Yokohama a decade ago teaching, translating, and marketing hotels he can’t afford to stay in. When not participating in the eternal cycle of exercising to burn the calories form his love of Japanese food, Casey scours used comic and game shops for forgotten classics, drags his wife around the country in a quest to visit all its castles, sings karaoke not nearly as well as he thinks he does, and counts the days until the summertime bars open on Enoshima Beach.

Posted by Casey Baseel (Page 437)

Sushi-flavored potato chips?!? Could our world really be so beautiful? 【Taste test】

At the start of my workday, my boss asked me if I’d be interested in trying some potato chips that taste like o-toro, the extra fatty tuna that’s a highly prized sushi ingredient. Looking at the clock, I calculated that it had been about 14 hours since I’d had sushi for dinner, and since that’s honestly about two hours longer than I like to go without eating some of Japan’s most famous culinary creation, I solemnly accepted the mission.

But while I’d already experienced potato chips inspired by fine American cuisine, I’d never had sashimi-flavored ones, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, even before I discovered the other big surprise waiting for me.

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Hilarious house cat meets its match as it gets snuck up on by…a cucumber?!? 【Video】

While cats are definitely cute, I’m not sure I really buy into the whole idea that they’re still skilled predators. Sure, house cats are much more likely to bag game than many other popular pets, such as hamsters or goldfish, but I think centuries of domestication have bred out a lot of the instincts that came from their shared ancestry with lions and tigers.

As proof, I offer this video of a cat in Japan, in which the “hunter” becomes the hunted and meets its match when, defying all logic, a cucumber sneaks up on it.

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Full orchestra to perform music from Attack on Titan, Madoka Magica, Evangelion at Tokyo concert

The music plays a huge role in setting the mood of some of anime’s most memorable hits, but it can be kind of hard to notice behind all of the dialogue and sound effects. Grabbing the series’ soundtrack and popping in your earphones is a good way to appreciate the compositions, but an even better way is to hear them performed live by a full orchestra, which is just what fans of Evangelion, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Attack on Titan, Berserk, and more will be able to do at a special concert taking place in Tokyo this month.

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Anime tombstone would let fans keep loving <em>Love Live!</em> even in death

A while back, we took a look at the top 20 anime that fans want to be watching as they leave the mortal realm. But what if it’s not enough to spend the last moment of your life watching your favorite series?

Then maybe what you need is a way to express your love of Japanese animation from beyond the grave…and through the grave, for that matter, with an anime tombstone like the one this craftsman made.

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Who needs fast food? Tokyo tempura totaling less than 10 bucks

Here at RocketNews24, two of the things we love most are delicious foods in our bellies and cash in our wallets. Unfortunately, those two things don’t always go hand-in-hand, especially in the Michelin star-studded culinary landscape of Tokyo.

But in a city as big as Tokyo, you can find just about anything with a little searching. Even if you’re totally bereft of folding money, you can still get a great meal in Japan’s capital, and you don’t have to settle for eating at a fast food chain either. On the menu today: a nine-piece tempura meal in the heart of Tokyo for less than 1,000 yen (US$8).

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Watching the Death Note TV drama? Then death god Ryuk just might be watching you

The brand-new Death Note TV drama just made its debut, and it left us feeling a little lukewarm, what with its rushed pacing and less-than-compelling changes from the manga and anime source material. Still, we probably shouldn’t be too harsh in our criticisms. After all, at just one episode in, there’s still plenty of time for the newest live-action adaptation to turn it around and deliver a portion of the thrills the original Death Note did.

Plus, we’d like to stay on the good side of the series’ death gods, since this creepy photo has us worried that maybe they can manifest in real life, and might even be watching us right now.

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Neo-Springfield is about to E.X.P.L.O.D’OH in this awesome Simpsons/Akira crossover video

Each era of pop culture at some point has to go through the uncomfortable transitional period where it’s too old to be trendy and too new to be retro. Right now it’s the ‘80s turn in the hot seat, with the decade’s movies, music, and fashion facing harsh judgement by modern standards.

But for all its glitzy cheese (gleese?), the 1980s gave us two landmark animation events, with anime classic Akira debuting in theaters in 1988 and The Simpsons premiering on American television in 1989. Akira’s animated version began and ended with its single movie, while The Simpsons is still chugging along nearly 600 episodes later, but that doesn’t mean they can’t blend together awesomely, as shown in this trailer for the Bartkira project that combines that tosses the cast of Matt Groening’s most famous work into the world of Katsuhiro Otomo’s.

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10 Japanese words you know now that irritate some Japanese businessmen (because they’re English)

One day in college, my business operations management professor was talking about Japanese automaker Toyota, and about the huge impact of its production processes and corporate culture on the business world. “Toyota owes much of its success to its kaizen system,” he told us, and while I largely agreed with what he was saying, I didn’t really agree with how he was saying it.

See, while Toyota’s ideal of continually looking for better, more efficient ways of handling tasks is nifty and all, there’s nothing particularly special about the word kaizen, which just means “improvement.” Even as someone who’s spent most of his life looking for excuses to speak Japanese, insisting on using the word kaizen, when otherwise speaking English, has always seemed a little odd to me.

Oddly enough, though, right now there’s probably a Toyota employee sitting at his desk and scratching his head over one of his Japanese coworker’s penchant for using foreign loanwords, many of which might be on this list of the top 10 commonly used English business terms that Japanese businessmen wish their colleagues would use Japanese for.

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All aboard Japan’s crazy pro wrestling and electronic dance music trains! 【Videos】

By many criteria, Japan’s trains are just about perfect. They’re clean, safe, reasonably priced, and almost always on time down to the exact minute.

It’s hard to find a better way to get from Point A to Point B, as long as you’ve got a book to read, music to listen to, or smartphone to play with. Actually, you might not even need something to pass the time with, since some train operators recently made their service not only punctual and reliable, but exciting, too, as they turned their trains into a wrestling ring and full-on dance club.

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Giant robot fight is on! Suidobashi accepts Americans’ challenge, wants to “punch them to scrap”

Like a lot of people, up until a few days ago I’d never heard of MegaBots, despite the fact that the California-based company has apparently created a pretty amazing (and armed) giant robot. That all changed, though, when the designers of the MegaBot Mark II released a video challenging Japan’s Suidobashi Heavy Industry, the makers of the Kuratas robot, to a duel.

It definitely got MegaBots plenty of attention, and now it’s gone beyond just a cagey PR move. Suidobashi has accepted the challenge, and is spitting back some fighting words of its own.

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Death Note drapes? Fans spot TV drama’s curtains in their home, keep them shut to block out Light

The Death Note franchise is proving to be ironically long-lived. Starting off as a manga in 2003, the saga of Light Yagami and his supernatural notebook that allows him to kill whoever he wants just be writing down his or her name has been adapted into an anime series and trilogy of live-action films, and there’s even a Death Note musical in the works.

This last Sunday saw the debut of a brand-new Death Note Japanese TV drama, and you can read our personal impressions of the show right here. In the meantime, it looks like the general viewing public was really excited by the premiere episode, but not because of its casting or changes to the original story, but because of a set-decorating coincidence.

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Burger King Japan unleashes red burgers and Angry Sauce on my stomach 【Taste test】

When Burger King Japan first brought out its black burgers, more than a few people were shocked, and even a little intimidated, by their sinister appearance. After diners got over their fear and tried them, though, they discovered they were pretty tasty, and they’ve now become a welcomed, sporadically appearing item on the chain’s menu.

Seeing how well that gamble played out, Burger King has decided to spin the roulette wheel once again, but this time they’re betting on red with two new sandwiches with crimson buns and cheese. So how do they taste? We decided to grab the pair and try them for ourselves.

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Japan Railways recently revealed ramen-style rice balls in its convenience stores

Walk into any Japanese convenience store or supermarket, and you’ll find a row of rice balls waiting. You can always count on the old standards, such as salmon, pickled plum, and spicy cod roe being represented, but each store also sets aside a bit of shelf space for unique, limited-time versions as well.

In the past, this form of carbohydrate-packed one-upmanship has given us such wonders as the bacon cheeseburger musubi and headscratchers as the fish butt onigiri (musubi being one of the Japanese words for “rice ball,” and onigiri the other). It’s always a flip of the culinary coin whether these outside-the-box rice balls are going to be a hit or a miss, but when we heard about ramen-style onigiri, we were immediately onboard.

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Get rid of bugs and score points with Japanese women in one fell swoop with the ami-ton maneuver

Not too long after we started dating, my wife and I were walking through a seaside park, hand-in-hand. The sun was shining and the mood relaxing and romantic. Just as I took a deep breath of the sweet ocean breeze, though, an insect landed on my wife’s arm, causing her to scream, recoil in horror, and practically pull my shoulder out of its socket.

And that’s how I found out she really hates bugs.

She’s not alone in that regard, either, as a recent poll of women in Japan found that more than half are too terrified to face their creepy crawly adversaries head-on, and also revealed a suave kabe-don wall pound-like move guys can do to score points with the ladies.

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The delicious food of Japan’s gourmet hospitals: Ramen, hotpot, smoked duck, and more

During my time in Japan, I’ve been thrown into a cherry blossom tree, hit by a car, and sucker punched by a wannabe tough guy in Shibuya Station, but luckily I’ve never needed to be hospitalized. That means I’ve been able to avoid the anxiety-filled situation of having a doctor explain an urgent medical procedure to me in a foreign language, but it also means I’ve been missing out on some of the mouth-watering food some Japanese hospitals serve.

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Giant robot fight coming soon? American inventors’ video challenges Japanese counterparts to duel

California-based MegaBots spells out its mission pretty clearly on the company’s website: Giant fighting robots. So far, though, they’re only two-thirds of the way to that goal.

The MegaBot Mark II is clearly a robot, and definitely giant, but it hasn’t really done much fighting yet. Since no one wants to watch giant robots grapple with their inner psychological demons and emotional issues, the Mark II needs an opponent, and its American designers have decided to throw the gauntlet all the way across the Pacific, releasing a video officially challenging Japan’s own currently on-sale giant robot to a duel.

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Want thousands of dollars for your manga fan art? Rose of Versailles creator judging contest now

It’s been made into an anime TV series, live-action film, and Takarazuka stage musical, but more than anything else, it’s the original manga that’s captured the hearts of Rose of Versailles fans. Set against the backdrop of the French Revolution, the series’ themes of desperate love, self-sacrifice, and challenging gender norms have been striking a chord with readers for over four decades.

Unlike last year, there’s no new volume of Rose of Versailles coming out this summer. However, there is still going to be a ton of new illustrations in the form of entries to a Rose of Versailles fan art competition that’s accepting submissions online right now, awarding impressive cash prizes, and being judged by the manga’s creator, Riyoko Ikeda herself.

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No dinner plans for Wednesday night? Why not eat a camel hump in Tottori, like we just did?

Here at RocketNews24, every now and again we come across a restaurant or snack maker offering something that doesn’t sound at all appetizing, but is just too unique to pass up. In the past, my coworkers Steve and Amy have sampled wasp-filled rice crackers and bee larvae, and my own stomach and psyche are only now recovering from a dessert of not one, but two types of cakes made with chunks of tuna.

Now, it’s out intrepid Japanese-language reporter Mr. Sato’s turn to pull up a chair to the crazy dining table, and camel hump is on the menu.

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No, we didn’t stutter. New Sailor Moon gachapon toys really are compact compacts

Gachapon, the capsule toys sold by vending machines in Japan, are always released in a series, usually with five or six different versions that are dispensed at random. But while that element of chance adds a moment of excitement, sometimes it’s a little hard to imagine anyone really needs a half-dozen different styles of miniature folding chair, sausage/isopod hybrid, or crow chowing down on some delicious garbage.

Every now and again, though, we can easily see how someone would keep coming back for each and every model in the lineup, such as with these compact Sailor Moon compacts.

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