Bringing you yesterday's news from Japan and Asia, today.
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 531)
Almost all of my time behind the wheel has been in a small, two-seat convertible. This has really spoiled me, in that whenever I find myself in the driver’s seat of a fixed-top, full-sized car, I can’t help but wish for better visibility because of how many lines of sight get cut off by the car’s structure itself.
A team of Japanese researchers has solved this problem, though, with a clever system that allows the driver to see right through a car’s side panels and back seat.
Bento, Japan’s multi-dish boxed lunches, come in a variety of styles. While it’s most common to make your own or pick one up at a cheap takeout joint, there’s also a whole sub-industry of high-class bento delivery services that cater business conferences and other high-rolling events.
Of course, rich and powerful clients tend to have demands as high as their positions on the corporate ladder. They expect the food to be delicious, the service to be impeccable, and now, with Platinum Lunch, they can expect their bento to be delivered by beautiful models and actresses.
When the subject of how men can attract women in Japan comes up, there are some pretty dubious sources of advice out there. Rather than apply twisted logic to gain twisted insights on how to pull women closer to them, guys have a better chance of success by putting their efforts into becoming the kind of people women are drawn to without any special prodding.
But what exactly do women want? Well, that’s an answer that of course varies from person to person, but if you’re interested in playing the percentages, a recent poll of women in Japan indicates four things to strive for.
There’s something deeply satisfying about watching someone do their job incredibly well. Whether it’s a master chef putting together a mouth-watering meal, a talented musician making an instrument come to life, or a pro athlete performing at the highest level of the sport, you find yourself unable to look away, both because of how soothing watching things go perfectly is, and also for fear of missing whatever amazing feat they’re going to pull off next.
So if you’re craving that special mixture of relaxation and inspiration, take a few minutes to watch this video of a master craftsman transforming two hunks of wood into a beautiful kokeshi doll with a literally unique twist.
Given how many passionate manga fans Japan has, it’s kind of surprising that a lot of them don’t collect every issue of their favorite series. Most titles are published once a week as part of several-hundred-page anthologies printed on cheap, quickly deteriorating newsprint. On the other hand, higher-quality collected volumes lag months behind the weekly editions.
This creates a strange catch-22 where fans who want to be up to the minute on their heroes’ adventures buy the anthologies but later toss them out. Eventually, many cherry-pick which collected volumes to purchase in order to fill in the gaps where they missed one of the weeklies, or to have a permanent copy of their favorite scenes.
Of course, a lot of incomplete sets are also the result of fans getting burned out before reaching the end of some of Japan’s notoriously long-running series. Add in the fact that storage space is at a premium in Japanese homes, and it’s a testament to a title’s staying power and ability to captivate readers when they buy it from start to finish, like so many have with these 15 manga.
Japan isn’t that big geographically, but it’s still divided up into 47 different prefectures. Even though it’ll usually only take you a couple of hours to pass from one into the other (and even less if you’re on the Shinkansen), each has its own unique feel to it. Depending on where you are, people eat different foods, celebrate holidays in different ways, and even like different clothes, as shown by a study that reveals how Japanese women like to dress by prefecture.
I used to work in online hotel marketing, and sometimes properties in Japan didn’t mesh up smoothly with our database. The system allowed us to easily trumpet amenities such as sofas and Jacuzzi bathtubs by just pasting in a line of code, but if we wanted to tout things like provided yukata cotton kimonos or onsite natural hot springs, both of which were popular with our users, that took some extra fiddling around.
Since we were a global company, we had to accept that those “only in Japan” features weren’t going to get a spot on the standard, easy-to-use checklist. Still, I sympathize with the difficulties this sort of thing presents for boutique hotel operators, and that’s why today we’re spreading the word about a hotel in Japan with two incredibly unique amenities: zombies and ghosts.
We like latte art, and its frothy 3-D variant, as much as the next group of visually stimulated coffee sippers. But as nice as it is to have a trained barista decorate your drink with a kitty or smiley face, most of us don’t have the time, equipment, or manual dexterity to add illustrations to drinks we make for ourselves.
But now those artistic flourishes don’t have to be something you can only have when you go out and pay five bucks for a cup of coffee, with new products that’ll let you enjoy latte art at home for about as much effort as tossing a cube of sugar into your mug.
There are two things that I think stand out as particularly memorable from my oldest brother’s wedding ceremony. One is the stuttering mess of a toast I gave as his best man. The other is that he and his wife cut their cake with an honest to God sword, since my brother, being a member of the Marine Corps, got married in his dress uniform, complete with Mameluke saber.
It definitely made for a much more dramatic effect than slicing up dessert with some puny kitchen knife, and you might now find yourself wondering how you could incorporate a similar idea for your own wedding reception. Thankfully, you don’t even need an official work blade, just a love of iconic video games, as demonstrated by the couple in Japan that cut their cake with the The Legend of Zelda’s Master Sword.
China has become one of the world’s fastest growing car markets. On a macroeconomic scale, this is due largely to demand rising as Chinese consumers enjoy greater prosperity, coupled with more and more automakers putting an effort into building and selling their products in China.
On a microeconomic scale, though, we think at least a few car sales in the city of Foshan are from people who lost their nerve about using public transportation after spending too long waiting at a bus stop that has a demolished building going down around, and even on top of, it.
Given the massive success he’s since enjoyed as a video game character designer and director, it’s almost hard to remember how skeptical everyone initially was about Square Enix’s Tetsuya Nomura. When he stepped up to the plate as character designer for Final Fantasy VII, long-time fans were uneasy about his ability to fill the boots of predecessor and renowned artist Yoshitaka Amano. When Nomura announced Kingdom Hearts, a new series that would blend characters from Final Fantasy games and Disney animation, early reactions ranged from puzzled silence to nervous laughter.
Fast-forward 15 years, and Nomura has established himself as the single most influential person behind those two Square Enix franchises. As a matter of fact, his skills are now in so much demand that he’s produced his take on virtual idol Hatsune Miku, which was recently shown off in gorgeous animated form.
Growing up, I, like a lot of kids, bugged my parents for a dog. They, like a lot of parents, rightly realized I envisioned myself spending more time playing fetch with it than scooping up its poo, and suggested a much more low-maintenance pet instead.
Eventually, we settled on a hamster, since at the very least the house would stay clean if it was kept in a cage. And while Hamlet (of course we named him Hamlet) never complained about his metal wireframe home, I can’t help but look at these pictures of fellow hamster Ginji and think how much cuter it would have been to make a miniature bar and Japanese-style living room for him.
A quick look through the shelves of a bookstore or the inventory of online retailers will turn up tons of guides for how to draw manga. When still getting the hang of the basics of dynamic drawing, a book is the ideal way for many people to learn, since it spares them the embarrassment of having anyone else see their painfully produced yet still subpar early work.
Still, there’s only so much you can learn from on you own through reading and independent practice. That’s why toymaker Takara Tomy is releasing a kit that includes not just the tools of the trade, but demonstrations by a published manga artist and feedback from professional instructors.
This year, Tokyo’s Shibuya neighborhood made a major push to establish itself as the place to celebrate Halloween in Japan’s capital. Things got off to a pretty low-key but still impressively creative start with a costume contest on one of the local train lines, but that was nothing compared to how jumping Shibuya was on the night of October 31.
Unfortunately, when you funnel that many people into one place, some of them are going to exhibit some pretty poor manners, as evidenced by the mounds of litter some revelers left behind. In response, volunteers sprang into action cleaning up the trash, but instead of a pat on the back for their hard work, some Twitter users decided to take them to task for what they felt was a shameless play for attention.
Japan gets pretty chilly during the winter, but houses and apartments aren’t designed with centralized heating systems. Since mounting an array of full-blown AC/heater units throughout your home is a pretty expensive endeavor, a lot of people instead opt to use space heaters to warm up a patch of their living room.
The downside to creating this tiny oasis of warmth, though, is that it can be hard to force yourself to leave it. This phenomena isn’t limited to humans, either, as shown by these Japanese cats lounging luxuriously in front of their owner’s space heaters.
With so much to see and do in Japan, it’s easy to forget that sometimes one of the most rewarding things to do is to take a few moments and do nothing at all. Whether you’re looking at people moving about some of the most bustling cities on the planet, witnessing the burst of light and color as the sun goes down and the neon lights come on, or watching as the fog rolls over a sacred mountain, Japan never lacks for amazing ambiance to soak up.
But with so many flavors of atmosphere to enjoy, it can be hard to find the time for all of them, especially if you’re tied up with work or trying to visit as many destinations as you can on a whirlwind tour. If you’ve got a few minutes to spare, though, this awesome time-lapse video of sights across Japan will show you all those cool things we talked about and more.
While U.S.-produced comics lag far beyond domestic titles in popularity in Japan, the recent string of high-profile live-action Marvel movies seem to be slowly building a fan base for their American icons. At this year’s Kawasaki Halloween festivities, for example, you could spot Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Loki, and multiple Spider-Men marching in the same costume parade as characters from Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball, and Attack on Titan.
The sight of so many different heroes together was enough to set the mind racing at the storytelling possibilities. But while the Sailor Scouts won’t be coordinating operations with the Avengers anytime soon, and the question of “Could Wolverine beat up Goku?” is going to have to remain a debate for our planet’s brightest intellectual luminaries, the worlds of American and Japanese are indeed set to collide, with an official crossover between Marvel Comics and Attack on Titan.
Spend much time talking to people in Japan, and you’re sure to hear the phrases “gambaru” and “shou ga nai” over and over again. The fact that they both come up so often in conversation is kind of ironic actually, since their meaning are complete opposites.
Gambaru means “I’ll do my best,” and gets used for any topic that requires effort, including school, sports, work, and even finding a boyfriend or girlfriend. Shou ga nai, on the other hand, translates out as “it can’t be helped,” showing that you’ve already given up.
Unfortunately, a recent poll suggests that an increasing number of people in Japan are saying shou ga nai, with roughly a third of young adults saying they feel like their efforts in life won’t be rewarded.
Let’s say you’re designing a menu for a restaurant, and you want to serve parfaits. More precisely, you want to serve as many different kinds of parfaits as you can think up. How far do you think you could make it towards that goal before things got completely crazy?
Apparently the tipping point to culinary weirdness is about 195 varieties. How did we calculate that? Well, on a recent visit to Kyoto, we found a café that has about 200 different types of parfaits, including five that’re topped with things like corn dogs and deep-fried prawns.
There’s no failsafe strategy for forming a strong, permanent romantic connection. That sort of emotional bond operates on such a deep, personal level that the necessary ingredients will always vary from person to person.
But screwing up a relationship? That, it turns out, there are some pretty universal methods for, as shown by a poll that asked Japanese men what caused them to tell their girlfriends “We’re through!”
Starbucks teams up with 166-year-old Kyoto doll maker for Year of the Horse decorations【Photos】
7-Eleven Japan starts new temporary luggage storage service in over 300 branches
Is this the most relaxing Starbucks in Japan?
Tokyo’s Tsukiji sushi neighborhood asks tour groups to stay away for the rest of the month
Street Fighter Hadouken Churros to be launched and eaten in Tokyo, Okami pudding on offer too
Japanese avoiding domestic travel as foreign tourists increase, possibly creating vicious cycle
Start saving room now – Japanese grocery store’s biggest sushi roll yet is coming for Setsubun
7-Eleven Japan gets into the sort-of-freshly baked pizza home delivery business【Video】
How to make epic pancakes with your Japanese rice cooker
Dragon Quest Slime toys appear at McDonald’s Japan in crossover with Grimace and pals【Video】Tokyo’s Tsukiji sushi neighborhood asks tour groups to stay away for the rest of the monthStarbucks teams up with 166-year-old Kyoto doll maker for Year of the Horse decorations【Photos】Street Fighter Hadouken Churros to be launched and eaten in Tokyo, Okami pudding on offer too
More Shinkansen trains being added to Japan’s “golden route” to meet traveler demandJapanese avoiding domestic travel as foreign tourists increase, possibly creating vicious cycle
Japanese woman mistaken for bear
Return of Totoro sequel short anime announced for Ghibli Park
Starbucks Japan quietly slips fans another Christmas present with Joyful Medley Strawberry Milk Tea
Japanese man who didn’t know how banks work defrauded out of 21 million yen
Gundam and Reebok team up for new GQuuuuuuX Pumps【Photos】
Japan’s human washing machines will go on sale to general public, demos to be held in Tokyo
Starbucks Japan unveils new Christmas goods and a rhinestone tumbler that costs 19,500 yen
Real-world Nausicaa Ghibli anime glider completes its final flight in Japan【Video】
Japanese train company is letting fans buy its actual ticket gates for their homes
Is China’s don’t-go-to-Japan warning affecting tourist crowds in Tokyo’s Asakusa neighborhood?
The 10 best day trips from downtown Tokyo【Survey】
Tokyo considering law requiring more trash cans following litter increase in heavily touristed area
Nintendo’s Kirby now delivering orders at Kura Sushi restaurants, but not in Japan
Tokyo event lets you travel back in time, for free, to celebrate 100 years since Showa era start
A guide to visiting Sagamiko Illumination, one of the three biggest light-ups in Kanto
Survey asks foreign tourists what bothered them in Japan, more than half gave same answerJapan’s human washing machines will go on sale to general public, demos to be held in Tokyo
Japan’s deadliest food claims more victims, but why do people keep eating it for New Year’s?
We deeply regret going into this tunnel on our walk in the mountains of Japan
Studio Ghibli releases Kodama forest spirits from Princess Mononoke to light up your home
Major Japanese hotel chain says reservations via overseas booking sites may not be valid
Put sesame oil in your coffee? Japanese maker says it’s the best way to start your day【Taste test】
The top 10 annoying foreign tourist behaviors on trains, as chosen by Japanese people【Survey】
No more using real katana for tourism activities, Japan’s National Police Agency says
Starbucks Japan reveals new sakura drinkware collection, inspired by evening cherry blossoms
Japanese avoiding domestic travel as foreign tourists increase, possibly creating vicious cycle
Start saving room now – Japanese grocery store’s biggest sushi roll yet is coming for Setsubun
7-Eleven Japan gets into the sort-of-freshly baked pizza home delivery business【Video】
How to make epic pancakes with your Japanese rice cooker
Dragon Quest Slime toys appear at McDonald’s Japan in crossover with Grimace and pals【Video】
Japanese Cabinet to officially announce new romanization spelling recommendation next week
More people in Japan quit sending New Year’s cards and many have started to regret it
Japanese town suing resident for being a jerk
Tokyo adding new anti-littering fines in Shibuya and Harajuku, will require more trash cans too
Five different ways to say “children” in Japanese
Final Fantasy Chocobo and Dragon Quest Slime street sweets on sale in Tokyo【Taste test】
New Ranma 1/2 fashion bag lineup is 100-percent retro anime stylish【Photos】
Five beautiful pylon designs that belong in Japan