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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.

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Posted by Casey Baseel (Page 504)

Nintendo’s Mario Maker lets you do exactly what it promises 【E3】

Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. was a hit almost immediately upon its release in 1985. Everyone who played it knew right away that it was fun, but what wasn’t so immediately apparent was just how solid, and therefore timeless, the basic game engine was.

You’ll find very few gamers today who remember, and even fewer who honestly care, about titles such as Comic Wartoad and Section Z, both of which saw release in 1985 and were moderate hits in their day. More than 30 years later, though, Mario still has a special place in gamers’ hearts. Now, even if you’ve played through all of Mario’s adventures, both new and old, the fun doesn’t have to stop, as Nintendo is releasing a new piece of software that’ll let you create your own Mario levels.

Details, and photos from the E3 show floor after the jump!

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There’s a unique challenge for anime professionals working on a franchise with as long a history as Gundam, which aired its first episode 35 years ago. Since each new series does away with the war mechs of its predecessors, designers are always under pressure to come up with giant robots that look more powerful, technologically advanced, and, in the case of the villains’ machines, sinister than what fans have seen before.

With Gundam Unicorn’s NZ-999 Neo Zeong, piloted by baffling-named antagonist (and Toyota owner) Full Frontal, we think the animators did a pretty good job. From its sharp, angular lines, blood-red paint job, and the crevices in the sheet metal produce murky shadows, the mobile armor appears immediately menacing and dangerous.

Unless that is, you remove the head unit and replace it with a cute anime girl or kitty cat.

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By far the most popular series today among Japan’s ultra-hardcore anime fans is Love Live. With a bevy of cute girls, pleated skirts, pop idol competitions, and nary a prominent male character, it’s checked off enough of the necessary boxes to give it a solid pedestal on which its charismatic cast has been placed.

Fans of Love Live even have their own nickname, as it has become common to refer to them as Love Livers. Yes, grammatically that makes no sense, but you can’t expect the franchise’s fan base to stop and correct the odd nomenclature. They’re too busy celebrating the birthdays of Love Live’s dozen-plus idol singers by buying merchandise, sending online salutations, and, in the case of one fan, getting a giant tattoo of his favorite character that covers his entire – and we mean entire – back…

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It’s easy to trace the roots of American football and basketball, as they’re both comparatively recently developed sports. Things get a little more difficult with soccer, though.

While the world’s most popular sport got its first set of standardized competition rules in 1863, courtesy of England’s Football Association, the game had existed in various forms for some time before that. Several countries have since claimed to be the birthplace of soccer, but one now has the official recognition of the president of soccer’s international governing body.

According to FIFA President Sepp Blatter, soccer originated in China.

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When you stop and think about it, personal grooming should be everything to the man-eating giants of Attack on Titan. After all, it’s not like they can rely on their fashion sense to look their best, since they’re constantly naked.

By nature, though, giants have giant beards. So how do you fight back against so much facial hair? With a whole new branch of Attack on Titan’s military, as documented in three new animated shorts.

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Nine countries, tons of food, one mode of transportation – From Beijing to London by train

This spring, our Japanese-language correspondent Kuzo travelled to Thailand, where, among other things, he treated himself to the largest hamburger we’ve ever seen. All that beefy goodness must have given him plenty of energy, since he’s back on the road again, this time travelling all the way from Beijing to London by train.

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Tomonoura: Where Ponyo and Wolverine crossed paths

With her unique mix of weird and cute, you’d be hard-pressed to find an animation fan who doesn’t recognize Ponyo, the fish-girl from legendary director Hayao Miyazaki’s 2008 film of the same name. On the other side of the Pacific, justabout anyone with even a passing interest in comics at any point in the last 40 years knows who Marvel’s Wolverine is.

While one character is a symbol of innocence and whimsy, and the other of machismo and toughness, Ponyo and Wolverine’s paths have actually crossed, in a small fishing port called Tomonoura, where the mutant superhero made such an impression on the locals they named a rose after him.

And no, this isn’t fanfiction we’re talking about.

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In a lot of ways, the NEET social phenomena is something that could only happen in Japan. The term stands for “not in education, employment, or training,” and refers to those individuals who are neither earning a living nor officially doing anything to approach that basic goal in life.

In many other countries, most people would conclude that a dose of tough love, or a few swift kicks to the backside, is in order. And while that’s the strategy Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino would recommend, in Japan, a large number of parents are willing to support their adult children’s NEET lifestyles for years on end.

Now, though, one man is putting a twist on the “not in education, employment, or training” label by renting out his services as a professional NEET.

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It’s time once again for travel website Trip Advisor’s list of the best places in Japan, as chosen by overseas visitors to the country. One of the things that makes Japan such a fascinated place to travel is its extreme mix of historical and modern attractions, both of which are represented in the top 30 which includes shrines, sharks, and super-sized robots.

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Japan’s Rabbit Island – Yes, it really does exist

In some ways, the island of Okunoshima, in western Japan’s Setonaikai Inland Sea, seems like a terrible vacation spot. It’s already in an out-of-the-way region of the country, and with no connecting bridges, the only way to get there is by boat.

Then there’s its dark past. During the 1920s, ‘30s, and early ‘40s, Okunoshima was the site of a secret chemical weapons lab for the Japanese Imperial Army. The clandestine work being carried out there earned it the sinister nicknames Poison Gas Island and The Island Erased from the Maps.

Happily, the postwar years have seen a return to more peaceful, benign activities on Okunoshima. As a matter of fact, in the last few years it’s become one of the area’s most beloved tourist destinations, and the reason why is easy to see from the other name Okunoshima is called by, Rabbit Island.

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Attack on Thanksgiving! First animated Attack on Titan movie to open in November

Fans of Attack on Titan are sort of in the doldrums right now as far as developments go for the smash hit anime and manga franchise. The recent release of a new collected volume for the comic means there’s likely to be a long wait until the next is released. The live-action adaptation isn’t scheduled for release until 2015, and the 50 lucky participants of the package tour that involves filming the movie have already departed.

Thankfully, there’s still one thing to look forward to in 2014, and that’s the first of two upcoming animated Attack on Titan compilation movies, which now has a release date.

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Desserts in Wonderland – Our lesson in decorating storybook sweets

The relatively small size of Japanese kitchens, and ovens for that matter, mean the average person doesn’t get many opportunities to bake desserts. Sure, once a year a lot of women will whip up a batch of chocolate or some other sweets, but February 15 is usually the beginning of a 364-day streak of no homemade goodies.

Looking to break this cycle was our Japanese-language correspondent Momo. But how would someone who charred all of her attempts at Valentine’s Day sweets to a crisp as a schoolgirl, fare at her Alice in Wonderland cookie and cake decorating class?

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Sailors Uranus and Neptune are here to save your lips with Sailor Moon lip balm

With just a month left until the premiere of Sailor Moon Crystal, we’re so close to seeing anime’s most successful team of magical girls back in action for the first time in almost 20 years. Fans around the world are licking their lips in anticipation, which begs the question, aren’t they going to chap?

Thankfully, you can count on the Sailor Scouts to help you out of such a jam, with new Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune lip balm containers.

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Hello, Sailor (Moon) – First trailer finally released for Sailor Moon Crystal

If you’re hungry enough, even a handful of breadcrumbs will seem like a sumptuous feast. Such was the case in April when the producers of the hotly anticipated anime Sailor Moon Crystal finally released a modest amount of character artwork for the series, years after the series was announced.

And while the main course of the series premiere itself is still a month away, fans can now savor this tasty appetizer: Sailor Moon Crystal’s first official trailer.

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Powered by eels – We eat at the founder of Honda’s favorite unagi restaurant

Soichiro Honda, the man who founded Honda Motor Co., was once quoted as saying that the best-selling car cannot be the best-driving car, because the compromises needed to become the former are incompatible with the lack of compromises required to be the latter.

It’s hard not to respect a person with such unflinching standards, and even want to emulate him a little. So when we found out one of the legendary engineer’s favorite restaurants was just a short train ride from our office in downtown Tokyo, we decided to check it out. Even after we found out it’s famous for its grilled eel livers.

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Is this tequila ramen with pitch-black broth and action movie tie-in macho enough for you?

In recent years, ramen has been making a name for itself as a respectable, in some cases almost gourmet meal. Japan’s favorite noodle dish has even reached the point where some women feel it’s an acceptable choice for a dinner date (provided you follow certain rules).

That doesn’t mean ramen has been entirely gentrified, though. There’s one noodle joint in Tokyo that’s currently offering a throwback to the machismo that used to define the dish, with a bowl of ramen that has an action movie tie-in and is seasoned with tequila.

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Hiroshima’s crème marche is half cream puff, half custard cone, and all delicious

Even under normal circumstances, we’ve got nothing against desserts, whether they be in parfait or donut form. So when we got off the train at Hiroshima Station, stepped through the ticket gates, and saw a newly opened pastry shop, we knew a detour was in order before we headed to our hotel.

Of course, we’d just spent two days biking the 70 kilometers (43.5 miles) across the Inland Sea on the Shimanami Kaido cycling course, and no dinky dessert was going to satisfy the appetite we’d built up. Thankfully, the shop had something special in its display case: cream puff custard cones.

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Suicides drop for second year in Japan, still leading cause of death among young adults

The Japanese government recently released its 2014 white paper on suicide in the nation. While the continuing downward trend in the number of people taking their own lives is encouraging, the statistics also revealed the sobering and troubling fact that suicide is the leading cause of death among Japanese aged 15 to 34.

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JR unveils amazing luxury train that we’d like to live in like high-class hobos

Last spring, Japan Railways, operator of Japan’s fabled bullet trains, unveiled its design for a new Shinkansen that will whisk travelers to northeastern Japan as they relax at the onboard foot baths. Then came the announcement of an overnight train servicing Kyoto, Osaka, and Hiroshima with amenities rivaling those of a fancy hotel.

Now, it’s east Japan’s turn, as JR East has released new images of its upcoming luxury sleeper train for the region, plus its passenger suites that look genuinely large enough to live in.

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Day Two of our cycling trip across the Inland Sea on Japan’s amazing Shimanami Kaido

Between the mentally satisfying sense of accomplishment and physical exhaustion of spending a whole day crossing three islands by bike, plus the after-dinner beer we treated ourselves to, we slept like babies after covering 30 kilometers of the Shimanami Kaido cycling course on day one. We still had more than half the distance to go before we were back on Japan’s main island of Honshu, though, and between us and our destination in Hiroshima Prefecture lay breathtaking vistas, historical artifacts, delicious food, and even a dinosaur.

We recently journeyed by rental bike across the beautiful Shimanami Kaido, the cycling road that island hops across Japan’s Inland Sea between Ehime and Hiroshima Prefectures. If you missed the first day of our 70-kilometer (45.5-mile) ride you can find it here, or read on for the second and final day of the trip.

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